Judging Others, Pt. 2

Ronald Weinland

September 14, 2019

This will be the continuation of the series entitled Judging Others, and this is Part 2.

So we’re just going to back up just a teeny bit, not very much, just to hit one of the primary points that the last sermon worked up to and where we left it, because it’s on that we need to understand what is being stated, why it’s being stated that way, and how we need to strive to think when we are involved in judging.

We judge all the time. We judge every day of our lives, we judge matters. We have to. There are times when we have to be involved in a right judgment, how we think about others in the world, how we work with them, how we treat them, and always remembering in that that we have to keep in mind what Stephen said, what Christ said in essence was, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.” Basically, that should be our attitude, that we can’t expect people in the world to grasp and understand the things we do. We can’t expect them to have a nature that is better than what it is.

Because we’re called, we’re called to change, we’re called with the ability to begin to see how our minds work, how we think, and we’re to change. The only thing we can change, really, is self. But so often when it comes to judgment, the subject of trying to control things enters in. We can become very deceived in that and deceitful in that not even understanding our own minds sometimes what we’re doing, because a basic part of our nature is to want a level of control in our lives and control of others as well, especially when it comes to what we think they should be doing, how they should be doing it, and so forth.

In some ways we can become pretty bad in doing that because the reality is all we can work on is self, to really influence and change. We can maybe try to help out in certain other areas where we can but too often we go way beyond what we should and that’s where the battle is, that’s where we have to really stop and think about ourselves and what we’re doing and why we’re doing it because from the time we’re very young this is just the way we are, and people can become very controlling in very deceitful ways and not even understand it.

Our human mind is very cunning when it comes to wanting things to go our way, and what is that? Selfishness. Because we think that if things are going our way everything is going to be better, the life around us is going to be better, how we interact in life is going to be better, we’re going to have more peace...if everything goes our way. Doesn’t work that way. Life isn’t like that. It can’t be that way. People have to make choices and those choices vary a great deal and there is a great deal of freedom in choices that people make.

When I think of that I think of different ones in the Church at times past, going way back to when we were very large and people would go to the Feast of Tabernacles and they would talk about different ways of travelling there from a certain area. They would get in some discussions, especially if they were going to travel together or travel in a caravan, which sometimes happened because it was very large and large church areas. I think of some of the conversations that sometimes would take place and had to chuckle a little bit at it, because there are many ways to travel. It’s a good example. There are many ways to travel when you’re going, as we were sometimes, out of Texas over into Arizona here, farther south in Tucson for a Feast, the observance of the Feast there. I think it was 600 and some miles altogether, if I remember rightly. I may not be exactly right on that, but it was quite a distance. There are many different routes you can take, there are many different things you can see along the way if you have the time to do that, if you’re not just rushing to get to a spot and then rushing back right away.

People would get in those kinds of discussions and I always liked that because it illustrates the point of all this, that there are many ways of doing things and it doesn’t mean that one is right or better. But sometimes people would, in conversations where they felt their way was right and they wanted their way. They wanted the others to do what they wanted to do and how they wanted to do it. Maybe even sometimes of what time you leave, where you might stop, how often you might stop or not stop, and on and on it goes. All those things are choices and decisions. There is not a right or wrong in any of them but sometimes people get upset in those situations and circumstances.

So it is with life. We can get upset if people don’t do things the way we want them to or think they should be doing it. Therein in the problem. There is a great deal of freedom and choices that people make. So I try to illustrate this, or not try to illustrate it, but try to make it a strong point to understand something we should live by is we need to think about, is it sin? Because that’s the only time, in many ways, that we should become involved, if we become involved at all. Then we have to weigh that. Is something a matter of sin? Then we may, obviously, have a responsibility in that, and that is another matter you have to judge, when you have a responsibility in it and when you don’t. What is that responsibility? That’s what this is all about. Too often we don’t think that way though, we just want our way.

So going to repeat some of this. When it comes to judgment and how we judge others it’s so very important to remember God’s purpose toward others, whether it be in the world or within the Church. Those are separate items, aren’t they, how we think toward others, how we treat others, how we respond to others in the world and those within the Church?

Because within the Church we can also get to a point where we have greater expectations of one another because, “You’re in the Church!” People’s standard of judging can be much different, it can be much harsher, much stronger sometimes when it shouldn’t be. Again, we have to be very careful because, again then, we can have greater expectations of them than what we do in the world and thinking that certain things need to be, should be a specific way, where sometimes it’s just good to back away and give time, especially in things that take time, sometimes, for people to come to see, for people to understand – that aren’t a matter of sin, just a matter of choices along the way of greater wisdom, greater soundness, greater balance in various matters. Often, it’s just a matter of giving that freedom to others and not inserting ourselves. That can be very difficult and very challenging sometimes.

So again, when it comes to judgment and how we judge others it’s so important to remember God’s purpose toward others. If we “get” what that means, obviously (as I said the last time), we need to be able to “get” what’s being said. There is a great deal of difference between the world and how we respond to them and how we respond to one another in the Church. The challenge more often really is within the Church toward one another and how we see one another, how we think one another, how we treat one another, how we think about and how we treat one another. So we need to understand our responsibility toward others of being tempted to judge others especially from our own perspective, the way “I” see it. Because so often that really doesn’t matter. Sometimes it does. You have to judge that. You have to weigh that out and do it God’s way.

John 3:14 we read, And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believes in him (believes him) should not perish but have everlasting life. So we understand that’s a long process in life, that if we hold to this way of life once God has opened our minds, He gives us the ability to believe—we don’t learn it on our own – God has to open up the mind, gives us the ability to see the truth, and then it’s our choice as to whether or not we believe it once we can see something or whether we choose to believe something different, something that isn’t right. Those are choices that God gives to us.

When we first are called that process begins, people have to make choices about how they’re going to interact with their family, what they’re going to tell their family, others whose minds aren’t being opened and not being called, and so forth. Sometimes people can’t make those decisions and choices. They’re able to see and they know it’s the truth. They know what they’ve been given to see about the Sabbath and the holy days. They know it’s true! It’s their choice to believe it, which means, in essence, to take it farther, to hold to that ability to see it and to start living by it. That’s where the choice comes in. “What am I going to do?”

I have known large (not a few), large numbers of people since I’ve been in the Church, especially within the ministry, whose minds have been opened who weren’t able to take that extra step. They saw it. They knew it. They believed it. Then they had to decide, were they going to continue in that belief and what they had the ability to see? What about their job? What about not working seven days a week? All these things that affect finances and a customary way of living your life and realizing you’re going to have to start budgeting in a manner that cuts way, way, way back, and how do you do that and what do you do? And those are sacrifices. They’re sweet smelling sacrifices to God when we obey. But that’s where we have to decide what we’re going to do. So on and on it goes.

So God gives us the ability to believe what is true, our minds are opened up, and this is the process it’s talking about. We begin to live by that. That’s what faith is. When you start living by what you’ve been given the ability to believe, that’s living by faith.

Again, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him, in other words, believes God’s promise in him, what it’s all about. That’s what this is about. That’s what this is saying. It also takes in the message that is there, what is taught and so forth, because without that it has no meaning whatsoever, but believes in what God’s purpose is in his life, the Passover. The world doesn’t believe that. They believe in Easter as a whole in Christianity.

So we’re blessed to believe and see the importance of Passover, of the role of the Passover Lamb, of what it meant he spilled his blood to the earth. On and on it goes. That’s just the beginning, the ability to have our sins forgiven then through him, and then to understand what he said in John 14, that because of that God’s purpose and His desire has been to live and dwell in us, to give us of His holy spirit to help us come into greater unity with His mind and His way of thinking.

This subject here is about God’s way of thinking and our coming into unity and oneness with that. That’s a challenge. That can be a greater challenge than things about tithing and things about the Sabbath, and things about the holy days, because this really gets in deep into the way we think, how we function in our relationships with others. God’s law is all about that. The first four are toward God. We grow in that through time. The other six, about a relationship with others. God’s concerned about relationships. It’s about family and how family is to thrive and how family can prosper, but it’s by God’s way not our way. So there is the battle.

It goes on to say then, the next verse. So important what it says here. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn... Now, that’s not the right translation but judgment can have to do with condemnation. It’s a word that just means to judge. God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world... That wasn’t the focus. That wasn’t the purpose. That wasn’t why he came. He came to die, Christ did, to spill his blood to the earth so we could have the ability to change by God’s spirit dwelling in us after we’re called, and by that change that can take place in the mind to bring this mind into a unity and a oneness with God through a transformation of thinking. It’s done through a lifelong process of repentance, which is that beautiful word that I mentioned. In the Greek it means “to think differently.”

What an awesome thing that we don’t have to continue the way we are. Because all the drama of life that human beings have is because they think a certain way and it isn’t God’s way. Then He blesses us to begin to think differently, so whenever we see that we’re not thinking right, that our minds aren’t working right in how we respond to things around us, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” so that “I” can be happy (that’s how we think), and when we’re able to see that and fight against that then change can take place.

We can pray about that, and we see that struggle and we cry out to God, “I don’t want to be that way! I don’t want to think that way! I don’t want to be selfish!” But we are. Every one of us listening today is selfish. You can’t help it! That’s the way we are as human beings. Our nature of and by itself tends to self. We pamper the self. We want the self to be happy. We want the self...whatever. Then when it’s not feeling good and feeling right about something just like a baby we “Waaaa! Things aren’t going right. For whatever reason I’m just not happy right now and I want others around me to know!” We react to things. We change, we don’t cry like that after a while, but we’re still the same mind. It comes from the same source.

That has to change. God blesses us with that opportunity once we’re called and it’s a process of transforming... I love that word “metamorphoo,” in the Greek language, like “metamorphosis.” What happens, the stages of what happens to something that doesn’t look so nice, basically looks like a big fat worm, sometimes a spine sticking out of it, and then it goes and becomes this funny looking thing stuck to a twig somewhere and then what comes out of that? Butterfly! Beautiful, awesome thing of creation that is unique and the change that takes place.

So in the Greek language it’s the same word showing this incredible change that can take place in the mind from something that doesn’t look so good, because they don’t look so nice. They’re on plants. They’re eating away, chewing off the leaves of something you’ve planted, that you want to live and thrive and look nice and you go back out and these things are all over and leaves are gone and it’s like they’re a pest. I don’t like the looks of them! They’re a small, little, wiggly, little things. But what they become? What an incredible thing! Beautiful! Beautiful in color. Majestic fluttering through the air.

I love the stories about Monarch butterflies that go down from all the way from Canada, all the way down to a little area in Mexico. There are different varieties of Monarch but this particular type here, incredible story. They live through four generations (I believe I have that right) of life. Only one makes the complete trip back. They have different generations that die along the way and they just keep going until they get there. One makes it all the way back, if I have that story right... I think I have it right.

Look it up on YouTube, listen to it, and watch it. It’s inspiring. Anybody who believes in evolution and some of those kinds of things, how dumb can you be? Just look at something like that! That it’s in them. It’s in their being. It’s just something programmed into them as much as a computer program you have it do certain specific things and it does it. And they do it. They don’t think about it. They’ve taken some and taken to different parts of the United States, from areas that they’ve been travelling through, like through Kansas. They pick some out, they have these little tag things they can put on their wings that they can still fly and don’t weigh them down, and they take them and move them to different places like New York. And you know what happens? Takes them a little longer, flap those little wings and they come right back to being on course again and go right down toward Mexico again. Awesome stories!

What happens in your mind is far more awesome when you yield yourself to the process that God has blessed you to have, and something beautiful comes out of it that we don’t even see yet. Not even of the same form! We’re going to have different bodies, spirit, spirit life and live everlasting life, age-lasting life once it’s given to us. Awesome!

Anyway, beautiful words that God uses sometimes and gives mankind to use and gives us to understand. So “metamorphoo,” that process of change, that transformation of the mind. How blessed are we that we don’t have to be like this through all time? It wouldn’t work. God couldn’t allow it. He couldn’t allow beings in the God Family to have minds that would choose to go against Him, to go some other way, to go their own way. Look at what mankind has done over 6,000 years. Look what happened to the angelic realm in time.

So to understand this, For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world through him might be saved. That’s how we need to think about others. We need to think that way toward people in the world even, that as irritating sometimes as things can be, and sometimes as I’ve talked about, when you can be walking, and it happens all the time and I have to watch my response, my thinking, because I think, “When will this ever change?” I know when it’ll change; I’m just saying that’s what comes into the mind. That you have four or five people coming toward you side by side. They own the hallway in the mall! You’re expected somehow to get out of their way. You can’t go on a long walk through a mall and that not happen. There are people who are going to come smack toward you walking side by side. You think, “Do you see me? Can you not just...just a little bit?” So somebody has to give. So you’re constantly having to give when you go out to go shopping in the mall.

Then you get on the highways... Anyway. So we have to watch ourselves, don’t we? We have to be on guard against this, and how we respond to things and understand their time isn’t yet to start changing this. I look forward to the day that those things can happen. I look forward to a new age when people can learn some of the most basic things in life, of how to treat others. It goes back to this thing about what this verse says – God’s desire is to save man, mankind. But in that process we understand they can’t do this yet, they can’t make these changes yet. They can’t help who they are, what they are, how they respond to various things.

With technology the way it is, candidly, people can’t help (they really can’t), they become prisoner to keeping their head down and walking through and they don’t see you. They’ll walk out in the street that way. There are some places they’re starting to ticket people. I don’t think much, but supposedly it’s written that they can ticket people for walking along in a city or whatever and going across a street and here they’re texting or their reading their whatever. “Oh, here is my gmail. I just got pinged!” And you can’t get away from it, things are going off. If you’re wearing one of these watches you’re going to know immediately when someone (you can know immediately unless you program it differently), immediately when someone has sent you an email. It’s like, “I’ve got to see it right now! Who’s contacted me? Who’s sent that?”

You know, it used to be when email started (I’m digressing a little bit just to fill this in), what was it like? Well, you might check your email once a day, you might not. La tee dah, big deal. Then you finally get into a habit of maybe checking it every day at a certain time every day. But now it’s instant? If you’re wearing the watch, it’s tied to your phone, you get an email you know it. Somebody wants to text you; they don’t want to call you. I hate texting! I’ve got to stop. I can type, type well. But to do what young people do today? I don’t know if it’s two fingers or one, ch-ch-ch-ch-ch. You think, how did you do that? Well, they grow up with that now. I don’t want to learn it. Matter of fact, I tried using the voice thing for a little while where you can talk into it and it’ll do the text, it’ll type it out for you.

Anyway, what a sad thing today. People are just prisoners to that system. They really are. They can’t help it. You can’t expect it to be different. You can look out in a restaurant in the evening, nice that families can go out, you can see a father, a wife, a son, and a daughter sitting at a table, really young children, and they all have their heads down. You can see those things when you go out to eat. And you think, what was the purpose of going out to eat? Might as well just had it brought in and keep doing what you’re doing because you’re not visiting each other, you’re not talking to each other. Maybe you did a little bit while you were driving. At least one of you wasn’t on the phone...maybe?

You can’t expect the world to act right, to be doing what we’re striving to do in changing. That’s just the beginning of it all, isn’t it? It becomes much more difficult then when we start talking about the Church. Is our attitude toward others in the Church a great desire—not a small desire—but a great desire to see people, to have a desire that people be able to hear what God is saying, to grow, and to understand at times that you have to back away from that because how long have I been at this? Well, I’ve been at this since 1969. That’s a long time. Others have been at it since 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010. I can’t expect them to be where I am. That would be ludicrous. That would be absolutely insane to have that kind of expectation toward someone else.

It took me a long time to get to this point. I’m glad I’m here. I would hate to be back at that time in the first few years because a lot of changes have to take place. Now, the speed of those changes can vary from person to person, from situation to situation, and on it goes. Nevertheless, we should give people that time. I’m talking in how we treat one another, how we think toward one another, that our desire should be to want to see them saved, to be able to go through this process, to continue in this way, not to offend, not to be offensive, not to hurt. Yet there is that line there sometimes.

But when there is sin involved that’s another matter...that’s another matter and that has to be dealt with one way or another. Either we do or someone else who knows of it needs to talk to us, needs to have a concern because you want to see them saved. You don’t want to see them continue in something and it becomes so much a part of them that it begins to pull them away from, and they become weaker and weaker, from this way of life.

That’s been one of the greatest weaknesses that I have seen in God’s Church over time, is that people will not fulfill that responsibility of going to a brother alone because they have a greater fear of whatever that is. That’s what you have to come to understand in the mind. I know what it is. But, see, you’ve got to come to know what it is. Why wouldn’t you want to go and talk to someone out of concern, out of love, when you know firsthand, when you’re around it, when you have seen it, whatever it might be.

I think of one time a person up in Erie, Pennsylvania forgot to take his pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket when he came into church. Well, we don’t do that. So who is going to go tell him? Well, it should be the first person who saw it. Say, “Hey, do you see that? You know, I don’t want to have to say this, but you know...” it’s awkward. Who wants to do that? Who wants to have to do that? It’s not an enjoyable thing to do but it’s something you should, and hopefully it’ll be enough that maybe it shames them enough that maybe, just maybe they’ll stop right then and there. Maybe that’s enough that someone saw and that’s enough to jar them in their thinking to think, “Look how foolish and how careless I am in my life.”

Now, that’s a little thing in the scheme of things, it really is. There are other things much greater, much, much greater, aren’t there, that people become aware of  in families or whatever it might be, or someone you’re really close to and you have a fear to approach and talk about something that’s awkward. But you should because there are principles there that God has given of why it should be that way. Something I’ve seen for so long is that there is like this mindset of “Well, that’s the job of the ministry and I don’t want to have to do that.” Oh yeah? God didn’t say that. Eventually it can become so bad, because it’s been going on for so long, certain kinds of things that the ministry has to get involved. That’s a very unpleasant thing.

I don’t enjoy that kind of thing. I don’t enjoy having to do what somebody else should have done, and if somebody else does do that then and goes to their brother alone and then it comes to the ministry, well, then at least there’s that knowing that, “Well, ‘so and so’ did talk to you about this and now I have to and I don’t enjoy this. I don’t enjoy coming to you and having to discuss this matter of what’s been talking place,” whatever sin it might be. But I’m talking about sin.

Maybe someone knows of someone who’s not tithing. Just came out in conversation. That’s a simple thing, small thing. Well, there’s an obligation there, isn’t there? I bring that one up so often because that’s so basic, so simple to know, to understand that if you want to have a right relationship with God we’ve got to do that or nothing is going to happen in our life. We’re not going to grow. We’re not going to be able to have a right relationship with God.

Verse 18—He who believes in him is not judged; but he who does not believe is judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. So again here, principles of things about Christ and things that God has given to us to grasp and understand.

Anyway, let’s jump ahead here going back, going up here a little bit more here in John 3, to verse 19. And this is judgment, that light has come into the world, and men have loved darkness rather than light... What a perverse thing, the human mind. But this is where the battle is. Our minds can be opened up to the truth and we’re still pulled by things of this world around us. That’s what we have to continue to fight, to fight against the things that pull at us, that want to pull us away from what is good and right and just in life.

It goes on to say why: because their deeds were evil. Well, we can begin to see that just in the things of selfishness. Selfish is not a good thing, it’s an evil thing. Selfishness is not good in us. Wanting to get our own way, that’s not good. It really is evil. That’s what leads to evil in the world. How far we can go with that, do go with that, those are the things that pull us away from God and a relationship with God.

For everyone who does evil hates the light. What an incredible thing! If we can just see that in our own lives, if something is wrong – a right and a wrong; God says this is right, everything else that goes away from that is wrong. If we choose something that is a different way, a different way than what God has taught us through sermons, through writing and so forth, then again here, it reveals something in us that we have to come to grips with. Do we hate something that is right and good or do we love it?

It’s like the truths I’ve mentioned many of times. Do we love the truth that God has given to us? Because it reveals the mind of God. It reveals the way God thinks, the way God purposes things to be, plans and so forth. All of the things that have been revealed to us as far as truths are concerned, we either love them or we don’t. Those are the kinds of choices we have. The more you love something the more you won’t stray away from it, the more you won’t do anything against it when it comes to God’s way, because you love it, meaning you love God.

Candidly, the light comes from God, and to hate something that is true, to hate something that God says, “This is the way, walk in it,” and we do something different, it really is showing a kind of hatred toward God, isn’t it, if we understand that in the mind. Not a love to God, not a love of God, but something we want Him to change. Not that we think it through that way and we don’t think that way, but that’s what’s being revealed in our mind, of the battle that’s really there. We wish it were a little different. We love something else. The reality is, that’s why we have to place God first, we have to love Him first. Anything else, it’s spiritual idolatry, that big ole’ obelisk going up. It’s what it is, spiritual adultery, spiritual idolatry. They’re the same thing – placing something else before God. So every sin we do.

So that applies to judging as well. We have to be careful how we judge because we can be the ones who have sinned far greater than what we sometimes condemn others of. We can find fault with how someone is doing something and it’s a matter of a choice. It may not be the best choice. It may be something that does cause hurt in their life but they haven’t come to see that, they haven’t come to grasp and understand that yet, but in time... When do you intervene in a certain situation? When do you not intervene?

Those are the things we have to examine in life, especially within the environment of the Church. It can have to do with simple things, little things sometimes – how short a dress is, how tight slacks are or shorts might be, or how short shorts are. So sometimes it’s not a matter of sin, it’s a matter of soundness of mind, of balance, of realizing that one thing can hurt us, hurt our thinking. Then on the other side of that sometimes within the Church we have to make judgment calls as when do we intervene, when we insert ourselves into a matter or do we back away and give people time to do something that isn’t really that good for them. Those are tough things to judge and decide sometimes. But if our attitude is one of wanting to see them saved, and sometimes to recognize the importance of giving some time, well, sometimes the wisdom of just giving some time is a good thing because people will eventually hear things through sermons.

It’s like in the beginning when someone would come to church, an individual, a man with long hair. In the scheme of things it isn’t that great. It isn’t like someone out here committing adultery. It isn’t like someone out here filling their life full of pornography. It isn’t like someone out here who’s cheating God in tithes and robbing God in those things, those basic things. It’s not like someone out here who is being challenged by his boss, “You know, I need you for another half hour.” “Well, I’ve got to leave at sunset. I’ve got to.” “If you want to keep this job you’re going to stay here.” Somebody is tempted to do that, see. It’s not like that. Those things are more clear cut as far as what our stand needs to be always. Other things in the scheme of things, they’re not on the same level.

That used to blow my mind sometimes in times past in the Church, were some would put everything on the same level up here. Sin is sin! Is wearing long hair sin? Where is that person at? Does he grasp? Does he understand yet? There are certain things that people can learn more quickly. There are certain things that people can be told more quickly. It’s not the same. You know, if you go out here and you don’t put money in a 25¢ parking meter because you just don’t have it and you’ve got to rush in right quick, you come back out. That’s a whole lot different than driving down the freeway at 115mph. They’re both wrong. They’re both against the law. But is one worse than the other? Absolutely.

Can we not judge things that way and judge things that God has given to us, the spirit of the law, which we have to learn to judge? That takes time, doesn’t it? The spirit of the law. But we want everything sometimes to be just evil and good, right and wrong. No, there’s a big, vast area in there where you’ve got to make judgments and choices and decisions in your life of some of those things, and especially because of human life and the way we are and giving people time and not putting everything up here on this big level that everything is all up here, you know, it’s so clear. Anyway, I hope you understand what I’m saying. You can to the degree of God’s spirit in your mind and working with you to receive it, because been a bunch of words, but sometimes what we see can vary a great deal.

So the person with long hair. You know what generally happens? There used to be a time when some ministers wouldn’t let anybody come to church at all once they’d been visited and told. You have to judge those matters, too, depending on the situation. But you know, in the scheme of things it’s pretty puny compared to other things they’ve got to address in their life. They’re just starting out addressing this thing of tithing. They’re just starting out addressing this thing about not working on the Sabbath. Address those things. Some of the refinement of other things will come along with time. And you know what generally happens, people come to services and they see, “I’m the only one like this.” And maybe, if they haven’t read about it or heard it yet, give them some time. They’ll hear.

But you know what sometimes people do? “Do you know it says?” I’m just going back in time in Worldwide, things that have happened, “Do you know that wearing long hair, what it says in scripture, what it says in the Bible? It’s a shame for a man to have long hair!”

I’ve got to tell you another incident. People used to make a big, big deal out of certain things like white sugar. “It’s a sin!” I’m sorry but I have to do this. Jell-O. Jell-O. It’s like sometimes people couldn’t wait when they found someone new coming along and they thought it was a sin to have Jell-O because it has this stuff in it. “It comes from pigs! Do you not know?” Well, no, they didn’t know. The reality is in time that got addressed in God’s Church. There are certain chemical things that can be done, that are done where something can be changed in its structure.

It’s like calcium. Where does it come from? What is it out of the ocean? Is it oysters that has a lot of high calcium in its content? Yeah, it’s like, “It’s unclean. You can’t have that.” But you know what I learned in chemistry? Calcium is calcium. If you extract something, a chemical extraction from something and it becomes what it is as an element and you have calcium in front of you it doesn’t really matter where it came from. But there were people bent on, because they had this standard of how things should be, and if you’re not doing that then, “Don’t you know this isn’t good to have in your house? This isn’t good that you should cook this or bake this,” whatever you do. And on and on it goes of things sometimes we think we’re helping people. We had to grow in that, didn’t we?

So even the Church, because it was coming out of total darkness as far as what it knew, it just had three basic laws of way that God had given that were still there: to tithe, the name of the Church, the Church of God (it belongs to God), and the Sabbath day. God began to restore truth then to the Church, but it took a long time for the Church. Because you know why? Because it’s made up of people. It has taken a long time for God to work with people, to begin changing this mind, and God worked with the greatest things and the most important things first. Truths. The important truths that began to be added to the Church, those, and to live by those, the holy days, going to the Feast, understanding the purpose of those things, those are the greater picture of things. Other things of refinement take time.

Now, if it took a Church that long to grow, what about new people who come along? You cannot expect someone new to be where you are. That’s the message of this sermon. This will help improve relationships and how we think about each other, how we treat each other, how we talk sometimes, and shouldn’t talk about others, see. There’s a lot being given here, there really is, spiritually.

Verse 19—And this is the judgment, that light has come into the world, and men have loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light... You know, to tell someone something when they’re first week in church, the first time they come to church, can cause greater harm and be, if you want to talk about causing offence and causing someone to stumble, and being in God’s way.

You know, if God is drawing someone we should really be careful the first time someone comes, and the second time, and the third time, and candidly, the first year and the second year, and on that attitude and that kind of thinking should go. We need to be careful. If you’ve been in for twenty years, be careful how you speak to others sometimes and the expectations you might have of someone else. This has everything to do with family and our love toward one another and how we treat one another. We shouldn’t have those great expectations, especially when there are different choices along the process. Then we have to be careful about what we sometimes think is right or best for someone else and the timing.

You know what? God is training us how to judge. He’s teaching us how to judge because everything isn’t black and white. Because there are so many ways of life, of things to do. We have to grow in this ability to judge, and it all goes back to understanding God’s purpose in life and understanding His purpose in calling people and what happens through that process. It takes time.

Soundness of mind takes time to grow in. Balance is a beautiful thing. Balance and soundness of mind that we don’t see much of in this world today is a beautiful thing and that comes from God when you consider God’s truth and the ability to deal with truths God gives us takes time to grow in the balance, and candidly, in the spirit of those things. Because God’s law is spiritual. His way of life is spiritual. It’s of the spirit. It really is. That’s why He gives us the ability of His holy spirit in our minds to see things in a way that we otherwise couldn’t.

There are things that you see and grasp on a spirit plane that you can’t give to people in the world. They don’t understand the real nature of human beings. They don’t understand this thing about “the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.” They don’t understand. Oh, they might understand it to a certain level but they don’t understand it like you do, that it’s a spiritual matter of how the mind thinks. It’s a spiritual matter of how people think toward others, how they treat others when they’re considering how others think and are because they want to see them succeed. I mean, do people think like that? They want to see people succeed.

You don’t see that much in politics, do you? People just carry around giant clubs today beating the “you know what” out of each other, tearing each other down. Because that’s the way it is. To get up here, it’s like you’ve got to do this to others, destroy their lives. If you want someone else to be on the court you’ve got to destroy someone else’s life in order to try to get your way because your way is better than this other bunch of people. That’s why it just doesn’t work. This system doesn’t work because it’s not based on something that’s spiritual that comes from God.

God blesses us to begin to think on a spiritual plane. This is new! This is unique to us when God calls us. It’s a different way of thinking. It’s a desire to think like God because it has to do with a desire of choices to be in unity and harmony with God. One of the greatest areas of life that this is revealed is in our judging! It really is! It’s in how we judge others! We really need to understand that more deeply. How do we judge others, because it has everything with how you think about them? It has everything to do with their interests are high in our minds in the sense of loving them and wanting to see them succeed. What is the best thing that can help them to succeed? You have to think about those things. So often you have to pray about those things.

As a whole I’ve been very blessed to come to a time of being able to understand the importance of always praying to God about decisions like that, about situations in people’s lives, asking for help. Even at a moment’s notice, whatever it might be of a certain situation, and just asking for help to think right toward someone, how to say something, how to help someone. Ask for help. You have to judge all the time in life. Strive to judge righteously. How is that? Strive to judge in a way that is in unity and harmony with God, being at one with God. How to treat others? Being at one with God. Not getting our way and the way “I” see it and the way “I” think it needs to be done, and that I-I-I crap will wear you out. It’ll destroy you! “I” isn’t important. “Me” is not important. God is. Christ is. God’s Family is and how we treat those in God’s Family. Okay? That’s important. That needs to be first because that has to do with whether or not we’re putting God first in our life and not in ourselves, because the big difference in the two is whether we’re putting God first and His way of doing something, His way of looking at something or our way.

I don’t know how on a constant basis to see things God’s way, because I know first and foremost the mind, the mind is filled with things that are selfish. The mind, the human mind doesn’t think like God naturally, and so we have to think and pray about and ask for God’s help so that we can see what’s in the mind, see what “my” desire, “my” way of thinking is and not wanting that unless it’s in agreement with God. Then we can say, “Ah, this is good. I know this is God’s will.” That’s what makes it easier to deal with, doesn’t it? It makes it more enjoyable. It makes it more rewarding. It makes the family closer, it truly does, more at one with one another. Because that’s what we have to become, more at one with one another because we’re becoming more at one with God. That should be our primary desire in life in our relationship within the Church.

I marvel at how God has blessed us over the last three years, last two years, to see a Church that’s drawing closer and closer together, striving to live that way more and more. We’re ever growing in that and we need to continue to grow in that and grow more and become more refined and become more at one with God. He’s blessed us mightily in these things, He truly has. There aren’t the kinds of disagreements and outward arguments and things that have gone on in times past that are so unhealthy for God’s Church that can hurt and destroy people in God’s Church. If we’re a part of that, you know what? What a horrible thing to do something that hurts one of God’s people, that can be the cause of one of God’s people just pulling away.

…men have loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and neither comes to the light. See, there it shows what we need to do. Be careful because if you don’t do it God’s way there is something else you want, and God calls it hate. There is something else you want that doesn’t agree with God, it doesn’t agree with the light. So, “I love something else more than I love God,” and therein is the problem. That’s why some of these words for “hate” aren’t the best because it’s like what Christ said that we all have to come to in our lives, is that basically when it comes to God’s way or some other way that we have to place one first because we’ll love one and hate the other. It means to love less.

It’s like father and mother. God calls us into the Church, what do we choose, God’s way or a parent or a daughter or a son or a relative or a husband or a wife? Because many who have been called have chosen something else and have placed them first, and sometimes in the Church have struggles because that’s something they’re still dealing with. Because it’s a process that God can take us through that takes time to come to see and grow in. As long as we keep growing and we keep repenting we’ll grow...when we see that something else is interfering in our decision making, someone else is having influence in our life of whether God is first, the Church is first. Because that goes with it, see, because it’s about the Church. That’s the environment of God, that He’s given to us. Constant decision making. Constant decision making in life. Choices we have to make. Is God first? Is God’s truth, is God’s way first?

We have to be careful that we don’t love something else more than God and God’s way. So it says here neither comes to the light. There is a great message in that. You have to go and ask God. Ask God for help to think right. Ask God for help in every important decision you make that’s about others within the Body especially. Just think that way. When you’re thinking about something and you see something ask God for help to think His way, the way He is working with them.

You don’t want to interfere with what God’s doing. That’s why I’ve had a strong message for the ministry for many years now. Don’t insert yourself into things you shouldn’t insert yourself! Don’t think that it’s your responsibility to rule. There are things you have to get involved in sometimes, and thankfully, as we’ve grown, less and less. But be careful of that. Be careful not to misuse that. Because it’s been misused a lot in God’s Church. So not only is it done by the ministry it’s done by people in the Body. That’s the way it’s been in God’s Church. The less we do it the better and stronger we are. Not to insert ourselves in things that we shouldn’t. When are we supposed to and when are we not? Judgment. Judgment, judgment, judgment. So much in judgment and all that judgment to be right it’s about being at one with God. It’s about doing it God’s way, not our way. It’s about a desire to serve God. It’s about a desire to be right with God, doing it His way.

That’s a beautiful thing when things are done God’s way, and when you have confidence this is God’s way, you’re lifted up, you’re strengthened by that. You truly are! Your life becomes richer and happier, less drama, more unity with God. In that is power, there truly is. Rewarding, rewarding life.

For everyone who does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light... That’s the problem. If we really get it, if we really “get” it you will always want to come or go to the light, go to the source of the light. The light is from God and His Son. He’s given that light to be in His Son. Read John. It’s beautiful what it says, the Word that became flesh, that light that came into the world to light men’s lives, people’s lives, mankind. Beautiful.

...neither comes to the light unless his deeds should be reproved (exposed). So again here, we should want to be in unity with God and not to be opposed or against God. Sometimes it’s difficult then dealing with these things because there is something in us that we really need to see that we do need to be exposed to come to the light so that we can change.

But he who does truth... What is the truth? What God gives us Sabbath by Sabbath, holy day to holy day, the truths that are listed for us. There are many more, obviously. Those are some basic ones that have had great change and effect in our life as they all have. We see how they’ve come to be recorded through time since Sardis. But he who does the truth comes to the light, in other words, looks to God for how to do what is right, how to judge. Every matter of judgment in our life should be this way, how we judge every situation, every circumstance, and especially others. ...that his deeds may be made manifest, that they have been done (which means to be worked, accomplished) in God.  So simple. Our deeds, our thinking, our judgment, they need to be accomplished, worked in God, in God’s spirit, in God’s truth, in God’s way. If it’s our way, the way “I” see it, the way “I” think it should be done it just doesn’t really matter. If we’re not considering God in the picture, if He’s not at the forefront at the choice and the decisions it’s better to get away from that, it’s better not to happen, it’s better not to be exercised. We have to be in unity with God.

So if we can being to more fully see what Joshua had to say about judging and judgment then we can some to see spiritually, again, how we are to judge and not to judge, because it’s a spiritual matter. Judging is really a very refined thing. It really is when you come to see it more deeply. So many things start way up in the mind in judgment. They’re very broad and we can misuse that. But the more we come to see, just like so many things, it’s a matter of the refining of this mind and the spirit, the spirit of God’s word, the spirit of God’s way, what is His intent? What is His purpose? Well, we see what His purpose was when it comes to judging was to save. It’s to help. It’s to work with to save, to help, whatever that might be, more than it is to exercise the execution of judgment of what we consider wrong. How do we work with that? How do we? When do we work to have an influence in a way that can be positive? What can we say and say it in a way that can be helpful? Anyway, on and on it goes.

So it’s a spiritual matter, it really is. It’s of the mind of God. God has a great desire to see us learn how to do that. So our entire lives consist of one of learning how to judge better, to judge right, to judge far more soundly and not just to do it off the cuff because this is the way “I” think it should be done, the way “I” see it. Again, it’s a matter of a spiritual focus.

John 5, going back over to John 5 now. One section of scripture we already covered. Again, covering it just to drive this home. John 5:19—Then Joshua answered and said to them, Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son of Man can do nothing of himself... None of us can. That’s the point. Of and by ourselves we can’t do anything that’s right, that’s good, that’s just as far as God’s way is concerned, as far as what is truly spiritual is concerned. ...but what he sees the Father do. What does that mean? It’s spiritual! It’s spiritual. “But what we see the Father do.”

We have scripture that’s written, that we’ve seen what God has done through time, how He’s worked with mankind, the incredible patience of God, and yet we can be so impatient, we can be so impatient with others. Yet if we could just see our own lives clearly spiritually we’d see how patient God has been with this. That’s one of the things that has helped me to come to love God far greater. Because I know the patience He’s had with me, the time to get from Point A to Point B and the patience He’s going to continue to have, which I know He’ll have because He’s had it to here – not had it with me but had it to here. Thankfully, He hasn’t had it with me in that sense of being fed up. God is patient, and with that patience is awesome mercy, as long as we’ll keep repenting.

That’s the uniqueness about God coming to that point in time where He says, “Now I know you.” Because there is a certain way that we have learned to respond and it becomes set in us and we’ll always respond. One of the most important things is to repent. That’s why Christ died, so we could have that ability as a human being. That’s one of the most important things. Which also means we’re striving to think differently. We don’t want to be the same way we are. We loathe the way we are at whatever stage of life we are, of and by ourselves apart from God. We love what we see that God has molded and fashioned within us and the truth that’s molded and fashioned within us. That’s a beautiful thing because it’s God. We have both within us as human beings and we’re ever growing. But one thing we come to see is this importance about patience and that has to be in a part of our judging as well and how we think towards others then, and a willingness that we have.

Every one of these attributes that God has given to us, we should be so ashamed if we don’t pass those along. That’s what I love about the subject of grace, because it’s about patience, it’s about mercy, it’s about love, it’s about forgiveness. When you read about grace that’s what it is that God has given to us, all these things that God has given to us. What a horrible thing if we’re just on the receiving side of get. I get forgiveness of my sin. I get mercy. I get patience from God. Then I don’t learn from that and have a change, a metamorphoo, a transformation of the mind that helps me to begin thinking more like that toward others? That’s the beauty of it all. We learn.

That’s why I love one place in scripture that talks about that that Paul stated. It’s said awkwardly in the King James Version but it’s basically talking about this matter of grace and the more we receive of it, the purpose of it, so that more that can come from us, and grace multiplies. Because we learn and it goes out to others. It’s a beautiful thing. It comes from God, it can come through us, and others can benefit from that. Others can benefit from this thing of forgiveness, of what it means to really forgive. It’s behind.

What a beautiful thing when people in the Church can do that when they’ve had a confrontation of some sort, in time, whatever that might have been. Go back in your time and think about something where there might have been a confrontation with somebody, when things weren’t handled the best that they could have been, and whatever took place, and feelings that were hurt and things that were said and how they were said, and perhaps the raised voices and other things that go with those kinds of things that take place in life. Sometimes it’s good to think about those matters, and then to know that that can be totally put away and not to hold anything against another person, even when they’ve wronged you. Just like it says in scripture, again, somebody can tell us something that’s right and it’s difficult to take, correction, but when we have done right and someone has done something to us that wasn’t right on their part in judgment what an incredible thing if we can take that as well.

Think of David. You remember the individual that came up to him throwing rocks, and the captain, I think it was Joab, I’m not sure, but one, basically, wanted to lop off his head with a sword, wanted to take care of him and David stopped him. Who can get by with throwing rocks at the king? And if your job is one of protecting the king that’d be a pretty dangerous situation. You get so mad about something you’re throwing rocks at the king! It wasn’t a smart thing to do, but anyway, he could have lost his life over it very easily. But you know what David did? He said, “No, don’t do anything to him. Let him speak. There may be something that I need to learn.” “...that I need to learn,” basically, “even from God because of something he’s saying that I can learn from.” Sometimes it’s good to when things are tough and hard and come at us in a way that our immediate response is to lash back because we’ve been hurt, my feelings.

Sometimes it’s amazing how we are as human beings. “How could you say that?!”  We’re just hurt! So we want to strike back and say something ugly and nasty and spiteful. I mean, isn’t that sick? Our human nature, that’s what we think. That’s what’s in the mind, whether it really comes out sometimes, but it happens.

But what an attitude that David had. He’d grown. He’d grown a lot, was able to say something like that that most are not able to say because that’s pretty strong when someone is coming at you, cursing at you—When is the last time you had rocks thrown at you? — throwing rocks at you and saying nasty things to you and they’re totally out of place. What is the normal human reaction to that? It’s not a good one. But to be able to say something like that?

What incredible respect and awe and desire to be the same way, to be able to say, “I need to just think about that. I don’t want to respond because if I do what’s probably going to happen? Probably going to respond wrong. Yep, yep, you can count on that, can’t you?” Can’t you? Can we see that in ourselves that we’re most likely just going to respond wrong because of our nature? What a wise thing to back away from that and do something God’s way that He’s given to us of how to handle something like that, an example like that, to back away from it.

We’re not real successful at doing that. Some biting of the tongue has to take place perhaps, just walking away and doing something different and thinking about yourself and how you’re responding, how your thinking has to be done, but there is the challenge. That’s the way I want to be but I’m not always that way by any measure. So the more we can be that way what a beautiful thing.

So to be able to forgive someone because we’ve been forgiven? Because the reality is you’re not supposed to hold anything against anyone anyway. That’s sin. That’s something we learn in time in God’s Church. If you hold things against someone else and you’re not forgiving, you’re sinning. Only God Almighty and His Son can do that, hold something, and then it’s to them when that individual may repent, and hopefully they do because the desire is to see them saved. They have to come to a point where they repent then God forgives them.

I’ve known of so many situations, not a few, a lot where people have sinned greatly, mightily, and they don’t understand they’ve sinned in how they’ve responded towards someone else who belongs to God. Because God has forgiven them and then something happens and we won’t? What a sick thing. What a perverse thing to do in the human mind, not to be forgiving of someone else. To judge God’s people that way? What kind of shoes do we place ourselves in? Awesome, to understand those things.

...but what he sees the Father do... So again, it’s this matter of seeing something, and it’s spiritual, “what he saw the Father do,” means that he sees and understands something on a spiritual plane, of what God is like, and he desires to be exactly the same way, to do it exactly the same way. That’s the way we’re to be.

...for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. What a beautiful thing to be able to understand that when we’re able to do something in the same manner that God has revealed to us, to be forgiving, we forgive, to show mercy because we’ve been given mercy, patience, showing patience to someone because we see the patience that God has given to us, we see how God is and so we see how valuable that is in our thinking toward others. Beautiful thing. On and on it goes. We learn from how God.

This is one thing that really excites me, especially with all the truths that God has been giving to us over time here and just in the last few years, those things that have made things even richer and more exciting, a lot of it has to do with God showing us how He works with people. That, to me, has taken things to a level that is even more exciting spiritually, to have that magnified. It’s not just a matter of certain things that are given to understand, it’s how God does it and how God works with these things and why God is working in the manner that He is and how He’s working in the world in the manner that He is. That’s a whole other ball game, so to speak. It’s a beautiful thing, truly is.

This here is exciting, to be able to see that, to understand and see things more about God. Then it helps us to see how we’re to be and how we’re to understand things around us.

So as it was addressed in Part 1 this here was a matter of Joshua doing things exactly the way God would do it. That’s what we should strive to do. That’s what this is saying. In other words, according to God’s way, which is a matter of doing so according to God’s will. That’s what was addressed. If we know what God’s will is and we desire to be in unity with that we’ll want to do it exactly the same way. That’s what Christ is saying here. It’s a beautiful thing.

So again, as it’s been stated, this is how we should be and what we should do. That’s exceedingly important when we consider this matter of judging others; we should want to do it God’s way, just the way He would do it.

John 12:44 says, Then Joshua cried and said, He who believes me, it’s a word that means “toward; unto me as in a movement toward someone.” In other words, if we understand that Greek word, we’re constantly making choices of moving toward something or away from it, in this case, toward the truth, toward what he’s saying, toward what we understand about his life and why he had the life that he did, that God gave to him. This is what this is about. That’s how we are in our lives; we’re constantly desiring to draw close to God, closer to His Son. That’s what this is about. It has to do with drawing closer in agreement and unity and oneness in the will of God.

Joshua cried and said, He who believes on me, toward me as it is, in me and to me, does not believe unto me but unto Him who sent me. That’s what it’s saying. Beautiful. It’s about God and realizing it all comes from God Almighty, been given to His Son, and then we’re able to partake of it, have it in our lives.

It’s like what is covered here. I’ll just mention this quickly then we’ll continue on here in John 12. But it’s like Ephesians 2:21 says, In whom all the building is fit/joined together and grows unto... See, it’s that word “unto.” What are we growing into? It’s about a... grows unto/into a holy temple in the Lord. That’s what we’re doing. It’s a process of time. It’s a beautiful thing, what is being discussed here. This is unto God Almighty because He is the source of it all.

John 12:45—And he who sees me sees Him who sent me. That’s why I love John and the things that are given in John, and John 14 especially, when he goes through and talks about certain things about himself and his Father, that they should have known his Father. They still wanted to see something physical. “Just show Him to us and then we’ll understand what you’re talking about.” They couldn’t understand spiritual things yet because they hadn’t received the holy spirit, impregnation of the holy spirit. But once they did, boy, in Acts 2 it takes off doesn’t it, powerfully so.

So here is what’s being covered: he who sees me sees Him who sent me. If we grasp and comprehend the things spiritual, on a spiritual plane that Christ spoke, then we come to see and understand God more. The more we see what God is doing within the Church, within the Body, within people’s lives in the truth and the way of life people strive to live the more that we can come to see God. Because we’re God’s work. We see human nature, that’s easy to see. But to see God and what God is doing, that’s another thing, when you can see that those are the things that bind you together more. They are the things that bind us together within the Body of Christ far more deeply.

I love when I see change and growth that takes place in God’s people. Because it’s of God; it reflects God. They couldn’t do it on their own. But when you see spiritual understanding, when you see certain things that are there, a conversation of something that takes place, it doesn’t mean we have to talk spiritually. Sometimes that’s existed in God’s Church. Going way back in time people think they have to talk about certain things. That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s this thing of understanding. It’s this thing of insight. It’s this thing of how people treat one another. It’s this thing that is reflected in what people do and how they talk, how they think; what they’re focused in life becomes far more clear.

When you see those things and you see certain things that people have conquered or are working at conquering, even just the fact of being able to address something they couldn’t address before and to see that in people’s lives. It’s a thing to be happy about. It’s a thing to rejoice in because you see God at work and you see people drawing closer to God. That’s something that only God and Christ can do to draw us closer to them, and as He works with us, as they have patience with us and continue to mold and fashion their thinking within us.

That’s one of the greatest rewards and blessings of being in the ministry, of witnessing those things on a spiritual plane. Because the reality is that God gives certain abilities and help to do a job and there are certain things that it’s not by one’s own ability. I’ve tried to help some in the ministry through time to see those things as well, that sometimes when you have a specific responsibility God will give extra measure of help to see and perceive certain things. But you have to be careful of that because if that comes from God then there are certain ways of dealing with it as well that need to be in unity with God. That’s where judging and soundness of mind in those areas of judgment become so important.

But this is why I mention something. I know sometimes what people are going through and what they’re experiencing that I don’t have to even ask. I don’t have to ask at all. They’re there good or bad or wherever it might be oftentimes. Again, when you see certain things that are taking place in people’s lives and the changes that are taking place in their lives because they’re addressing hard issues in their life because they keep fighting at something. You know, that’s a beautiful thing, when people have a struggle, when they go through something difficult and they want to get back up and keep fighting and they keep coming back.

I’ve seen more of that in God’s Church in recent time than ever, than ever before in God’s Church, where certain things will happen, where people have had to address some really tough things and go through some tough things in their life and then they come back and they get up and they keep fighting and they keep repenting because they have a desire, they want this. You’ve got to fight for this. Sometimes people just go by the wayside and give up when certain things happen to them and they don’t keep up the fight. What a beautiful thing when people just keep up the fight and you keep getting up. That’s a good thing. Not giving up, not giving in, it’s a matter of continuing to repent, this thing of repenting and wanting to do things differently and crying out to God for help to change, to not continue in the same course that you’ve been going because it’s hurting you or hurting others and you get a hold of some of that and you just keep at it.

I love that, I truly do, that tenacity, that stick-to-itiveness, if you will, of things we saw in times past in God’s Church back in Philadelphia. Some of those things were taught but sometimes only saw them on a physical plane. What a beautiful thing when you begin to see them on a spiritual plane because they become a part of our mind, a part of our thinking and we recognize this is what it is and this is what I want. “Yeah, I’m a butt! On a physical plane, that’s just what I am because my carnal human nature is that way.” To be able to acknowledge that. “That’s what I am. If I’ve said something wrong. If I’ve said something that wasn’t right or in a better way then I’ve gone back to that behind part that follows me all around.” That’s our nature, it’s our human nature, it’s just always there. It’s ugly when it raises its ugly head. What a beautiful thing though when we can keep fighting it, and people keep fighting it, whoever we are, because really it’s all of us.

So what a beautiful thing that people just keep fighting this way of life, hold to what is true, and are being made stronger because of it. I see a lot of that in God’s Church in a very powerful way, in ways in times past I didn’t see it in the same manner.

Fight and fight and fight. What a beautiful thing when you’re fighting for God, fighting for God’s way of life to be in you and you know the main battle. This is the main battle to God’s way of life. See, others have choice of choosing it and how they respond and what happens to them is one matter. But this is what’s important to you, how you respond to God and how you are living God’s way of life and how you keep fighting and placing God first, and placing God’s truth first. Everything doesn’t go our way and we have to learn along the way.

Verse 45, again, And he who sees me sees Him who sent me. I wonder how we think about those things sometimes in God’s Church when we think about others. Do we see God? Do we see God’s work? I do all the time. It’s touching. It’s moving. It’s an awesome thing because we can’t be here without God’s help. You can’t continue to fight for this and this way of life and the truth we have without God’s help. You can’t believe in the things you believe in without God’s help. You can’t easily receive those things without God’s help, whatever it might be. Look at the last seven truths. There are things you just can’t have and can’t believe. What a beautiful thing when people receive it and they see the same thing and they make the same choices and they just keep fighting.

A lot of people have gone by the wayside in all this. A lot of people who have had the opportunity. A lot of people who were are part of our past. A lot of people who were a part of Worldwide. A lot! Not just a few! And they were given the blessing and the opportunity of being shaken awake and they went by the wayside again, but this time far more dangerous, far more. It wasn’t a gradual process of slowly going to sleep; it was the ability to see truths and to understand an Apostasy occurred, to understand the ramifications of that upon the Church and then walked away from it. That’s a horrible thing. But what an awesome thing for those who just keep fighting. Because that comes from God. We have to make choices to repent along the way, and if we keep repenting, you know what? We’ll stay here. We’ll be here to the end...and the beginning.

He who sees me sees Him who sent me. That’s what’s so needed in judgment. I have come as a light into the world, and whoever believes unto me should not abide in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not believe, I do not judge them. Awesome! ...for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. We should learn from that. We should pray about that, to have that kind of mind, that this is God’s purpose in the Church especially, to save. He’s called us to save us. We have it made if we’ll just keep fighting against self and keep repenting. Everything is there for us, all the tools we need.

I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. Now, he’s coming with judgment, to execute it, but this time as the Lion of God.

He who rejects me, and does not receive my words, has that which judges him. Christ saw it for what it was. We have to make choices and we’re given time in those choices. Some of that time for many, obviously, the vast majority of the world is in the Great White Throne. That’s why to understand what it says there, judgment now is upon us. It’s how we respond. It’s because of our choices that we make then, but the execution of any judgment isn’t there yet. God’s just giving us full opportunity to continue on. Judgment is an ongoing thing through life and that has to do with our choices. God’s word judges us.

He who rejects me, and does not receive my words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. So, easy to understand.

Verse 49—For I have not spoken of, and the word is “from or out of myself.” I love this when we’re able to see other words here and what they really mean because words mean a lot. Basically, very clearly here saying that, “This is not of me.” See, we want to do the same thing. We want to follow that same example. We don’t want it to be out of us. You do not want any judgment ever to come out of you, the way “I” see it, the way “I” want it to be. Now, there may be things we see that need to be changed, but what is God’s will in the matter? What is God’s purpose in the matter? That will help us then in making better judgment in how to deal with matters of life.

For I have not spoken from/out of myself; but the Father who sent me, He gave me commandment/charge/instruction what I should say... Where is it? It’s throughout this book. It’s in the word. It’s in the truth, the way of life, that which comes from God which is recorded for us. He gave me charge/instruction what I should say and what I should speak. He’s given to all of us, hasn’t He? It wasn’t something different from what He’s given to us. It’s all through this book, and that which is spiritual here that comes from God’s spirit that makes this come alive, that makes His words come alive, makes it have meaning as a way of life, that’s what we embrace and that’s what we want in our minds and our thinking.

Verse 50— And I know that His, going on, And I know that His commandments/His charge is everlasting life.

Well, we’re going to go ahead and stop there today.

Again here, that’s what it’s about. It keeps coming back to the same thing there, in essence. It’s about this desire God has to save. It’s about Elohim. It’s about getting from here to there. It’s about this process of being worked with by God and a process of how God does that in people’s lives, and even a plan to apply that. Right now that plan is focused upon us and how we respond to it. We have to yield ourselves to it and our desire then has to do with our choices and decisions we make according to this subject matter here we’re going through now, of doing things according to God’s will and not our own.

1. Chapter 1