Growing In Righteousness, Pt. 3

Ronald Weinland

May 4, 2019

We’re going to jump right into the sermon from where we left off last week. This is going to be Part 3 of the series entitled Growing in Righteousness.

We’re going to back up here just a little bit to catch the context of what was being said, picking it up here in Ephesians 4. Again, to me this is exciting when God takes us through various series that all tie together going way back when we started talking about Abraham and Sarah and how they tried to fulfill God’s promise in their life of those things that were prophesied to take place in time of a son and those things that would be handed down by God to him, through him, if you will, and how they tried on their own or in their own works, I guess you would say, to accomplish this by turning to Hagar. That wasn’t God’s purpose at all, but He allowed them to have time to come to that point.

The point being, as it’s written later on, is that God talks about those things having to do with works or striving to do things on your own to keep God’s way of life or to bring about God’s promises in your life by self and by what you can accomplish. The reality is God wants us to understand deeply it doesn’t work that way in any fashion or form. We first have to come to understand what we are, what we’re like, and that we need God to accomplish His purpose in our life. We have gone through and talked about those things having to do with faith. God gives us the ability to believe His way of life, and then as we choose, if we make those choices to live by it, He accounts that to us for righteousness because God is righteous.

That is something that you grow in over time. You don’t understand that in the beginning. You don’t understand that through time in the depth that it’s really there as far as God is concerned. It’s something you grow in just as with God’s spirit and things of God’s spirit, truths that God gives to us. We grow in deeper and deeper understanding through time. We’re continually building individually and collectively as a body and God blesses us in that building, in that construction.

So it is with this subject here about righteousness and what it’s all about. I’m excited in the sense that we have gone through in a very systematic process here talking about this subject in an orderly fashion, in a manner where we can grow more and grow in greater depth of understanding. We’ve come full circle now to the point where God does want us to live righteously. It isn’t a matter of just receiving grace and just being forgiven of sin, and just believing and living by what some term as faith—they don’t understand it—but living by faith. It goes beyond that now. We are to strive, as we understand indeed we understand our nature, that we’re blessed by God to be forgiven of sin and by believing in God and His process of salvation that God accounts that to us for righteousness. But we are to strive to be righteous. We are to live and strive to live by God’s way of life, so those things are in this series that we’ve been going through for some time now.

Ephesians 4:20. We are to become righteous, or to grow in righteousness, if you will, and it talks about here in verse 20 again, it says, But this is not the way you have learned of Christ... This expression here that we’re going back to, that we looked at last week, is a matter of understanding that there are things that we have learned as far as what Christ taught, but how he lived his life as well. He lived this way of life and he desires that we live this way of life. He set us the example in those things. There are so many things then in our human nature we didn’t learn from him or of him or by his example, nor of by what he taught. This is what Paul is telling now to the Ephesians.

He says, if indeed you have heard him and have been taught by him... We need to understand, again, as it talks about in Ephesians here, that Joshua the Christ is the head of the Church and he is the one that leads and guides and directs us. He is our High Priest and God has given him that power and that ability to work with the Church. He is the one who worked with us in a very constructive manner to lead and guide and direct our paths as we choose then to follow him. There is much we learn along the way and there is much he lets us experience – some good and some bad – for our own good.

It says, “if indeed you have heard him,” which we have in God’s Church. The ability to know the truth is because we can hear the truth. God gives us that ability in our minds. “...and have been taught by him,” which we have because we understand that government, that process. God doesn’t do it directly. He doesn’t just put it into our minds, all the truth. It’s through things we hear. It’s through things we read or see. We can read the truth.

At one time it was the magazine was called The Plain Truth, and so people could begin to have their eyes open to truth, not because of the name of the magazine, and not because of the words that were there, but because God’s spirit was in their mind giving them the ability to understand what was written, just like in the Bible. We’re able to see things that we couldn’t see before. We’re taught by Him. Then we understand as time goes along, we’re commanded to have Sabbaths, annual and weekly, and other ways that God molds and fashions and teaches us.

...as the truth is in Joshua. That’s what God has given. It comes through him to us. First of all because of what he did we’re able to be forgiven of our sin, because only in that manner can God begin to lead us in the sense of His spirit dwelling in us. He draws us to His own Son and then we’re given to His Son as far as the Church is concerned. We become baptized. We become a part of the Body of Christ.

Going on in verse 22—But that, it’s saying here, In other words, but you were taught, in other words, that you put off, concerning the former conduct... So over and over again in scripture we’re told that how we lived before we’re to cease living that way. We have a part in putting off, in getting rid of sin in our life and putting off the former conduct, the way we lived before.

So we’re to change. It’s a simple message that God has given to us and He gives it to us over and over and over again in so many different ways. We are to change. We are to be a part of a transformation process in our very mind, in the way we think. Again, the very word “to repent” in the Greek means “to think differently.” God wants us to think differently, to grow in our ability to think differently, because, you see, it’s up to this mind, it’s in your thinking. This determines what you’re going to do in your life. It determines your choices. It’s all about how you think. If our thinking becomes more in unity and oneness with God our actions will follow. We’re going to live right. We’re going to be able to live far more righteously as we grow in this process.

So it says, that you put off the former conduct, in other words, the former way of life, the old self...the old self.

But that you put off concerning the former conduct, the/your old self. So that’s what we want to bury. That’s what we chose to bury at baptism. We want the old self to go under the water and to stay there. Put it to death. ...which is corrupt according to its deceitful lusts. Now, we do that symbolically in the Church. We put the old self to death. We have simplistic understanding of that in the beginning, candidly, because we haven’t grown to the point of grasping it on a spiritual plane, what these things are about. We hear these things symbolically, of what they mean, and “Oh yeah. That’s good. We put to death the old self.”

But for it to mean something to you more deeply inside what that meant for you is that you want it to put it to death and you want it to stay dead. The more you grow in this the more zealous you become inside. You get to a point more and more in your life where you really loathe the sin when God brings it to your attention. He will bring those things to our attention more and more. The more we grow, the more we see how ugly it is because sin is just downright ugly and it’s selfish and it’s based on selfishness.

This mind that we have as human beings is so sick. It’s contrary to God totally and completely. It’s an enemy to God. It says, “the carnal mind is enmity with God,” meaning it’s an enemy to God, it’s against God’s way of life. It doesn’t choose to live God’s way of life, and everything out here in the world that professes to be of God or to be of the Old Testament God or the New Testament God as they talk about it, they’re deceived and they don’t grasp these things at all. Because they don’t really want the truth; they want to hold on to those things that they have chosen from an early part of their life, what they have been taught.

They don’t want to hear that something about what they believed all their life is wrong, that it’s evil, and that it’s bad. They don’t want to hear that Christmas shouldn’t be observed. I mean, “You’re sick if you think that. You’re going to take that away from your children, that good time around the tree?” I don’t know what you do over here, but I know they set up the tree and they have all the presents underneath it and they talk about these things way in advance and then they have this morning, or if they can’t wait they do it maybe the night before on the 24th and they start unwrapping presents. That’s exciting for children. I mean, who doesn’t like getting presents, especially if you have several of them under the tree?

That’s one of the most important family times people feel. “And you’re telling me that it’s wrong, that I’ve been deceived?” Then you find out what an enemy to God is like and what the attitude is like, because that’s the spirit. Sad.

We grow in this desire. The more you can become of a mindset that wants to see the old self dead, to do that means you really have to hate the sin when it comes to the surface because you hate the ugliness of it. You learn to hate the ugliness of selfishness, of what it’s like to be selfish, and yet you find yourself, day by day there’ll be situations in your life where you’re going to see selfishness come to the surface, and hopefully you’re repulsed by it, when you see it, and hopefully you repent quickly when you see it. Certain words, perhaps, come out of your mouth or attitudes of feelings you have against someone else because of something they said or did. In the States it’s as simple as cutting in front of you on the freeway at a high speed. I don’t know if that happens much over here or not, what kind of situations you get into, because you have more of a different kind of transportation, a lot of cases, over here than what we have, but attitudes can change at moments like that and your attitude toward another person can really be ugly. You have to catch those things and if you don’t and you just allow them to happen and you don’t think about it and you don’t repent, where is the growth? Where is the growing in righteousness? Where is the growing in the mind of God? Because we should be able to see those kinds of things for what they are. They are ugly! It gets to the point where people actually kill each other or shoot at each other because of things like road rage, or they run their car into someone else. They get so out of control.

I use that as an example because it shows what human nature is like. They’ll run a vehicle into another. Semi drivers, someone cuts in front of them and they’ll try to show you up. They’ll try to force you off the road. Sometimes you don’t even know what’s happened. I’ve had that happen when you drive down the road and all of a sudden they’re pushing you off the road. You can’t argue with a semi or a lorry, or whatever you call it over here, a truck-wagon. Over in the states that sounds like a toy! No...! I’m sorry. A wagon is something a child would play with, basically. So we have different languages and different things that people say.

But people go crazy out here. Now, if you get caught up in that, which I have, and attitudes of driving on a freeway, you’ve got to hate that. You’ve got to realize where that’s coming from. It’s in the world, everywhere we are in the world you run into these things out here in the world. The saddest part is when we bring it into God’s Church because sometimes those attitudes can be brought into God’s Church in how we think about others because something has inconvenienced us or something has gotten in “my” way or something is not being done “my” way. That’s when it really becomes ugly because God puts a greater— I don’t know how you’d state this fully – standard upon us, if you will, as to how we are around one another than we are in the world.

We’re to live by and be more alert to how we treat one another because it’s a matter of our attitude toward God more directly. In the world you’re dealing with selfishness, you’re dealing with a carnal world and we should be able to do as Christ said, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing,” and let it go. That’s hard to do. In the Church we have to come to an understanding we’re all a part of God’s Church, we’re a part of God’s family, we’re all God’s children and how I think about or treat one another is far more important in my attitude toward one another and I have to deal with that in a way that’s different than I deal with it in the world. Because here you have to resolve it, here you have to bring it into check quickly, and if you’ve done something wrong you need to make it right. We should make a lot of things right in the world as well, like on the job or whatever it might be, or in family in the world.

So we’re under this constant thing here of being alert to our own ugly, selfish human nature. That’s a full-time job day by day by day. The more you’re aware of that the more you see it coming up in your life every day of your life. If you don’t have something selfish come up in the day you’re living on a different planet than I am, truly. Because that’s the way we are. We have carnal human nature and it’s a battle. We have God’s spirit, thankfully, but this human nature is so ugly. It truly is.

So it says here, put off the old self, which is corrupt according to its deceitful lusts. I love the way that’s stated, “deceitful lusts.” It means we don’t even recognize so often because some of the things that happen around us in the world we deceive ourselves in how we judge matters or we ourselves are deceived, obviously, by things inside of us that we don’t even recognize, things that are wrong – our desires, our selfishness that’s deceitful.

Verse 23—but be renewed in the spirit of your mind, because here is where it all starts. This has to change for all actions to change, for all speech to change, for all thoughts and attitudes towards others to change. This mind has to change. It has to grow in righteousness, in righteous thinking – literally in how we think. ...and that you put on a new self, if you will. A new self; we’re to be something different, something new. ...who after or according to God... I love this verse. ...who according to God is created in righteousness. After God. God is righteous and we are to be created in righteousness. That is the creation that’s taking place by the power of God’s spirit in our lives. As we yield ourselves to it the creation goes on because it’s a creation of Elohim. For 6,000 years now, nearly, Elohim has been in the process of being created. There are many already who are going to be a part of Elohim, who are going to be resurrected when Joshua returns and they’ve already gone through a process here. Their creation, in that respect, as far as what had to happen in the mind, is already complete and now they just await a time when they’re going to be given a resurrection, a spirit body, and that mind placed back in them. But this time, no carnality whatsoever, no carnal thinking, the mind of God that’s in unity with God.

So again here, who after or according to God is created in righteousness. That means we had better be living things that are righteous in our life, learning how to live and grow in things of righteousness in our response and action to things taking place around us. ...and holiness in truth. Again, another one here, holiness. It’s an expression being used here like sanctification, being sanctified, set apart for holy use and purpose. God’s purpose? That we become a part of His family, that we’re able to be born into Elohim. We have that working in us now in our minds, that process, and it says, “this sanctification.” It’s said in a different way in John 17:17, and you’re all familiar with it, where Christ was praying on the night of Passover and some of the greatest things he ever gave to the Church were given on that night, things of understanding an insight, and he said in his prayer, Sanctify them through your truth. Incredible! “Your truth.” He said there, Your word is truth. God wants us to understand through His Son and that which was given to us on that Passover night that God’s word, that everything that comes from Him, everything that He says, everything He gives it’s the truth. That is what sanctifies us, sets us apart from others.

We should be able to see that really clearly in God’s Church, awesomely so if you have any history at all in God’s Church. We first see it in the world because we see the world and what they believe is so different, but in the Church and what happened within the Church in the Apostasy, we are so different from everyone else that’s out there.

Different organizations that are much larger than us, that were a part at one time of the Worldwide Church of God, and what sets us apart? The truth. God’s blessed us to grow in the truth more and more and more through time. Now there is an incredible gulf. That expression used to be used, in that respect, in scripture as that which separates us from the gentile world, from non-believers, but now it separates us from those who were scattered in a powerful way. There is an incredible gulf in understanding between us, between those who are scattered now who don’t understand that Joshua hasn’t eternally existed. They don’t know those things.

They don’t know that we’ve had an apostasy in God’s Church. They’re still trying to build or construct something that Mr. Armstrong had. They can never have it. They can never have it because they don’t have that understanding. God finished His work in that man, and He finished a great work at that time in him. It was completed. All that remained, prophetically, was the end, which we’re still waiting for. We don’t understand certain things that God hasn’t revealed to us right now, yet.

Anyway, so we still wait and we continue to go forward. It’s a matter of God’s timing and whatever it is we’re to learn He’s going to show us. We’ve gone through this so many times. In time He will show us, He’ll reveal it to us, but it’s going to be in His time, otherwise we’d already know it.

So going on here now, Ephesians 4:25—Therefore, putting away... So it tells us how we can live this way of life in righteousness and holiness in the truth. There are things we have to do. Put away lying, let each one of you speak truth to his neighbor. Well, that’s just the opposite of lying, isn’t it, being truthful. Sometimes we do things in life; we try to hide certain things in our life. Now, that doesn’t mean that you have to go and share everything about your life with anyone else, with someone else, but when you’re telling them various things in life we have to be careful too, of the speech that comes out, because sometimes we can be misleading. Sometimes we can be deceitful in things that are stated to someone else because we don’t tell the entire story of a matter. You have to learn to judge when those things are and when they aren’t. But there’s a part of human nature that likes to protect itself. It likes to protect its own image and how others see it. Oftentimes what we do is we hold back certain pieces of information and so we give an overview and not the whole thing because that would expose a wrong thinking or what it is we’re trying to hide or what it is we’re trying to protect. Human nature, it really is sick.

So therefore, put away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor. Now, who is the neighbor? Who is it talking about here? Is it talking about people in the world, as a whole? Not here. You know, things that are written by Paul, and it doesn’t matter who they’re written by, Peter, John, it doesn’t matter, it’s not preaching to the world. It’s preaching to the Church! It’s telling the Church how we’re to live even amongst ourselves mightily so. Oour first neighbor that we have in God’s Church are God’s people. They’re the ones that are the most important to us, should be the most important to us in all relationships. After that then according to whatever the situation might be. It might be physical family. It might be a situation in the job or whatever. Might be a literal neighbor where you live. Then it becomes important, obviously, how we treat them, how we think toward them.

But where you’re tested more than anything else is in God’s Church. God wants us to know how we’re going to treat each other. How much we really understand we’re His children. And so, “How do you treat My children? How are you treating others who are children?” This is how we’re tried and tested in that in a very powerful way, because if that’s lacking in our mind then we’ll just live within the Church as we do in the world, recognizing there’s a difference because they don’t go to church, but how do we treat them, how do we think toward them, how do we judge? Is our judging different? It better be. So we’re still growing in these things, which is good...if we’re growing.

So it says here, that you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. It’s about the Church. So how do we think towards others in the Church? How do we treat one another within God’s Church? How do we act? What do we say behind the scenes? What do we think behind the scenes?

Then the scripture we talked about, Be angry, and do not sin. It’s not saying that it’s good to be angry or it’s fine to be angry. It’s not saying that at all. But when you first notice this first happening in your mind you’d better catch it, you’d better be aware of it, you’d better be on guard against it, and you better stop it quickly. You don’t have 24 hours. If the sun just went down and you were angry at somebody it’s like, “Oh, I’ve almost got 24 hours to take care of this one.” No, that’s not what it’s about, if you want to put it in humorous terms to show how foolish that thinking is.

Verse 27, going on, neither give place to the devil, to Satan, because he loves it when there are problems that arise in God’s Church. He wants to stir up anything he can. He truly does and he can work with attitudes. How? Well, he knows when there are certain things being spoken or done and he’ll work with that, he’ll broadcast, he’ll magnify that to a point where if we’re yielding to carnal, human nature we’ll get worked up more. We’ll get more worked up about a matter that’s wrong. We’ll get more agitated about a matter that’s wrong, because that’s what he does, he agitates, he stirs up, he magnifies something that’s small in our mind to something that becomes greater in our thinking and in our mind. This has been a part of God’s Church ever since I’ve been in it, of how he works, of how he tries to come in a door, whatever it might be, and he tries to do those things. Beings out here that try to do that.

So we’re being told here don’t give place to him. Why? Because anger is a great place to do that and if we become angry it gives him a foothold. I’ve seen much, much destruction in God’s Church over the years. We become far more refined of recent time, in that respect, in the sense of learning to be more on guard to these things. We’re much smaller now, so in many regards something that happens that isn’t good itself is magnified. In times past when you had 4-500 people in a congregation it was easier to skirt around the issue or not have to come into contact with it. It’s just like walking around somebody and skirting the issue, getting farther away from it, but it’s still there. The smaller we are you can’t bury it the same way. It’s more in front of us. We have to address it otherwise it stands out like a giant, sore thumb. So that’s a good thing. We’re blessed because of that. It’s much more difficult when it’s a really, really large congregation and those kinds of things pop up. They’re much more difficult to work with.

So, neither give place to Satan, to spirit beings. In other words, strive to live in righteousness, not by the whims of carnal human nature. Don’t let it rule. Don’t let it be in control of you. You must learn how to control it. How do you do that? With God’s spirit. With prayer, crying out for help to address or to change a matter.

I want to read James 4:6 where it says, Therefore, he says, God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble. So we have to be of a humble attitude in order to see that we’re wrong. To be able to admit one is wrong one really has to be of a humble spirit, meaning you have to fight against pride and this thing of wanting to protect self and self’s image and so forth. It takes humility, and so we have to ask God for help to have humility.

It goes on to say, Therefore, submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil. That’s what it says in James 4 there, resist him; don’t give in to that attitude. Because the problem is that mind is his. That’s his kind of thinking and he knows how to stir it up and work with it and probably in a very distorted and perverted way thinks that’s right. That’s what’s sick about it. He can work with someone else to feel like, well, you’re right to feel this way. Amazing. Then we’ll work to justify what we’re doing that’s wrong.

Submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. So there is something we have to do – yield to God, submit to God, which is a matter of humility. As it goes on to say in verse 8—Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. That’s how you resist Satan. That’s how you resist demons. That’s how you resist things that can be stirred up in your mind in a wrong way worse than what they are. That’s how you can nip things in the bud more quickly. When you have a wrong attitude or spirit about something you cry out to God first of all and say, “Father, forgive me. I’m not thinking right. I’m not thinking right toward someone else,” whatever it might be, and you ask first of all for forgiveness. Then you ask for help to start resolving this in your own thinking so that you can think right toward them, to love them.

Verse 28, going back to Ephesians 4—Let him who stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands that which is good, that he may have to give to him who needs. I think of this thing of tithing again. One of the greatest things we’ve been called to as God’s people is that process. We learn from that. What are we called? Well, we’re called to yield ourselves to God. We have an opportunity to change, to grow in the womb, if you will, like an embryo, and to grow in righteousness, but a part of that, a huge part of that is to learn other things that go along with that. Part of that is in this process that God has given us of tithing. We learn from that. We’re called to support God’s work, what God is doing, to be a part of God’s work whatever that is.

The ability to do what we do as a church, and just like in visiting different areas, God blesses us in that so we can come together in larger groups. We have the capacity, the ability to do that. I’ll tell you what, if we didn’t have that we would not be as united as we are right now. We would not be as strong as we are right now if God didn’t allow or didn’t make means for us to be able to do that, truly. To be able to have larger groups come together at times is an incredible blessing because you receive like a spiritual shot in the arm, truly, if you’re able to have such blessings in your life, greater fellowship.

I feel for some people who they’re not close to anyone and the only time they may, in some cases, may see someone else in God’s Church is around the Feast of Tabernacles time. That’s a hard thing. It truly is. So we’re very, very blessed. I think of the church right now. We have a lot saved up, so much so that I cry out to God and ask Him to know how to use it – where? When? So as much as we’re still waiting in time I have learned very mightily so over time there are ways that God functions and there are ways that He does not function, and especially in working, in this case with me, and I have seen what God has done when it’s His purpose to draw someone. I want to take you back in a little bit of a story here because it’s good to learn from.

When we had the apostasy and things were happening and people were forming into different groups there were a couple that were around 6 and 7,000 people, another around 8000 people. There was another one around 15,000 people. These different organizations, they had scattered all over the place, different ideas that people had, different things they were thinking that they might try to hold on to and it was mass confusion, in one respect, on a spiritual plane. But different ones had to decide about a work and what were they going to do and what were they going to support. Something that became clear fairly early on was that no one was able to build what Mr. Armstrong had built during Philadelphia. On the contrary, it had now come to a point where it was being destroyed.

The Church had been scattered to the point it became so strong that we realize that the entirety of the Church had come to the point where there wasn’t one stone left upon another. We were scattered all over the place. But others in thinking couldn’t come to that point in time and still believe that they are building something, as an example, that Mr. Armstrong had in the past, so they strive to have a magazine or two magazines. They strive to have a telecast and they use that money in that regard. But you know what? People aren’t being called out of the world in a spiritual plane. Some people here and there join an organization, but it’s not by God’s spirit. There are certain things that they see that they like about certain people, or something they’ve heard, maybe about Christmas or Easter, and they hear these programs and so they contact them like they would contact any church organization that might be advertising on TV or preaching on TV. They’re drawn in that regard or they make choices in that regard, but not because of the drawing of God’s spirit.

So, jumping ahead a little bit in time, none of the groups growing in size, in that respect, not like what was happening in Mr. Armstrong’s day when the Church was growing at 30% a year. That’s mindboggling. For years and years and years and years it grew like that. Then later on in Laodicea that began to change. Then we had the Apostasy. Let’s just wrap it all the way to 2007 and 2008. There was no growth, in that essence, in God’s Church except for people who were scattered. Every once in a while someone would pull someone out of a different group, a different organization, open their minds and help them, or awaken them is a better term, someone who was a part of our past in Worldwide and they would join us. We had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds over time who did this and who left in time. God brought different ones along at different times.

Matter of fact, this area here, I think there is a smear of people who had been here at one time and had come out of the past… or they did not in this area… So, most were new in this area. I’m trying to think back.

Anyway, as a whole, new ones weren’t coming along so what is God doing? That’s the only way you can know. What is God doing? Because with God’s Church you look at certain things that are taking place and you can learn from that. We did that with Laodicea. What is God doing? He let it go through an apostasy. He pulled back. He spewed the Church out of His mouth. It became very obvious. That’s what God’s doing. He’s letting us go our own course of what human beings will do when they become rich and increased with goods. We were the problem. God’s people were the problem because we let down spiritually.

Then we came up to 2007 as a small group and all of a sudden because of a book and because of certain advertising through it people were being drawn, they started coming along. I think with the first book I only know of one person. I think there was one, just one; one that came from the first book that had never had a history with us before. Still with us.

Then in 2006, 2007, especially 2007 and 2008 all of a sudden we were getting emails to a point where we couldn’t even handle it and so we started training different ones and people to handle some of the flood of emails we were getting. Now, out of that still numerically, if you will, not that many were brought in, but that’s where we started having different growth. Now it wasn’t from different people who were a part of our past, who were a part of Worldwide, now they were new.

Now, the only way someone can grasp and understand what is true is that God puts it in their mind and they’re drawn into the Church. They can see the things we have learned to that point in time and people were seeing it. There were people who were being drawn along who when they heard that Jesus Christ hadn’t eternally existed, it was like, yeah, that just makes sense. They didn’t have to unlearn something they had learned in God’s Church because they’d never been a part of it. But they could see it and they believed it.

Now, I hope you understand why I’m telling you this story. Because you can look at what’s happening within the Church and you can learn what Christ and God the Father are doing. Because we are not in control – God is. It’s God’s Church. So wherever God’s Church is, whatever happens to it you can learn from that. Just as much as we can right now, because it’s the most important thing. As I mentioned, I believe it was even last week, talking about some of this, that we’re not there yet. Whatever that is, we are not there yet. The 144,000 are not there yet. If they were you have God’s word that certain things are going to happen. There are going to be four beings who are going to be let loose and they’re going to begin doing the things that they’ve been preparing for for a long, long time. The end, in that respect, of those things that are going to happen on the earth they start, but they can’t until that specifically is completed.

God is very patient with us, molding and fashioning us, and we are going to be exactly where we need to be on a spiritual plane but complete, a full 144,000, and not only that but even the Church itself. We need to understand that the Church itself and those who are not going to be in that first resurrection must be at a certain place spiritually because this is not a small thing that Christ is returning, the Head of the Church, and what we must be like as a Body.

I wish I could give that to you in better ways in better terms, but we are going to be, in that respect, as far as a body is, one of the closest, strongest spiritually, most matured spiritually of any age in the Church of God since it began in 31 AD. Because so much is being prepared and rooted out, whether it be out of our lives – because I marvel at different ones who have responded in some very difficult things in their life and they have responded and repented, whereas in times past most cases they would have been gone. Now they’re there. That’s exciting to me. It helps me to see things that God is doing with His people and how He’s working with us to refine us, to mold and fashion us, to strengthen us in His holy spirit. We are a body, and we need each other in ways we can’t comprehend.

So being a part of God’s Family, His family is going to be at a certain place, whatever that is. I don’t know exactly what that is but I know it because I can see it taking place. To me that’s exciting.

Now, I’ve come full circle to some of this. I also know that God is not drawing new people into His Church. That’s not taking place, as a whole, right now. Just not happening. Because we have advertising going out and it’s not doing what happened back in 2008 so that shows me very clearly what God is doing. So all those funds, what are we to do? Well, I know what we’re going to do. We’re going to wait until God says, “Now!” We’ve tested various things, just to be candid with everyone, to let you know, all kinds of ads and they’re all ready in all these languages, and they’re all ready. But nothing, as a whole, is being produced on a spiritual plane yet. That’s God’s job. That’s God’s work. I can look at that and learn from that. We as a Church can look at that and learn from that.

So how stupid would it be of me just to go out there and just quadruple the advertising, or multiply it by ten time, or a hundred times – which we could do right now! We could dump tonnes into there but we’re not doing it because it would be so stupid. It would be so stupid to do something that’s against God. That would be against God. It would be so presumptuous. It would be like what’s happened in the scattered Churches where they have pumped tonnes, millions upon millions upon millions of dollars into TV and publications that aren’t producing anything. Because they don’t grasp, they don’t see what God is not doing.

When God begins to make it clear now is the time we’re going to be ready, we’re prepared. I’m excited about that as well. So we learn much by just looking at the Church and where we are. That’s why I’m excited about where we are as God’s Church right now. I have never experienced God’s Church to be the way it is to this point in time. We have to be careful of that because that can be like Laodicea now. We could take that and say, “Oh, we are rich and increased with goods,” because we have been, but it’s how we receive it in realizing, no, that’s not to go to here, that’s not to make, to tell me that I’m special or better than others or better than others of times past or anything of the like. On the contrary, more has been given, more is expected. Truly.

That’s why we’re growing in the way we are as a Church in our care for one another as a Body, the kind of fellowship we’re blessed to experience. Does that mean we’re not going to have difficulties from time to time? Absolutely. Do you know why? Because of our mind, because of our mind, and because of how we judge and how we think. We have to be on guard with these things and ever striving to please God more so in our life. I believe that’s exactly what we’re doing as we yield our self to it because we’re learning more and more how ugly this is. We’re becoming more convicted how ugly selfishness is. You’ve got to hate it, you really do. You have to hate it to get rid of it. When you do something that’s selfish you have to come to a point where you spot it quickly and you’re sickened inside by it: “I hate what I see in myself.” Then you repent, move forward, and God blesses you and helps you to be joyful about it because it’s behind you until it pops up again an hour later. But you keep fighting. You just keep fighting.

Well, this goes on now in some of the things they’re talking about here. I didn’t read the whole thing, I guess, but I guess I’ll finish this. Again, starting in verse 29 here, Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but only that which is good to the use of edifying, in other words, only that which is useful to building up, to edifying profitably, as it means here, that it might impart grace to the hearers.

And do not grieve the holy spirit of God. See, God gives us His holy spirit and He says don’t grieve it, don’t quench the spirit, don’t grieve it, in other words, don’t work against His holy spirit but yield yourself to it, yield yourself to change, by which you are sealed until the day of redemption.

Let all bitterness and wrath... And that word “wrath” here is like a whirlwind being stirred up. Things can get stirred up quickly and be out of control. Don’t allow those things to happen in our relationships with one another. Whether it be starting with a marriage – because if two people are in the Church then you have that on you all the time to be on guard, to be more alert to that in your life. And frankly, there are going to be more opportunities to see it because you’re there in fellowship as God’s people. If both are not in a family or in the Church together, this is the Church and you will come together at least once a week and we have to be on guard constantly about how we think about each other, how we talk about each other, how we treat each other, and examine ourselves.

There are times just to ask yourself, to look around, “Do I love every individual with whom God is working? And if not, why not, what is wrong with me?” It’s not what’s wrong with them, it’s what’s wrong with me. That’s what we should have to ask ourselves. “Something is wrong with my thinking if I’m thinking negatively, ill toward someone else as a part of the Body,” in the sense of wrong judgment, harsh judgment, in the sense of categorizing and not letting someone else grow and change and conquer and overcome.

…let all bitterness and wrath, and anger, and clamor... I’ll tell you; three years ago we had a lot of this going on in God’s Church between people. A lot! Not a little, way, way, way too much. It was addressed at different times in different ways, and thankfully those things have been addressed, as a whole, and people are fighting those battles. That’s good. It can’t stop. That has to continue on.

So, “let all bitterness and wrath,” how people could get to a point where they’re bitter with each other? Well, it can if you let something fester. That’s why, in essence, that example is given, “Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath,” meaning you don’t have 24 hours or 13 or 5 or 1. It means, it’s an expression to say, “Deal with it now!” Deal with it now, don’t let it fester. Don’t let it build up in your mind because that’s what Satan loves. That’s what demons love. They will work with that and they will distort your thinking even more.

…clamor, evil speaking be put away from you, along with all malice. I marvel sometimes how not too long ago where there were some big fires that had to be put out in God’s Church in how people thought about each other and how they were talking about each other and how they couldn’t resolve the simplest of issues in some cases.

But be kind one to another. That’s what we have to strive for. You have to work for that. It doesn’t just naturally happen, for us to constantly, continually be kind, see? Why? “Well, because I didn’t eat at the right time I should have,” or “I got up on the wrong side of the bed,” or “I didn’t get enough sleep,” or “There’s got to be some reason out there why I’m not acting good today, you know, maybe my diet, maybe... I don’t know.” If we’re cantankerous, if we are not treating someone right it’s our fault. It’s not their fault.

But be kind one to another, tender hearted... Tender hearted. That says a lot in how we think toward someone else and how we would treat them, even when they’ve done something wrong. Even when they’ve done something bad, to be tender hearted, a willingness to forgive quickly, a willingness to be gentle.

...forgiving one another... That’s an attitude of mind. If Christ did it to those who put him to death who are we not to be forgiving to those in the Body of Christ, the Church of God? How ugly is that if we can’t be forgiving toward someone else in the Body? And yet I know of situations, and I’ll go back two and three years, that have happened in people’s lives where things have come to the surface where people weren’t being forgiving. That’s something you should be able to do quickly. That’s something you need to jump on to so quickly. Because if you’re not forgiving in attitude toward someone else, do you know what you’re doing? You’re holding on to it. You know what happens when you hold on to it? It festers and it gets ugly and it starts to stink more and more. You don’t smell it, but it’s there. It’s just like pus on a sore, a sore that turns white because there’s a sticker in there somewhere and it wants to get out and it starts to fester. That’s what anger is like. That’s what some of these attitudes are like when people aren’t forgiving toward each other. These things will just grow and grow and grow and after a while it doesn’t make any sense, becomes nonsensical even, the attitudes of mind that some would hold toward each other

So much better to forgive. Let. It. Go. Let it go. Why would you let it go? Well, if we really see it, it’s because we love them, because we want to love them. Whatever it might be we want love to continue. We want love to grow. So that’s how we have to look at our lives and situations in our lives when they happen. “Forgiving one another” – it’s a beautiful thing.

It’s taken many people out of God’s Church. Just telling you it’s taken many, many, many people out of God’s Church because they couldn’t forgive. They became justified in their attitudes and feelings towards others. I’ve seen that happen toward certain ones in the ministry. I’ve seen it. I saw it happen in big ways toward Mr. Armstrong, of individuals who were not of a forgiving attitude toward him. They began to hold on to various things, began to hold certain things against him, because to think he was doing certain things wrong, that he should do something this way or that way. He shouldn’t spend money this way. He shouldn’t do that that way. He couldn’t win whatever he did. After a while it turned like some of the fake news turns to sometimes and people just make up things and start coming at someone just to tear them apart, just to find something wrong. It doesn’t matter what they do or what they say they’re going to twist it and distort it. That’s so ugly, especially when it happens in God’s Church.

So these things are good for us to think about, to meditate upon from time to time and be aware of them, to be on guard against them. Because if you’re not on guard against them they will happen.

...tender hearted, forgiving one another even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you. To me that’s an awesome thing that’s said there. It’s a beautiful thing because it says it all. What an incredible thing that God will forgive us of all of our sins and we will still hold things against others. What a perverted mind that will do such a thing. To receive God’s grace, undeserved, unearned. You can’t earn it; it’s undeserved. We receive forgiveness of our sins through our Passover and yet we will hold things against God’s own children. It’s so opposite. It’s so wrong that it should be something in our hearts and our minds that we would hate with so much of our being that we would never, ever, ever conceive of doing it. If it happens, how sick are we and how much do we need to change and be forgiven of? How much more?

So this is good. We always examine ourselves because growing in righteousness is a part of this process. We go through things like this periodically because it sparks something in our thinking, it sparks a memory of something that maybe I did this morning or last night or yesterday, something I said, something I thought. You shouldn’t have to go back too far and it should spark something in your mind...or else you’re just sleepy. So it should spark something in your mind to where you’re able to say, “Yeah, I don’t like that. I don’t like that kind of thinking.” Well, that’s good. But learn to hate it! Learn to loathe it! Because only in loathing the evil can you really fight against it like you need to. The more you see how ugly it is the more you won’t want it to be a part of your life.

Ephesians 5:1 it goes on to say... Man added the chapters. It’s the same flow of what’s being stated here in what’s covered now. Therefore, be followers of God as little children. It’s like, it’s similar to the word, and some use that word as well, “imitators.” So it’s like a child. You know, they imitate parents – some good things and some bad things. It’s just the way we are. That’s the way it happens in life. As they grow bigger and bigger and bigger we see them looking at us, we see them. That’s the way it is in life. We imitate and we learn through that process. Well, God is saying with Him, do that toward Him, be imitators because God is righteous in everything and to strive to live that way of life in everything we do.

Therefore, be followers of God as dear children and walk in love. Well, how do we do that, because we know that it comes from God and we don’t have that kind of love. Well, it’s by living righteously. God shows, “This is My love. This is how you live and this is how you act toward others,” as the example here, of forgiving others, of being tender hearted, of being merciful, of being kind, all those things that make up God’s love, a willingness to sacrifice self or “my” time or “my” money or whatever it might be for the benefit of someone else. It’s about giving in order to love them.

...and walk in love just as Christ also has loved us. Again, these scriptures mean so much, because if we grasp what it’s saying there it’s powerful. It was a sacrificing love. Sometimes we want to hold on to things we want to hold against others and we aren’t willing to love because we’re justified in being upset at someone else or whatever it might be. No, we’re not. That’s just ugly. It’s just ugly. Christ was willing to suffer in order to love others and we have to be willing to let this suffer in order to love someone else, indeed, to give up whatever it is we think we’re holding on to that we’re justified in holding on to.

And walk in love, God’s love, just as Christ also loved us and has given himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. So you know what a sweet smelling savor is about here? When we’re talking about prayers, the prayers of the saints and there’s this, on the altar they would throw the incense on the altar, that’s symbolic of prayers. Because the smell that came up from that, they had this mixture of that which they were to put together and make in a certain way and that aroma, it was the smell of that incense that was thrown on the fire. Then when it went up in this cloud this smell that came from it was a sweet-smelling savor, sweet smelling thing that filled the air. The same example is used in prayers, that our prayers to God are like a sweet-smelling savor when we pray as we ought to, when we are looking to God. I guess I should put this in a certain way.

Sometimes we can pray in the beginning about, “I want this, I want that, I want, I want, I need,” and prayer is not a lot about that. Prayer is about this, “I need to change. I need to overcome. I need to be different. I want to be different. I need help. I need a lot of help, I, I, I, I need a lot of help to change, I, me...” Those are the kind of prayers that God wants because this is why Christ suffered for us, so that we could change, so that our minds could be transformed. Those are the kinds of prayers. We’re crying out to God for the help of His holy spirit because we know that’s the only way we can change. That’s sweet smelling to God, when we’re willing to sacrifice to live His way of life, to live in a righteous manner toward someone else, and you have to ask God for help to do that.

Sometimes, oftentimes when something gets heated or something in a mindset toward someone else, someone said something and you just let it get worked up in your mind and you feel you’ve been mistreated or misjudged or whatever it is, and the ability to handle that rightly, you have to ask God for help. “I need help to deal with this because this is my thinking and You’ve already shown me where that kind of thinking is not healthy, it’s not good, and it really isn’t right. So help me to think right.” That’s a sweet smelling thing to God because you want to live in a righteous way, according to His laws. You want to treat others in a proper way, you want to forgive in the manner He said to forgive (with sacrifice), “So what do I need to do to make things right, to make things better?”

It’s not just praying about them so often. There are things we have to follow up with. There are things we have to do. The biggest thing we have to do is change, work at changing self, changing what comes out of the mouth. If you can start doing that you can actually start working on changing self because the mind is what controls the old mouth. You know, changing what comes out of the mind, that’s the job.

So walk in love just as Christ also loved us and has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor.  But fornication and uncleanness... So that can be spiritual, it can be physical, sadly. That can happen in the Church, has happened in the Church, happens to often. Not as it used to, but those things happen from time to time, spiritual uncleanness, whatever, things in the mind that you have to be on guard against because we’re carnal human beings and there are things that human beings are drawn to. There are things you have to be on guard against, to do them right, to live right the way God says, to recognize what  makes a person healthy in the mind and asking God for that help.

But fornication and all uncleanness, “impurity of any kind” is what this word means, or greed, should not be mentioned as being among you, as being proper or fitting among saints. So they’re just certain things that just shouldn’t be a part of us. That’s how we should be able to see it in our own lives. It’s like this thing of getting upset with someone else in God’s Church. Candidly, it should just never happen. It should be so repulsive to us that if it starts to happen up here we jump on it quickly and say, “You’re sick!” speaking of self, “You’re just sick that this would even come into your mind about someone else.” That’s good when we’re of that kind of a mindset. There are just things that are not fitting to be among saints.

...neither filthiness, that which is obscene, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not proper, in other words, are totally out of place. There are just some things we need to seek balance in and soundness of mind. But it says, but rather the giving of thanks. So I could give a whole sermon on that but I’m not going to. “Giving of thanks,” an attitude of mind of why we would not do certain things because of a different spirit we have in us, a mind of gratitude, of thankfulness toward God for what we do have that’s right and what we should be doing that’s right.

Verse 5—For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous person, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God. So there is this process that’s always gone on within God’s Church but has been ramped up in recent years, meaning it’s been stirred up (ramped up maybe is a better word), concerning the Church and judgment, in that respect, that’s happening to the Church and cleansing of the Church. That’s why I love that expression of measuring in the temple that’s used in Revelation there because it’s two-pronged. One is to get rid of that within the Body that is impure, that’s unclean, that’s not yielding itself as it should, not responding properly. God has been cleaning up the Church for the past several years in a very powerful way. I’ve never seen anything like it.

I’ve been around the Church for quite some time now as far as physical life is concerned, and I’ve never seen anything like this remotely so. Never to this level within a body, spiritual Body, the Church. To me that’s exciting, in one respect.

The other part of that is that see that where people are responding themselves, seeking to grow, grow in righteousness, doing things God’s way and that attitude comes out in how we act, how we think, how we live toward one another that God is also measuring us, preparing us to fit into certain places within whether it be a first resurrection or the one to follow.

God is already started work on the next part of the temple. Do you realize that? God has already started work on the next phase of the temple. That phase of the temple comes out of those who live in the Millennium. That phase of the temple at the end of a thousand years comes out of those who live during that thousand years – not out of those in the past 6,000 years. That’s only the 144,000. But there’s a far greater resurrection, a far greater part of the Body that’s going to be molded with and worked with during the thousand years that are going to be resurrected into the temple at the end of that period of time. That’s awesome.

Some listening today, or next week on this same recording, those of you here today, there are those who are part of that next great phase. What an incredible thing! It’s like squeezing together 6,000 years and saying you’re like the time of Abel. You’re the ones living at the beginning of it. You’re the ones starting the whole thing, except with what’s getting ready to take place here now is far beyond that, in that respect, as far as the Church is concerned. Awesome to understand how blessed we are and what opportunities we have. A part of the beginning of it when we haven’t deserved any of this? And yet God is so blessing us.

Verse 6—Let no one deceive you with vain words, for because of these things the wrath (execution) of God’s judgment in other words, that’s what the wrath of God is. It’s a matter of a time of judgment. It’s a time of the execution of God’s judgment. Different things like this sometimes when they’re recorded in scripture, because people don’t understand what God is doing, they don’t understand how God is, they don’t understand judgment and how God addresses human beings, they see words like “wrath” or “anger” and they don’t understand, no, it’s not the same as mans by any measure. God is a God of love not a God of anger. So when words are translated like the word “wrath” or “anger” they don’t understand what they’re saying and they don’t have a right perspective or vision of what God is like.

These things that have to do with wrath, the wrath of God have to do with the time He executes judgment because His great desire for them, still, is that they’re going to be, as a whole, a part of His family. You realize all those who are going to die, millions upon millions, hundreds of millions, into the billions, that it’s a matter of an execution of judgment after 6,000 years but they’re going to have an opportunity. That’s how God sees them. They’re going to have an opportunity at the beginning of a hundred years. That’s when their time is. God’s going to be able to pour out His love upon them at that time. Not now. Because this execution of judgment is an important thing for mankind because sadly, pathetically so, and this is a marvel to me, people will not be moved to listen to God. They will not be moved to receive His Son as they should. They will not be moved to examine their lives and repent unless all this happens. They truly have to be shaken to the core of their being. They have to see everything that they have ever believed and thought ripped away from them.

I hope you’re able to see how haughty this world is, how haughty the governments of this world are. It is so sick. If we can see God, if we can grasp the things that God is doing and we can look at the way the world is and what these things are going to bring to pass? Haughty, horribly haughty thinking they have the right way of doing things.

Look at Venezuela. Look at the Sudan. Look at so many other nations around the world. Look at Europe. Look at the United States. Look at South America. Look wherever you want to. It’s not a pretty picture and people don’t want to listen to anything, as a whole, about God. You talk about a world that’s drifting farther and farther away even from that which is traditional Christianity, that which has deceived mankind for a long, long time, they’re drifting fast. They really are. Minds of people, the way they think? They don’t want anybody telling them how they should live their lives, that they should live by some moral standard. All you have to do is watch a little TV in the States anymore and you can see there’s not much of a moral standard of any kind whatsoever and how fast things are changing in that regard. Some really weird, disturbing, sick, perverted... I should get my thesaurus out, different words that mean similar. It’s just a sick, sick, perverted, distorted world. That is changing so quickly.

I hope you see it. I hope you see what’s taking place, because therein is a lot of haughtiness right there of mankind. God is not going to tell them what to do and how to do it. No one is going to tell them how they should govern. No one is going to tell them how they should live their lives in a moral fashion. They’re going to live whatever they want to live and they’ll only accept what they kind of agree with already anyway. “That morality I kind of agree with so I’ll live by that.” Sick world.

Let no one deceive you with vain words, empty words, emptiness, futile, for because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the children of unbelief. It’s all over the world and it’s just getting worse and worse.

I cringe when I think of technology, how much longer we could go. The longer time goes on the longer technology grows in ability to use it in the fashion that man is using it, it multiplies the speed and the power with which Satan can work. That’s what’s happening. Because he’s working with carnal selfish human beings who are easily manipulated because of that nature to turn worse and worse and worse. I marvel at what’s at the fingertips of human beings today that wasn’t there twenty years ago or forty years ago – never even thought of a hundred years ago. Couldn’t even enter into the minds of human beings. Incredible.

If time goes on what would people do? How far would they go with things they could make and create, produce? How evil would it be? Don’t even venture there because it’s bad.

Therefore, do not take part with them. We don’t as far as the world is concerned. Thankfully that doesn’t exist within the Church anymore. At least I don’t believe that it does. Did a few years ago; some took part with them and they’re gone. They had different words, empty words of things they didn’t agree with and started chirping around to different ones and some had itchy ears and they wanted to get together in Bible studies to discuss this. You think, “Let’s see now. Bible studies without God’s ministry. Does that set off a warning light?” I hope that it does because that should never have happened. That’s just mind boggling.

If anybody says, “Hey, I’ve got some things in the Bible I’d like you to come over and study with me.” Run as fast as you can run, you know, because it’s not good. But people have done that. Some did that not too long ago in God’s Church. Some in the ministry did that not too long ago in God’s Church, and because of that they’re no longer around. Because God doesn’t work that way.

Therefore, do not take part with them. For you were once darkness, but now in the LORD you are light. So in God we have light. That’s where the light is. This light is in us. I think of John 1 and what it talks about, about Christ, that light that God gave to the world, the Word made flesh and that light that lives in men. Well, what is that light? Well, the truth, God’s way, the ability to see and know the truth and then for it to become a part of our very being in our minds.

Therefore, do not take part with them. For you were once in darkness, but now in the LORD you are light. Walk as children of light... Well, that’s about righteousness. It’s about walking in the truth that God has given to us, walking in how He said we’re supposed to live our lives. We’re blessed to be able to do that. How incredible is that?

...(for the fruit of the spirit is all goodness, righteousness, and truth). So if it’s really coming from God, the point being is it’s going to be good. Not going to be anything bad in it whatsoever. Righteousness, God’s righteousness, what we’re talking about here, we’re to grow in righteousness. That’s just God’s way, righteous, and truth.

...proving what is acceptable to the LORD. I still cringe a little bit when I read this verse here because there are so many people that I knew of during Philadelphia who thought this was saying something different, those that eventually, in so many cases, left or wanted to deceive others. It’s like proving what is acceptable I can study my Bible. I can get out my Strong’s Concordance. If they had computers back at that point in time like they do today, it’s like by our ability to study and examine we can prove where Mr. Armstrong is right or wrong. That’s what it came down to in many cases. “We can prove whether what he is saying is really right. So if it doesn’t agree about this Monday Pentecost thing and he wants to change it to Sunday, let’s get this Bible study together and prove it.”

I hope you understand what I’m saying. You prove something by putting it to practice. You prove God’s way by doing it. You prove righteousness by living it, by practicing what He says, how to treat others, how to resolve issues. Because if you don’t do it, it can never become a part of your mind.

It’s like simplistic things, like a woman who shaves her head. God says, “Don’t do it.” If you get it down and if you look like me you’ve gone too far. You might as well just take a razor and just take it all off anyway and maybe that will show you how wrong it is. Well, sometimes people can get in such a mindset, which today is happening in the world more and more, where when it gets down like that and it’s all over the head; it’s like you don’t know where that comes from, but I do, and I know the mind, I know your thinking. I know the kind of thinking that goes with that. You may not. Hopefully you’re going to be able to see it, and one day you will.

But see, until a person comes to a point where they begin to hear—like within the Church—that that isn’t right to have or good to have you really can’t become deeply convicted of that and convinced in the sense of your mind really changing until you start doing something. You know what it is? Let it grow out. Learn what it’s like when it’s longer. See if something begins to actually happen in your mind. Maybe I ought to pick on some men here. It’s like men for long hair, have it real long and braid, whatever, some people do out here. It’s like hearing, no, it’s not good to have that because it does something to the male mind. They don’t understand that. The only way they can really come to understand it in God’s Church is to submit and yield to it and cut it off and begin to see themselves in the mirror enough that it actually begins to change something in the way they think. You realize that? Even physical things.

It’s like saying, “Hey, you shouldn’t wear your dress up to the rear end, where no cheeks are showing, just barely under that part,” and people have, they’ve done it for so long it’s like, “Well, I’d feel like an old, old person if I wore it longer. I feel younger this way. I feel better this way. I feel more attractive this way.” Oh, really, well, what’s attractive? What are you attracting? What is attractive? The point is it does something to the mind. It really does.

There is a reason why people do the things they do and dress and grooming because it reflects something in the mind. It reflects the thinking, what’s going on. It reflects the thinking when somebody wears something so cotton picking tight you see every movement of every little muscle all the way from the top to the bottom. Every muscle. It doesn’t matter what they’re physique is like. Every muscle can be seen. It’s like, “I feel better this way. I look better this way.” You can’t convince people of certain things in life. No, this doesn’t look good. It doesn’t look good with a man to be at the beach with a… Well, I don’t know what you call these things. They’re so cotton picking tight, again, you see everything. What’s in the mind when we do things whether it has to do with dress, grooming...?

I mean, I’m talking about some very physical things. I hope you understand that it has to do with the way one thinks. Why they think they have to be a certain way. Why they think they have to dress a certain way. It’s because of something in the mind. Sometimes, well, it can be difficult to change.

It can be difficult to change, to do something like this. Not for me as God’s apostle because it’s time. God says it’s time. Show the Church you can wear whatever you want to wear in the Church in the sense of that which is honorable to Him, that is of quality, and so forth, but sometimes that’s hard for people to change or to do in life because of the way we think. It can even be in God’s Church. It can be in God’s Church about how women could only wear a dress. Well, what planet do you live on? Why do you think that way? Because that’s not true! There are things of quality; styles have changed. What God told us is we’re to live in moderation within the time we’re living and He doesn’t want us to be depicted by the world as out of touch in the sense of weird. So there’s a balance in there, isn’t there? We learn that balance in God’s Church. God teaches us balance. So things change.

The way the Church or people in the Church dressed in the 1930’s, and even bathing suits. Even there there is moderation in bathing suits. That’s changed a lot since the 1930’s and how people dressed. If you wore some of the things they wore then you’re a little weird. But people get caught in those things sometimes. There are whole religions that have gotten caught in those things to where they can’t have zippers. They have to have buttons because somehow that was more righteous. They can’t have a shiny car. You can now have a car, they changed that, one of them did. You can now have a car, but it can’t be shiny. You’ve got to go out and paint it with a paintbrush in a kind of a matte black type thing. Because if it’s shiny you’re filled with, what is it, too much pride, too much – there’s a word. It’s not coming to me. It’s just too showy. It’s just too showy and you’re trying to draw attention to yourself. So if you’re driving down the street in a nice red convertible you are filled with lust and you are a sinner!

So the point being in all these things, there are things in the mind as to why we think the way we do. It’s so hard to address this sometimes, to change in life and to have soundness and balance. Even with changing of times – and I use dress and grooming as a part of that because that changes with time as well. It just shows how trapped we are as human beings as to a thinking that goes on sometimes. God doesn’t want us to be. He wants us to be free of those kinds of things and to do things as the Church leads, guides, and directs. Because you know what? That comes from Joshua the Christ. See, even there I slipped. We even changed in that almost a year ago now. Joshua the Christ and what he leads and guides and directs his Church to do and to live.

That’s changed a lot since I’ve been in the Church, since 1969. A lot! A lot of things have changed even in areas of dress and grooming and whatever it might be or what we do and how we do it because it has to do with a measurement of moderation. That’s how He wants us to learn to judge things as far as the world is concerned. We learn that. Some things are a matter of just right and wrong. Some things, like the size of a dress, where it hits, is a matter of just right and wrong.

So the point being in all this is we all do what we do because of how we think, of what’s in the mind. You wear what you wear because of how you think. You truly do. There are things in grooming you do or don’t do because of how you think. This is a powerful thing in the mind, it truly is. How you think is powerful. And you know what? It affects the way we can judge others too, how we think towards one another even in the Body in simple things of life.

We learn through this as we grow and it’s a process.

“Therefore, be followers of God as dear children and walk in love, just as Christ has also loved us and given himself,” and it goes on and talks about this uncleanness and what is proper and fitting among saints, that we shouldn’t be doing. So again, things we need to be on guard against.

I’m going to go ahead and stop there for today. Realize there’s a way we’re to walk, “walk as children of light,” as we just looked at here. We are in the light and it takes work to walk in this way, it takes work to change this, for this to be in the light.

1. Chapter 1