This is the Truth, Pt. 3

Ronald Weinland

August 17, 2019

Today we’re continuing with the series entitled This is the Truth with this being Part 3.

We’re going to pick it up with #37, where we left off. We’d completed the other one before that, #36, so let’s continue on today with #37.

37 (16) The remnant of God’s Church from Laodicea has been given the greatest proof ever of Joshua the Christ perfectly fulfilling all of the symbolism contained in the entire Passover day of Abib the 14th or Nisan the 14th. So again, some of these things when you read them it’s like, obviously that’s the way it has to be, that’s the way it is, especially if you came in since something like this was written, since we had this given.

Again, I reflect back to some of the things that took place in the Church because this was the most important one of all that God gave to us. It was about Passover. And candidly, that’s where people have to start. When they come into God’s Church they have to start with Passover. We have to understand our Passover. We have to understand the purpose of why he did what he did, why he was committed to do what he did in his human life and why it was so much a part of his thinking and part of his mind, and strive to appreciate that and to understand that it fits perfectly within what God has given.

The Jews have tampered with that. The world has tampered with it mightily beginning in 325 (we understand that), totally changed it to something else. In God’s Church we’ve had difficulty with that, especially at the end-time and leading up to the Apostasy. So that’s why this was so important, because it became a great issue in God’s Church primarily because of some in headquarters who began to teach classes in Ambassador College to those who so many would become ministers in the Church and sent out to different areas, and began to teach this idea of things going on into the 15th, and it had a tremendous impact later on then in God’s Church, one that we paid for dearly.

So continuing on in what it says here now behind this particular statement: Ever since the 1970’s there have been ministers throughout the Church teaching that Christ fulfilled some aspects of Passover on the 15th day of Abib and not on the 14th (which was when the Israelites observed Passover). Mr. Armstrong taught that this teaching of the 15th was false, yet it continues today. Along with fulfilling the symbolism of the Passover lamb, Joshua also fulfilled the symbolism of the Passover sacrifices performed by the Levitical priesthood on the afternoon of the Passover.

This is something that we really never focused upon as a Church; we never really addressed those things and why certain things were fulfilled in the manner that they were. It’s important to grasp that and comprehend that, why God did things exactly the way He did, all with purpose, all with design. But people began to read things into that, especially when they would read scriptures in the Old Testament, and began to confuse, become confused with the timing of things, when it shouldn’t have been confusing at all. And really, a lot of it’s because a lot of them took their authority from the Jewish religion.

That still blows my mind every time I think about it. How can you use Judaism as your authority just because they have an understanding of Hebrew and of a lot of things in the Old Testament? Because they don’t understand it perfectly by any measure – not by a long shot. Why on earth would anyone use them as an authority? To me that was as insane as individuals who would go to commentaries that different religions, ministers or teachers of different religions would write about the Bible. You think, why would you go to a commentary to get the truth, to understand the truth? Because it’s not there! You might find a smidgeon of truth here and there. The only thing I can think of is when maybe they record something about history that is true. But as far as scripture? As far as their interpretation of things? It’s not there. There are ministers who would get their sermons out of commentaries. Blows your mind! Where is God in the picture? Where is God’s spirit? Where is what you have learned from God’s apostle being taught?

So, anyway, those things should have been self-explanatory, simple to follow, but they weren’t over time and people began to mess with God’s truth. That’s why these things have continued on and God has helped us to become clearer in these matters, to see them more clearly, and to be able to teach them more fully within the Church.

So, going on here again: Along with fulfilling the symbolism of the Passover lamb, Joshua also fulfilled the symbolism of the Passover sacrifices performed by the Levitical priesthood on the afternoon of the Passover, before the beginning of the 15th. This daylight portion of the 14th, which contains great meaning for what Joshua fulfilled, has not been fully understood. All of what Joshua the Christ fulfilled took place “between the two evenings...” “Bane ha erebyim” as we’ve talked about, as it says there in Leviticus, that people have never really understood why God stressed that.

So again, that took place “between the two evenings,” in the night of the 14th and in the day of the 14th, and not on any part of the 15th. So again, I love things when God fully explains them, fully illuminates them, in that sense, makes them manifest of what the truth is, because it means so much more then when you read other areas of scripture. It just makes things come alive a whole lot more. So it was in this.

A lot of the problem (just going back so that you understand it, so it’s deeply embedded in your mind, so no one can ever deceive you), the Jewish people, some who were leading the Jewish religion, high priests, whatever they called them by that time (I can’t think of the name of the Chief Rabbi), anyway, they talked about this point in time when the sun would begin going down on the 14th and made a big to-do of it. This was their “between the two evenings.” This became their period of time “between the two evenings.” Even within the Church we didn’t have that fully explained, in some cases as well as, at least from some ministers and possibly because of what they’d been taught at Ambassador.

But anyway, when the sun begins to, as you see it, it begins to go down, they made a big thing out of that as though this was the time for some of the things about the Passover that had to be done that went on into the 15th.

Well, it’s about sacrifices. It was about the sacrificial system and they confused those things that they read in scripture in the Old Testament with events then of things that were done. Basically, it was a time when the Levites began to kill animals. They didn’t sacrifice them on the 14th but they began to kill a lot of animals because if you read of accounts in different places, whether it be in Chronicles or back in the Kings and different areas of scripture and it talks about times when there were thousands and thousands of animals, even that the king donated (we read that just recently in time of Hezekiah), when those were given and they began to kill them, there is a lot of work involved.

When you’re talking about thousands of animals, and thousands of people there to participate in a high day, in a holy day, in an observance, they began to kill them because they had to be prepared and ready by the time it would be to give the sacrifices after sunset, and to prepare those, the food that they were able to partake of. They were able to eat of the sacrifices. Not all of them, but most of them they were able to partake of. So this is what they feasted upon, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Tabernacles, or whatever it might have been. They ate of those sacrifices. But the work for that began on a day before. So any holy day coming up, whether it be the Feast of Tabernacles, as an example, the things began before the Feast started, but the things were not offered up before God until that point in time, until the sun went down and it was the beginning of the Feast of Tabernacles.

Same thing with the days of Unleavened Bread. They started killing animals, but they didn’t offer them up before God, and some of the cooking, or whatever, roasting of those things of things they did, didn’t begin until sundown period, until the sun was down, and then it all began. So why people became confused in some of these things is because of this teaching from Judaism. I don’t need to go into a lot of that, but why people would become confused of that, it blows the mind.

But the point being is Christ started something on the Passover night. He had a foot washing ceremony. First of all, actually, they ate of the lamb – the last observance of the Old Testament Passover. They had that first, the Passover that they ate. They didn’t start roasting it until that point of sundown. Then as soon as the sun was down they roasted it, they ate it, so it was getting pretty late by the time you roast a lamb and start eating of it. And then after, it says, the dinner or supper was over he took a towel and, basically a garment, girded himself with it and began to wash the disciple’s feet, and it talks about the things that they did that night. He instituted the symbolism then of the New Testament Passover. (One way of phrasing it. I don’t like that term either.)

But anyway, that’s what he did, he instituted something that they were to observe, the Church was to observe from that point forward. No longer roasting a lamb, no longer keeping the Old Testament. Because he was going to fulfill in that day what he was having them observe, so he had to give it to, for one thing, in that same time period, in the evening, because that’s when they ate of it, and also to replace it then with and show them the new symbolism that was given there, show the disciples.

So again, easy to see. But some people would ask, well, why did he die then in the afternoon? Because there is more symbolism in the sacrifices that began to be killed. It’s the first preparation day for a high day, for an annual holy day, the first day of Unleavened Bread. It’s the very first of the season. Passover comes first. In the afternoon when they began to kill animals, prepare for, the preparation day for the first day they killed a lot of animals. A lot of that pictures then sacrifice, the killing of animals, whether it be lambs, whether it be cattle, bulls, as an example, goats, different things that they brought to be offered up, to be sacrificed, the killing began in the afternoon.

This is exactly what was pictured in Christ’s life. He died mid-day in the afternoon right around 3:00. It talks about the sky’s turning dark, and so forth, and a soldier that came up and rammed a spear into his side and out came water and blood and he spilled his blood to the earth and he died. That’s why when they came around to break the other’s legs, all of their legs so that they would suffocate, die that way, they came to him and they saw that he was already dead. It explains in John then, because there was a soldier that had speared him in the side. He was already dead because of that so they didn’t break his legs.

A complete fulfillment then of Passover because it begins the whole season of holy days that follow. It’s a beautiful picture when you look at it that way and you understand what God is showing us. I could give you sermons that tell you story after story here of things that have happened where this has been messed with and what scriptures they used and all the other things going along with it, but it’s really simple if you stick to the truth. So to God’s Church this is exceedingly important, truly.

38 (17) The 144,000 are all of those who have been called and tried by God over the past 6,000 years who will be in the first resurrection at Christ’s return. Awesomely important to God’s Church because you’re the only ones that know this. You’re the only ones that I know of that believe this. If some have changed in the last few years, I don’t know about it, because the idea is totally different than what has been taught, whether it be the left over from Philadelphia, because that’s all we had, the present truth. That’s all we had. You’re judged by what you have been given at any point in time. All those during Philadelphia were judged by what they had at that time.

Before Pentecost was changed in 1974 you would have been judged by when you kept it. If you’d kept it at a different time before God gave it through His apostle you sinned. Now, that’s hard for some people to comprehend. You think, “If I know the truth and I know this...” Well, how do you know? How do you know you’re absolutely right until God makes it clear? There is a way that God makes things clear, teaches government, teaches how God works, teaches how God’s spirit works within His Church and so forth. Great lessons to be learned.

So again here, from that period on into the period of Laodicea there has been this concept, this idea that the Church – actually, it was Philadelphia that had to have 144,000 in it. So when you got into Laodicea and people began to see there are different things going on out here, there are people who aren’t committed, there are people who are lukewarm, we began to deal with situations, or we had Bible studies on certain nights (I think it was generally on a Wednesday), and people weren’t coming like they used to. The farther you went into that period of time of Laodicea the worse that became. We’d have refreshing programs where they’d talk about how to boost attendance. This is where numbers became so important to some people, whether it be in Sabbath services or even in Bible studies. They kept records of all these things and it was like, boy, “the screws are being turned on,” the old expression. But the point was is that you better be working to have higher attendance or something may be wrong with you. The reality was it was just the times. It was the Church. It was what was happening within the Church. There was a spirit and attitude, and anyway, it just got worse and worse and worse.

So, what do you do with 144,000 when you’re in Laodicea and you see this spirit? So there are some that have believed that you’ve got to have 144,000 Philadelphians, the wise (see, cause there are the wise and the foolish virgins), and of course the Philadelphians are the wise ones, the Laodiceans are the foolish ones. That’s easy to understand, isn’t it? Anyway, that was all we understood at that point in time, and it was, in one respect.

So this 144,000, I heard so many sermons, even up in the 80’s, in the early 80’s all the way through until the Apostasy occurred, heard different ones, from different thoughts and ideas that people had about the 144,000. And thankfully, then after the Apostasy it was like that is so clear. But we didn’t know it until after these things happened. Then God, God used that process to manifest something to us that we couldn’t see before because we felt that there had to be 144,000 come out of Philadelphia and a great multitude then that would make up those in a period of Laodicea whom God would call, and vast numbers of people, larger than the 144,000 who would come out of the great tribulation. That’s all we could see at that point in time in Philadelphia and we were judged accordingly.

God used a time of a scattering of the Church where finally this really needed to be addressed and God was going to give the truth then at that time because it would take a long, long, long time for any group, whatever size they were, to ever get to the point of 144,000. Are they the Philadelphians then? Well, one group had to call themselves that because they knew they were the Philadelphians, because that’s better than the Laodiceans, and if you know any Laodiceans you’re not to have any fellowship with them. “Anybody that’s not with us, they’re Laodicean, if anything, and they may not even be that.” Anyway, amazing what we’ve gone through as a Church.

So again here, I’ll read it as it’s stated here: The Philadelphia era taught that there would be 144,000 from Philadelphia who would be resurrected at Christ’s return, along with an innumerable multitude who would come out of Laodicea during the final 3 1/2 years of great tribulation. Because the concept and the idea was at that time Philadelphians and Laodiceans would be side by side in the same period of time.

This is false. In order to enter into the God family one must be tried and tested over many years and not just for a mere 3 1/2 years or less. Those who live through the tribulation will be a continuation of people making up the Church on into the Millennium. The innumerable multitude mentioned in Revelation 7 is the same 144,000 who have been sealed and then resurrected at the time of Christ's return. All have gone through great tribulation to become part of the God Family, because there was this idea that the great tribulation doesn’t happen until the very end in the final 3½ years. But that term used in scripture explains that all, in essence, who have ever lived this way of life have to go through great tribulation to be refined, to be molded and fashioned and finally sealed into the 144,000, if you will.

Going on: They are called innumerable simply because from a physical vantage point no human could count such a gathering of people, and only God knows the number of those whom He has worked with over the past 6,000 years who have been molded and prepared to be in His Family and in His government. (Rev 14:1, Rev 7:1)

I want to spend a little time just to go back to that, just to show you where we were as a Church and why some of these things were thought of in the manner that they were because only a few of you in here today actually lived through that. Actually, quite a few of you because this area is a little different. We have a lot more, in that respect, in this congregation who were a part of that period of time before the Apostasy and up to the Apostasy. Some of you weren’t born until afterwards. To me that’s an amazing thing, to know all that’s happened in that length of time.

But anyway, Revelation 7. This is good because it points out what we’re like as physical human beings and why growing spiritually takes time, and that God is the one that has to give those things that are spiritual. Otherwise, until He gives it, we can’t see it. Until God manifests it through whatever manner He chooses we can’t see it. It’s kind of like what Mr. Armstrong began to do in the 80’s. Actually, it wasn’t even in the early 80’s, it was a little bit later when he began to focus upon the fact that the temple spoken of in scripture is not about a physical temple, it’s not about a rebuilding or bringing in stones or setting up an altar where the abomination of desolation has to take place. Those things are not about that. He didn’t go into it that far, but basically it was that nothing could be rebuilt because the Jews couldn’t build such a thing anyway.

So he started talking about the temple was spiritual, and that was lost upon the Church, as a whole. It didn’t take long through the period of Laodicea for the Church, because the ministry lost that, to not know what had happened to us at the end. So this is similar. God has to show things in their time, things that you can take for granted in thinking this is simple, this is easy to see, but not understand, no, to get to here today has not been easy. It’s taken a great struggle through time.

All who have ever gone before us have gone through a great struggle to have, to receive, to hold on to, to live the truth of God that God gave them at that moment in time; their present truth. There has been great tribulation because of that, always has been in the world because the world hates God. They hate His truth. They hate His people. That’s just the way it is. The more they know the more they hate, as a whole. It’s just human nature.

Revelation 7:4 it says, And I heard the number of those who were sealed. One hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel... Simple. 144,000; they’re going to be the ones who return with Christ when he returns. But the Church thought there was going to be a great multitude as well, and I’ll get to that in a moment. But then it starts talking about...of the tribe of Judah twelve thousand sealed; of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand sealed... You know how we took it as a people? Physically. Because we’re physical human beings, and until God reveals something to us on a plane to show us something has spiritual meaning and purpose and intent, a type that has spiritual interpretation, meaning, we can’t see it. It’s in God’s time when we’re able to see those things, so if there are going to be 12,000 out of the different tribes...? So back then it was kind of a little more important to people, well, what tribe am I? People would want to know their lineage, what, where could you be? Maybe...? Was it Ephraim? Manasseh? Issachar? Zebulon? Gad? You know, who? Judah? Whatever. Not important. Not important. Because since the time that God began to work with, when Christ directly worked with the apostle, Paul, the gentile world, meaning those outside of Israel, those outside of Judah, if you will, primarily, obviously, God was calling many. So how does that fit in? It didn’t in the Church of God, during the time of Philadelphia, in the time of Laodicea.

God has many people from many different backgrounds. It wasn’t about physical tribes. Amazing! Should have been clear but it just wasn’t because until God gives it, what is clear to us after God gives us something, we can’t see it. We just can’t see it. I’m amazed in reading this right now to think we had this. What about all the other people? Are they part of the innumerable multitude because do they have to become Laodiceans then to fit into the scenario? See, we couldn’t even think through those things because we couldn’t see it, those things that weren’t sound.

The reason we’re going through this like this is because you need to know the truth you have and the truth that no one else has, things that are clear and plain and simple to you. The only reason they are clear and plain and simple to you is because of God’s spirit, while you have access to it. Because there can come times in your life that you can get cut off from God’s spirit. Disfellowshipments, they haven’t stopped; still going on. People cutting themselves off from God’s spirit, and not just when the disfellowshipment happened, but long before it. It’s hard. It’s difficult. While people have the opportunity you want them to be able to repent, to get things right, to be a part, to share. It’s not always that way because we, as human beings, we have choices to make all along the way, all along the path.

So it wasn’t about 12,000 out of every tribe of twelve tribes, but that’s all we could see, 144,000. Not understanding Israel has a name; there is a name, there is a purpose in it. Not understanding that that design that we look at on a physical plane when we read about things in Revelation and about the makeup of three gates on each side, four sides, twelve entrances, and all the things that have meaning with it, whether it be twelve disciples, the twelve apostles, and one had to take Judas Iscariot’s place. On and on it goes, and this order that God has for a purpose. There had to be twelve!

You think, “Why is that so important?” Because it’s a process of God and the importance of God in His structure and what He does everything is meticulous and fully organized. Twelve is the symbolism, if you will, of that which is perfect, perfection. Seven is that which is complete. Those numbers have meaning to them when it comes to God’s plan and God’s design of things. God has an order for things even in judgment and so forth.

All those things are so important. They truly are. They all have symbolism and meaning. It’s not about physical tribes, it’s about that which God has placed as a matter of order and a name that will be given of something to remember, of understanding a process of something that God began to do with a physical people that led into a spiritual family, all having names that they bear and carry. Important to God. Over all, Israel; all of them Israel, but everything divided up as God intends in order, in a fashion that is unique to that which we’ll all know later on, we’ll understand far more deeply as time goes on, and so God continues to reveal to us a structure.

You know, I was thinking about Mr. Armstrong’s example of a puzzle, and he talked about how He gives us these pieces of the puzzle to fit in and the picture becomes clearer. The other day it hit me – You know what? We’ve never seen the clear picture, but what we have seen it’s like the outside edges of it. Little pieces, I mean little pieces, just little bitsy pieces. You know when you do a puzzle – I don’t know about you – but whenever I’ve been involved in doing a puzzle in times past where do you start? You don’t start with the middle. You start with the parts that you can definitely fit in so you can see this framework. So you can have this framework to go by and gradually come down on whatever side from that framework, working your way to the middle until (or some part of it) until you have a complete picture. We’re not close to a complete picture yet but God has given us an incredible framework through time, through Philadelphia, and what we had then in Laodicea because of what He gave in Philadelphia, and then since the Apostasy. He’s just made it clearer and clearer, but we’re still on the outside edges.

It’s a process of being filled in. But to fill in toward the middle? We’ve got a long way to go through the Millennium into the Great White Throne. We’ve got a long way to go yet because the more we go into this period of time the more God’s going to reveal. The closer we get to the end the more God’s going to give to us so we can see a clearer picture. There will be much revealed throughout the Millennium, and much of that is going to be revealed toward the end of it because of where we are in time at that time, getting ready for the Great White Throne. That is such a massive undertaking. Our minds can’t even begin to comprehend it right now but it’s there. The structure of it, the design of it, meticulously so, God will fill it in. It’ll be done. It’ll be accomplished. Beautiful!

When we go through this and then it comes down to verse 9. So we took it physically because that’s what we tend to do. Just like the disciples did when Christ said, “If you’ve seen me you’ve seen the Father,” and it’s like, “Show us the Father and we’ll get it, we’ll understand. That’ll satisfy us.” He says, “If you’ve seen me, you have seen the Father.” That’s spiritual! It wasn’t about something physically you had to see. To see the truth that God gives to us helps us to understand more and more God, who God is, how God thinks. Because it’s His mind, His being that He’s sharing with us. It’s about His design. It’s about His plan. It’s about His purpose. It’s about how it’s all filled in. It’s about us and how we fit into that plan, the opportunities God has given to us. On and on it goes! The love and the mercy and the kindness and the awesomeness of our Great God to do all this!

To think He can take this and work with it and bring it to a point where it’s spirit in spirit life and able to be in agreement with Him? I marvel at that because the longer I’ve been in God’s Church the more I know how these things work in the mind and they are disgusting. The human mind, because of selfishness, is exceedingly disgusting. It really is! But that’s what we’re in. It’s a means to an end and people don’t see that. Well, it’s pretty good. This is pretty nice. Well, wait until you’re at the end. Just wait long enough and see enough in life and see what people are like and have more experiences of what human beings are like, especially without God’s spirit, and sometimes you see it with God’s spirit, but without God’s spirit it ought to be even more abundantly clear.

Look at this world and the way it is right now, the backbiting, the stabbing, and because now you have social media! Just put all your garbage out there for everybody to see. You used to just keep it in the mind and maybe by those who were closest to you that could spill out of your stupid mouth as the stupid things that you were saying to others to trash, to hurt, to destroy other people, but now you can reach thousands and millions, whew, just like that, to destroy people’s lives, to hurt people. What a sick world we live in. But it shows what the mind is like and God is letting us see this in a magnified way because now we have the technology to do it, to have a big, big ability to just magnify it to where hopefully people are getting sicker and sicker and sicker of what they see in the world and what human beings are capable of doing. It’s not nice. It’s not good. Not a lot of love. Not a lot of care. Especially not sacrificing love.

The blessings you have of God’s way of life to be able to live this way of life, to change that thinking in the mind and yield more and more to a mind that does have God’s love, that has care and concern for others, that is willing to forgive and forget and let God do the judging? That’s an awesome thing! We live and we grow through these things and we draw closer to God.

Verse 9—After these things I looked, and behold... So after what things? After what he just described here, 144,000, of these tribes; they have the tribes names. They’re not of those tribes. You know, there are some translations that just aren’t very good because they didn’t understand God’s plan. Not a one of them understood God’s plan who worked at translating these things. The King James, when they came along and did what they did, didn’t grasp any of God’s plan. They didn’t get it. So there is so much that’s translated that isn’t translated well.

Again here, it goes through a story and it tells about these tribes and the different ones and the structure. That’s what it is; it’s a structure from God, a plan and a purpose, and especially a spiritual one.

Then he says, After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all the nations, see, of all the nations, of all the tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lord, clothed with white robes, and palm branches in their hands. Then it leads on through the book here and talks about these things periodically and it talks about those who return with Christ who have this in their life. Who are they? The only ones that come back with Christ. Who are they?

...and crying with a loud voice, saying, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!

Anyway, it just shows here this transition then. To read through something physically and to say, “Oh, it’s the twelve tribes,” but now we have this great multitude, as though there’s something bigger. No! You know, a 144,000 is a great multitude of people. But now it’s describing them more – they’re of all nations and tongues, and people and times, if you will, and basically that’s what it’s talking about.

“...and no one could number them.” I think, well, that’s a no brainer now that we see it because, first of all, if you did see 144,000 you couldn’t know. You know, when they give these numbers, how many are before the whatever it is in Washington, D.C., and how big these crowds are, and human nature, we know what that’s like, because we know the crowds we used to have in Sabbath services, and if you didn’t get them all in the bathroom and every place else when you’re counting them you’re in trouble. Anyway, some of you know those stories. So some people like to magnify them, others like to condense them. “Oh, look at that big hole out there. They didn’t have that many people because there could have been 40,000 right there and they’re not…” Anyway, all the arguments that people get into.

For us? Yeah, nobody can count that, but it goes beyond that. It goes way beyond that because it’s about God Almighty is the only one who could tell us what the number was from the time of righteous Abel on. Because he was the first. Cain and Abel. Cain killed Abel. Abel was the first and he was the first one with whom God worked. Awesome to understand that process through time. So the first family, one of the children born, there’s one we know of, and then it goes on through time. So over 6,000 years God knows them all, waiting a time that He can resurrect them before His Son comes back. He knows them by name. Knows them inside and out in ways that we can’t comprehend that kind of being, that kind of mind, that kind of power, that kind of God. Awesome!

No one could number them. We were talking on the way up here today about how some of the Jewish people, basically have, they have a calendar and they go by years. The reality is no one knows when 6,000 years was; how long back. When was it? And how can you fill that in? Well, we’re not able to because there is no continuation of something that we can rely upon. History is that way. Everything that’s written through time, we have giant holes in it. But God knows and God knows exactly how many He worked with, how many He brought through, and He had a design and a purpose that there are going to be exactly 144,000.

So in 2008 we had a bit of a problem up at that point in time. Some who were called to be a part of that purpose did some things because they responded to something they shouldn’t have and the way they did and as it said in Revelation, “Don’t let anyone take your crown,” it happened. Right up to the end, if you will, of time. You think, how could these things happen? But they have for a purpose, for what we are to learn from it, from lessons and things that will be taught in the future. Because it will be taught.

People are going to be taught about those occasions and choices that were made and what they were all about, and they’re going to marvel. Just like we do when we read things whether it be in Genesis, Exodus, whatever, all the way through, we marvel. But the closer you get to the end and you understand those things the more incredible it becomes, truly.

So again here, we didn’t know the great multitude. It is the 144,000.

39 (18) Herbert W. Armstrong was a "type" of the prophesied "Elijah to come," as he restored all truth essential to salvation to the Church of God during the Philadelphia Era. Now, more could be added to that because there are periods of time through Thyatira where some things had been lost, then you get into Sardis in the beginning of that and then it speeded up the process, after the printing press came along, the ability to print, if you will, Bibles, materials, and as that progressed and the technology became better and better in how they were able to do some of those kinds of things in a mechanical way. Incredible changes that took place. But again here, God began to restore things during a period of Philadelphia—more could be added to the story—because it has to do with a preparation.

See, Philadelphia, truly, in a very powerful way, was about restoring things to the Church to prepare us for the end-time. It was to restore things that we needed to fill in a picture in a bigger way, in a better way in order to be able to go on through a very difficult time that we were going to go through, Laodicea and the Apostasy. God gave us what we needed and restored things and added to things that were never given before because, candidly, He did more than just restore things, because there were some things that the disciples never knew and never understood that were given to Mr. Armstrong.

There were things that were given to him and written about to give a fuller picture, if you will, that they did not know, especially prophetic about the end-time and especially things about Europe, and on and on it goes, ten nations that were going to rise at the end, seven revivals. They didn’t know anything about this. So we had a clearer picture than ever before to help us so that we could more easily grasp what was to take place in the world as it happened. That’s why I marvel, starting with around 1950 and the European Common Market and then the European Union, and then finally after he died what he said was going to come to pass, a common currency finally came into effect around 1999 and the Euro started coming into existence. Then on the rest of the story, we’re up to the point now where the military is filled in, it’s there, they’ve got it. They have the ability to do things that they haven’t had in the same manner in times past. It took all that time to get to this point in time from something that had been given to Mr. Armstrong a long, long time ago to help us.

So, yes, he was a “type” of the prophesied “Elijah to come.” This is something that God revealed more and more of as time went on because we began to learn that there is more that God’s giving of things that the Church never knew either. Because we’re talking about the Apostasy—the Church never understood that, it never grasped that. So much of what John wrote about was never understood and grasped, obviously, even by him. It was just given to him because the things of history hadn’t even begun yet that would lead up to that. He was living the first era of the Church, and the other things, not even knowing all the eras that had to come, and all the things that had to happen in God’s Church, and all the things that had to happen in Europe, and on and on it goes.

What an incredible thing that you live when you do so you can see those things with that picture, with that framework that no other human beings have ever been ever to see it! How blessed are you? What do you have? That’s why when I see someone just give up because it’s too hard, just blows my mind! Because of disobedience you can’t see it! If you don’t obey God, if you don’t seek to live this way of life you’re not going to be able to see what God is offering to His people and that won’t be encouraging to you. On the contrary, the hearing of what’s coming can be discouraging. But you know what? What does that mean when it takes place for you in your life and your family and everything else you’re working for?

Because it’s coming! You now, what horrible thing! It’s coming! Can’t we see what’s happening in the world? I mean, just in the past year! I wish I’d brought some articles along. They’re even talking in terms, “Certain things in the economy are thundering.” You think, yeah, they sure are. And different words that are being used out here of things that you wouldn’t read about a year ago even and all of a sudden they’re out there all over the place on a continuing basis. That’s why I think, wow, this may be it, because we don’t know. So we have these markers. Then there’s another one. Anyway, we have these markers. Oh, I got ahead of myself, didn’t I? Well, you’re going to have to wait for that one. It’s one of the holy days. Don’t miss them! No, just kidding. Just kidding.

Incredible! So God gives us markers and we have to plan ahead. We’ve learned that. I’ve had to learn that in a magnified way. All for a plan and purpose that God has given for us as a Church, for us as a people and everything else we have to go through in life. So again, exciting, inspiring how God works, molds, and fashions us in what He gives to us and when He gives it to us.

But I’ll tell you what, keep your eyes open. It’s to a point where I don’t know if I can get to Europe and get back, okay? That’s where we are in the world. I hope you can see that. You can be in some part of the world travelling and you don’t know what’s going to happen from one day to another right now. You don’t know what’s going to happen because of what’s happening in Hong Kong. You don’t know! This is not some small stuff that’s taking place in the world. And depending on how much somebody pushes toward them? Now they’re not letting battleships come in there from the United States and dock, see? And the South China Sea and some of those things taking place and down through the Philippians, India and Pakistan? These things are flared up bad right now. It only takes one stupid mistake, one dumb mistake and it starts them all almost instantaneously. I’ll tell you what, when it happens it’s going to just rumble so quickly and that picture is becoming clearer and clearer.

I hope we’re watching those things in the world and that we’re seeing what’s taking place, whether it be in the economy, you know, they’re trying to play it down, but the reality is we have a global economy right now and you can’t play these games and think you’re not going to be affected by it, because you are. Because you can’t be in a little corner, in a little niche by yourself and somehow survive it all, because it’s a world economy. If you have a lot of different nations of the world who are suffering because they couldn’t take what they should have been doing all along, a greed and taking advantage of a greed, but now to enforce that at this stage of the game and for their economies to slump like they are, to hurt like they are because of all that, because of the trade wars and things that are going on? They’re hurting bad. We’re not. But you can’t sustain that and get by with it. It’s going to bite us in the you know what. It’s going to happen, it’s just a matter of time.

And candidly, some nations are going to do what they’re going to do because of that. That’s where it starts. They just get madder and madder, more upset and more upset until they get to a point in time where they have had enough.

I was amazed in the turn that’s happened in Europe in one year, the turn in attitude and spirit of leaders in one year where they would vocalize, if you will, what’s deep down inside of them. They’re fed up and just a little bit here and a little bit there, a little more fed up until finally at some point somebody is going to say, “That’s enough!” Incredible where we live, the time we live in.

So again, he was a “type,” Mr. Armstrong, of the “Elijah to come.” I guess I didn’t read the part underneath it. Very few in the Church that was scattered teach this today. Mr. Armstrong described himself as a voice crying out in the wilderness and stated in Mystery of the Ages that he had fulfilled the prophecies of the Elijah to Come. ...to that point in time for what saw as a Church, the present truth, he had. It’s just that there was more to come. That wasn’t given to the Church yet to see. So what he saw, absolutely true at that moment in time. Then as time went on God gave more.

40 (19) Matthew 24:14 was completely fulfilled through Herbert W. Armstrong alone. Many of the organizations in the Church that was scattered have rejected this truth, as many of them believe they themselves are to continue preaching the gospel into all the world. They do not acknowledge that Herbert Armstrong fulfilled this prophecy that is about the Church.

So again, Matthew 24:14. I still marvel. Every time I think of that scripture I marvel because I think, awesome, he stopped there, he never went beyond that. He knew his job. He knew his commission. He talked about it often and he knew this was it and he didn’t bother going on and reading the rest of the story, of things that were to happen in the world and things that were to happen at the end-time. He stopped here because he had a job to do and he knew it. Awesome, things that we’ve lived through, things that we’ve witnessed, things that we have seen.

So again, that’s why I get so riled up sometimes when I think about different ministers and what they said after the Apostasy, that the best they can do is acknowledge, “Yeah, I learned a lot from him, he was a good teacher.” There are plenty of them out there that wouldn’t even do that! But for those who would, if they were pinned to the wall and had to give an answer, “Oh yeah, he’s a good teacher. I learned a lot from him.” Every time I’ve heard that since the Apostasy I, candidly, I do a burn inside. I do a deep, deep burn and almost to the point of wanting to hold back not smacking them in the jaw, shutting their mouths. I mean, that’s the emotion, the feeling that comes out. It’s like, “You idiot! You fool! How you could betray everything you’ve ever been given by God, to not acknowledge that everything you have, everything you know that has any inkling of truth in it came through that man because of what God did in him and through him! And to deny all that and the best you can say is, ‘Yeah, I learned a lot from him. He was a good teacher.’” I know how God feels about that toward them, those ministers who betrayed God, those ministers who betrayed the truth, those ministers who betrayed their teacher. Because that’s what they did. That’s why their judgment is not a small judgment, truly.

41 (20) Antichrist is not about the Pope or any single individual “in the world”... There are organizations out there, different ones who talk about an end-time, who talk about antichrist, and there are all kinds of people from a president to a religious leader to different ones out there, “They’re antichrist. They’re going to fulfill the scripture for the end-time,” you know, and then the Pope gets a lot of credit. They don’t understand what they’re talking about and some of this has crept into God’s Church in times past. It’s crept into some of the scattered Churches that are out there, different ideas they have, different beliefs that people have. I marvel at that one there because it’s like, be careful because they can deceive you.

I think, in God’s Church, take an individual who’s teaching what started in 325 A.D., and the Church so grounded in the reality that no, the thing they gave called Easter to replace Passover, which they did at that time, they outlawed the keeping and observing of Passover from that time forward and instituted the observance of Easter, they also made a determination concerning various other things, the Sabbath and so forth, especially that trickled down more so, far more violently after that, that now you would keep Sunday and not the Sabbath, not the seventh-day Sabbath. They came up with the trinity, which was part of the reason they were called together in the first place, one of the primary reasons, candidly, that came up this past week as a reminder.

Just I thought about that, think, you know, that’s right, they came together because they had certain beliefs out there from one individual especially that believed that Christ didn’t eternally exist and that he had a beginning in human life. There are some other things purported to be said that he said that weren’t right, so I don’t really know what he taught  because a lot has been lost through history and time. But if you go and read up on the story that’s why a great leader of Rome at that time (Constantine) called together a large group to settle religious matters. The only thing is it was already settled before they ever got there because they had to do what they had to do and it was to debunk that and get something else organized. So they organized the trinity, three beings in the godhead and Christ was supposed to be one of them. Amazing. So, anyway, all these things.

So how is that really going to deceive anybody in God’s Church? So it never made a lot of sense, in that respect, anybody that would say some of those things about who the antichrist was. But that’s why this is written, to make it clear so that the scattered body, especially when it was given at that particular time, to realize, and anybody that might be drawn into the Church, PKG, would grasp and understand, yeah, I know what it means now. What a blessing to be able to see it for what it is, to understand what antichrist is all about, to understand that there aren’t individuals outside of God’s Church who can deceive God’s people. But somebody inside could, and that’s what led to the Apostasy.

Antichrist is not about the Pope or any single individual “in the world,” but it is only about any in the Church who work against Christ and God's purpose in their lives. We came to understand that more deeply as time went along after the Apostasy.

Going on: As the true context of 1 John 2 reveals, there have been “many” antichrists through the ages of the Church. It also makes it evident that such people have been part of the true Church of God, but have left the truth and have worked against Joshua the Christ’s purpose of “living in” those in the Church, through the power of the holy spirit, in order to complete God’s work in them. Antichrist simply means “against Christ.” Who can fulfill that except someone who had the truth in the beginning, who had Christ in their life at some point in time? We’ve had plenty through time, John addressed that in scripture. There have been plenty that have come into God’s Church, into fellowship with God’s people who have turned against the truth of God and have worked against the very purpose of why Christ died for them in the first place, and thereby becoming antichrist when they began to deny God’s spirit, began to disobey God, would not repent of their sins. What happens? You get cut off from God’s spirit and you begin to deny Christ living in your life. That’s what sin does. If you begin to deny Christ you begin to work against him.

So again, how incredibly blessed are you to know these things? Because the scattered Church doesn’t know this. They don’t understand what John is talking about, about antichrists and what it means to become that within the Church.

I guess I wrote more on the next page. Let me read this: The “world” has never been called to the truth and has not been given the opportunity of God’s spirit dwelling “in” them. If someone “works against” this purpose then they become antichrist. Not allowing God and Christ to dwell in us, due to the refusal to repent of sin, is to deny why Christ died for us as our Passover, so that the Father and the Son can dwell in us.

It’s a beautiful thing to understand and none of the scattered body understands this, none of them. Nobody has been given what you’ve been given. That’s why sometimes you need to see and understand all the truths that God has given to you. They are your strength. They are your power. They are, in many respects the courage, the encouragement you can have in your life. The courage, “Be strong and of good courage.” How? By this mind being in us, because God has given this to us to see, to lift us up, to strengthen us, to help us to grasp more clearly where we are in this picture and what is to be filled in. Truly, a powerful thing to grasp and comprehend.

42 (21)...This is a mind boggler right here. Incredible. God the Father is Yahweh Elohim and He alone has eternally existed. This one here is a marvel to me because it hadn’t been given, understanding of it hadn’t been given, and the Church has believed, the vast majority of the ministry out here, if not all, have believed that Yahweh Elohim was Christ. It’s like, well, if he was, then who was the Father? The longer we have gone down this road and seen this truth magnified throughout every scripture you read in the Bible and it just jumps out at you, the clearer it’s become, the more magnified it’s become, if you will.

But I know in the beginning, back in 2005, it was a bit of a struggle. It took us time to get there, to understand what God was giving us. That’s why every sermon at the Feast included these things, every sermon right up until the end about Melchizedek. I still marvel how God gave that because I still didn’t know what I was going to say about Melchizedek, but I knew God was going to give what I needed and He did, during the Feast, and finally it all came together. Because after going through that many sermons God helped it to come together. “Ah, it’s clearer now.” When He fills your mind with what is true, and the more you fill your mind with what is true then God can take you on to the next part of the building process. But until you’re there you can’t go up here and you can’t keep building.

So there are certain things you have to have built before you can go on. Then after a time it becomes so clear and it’s almost like we’ve always believed this. No, we haven’t. That’s why we’re going through this again, to help bring things up to date because of the present truth, because of things we’ve been given over the last five to ten years, depending on when some of these things have been written, to bring everything up to date. But again, to understand and have it deeply embedded in our minds what we have that no one else has. It is your strength.

It blows my mind that anyone could possibly get to a point where they’re discouraged or doubtful of who they might be. No one can afford that, not a one of us, yet these things continue to happen within God’s Church. You can’t let them.

God the Father is Yahweh Elohim and He alone has eternally existed. The teaching that Christ has always existed is not from scripture, but became established in the Nicene Creed that emerged out of the work of the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. This creed established the creation of the Trinity doctrine. It is from this time that the true origins of the Catholic Church began. It wasn’t until hundreds of years later before protestant churches emerged and also adopted this teaching of the Trinity of the Church of Rome. The truth is that what has earlier been translated into scripture as the “Holy Ghost”’ who is supposed to be one of the beings of the Godhead is misunderstood and is not a being at all.

That’s why it was translated the way it was. “Ghost,” that’s like this thing that you can’t see and it’s holy and it’s a separate being. When it talks about God’s holy spirit they translated it this way to seem like another being. They went for the trinity. Well, we know where it came from. There is a being behind it all as there always has been, even as there was behind the Apostasy. It makes it really clear who was behind the Apostasy, the original son of perdition, an angelic being, one of the sons of God. Because they’re referred to as the sons of God, just in a different creation than the God family, they’re angelic.

The correct translation should be “holy spirit,” which is simply the spirit that comes from the One Eternal God—Yahweh Elohim. There are not three beings in the Godhead as this doctrine of the Trinity teaches. See, so you’re the only ones that believe this in the Church that was scattered, because they still believe that Joshua has eternally existed. So how blessed are you that God has corrected that in your life, in the life within those who are in the Church of God at the end-time.

Instead, there is only one Almighty God who has eternal existence. Joshua the Christ was conceived in Mary, his earthly mother, but begotten by God—Yahweh Elohim—who therefore became the Father of Christ. Joshua the Christ had no existence until born of Mary. There is a vast amount of proof to these truths in scripture and a vast number of them were covered extensively in Feast of Tabernacles sermons given in 2005. Also, there are some verses that God gave to be recorded in Isaiah that mean exactly what they say, and even one where God makes it abundantly clear who the very Creator is of all things that exist.

This is a marvel, too, when you go back. That’s why Acts, it should be so clear to God’s Church, but it isn’t until God gives it, until people are able to see it. God has to give it. When people are asleep they can’t see something that’s there because the spirit isn’t working there. You look at those thing that are written there in Acts on the day of Pentecost and they’re powerful because it’s there that it’s made extremely clear who the God of the Old Testament was and who it’s referring to. That’s why Peter was so adamant in telling the Jews: “This story is not about David.” Because that’s how it was taken to that time, that this story that he was quoting of those things that are written in the Psalms by king David, a prophet of God, as he’s described, is not about David. Because that’s how the Jewish people took it and the Church did, too, because we didn’t know until it was God’s time to reveal it.

When you go back and look at the things that are quoted there back in the Psalms it become extremely clear. When you entertain the thought this is not about David, okay? You go back and you look at it and all of a sudden it pops out at you because it’s Yahweh Elohim talking to someone else, not David. Not David at all, but to His Son, to the Messiah. Awesome, what He had to say.

That truly is one of the greatest proofs right then and there written in scripture that we have to know without a doubt, beside this here: Isaiah 45:5 where it says, I am the Eternal, Yahweh, and there is no other; There is no God, no Elohim besides Me. No one else. Elohim is a uniplural name, but “there is no one else in Elohim except Me.” That’s what God says. Awesome! You know, you think, well, where is the holy ghost?

I will gird you, though you have not known Me, That they may know from the rising of the sun to the setting that there is none besides Me. I am Yahweh, the Eternal, and there is no other. Awesome! But we as human beings sometimes we just can’t accept what is clearly written. Just like the world can’t accept that no one has gone to heaven, as it talks about even in Acts again, “except he who came down,” speaking of the Son of God, came from God, born, has gone to heaven. He’s the only one. Incredible. But people can’t take that.

I think of a subject they never talk about, the second death in Revelation. Can’t talk about that one. What on earth is a second death? They don’t even address it because they can’t.

Verse 18—For thus says the Eternal, Yahweh, who created the heavens... See, there is no mystery. Makes it clear who created everything. The many places it talks about in scripture, “God did it.” “Yahweh Elohim did it.” “Yahweh did it.” Can’t get away from who it was that did it.

For thus says the Eternal, who created the heavens, who is Elohim, who is God, who formed the earth and made it, who established it, who did not create it in vain. He created it to be inhabited. He created it beautifully, in a beautiful way, but we know what happened. It became uninhabited and had to put life on it once again when He finally decided it’s time now to put man on the earth. All a part of God’s plan, all a part of allowing what happened in the angelic realm and so forth, things that took place, because they had a big hand obviously in much of this that happened. ...who formed the earth and made it, who has established it, who did not create it in vain, who formed it to be inhabited: I am the Eternal, Yahweh, and there is no other. Beautiful. Something that’s so clear to us, to just be thankful for because there are thousands and thousands and thousands who have gone before us who have lived in the Church of God with God’s spirit, with God the Father and Christ living and dwelling within them a lot longer than most of you have that are listening today. A lot longer. Are they less? No. It’s part of God’s purpose of what He’s allowed because of the Apostasy.

That’s why I look forward to the day that all of a sudden they can see these things, they can look at this and say, “Wow! Christ had a beginning.” And you know what? That means so much more then to the meaning of Passover and what he fulfilled. Because it wasn’t like he was this God being who gave up his godhead and then went into Mary somehow. But where is the Father if he did all this himself? Where is our thinking? But we can’t see what we can’t see until God gives it and makes it clear, “That’s nonsense, absolute nonsense.”

What truly happened is God the Father gave of Himself, gave of His mind, gave of His being, His Word, and made it flesh! Beautiful! “And the Word of God became flesh,” the mind of God, the being of God, because that’s who God is! It’s who you are; it’s what’s in your mind that makes you who you are. It’s not your body. That’s not going to last that long, really, in the scheme of things. It’s not meant to. It comes and goes. When you knock on the door several times you realize, yeah, that’s the way it is. That’s the way it is; so be it. So be it. From here to there we have to go through this first. Beautiful. It’s a part of God’s plan. Really, it’s so awesome, because there is no other way. The more we see that the more awesome God becomes in your mind, truly.

Well, we’ll continue on: 43 (22) The remnant... Not “God is awakening.” So I’m just going to tell you some of the things, a few changes. Some of the things have been rewritten in large amount here and I haven’t even bothered to tell you because it’s like you get lost in the shuffle there. It’s just to go back through and read them later on and have them more deeply embedded in your mind with the present truth, with what we have. Even just the name Joshua the Christ is awesome in itself.

The remnant God will have awakened before Christ’s coming will consist of 10% of a third of those who had been in the Worldwide Church of God before the apostasy began. This has been important to God’s Church. We have lived through various segments of time. We’ve had different things happen to us, and this became important to us because of something we began to see in scripture, things that happened to the thirds in Ezekiel 5 and this remnant that God was going to call out of it and what He promised He was going to give. Then we learned from that lesson later on just because God gives opportunity to people, just like He has at this period of time in the world. You give man more time, more technology, what happens? They draw farther and farther away from God. They turn more and more inward. The more technology we experience, the more of this human life we experience the worse it’s becoming. Time to end it all.

The remnant God will have awakened before Christ’s coming will consist of 10% of a third of those who had been in the Worldwide Church of God before the Apostasy began. Absolute! Just as much as a third’s is what we came to see. But we had to learn from this as well. God’s word is absolute.

So the rest of this now has been condensed to focus more upon what’s been happening in the Church as it’s primarily always been about a spiritual remnant. That’s what this truth has always been about, a spiritual remnant that God would call, give opportunity to.

So I’ll read it as it is: These are those who are awakened and given opportunity to be part of God’s end-time remnant Church—a remnant who have come out of the Apostasy. Yet as covered in Truth #34, not all have accepted and received God’s awakening from captivity. Instead, some chose from the outset to refuse what God offered them. It’s the way human beings are. You think, what an incredible thing, to have your mind open and begin to see. Because there were different parts there in different conversations you could have with different ones and it’s like, to see an apostasy, to see the man of sin, to see the son of perdition, it all fits. We’ve been scattered and then because of whatever it might be, whether it be politics, whether it because of position because of friendships within the Church, because of family within the Church make choices and decisions that began to reject what their mind had been awakened to and go back to what it was like before the Apostasy even, to go back to a deeper sleep.

So you can shake somebody, you can start to wake, get them out of sleep, but it’s their choice whether they get up and go with a new day or whether they’re just too tired to get out there, accept what’s there. Sad, human beings, what we’re like; pathetic, really.

Others received the awakening for a time and fellowshipped with God’s remnant Church, but later they rejected God’s truth and His awakening to it. Quite a few who have been ministers in God’s Church. Given that opportunity to learn something that they might not otherwise learn, to have something molded and fashioned in them that wouldn’t be able to be normally molded and fashioned in them because of what God had called them to.

Because God has called us all to fit some place within the temple, and that’s why it’s so important to understand we’re not all called to the same training, to the same molding and fashioning, because we’re not all fitting into the same place. It’s essential that we all go through the various things that we must go through in life to be molded and fashioned into specific places in the temple. That’s a beautiful thing then when you understand that.

Then to understand what people do sometimes with that, how they’ve responded to those things, well, choices, choices, choices. It’s always been that way, hasn’t it? Blows my mind many have been called and few chosen. 2,000 years! That means hundreds of thousands of people have been called and rejected God’s truth. At some point along the way, maybe toward the very beginning, before they even came into fellowship.

I’ve known people like that who were able to see it, their minds opened up to it, and they rejected it because of a mate, because of finances, because of tithing, because of a job, because of community, because of whatever. Those things have always been there. Others who have come along and endured for a little while and then gone by the wayside. Some have come in and been there for decades and then some fire, some trial comes along and it’s too much, the battle becomes too great, whatever it is, and quit, leave, or some sin comes along. A person begin to let down in some area of their life.

Sadly, a vast majority of those have always been about sex – sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex. A vast majority of the people who have ever left God’s Church have been pulled out over that one because it’s one of the greatest pulls of the human mind, to learn to bring into subjection to God’s law, God’s way of life. But it must be brought into subjection in thinking, in thought, and how people think about one another. But people have gone off in different directions that way. Sometimes within the Church, sometimes outside, drawn outside, whatever it might be, it doesn’t matter. Incredible, what the human mind has done through time.

That’s why you’ve got to fight for this way of life from beginning to end over everything in your life. As Paul said, to bring all things into subjection, to work at that. That’s why you have to know your number one, two, and three, and then a whole smear of others underneath it that fall into it because there are different things that are going to come up at different times. But there are certain ones that you have to be on guard in whatever it is in your life, in your mind more than any other.

As I’ve said many of times my number one is powerful because I realize that number two, number three, number four, whatever they might be under there, I’ve broken number one, because it always goes back to God. You can’t have spiritual idolatry in your life. You can’t put anything else before God. That should make us feel worse than anything else in life, to put anything before God in this human life. And if we do, what a horrifying thing, because that should be the first thing we repent of when we sin, because we put something before God. That’s the greatest sin there is, to place something else before the Great God of the universe and before His Son and the very reason he suffered for us. He suffered for us so he and His Father could dwell in us, and every sin we have in our life it just strangles that power, that ability that God wants to do, that God has in His desire, to dwell in us, to be quenched, and sometimes to leave, sometimes in a certain judgment to leave for good when the disfellowshipment is complete.

I’m going to back up a little bit and I’ll catch back up: These are those who are awakened and given opportunity to be part of God’s end-time remnant Church—a remnant who have come out of the Apostasy. Yet as covered in Truth #34, not all have accepted and received God’s awakening from captivity. Instead, some chose from the outset to refuse what God offered them. Others received the awakening for a time and fellowshipped with God’s remnant Church, but later they rejected God’s truth and His awakening to it.

This truth concerns God’s faithfulness to fulfill His promise to awaken 10% of a third of those who had been in Worldwide. The true witness is that God is faithful to His word as recorded in Ezekiel 5, but so often physical human beings do not remain faithful to God.

After all the time since God first revealed this truth, the Church has now nearly concluded experiencing the complete fulfillment of it, of this. Before Christ will have returned, a full 10% will have been awakened from the Apostasy and given opportunity to be part of God’s remnant Church.

This truth was given as God gave understanding that Ezekiel 5 was about the affects of the Apostasy upon His Church and the remnant God would awaken out of that Apostasy. As a result, it needs to be clarified that although these verses appear to have a dual purpose that applies to the scattered physical nations of Israel as well as God’s Church, that has not yet been fully revealed by God.

Okay? Because I had felt that it had, but God has made it clear that isn’t so yet. May well be, may well be very right about that. The important thing to understand? This is about the spiritual Israel of God, God’s Church first and foremost. God will fill in the rest later on. We don’t have to know everything down to the minute detail of that which is ahead of us. To have the framework of it, the picture of that with all the sides in, we have it pat.

We know where we are in time. We see what’s happening in Europe. We see what’s happening in China and Russia, India and Pakistan, the Middle East. It is so heated up it’s not even funny. The Strait of Hormuz, all those things that could just in one day all of a sudden have the Middle East on fire. It’s just like that right now. All this taking of tankers and all this jockeying back and forth for position, all this blowing up and sending off of missiles and the stupid things that human beings do, one day, one day that you will see, wow, it’ll take off and it’ll start happening. One after another, one after another, because when it’s time it’s time.

The nations of the world, the leaders of the world, they’ll go for a reset. That’s what they’re going to do. “This is our chance!” Chance to get back the rest of the USSR. Not just Russia, but the USSR. Whether they want to call it that, but that’s the mindset.

Turkey? To get back the Ottoman Empire, what they believe is theirs and a little bit more that they believe is theirs. That’s his mind. That is his mind! He wants Greece. They’ve always been enemies. He wants it. He wants more of the Middle East. He wants to root out part of the problem in northern Iraq and on over toward the northern parts of Syria. He wants that. That’s why he wants to destroy all those people, the Kurds, the Kurdish people. There is a motive, a design behind all these actions and the mindset that’s there. So when other nations get bogged down in war it’s their chance to take the piece of the pie that’s in their minds already that they want and they’ve already threatened to take, and now it’s their chance to get it. Now, whatever, all the way around the world it’s going to be that way. Amazing the time we live in.

I think I have this one last paragraph I didn’t read. I want to read it, then we’ll stop there. There are areas of duality in scripture that apply to the scattered physical nations of Israel and to the spiritual Israel of God, which is the Church of God. Those in Ezekiel 5 are focused fully upon God’s remnant Church in the end-time. That’s really the primary focus. It’s about a remnant. It’s so incredible to understand what we’re blessed to be a part of because there is not much here. It’s a leftover of all the scattering, and to understand what God said He was going to give opportunity to and what really chose to stay on and keep fighting?

And to mention that by this Feast, who knows? Who knows when something is going to erupt? Before? Right after? Right during? You don’t know! You don’t know what’s going to be happening in your life when these things erupt. That’s how volatile things are in the world. So whether it be this year or another period of time, it’s going to come and it’s not far away.

There are areas of duality in scripture that apply to the scattered physical nations of Israel and to the spiritual Israel of God, which is the Church of God. Those in Ezekiel 5 are focused fully upon God’s remnant Church in the end-time. In times past, we have believed that Ezekiel 5 also contains duality that concerns the physical nations of Israel. Since this truth has always been about God’s remnant Church, it must be stated that we have yet to be revealed to us if these actually have a definite duality that applies to physical Israel or not.

So that’s what we have to look at, what we know, what we see, what we see that’s been given already to this point in time. Whether it has specific duality, not going to say right now, because I am working to clean things up on my part as well, on what I have said in the times past and the present truth we had at any moment in time. But since that time, we’ve had some changes take place, and most of them because of dates and times we were focused upon and because of that it seemed like at the time that other things fit into it. What “seemed” I’m trying to get out of the “seem,” and that’s why I’m going through this and rewriting these things to be absolutely clear what God has blessed us to have that is absolute. Some are not there. Some we have to wait and see and I’ll mention that as we go along.

Let me read the next one since we have some time here. 44 (23) Just simply stated: The captivity of the United States and the British Commonwealth will occur during the 5th Trumpet of the Seventh Seal, and not during the 5th Seal as previously taught in the Worldwide Church of God. You think, well, why is that so important? Well, again, because of everything we began to see a long time ago about the Seals of Revelation and about the first four that went along with Matthew 24, that yes, indeed, as Mr. Armstrong said, they fit together. At that time not knowing it wasn’t about the physical world but it’s about the Church. Because everything in Matthew 24, again, just like Ezekiel 5, the primary focus is about God’s Church.

The first four Seals, the Apostasy that took place, and those four beings riding on the horses, so symbolic of everything that happened to us. The first three, exactly what we went through. Famine? We tend to think in physical terms as human beings, and so we see “famine” and we think, “Oh, no food to eat. Things are going to happen with crops.” No, it talks about in the end-time about a famine of the word, about a famine of God’s truth. And man, have we ever gone through that in God’s Church since the Apostasy, and even before it famine had already started full blast.

So again, awesome things that God gives to us to see and understand and to be blessed to have things that others don’t have. Because you’re the only ones that believe this, the first four Seals go along with Matthew 24 about the Church.

So the other one takes a little bit of time to get through and to explain in depth so #45 is going to have to wait until next week.

1. Chapter 1