Atonement of 2019

Ronald Weinland

October 9, 2019

Today is the annual high day, annual holy day, the Day of Atonement of 2019.

I thought as I was preparing this or getting ready to begin this pre-recorded sermon, because it is pre-recorded. I’ve done that with the Trumpets sermon and I’m doing that now with the Atonement sermon. It’s been some time since I’ve given these sermons and they need to be pre-recorded so they can be translated ahead of time for everyone, and also, obviously, because of the time changes and things beginning over in Australia and New Zealand first on the high day.

So again here, in preparing this I was thinking about this. It’s kind of mean, maybe, on this particular day because it’s a day of fasting, but today that I’m doing this is not a day of fasting. Yesterday when I pre-recorded the sermon on Trumpets I needed a glass of water and didn’t have one and so forged my way forward or through that particular sermon without a drink when I needed one desperately. So today I have one and well, just a moment. Ah, really good. Again, rather mean because, again, all of you are fasting.

It’s a unique thing about fasting, as soon as you start you know there’s a period of time, especially on Atonement, because you know it’s from the period of sundown to sundown and you begin before sundown, maybe even have a glass of water just a little bit before sundown, which is fine. In times past I think of the righteousness of people, so righteous it’s, like, well, you’ve got to do it well ahead of time. You can’t just wait up to the last minute because that’s just not right, to do something like that. We’ve got to be better than that. We’ve got to do better than that. It’s like the Jews who in Jerusalem the siren goes off an hour before sunset and an hour after sunset on the Sabbath.

Well, no, God just says it’s from a specific moment in time and so it’s fine to have a glass of water a minute before Atonement begins. There is nothing wrong with that because Atonement is kept on the Day of Atonement; not the day before, not two minutes before, not an hour before. So again, balance, soundness of mind, something that’s really precious to have, something we should all desire to have with all of our being.

Again, a unique day. When we begin fasting there is that part of denying self and there is a lot of meaning in that, in this particular day. Any time one fasts it’s a matter of humbling oneself. That’s so important to the meaning of this day, a time of humbling ourselves, because we’re saying no to our body and our body wants something else, it wants food, it wants drink, and to go a full 24-hour period is to deny self, what self wants.

Again, so much to learn in that. We have to humble ourselves. To receive God’s way of life we have to humble ourselves because our carnal nature is against God’s way. It isn’t in unity and oneness with God and so we have to learn to deny self, to say no to self, to fight against self, to humble ourselves, because it requires humbling ourselves to something different than our own way. So again, some of that meaning that’s in this particular day we’re going to talk about more.

But again, a unique time for us, I think about this, since the Apostasy. I mentioned that even in considering and talking about the Feast of Trumpets, and now the Day of Atonement, that this will be the 25th Day of Atonement that God’s Church is observing since that period of time. I may have made a mistake. I may have said 24 in Trumpets. I’m not sure. Hopefully I said 25. But I think I referenced this.

But still, it’s amazing the amount of time that has gone by, and this is the 25th Day of Atonement since that time. So, matter of fact, I know I did because I talked about 24 and 12 and 12. Anyway, we’re just past that, in that respect, in the number of times that we are talking about the observing of this time. So it is the 25th Day of Atonement. Maybe I ought to go and take a check at my math here. But again, from 1994 when the Apostasy occurred, our first day of Atonement then in 1995.

So again, the Apostasy in 1994, in December, so 1995, again, was the very first one we kept. It’s been a long road. A lot has happened in that period of time. A lot of, in one way, in this human life, a lot has happened in that period of time. So again, still in the meaning of the things about 24 still apply, because we’ve gone past that with Trumpets this year, and now with Atonement so we’re just beyond that. We’ve entered into a new period in time, in that respect, of observance of God’s holy days when you talk about time. But again, it brings some other things to mind that I brought up in the Trumpets sermon. But I don’t mean to be wandering off here on some of those things, I just need to be more accurate in my math, I guess, before I say something.

So again, time, it goes by so quickly. To keep track of it, sometimes to think about it is an awesome thing. So again, the 25th Day of Atonement that God’s Church is observing since that period of time. And by the time we observed that first one, not a full year. It happens in the fall, usually around September, sometimes, I believe, on into October on occasion, obviously, just like this year. But again, somewhere in September or October, late September, early October.

This means, if you think about this, that there are some of you who are now baptized, Laura and I did a little bit of a count knowing that there are several actually, that there are some of you who are now baptized who were not even born when that event occurred. That’s incredible, just 25 years ago. To think back in time of what has happened nearly 25 years ago, I should say, then, because it won’t be until this December that it’s 25, so there is the 24 there since the Apostasy. If we look at it that way we’re in that particular year and almost up to the 25th anniversary or the period of time that that took place in God’s Church. Don’t know if I want to call it an anniversary to remember, but we do remember it, but not in a good way, an apostasy that occurred in the Church.

So again, to think about this, to realize there are some of you baptized who weren’t even born at that time? Incredible! So when we went through that horrifying time, and it was horrifying, I was 45. 45! I think back to 45, wow, that was young compared to what I am right now. Laura was 38, really young, you know. That’s the height of life, in that respect, as far as physical human life is concerned, as far as health and energy and strength in many ways. Anyway, incredible, 38.

But now it’s Atonement of 2019, which obviously is the title of this sermon. It seems like it was so long ago and yet it seems like it only happened a few years ago when I look back and think about those things. That’s the way of life for each one of us in these physical bodies. It’s a reality. You may look forward to some event that is going to take place maybe in a few months, or in another year, or in a few years up the road, and it may seem a long time away, whether it be an anniversary or some special thing. You know, you think about what age you will be or some milestone in life, and yet when that day finally comes we seldom consider just how quickly that time we waited actually passed us by. The point being our lives are not that long in the scheme of things. It does pass quickly and what is passed is past. It’s up to each of us then how we use the time that we have.

Today is about time, in many ways. It’s about a process of time that can lead us into everlasting time. What an incredible thing to consider, to think about. This will be important to each of you in the context of how you see yourself in the time you have remaining in this physical life, whatever that might be.

This day is about being atoned to God, of going through the process of becoming reconciled to God, because that takes a long time, a long time in this physical life. Some take this seriously. Sometimes not until later on in life. But some take it seriously early on concerning their calling, concerning the time that they have and how it’s used. Others only partially so. Yet others don’t seem to take it too serious at all. Well, those are our choices. That’s where choices come in.

Let’s turn over to Leviticus 23 again as we do on holy days, high days to read what it says that we are to remember, that we are to consider, and understand why God said that we were to come together. This is something the ministry does year by year. It’s to direct us to what God has given to us as appointed times. He tells us to speak on these things. He tells us to focus upon these things.

I can’t help thinking about the Apostasy again. Can’t help thinking shortly after the Apostasy. I think of one sermon on the Last Great Day, the very first year I believe it was, the second year, maybe, but whatever it was, of the second Feast, I think it was, after the Feast. A second Feast after the Apostasy and on the Last Great Day a sermon being given that had nothing to do with the meaning of the Last Great Day. It had nothing to do, in that respect, to the Feast of Tabernacles, had nothing to do.

I think, what a horrible thing that minds were not directed to something in that that had meaning about the period of time that the Feast of Tabernacles reflects, or at least somehow draw that into it. Well, anyway, people got up and left, many, some people did and others discussed it and complained about it and so forth and said this wasn’t right. But it just shows how weak the Church had become, because for a long time leading up to that period of time sometimes there would be holy days, and even afterwards, again, that I’d hear of so many different kinds of sermons in different areas. Unleavened Bread – how can you have the Feast of Unleavened Bread without talking about its meaning? The Feast of Pentecost without discussing it’s meaning? Well, anyway.

God’s ministry, those who are blessed to have a relationship with God, who are led by God’s spirit will speak about these things in a context of that season of the year, especially on, primarily, the high days. That’s when, at least, it’s supposed to be discussed, brought out.

So again, Leviticus 23, we discuss it. These things are important to God. They’re important to us, to have a relationship with God because it’s about a relationship with God. The Sabbath, the command to keep the Sabbath is not just the weekly Sabbath, it’s about the annual Sabbath as well, every annual Sabbath we have. So we’re to keep the Sabbaths of God and this is a part of the process. This is a part of what we’re to do. A part of that then is, again, being reminded this is God’s plan, this is God’s purpose. God wants us to understand His plan and purpose. We’re physical human beings, we can tend to forget or become lax, and yet He reminds us every year so that we can keep on target, so that we can keep focused, so that we can keep running the race with the right markers in front of us. This is God’s plan. This is what we’re working toward. This is what’s being accomplished.

Leviticus 23:26—And the Eternal spoke to Moses, saying: Also the tenth day of the seventh month shall be the Day of Atonement. Very specific. It shall be a holy convocation for you; you shall afflict your souls. That’s what we do on this day. It’s a day of fasting. It’s a time of not eating nor drinking. It’s a time of humbling ourselves before God. It’s a time to, especially here, some of the things we’re doing, it’s a matter of humbling ourselves mightily that we want to change, that we want God’s way, we don’t want our way, we want to more clearly see our way, we want to conquer and overcome the things that stand in the way of God’s way.

You shall afflict your souls, fast, in other words, and offer an offering made by fire... Mentioned this concerning Atonement, as well, an offering made by fire. These things are mentioned over and over again and especially on this day a reminder here that this is a time to humble ourselves before God. We have to do that in order to offer an offering made by fire, to be willing to go through whatever trials, hardships, difficulties in this physical life that we must endure, to do it faithfully, to learn from that and to be an example, to help others to see this is what you’re to do, this is how you’re to live right up to the end with confidence, with understanding, “This is my calling.” This is a part of being a part of God’s Church, of God’s spirit working in our lives. We are in His hands. He knows everything about us. He knows everything about us, every weakness, every hardship, every pull in life, and He knows our attitude, our mind, and He helps to transform that, which is even more exciting because we don’t have to stay the way we are, we can change.

I used to change an example that one minister gave that I was with for a time before being full time in the ministry, and he’d make this comment about different people and things they were going through and it was like, “A leopard doesn’t change its spots.” I used to think about that and think, yeah, what you’re saying is, is this person can never change, will never change. I thought, that’s just not right, because with God’s spirit we can change. So, anyway, thankfully with God’s spirit we can change. That’s a part of a hope we carry with us. We don’t want to stay the same year by year by year.

So it goes on to say here: You shall do no work on that same day, for it is the Day of Atonement, to make an atonement for you before the Eternal your God, to become atoned to God, to become reconciled to God. As so many in times past have said, in breaking this word down, at-one-ment. To be at one, in essence, with God. It says it in the word, in a sense, in the way it’s written in English, atonement. What an incredibly wonderful thing that we can do, become more at one with God. That means with the mind of God and thinking and how we think and our ways, no longer our ways but our ways now because of change and growth and conquering and transformation become God’s ways. Our ways can become God’s ways. That mind can be in us and we can become then more like God. That’s what we’re to do. That’s the process.

So again, to make atonement for us is about reconciliation, and in this sense it is about making us right before God through the covering of sin. That’s how we’re able to change, transformation. I think of what Peter said. One of the first things they said was, “What should we do?” And he said, “Repent and,” in essence, “be baptized,” but there is more to the story. In those verses it talks about, as well, the process of being converted. It’s about a mind. It’s a change in mind. That’s why I love that word “repent,” because that word means “to think differently.” That’s a thinking process. We can’t do that without God’s help. That’s where the transformation of mind comes in, by the power of God’s spirit in our thinking, and we can actually begin to think differently, more in unity and harmony and agreement with God. Not our ways, but in the way of God.

The more we live it, the more we experience it, the more we become convicted, convicted in spirit and that becomes a part of our thinking and our mind and our conviction, then we’re more at one with God. It’s a reconciliation, an atoning to God. So it is about covering of sin which begins, again, with humility that’s pictured through afflicting our souls, our lives, in fasting.

Verse 29—Any person who is not afflicted on that same day shall be cut off from his people. So again, this example of being cut off from his people. It’s during all this time for atoning and this reconciling process that one must seek to be of a humble spirit. We must seek a humble spirit. We must seek to be of a certain thinking, of a certain mind and that’s a battle. That’s where we have to enter into battle. That’s why I love the word as well about conquering. Overcoming is translated in English throughout the New Testament, the word “to conquer.” That’s what it means. It has to do with war. It has to do with fighting. We have to conquer this. We have to work at conquering self so we work to conquer self in the sense of the mind, in the sense of the way we think, and strive to think differently, repent. Think differently, that’s what the word means.

Verse 30—For any person who does any work on that same day. So again here, it pictures we’re not to do our own work, we’re not to do our own way. It magnifies this because it has to do more with the meaning of the day. With becoming atoned to God we can’t do our own ways, we can’t do things according to the way we see it, “I” see it. We’re to change. It’s about humbling ourselves.

So again here, these things have such incredible meaning in the way God states them and gives them, and so we have that opportunity to learn and to grow and become stronger in spirit, more at one with God.

Any person who does any work on that same day, that person I will destroy from among his people. So if we don’t learn to think differently, if we don’t strive to change the way we think, if we have sin in our life, if we don’t go to battle against the things that we’re doing wrong in our lives, if we just do things year by year without care, without concern, hurting others, saying things to others that’s wrong, being of a wrong spirit, of a wrong attitude and we’re not addressing and not fighting those things then we’re not striving to do God’s work in us. There is a work going on in each one of us who’s been called. So we’re not to do our work, we’re to do God’s, we’re to do God’s way of life. That’s what these things are about. It says if you do any of your own work on this day.

So, again, to become reconciled to God we can’t do our own work, we can’t do our own ways. We have to do God’s ways. To be atoned to God means we’re doing God’s ways, at one with Him. You shall do no manner of work; this is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.

Verse 32—It shall be to you a Sabbath of rest, and you shall afflict your souls; and then it says, on the ninth day of the month at evening, from even to evening you shall rest on your Sabbath. So again here, it gets very specific as we go through all this, even for the timing it points it out here in a way to help people to understand there is a specific timing for holy days. We understand that about the Sabbath, but there is that same specific timing for holy days. People come along, like Passover, and they want to change some of it into another day. It says keep the Passover in the fourteenth day of the month, not part of it in the fifteenth. It’s all in the fourteenth. So simple! Between the evenings, between the two evenings, “bane ha erebyim,” as it says. Then it goes on between here and makes it clear. This is a place where it makes it very clear what between two evenings mean. We can understand that. It’s not rocket science. It’s simple. It’s basic. God has made it that way.

So it says, on the tenth day of the month it shall be the Day of Atonement. So that’s why it says down here then it’s on or in the tenth day of the month. It’s not in the ninth; it’s not in the eleventh. That’s why it says it like this down here to make it very clear then. It drives the point home, very specific here about timing in this last verse, verse 32, “and it shall be a Sabbath to you of rest and you shall afflict your souls on the ninth day of the month at evening,” at sundown, “ba erev”; when the sun goes down we understand what that means. So from that moment on you afflict your souls. Well, you may start but you better be doing it then from that moment on. But two minutes before, a minute before you may have had a quick drink of water. That’s fine! But at that moment we are in the Day of Atonement, we begin to afflict our souls.

...it shall be a Sabbath of rest and you shall afflict your souls on the ninth day of the month at evening. So it gets it very specific here. It says, in the tenth day you’re to observe it. In other words, on the tenth day. So on the ninth day at evening – so it get’s specific here – it says, when the sun has gone down, that word in Hebrew, “ba erev,” when the sun is down that’s when it begins, because it’s no longer the ninth then. The ninth at even is a specific moment. It’s when that day comes to a halt, to an end. “Ba erev” on the ninth is the moment of sundown on the ninth. That day is over. That’s what it means. A new day has begun, the tenth. So that that moment it’s a time to afflict your souls, and so we’re all doing that for certain by that moment in time.

It says, again, on the ninth day of the month at evening (ba erev), from evening to evening, from sundown to sundown, from “ba erev” to “ba erev.” “Ba erev” on the ninth to “ba erev” on the tenth. Sundown on the ninth begins the tenth, until the tenth is over. “Ba erev” on the tenth, it’s over, a new day begins, the eleventh.

So again, things that are so simple. But it’s amazing how many people, hundreds and hundreds, and likely thousands, who ignore such basic principles, basic truths, and want to twist and distort something that is so clear that’s been given by God. And they’ve done it; people in the ministry in God’s own Church have done this. Large numbers have done these things. Incredible. Mindboggling. Truly is.

But it just drives the point home when cut off from God’s spirit people doing their own work, their own ways, have a different way of saying it, have a different way of addressing it, have something else they’re going to do opposite or different from what God says, they’re cut off. Indeed they’re going to be cut off, cut off from God’s spirit, and when they’re cut off from God’s spirit they can’t see the simplest of things.

The only way you can see, and that should give you strength if you still see it, then God’s being merciful to you and blessing you and giving you opportunity. Because you can lose it just like that; it can be gone. If you’re cut off, if we let down, if we become lukewarm, if we begin straddling the fence, if we begin playing around with sin, if we cease to humble ourselves before God and start doing our own thing and ignoring what God says, the change that must take place in us.

So on many occasions of this day we, again, have gone through Leviticus 16 that speaks of this process that’s laid out before us concerning our High Priest and the symbolizing of or foreshadowing, if you will, of this process of being atoned to God. Because the work that the High Priest did pictured the work of Christ. Then all the things that took place, the different kinds of offerings and all the stuff that took place, it’s a powerful description of the process of atoning, of the time we have of being atoned to God.

So the first part of what’s contained in that chapter, again, as I just mentioned, is about the duties of the high priest that were performed. Because the high priest was performing the things that took place there, pictured Christ’s work, which again, foreshadowed and symbolized Christ as our High Priest. Then it speaks of the two goats. We’re familiar with that. I’m not going to go through that section this year. But we’re familiar with that. Those two goats are mentioned. One of them being the azazel and it says in scripture, in the King James anyway, that the scapegoat. Well, Satan would like to think, have us think that the one there’s there, see, is the scapegoat, being blamed for something that he didn’t do, basically. Well, that’s not true. He’s guilty and he’s the azazel not the scapegoat. He’s the azazel goat.

Again, beautiful symbolism in what God gave to us there because the two goats had to have lots cast before them so that they could know which was which, which was the azazel that pictured Satan and which one pictures Christ. That’s true in life because people are deceived. So many are deceived and don’t understand they are worshipping the azazel, in essence. They look to him. They think he’s the one. Well, God has to show who is His Son, who is the Christ. Without God’s calling, without God’s help people can’t see it, they can’t know. That’s a marvel. That is an incredible thing to understand. It can’t be figured out. It can’t be worked out by human reasoning. God has to give it.

Then there are verses that speak of (I love this part, too, in Leviticus 16), that speak of how the high priest went into the Holiest of Holies, that last section of the tabernacle where he performed certain duties. He didn’t perform duties in there like this, as a sense of duties toward God, in the sense of offering up incense, though there are things that had to be done throughout the year in that part of the temple. As far as a service, as far as something being done like this, there was only one time of the year that anyone could go in there and it was the high priest. He did that on the Day of Atonement. It’s a beautiful picture.

Because our High Priest, what he did – it represents God’s throne, represents God’s presence, being there with God in heaven. He’s the only one that’s ever been there, our High Priest. The only one from human life. So again, when it talks about him going into the Holiest of Holies to atone the congregation and not come out until his work was finished, well, he’s been doing that for nearly 2,000 years now, atoning the congregation. We are that part of the congregation and he’s been atoning us, working at, helping us to become atoned to God. He doesn’t come back out, in other words doesn’t come back to this earth, doesn’t come back to be with mankind with us on this earth and ruling this earth, he doesn’t come back out from the Holiest of Holies until that work is complete. That’s the 144,000. The 144,000, the finishing part of that, the largest part of that during the past 2,000 years in atoning the rest of the congregation had to be done during that period of time. So he pictures that as our High Priest. Beautiful picture.

Everything is absolutely so beautiful in God’s word, it really is. It just fits together so clearly. With God’s spirit it’s clear. It’s beautiful.

So once we’re called into the Church, the congregation of God, then throughout this entire time that we have such opportunity we are to experience this process of becoming reconciled to God through the atoning that’s accomplished in our lives through our Passover and High Priest Joshua the Christ.

So again, how seriously do we take this time, this time that we have, and how do we use this time that God has blessed us to live in? We are so blessed. We don’t tend to think that way, as a whole. Human life, we’re physical, we go through routine and time seems like certain things that are planned away are farther down, seem so far away, and then they pass us so quickly. And before long your body is breaking down. We’re not meant to continue on. Slowly but surely it begins to get weaker and weaker. We begin to feel those things. That point is driven home as people get older. It’s indeed, good time to think, especially when receiving and having God’s spirit. You don’t start thinking those things and about those things until you get there. You can start thinking about them ahead of time, and that’s what we’re to do.

How do we use our time? Because we need to be wise about how we use our time so that we can continue being reconciled, atoned to God throughout time until it’s done, until it’s accomplished. Because this time that we live, it’s here and it’s gone. It’s gone. Life goes on. Yes, there is sadness, people are missed, our lives are changed, those who remain alive, and it’s just a process of life and it will go on.

So in considering this passage of time I can’t help but think of what is written in Ecclesiastes. I’m going to spend some time today reading some of this. Not all of it but some of it. Ecclesiastes 3:1, because, again, how we use the time we have determines our becoming atoned to God, being reconciled to God and whether time then becomes another issue in life, another matter of life. It becomes life because it’s time forever, forevermore, if you will, everlasting life, age lasting life. We can’t comprehend that because we are accustomed to seeing death. We are accustomed to knowing what happens to a physical human body. But when spirit, life just goes on, to be lived richly. The only way to be lived richly is the way that God has planned for us.

That’s why I can’t help but think about time before the flood. I cannot imagine living several hundred years and knowing how evil, how harsh human beings had the capacity to become, how hardened and set in their ways. If the mind began to be set in wrong ways how bad that could truly be. Seventy years is enough. It’s deeply set already. But thankfully in God’s way of life, when called, then that mind can be transformed if it hasn’t been damaged beyond repair, damaged to a point where it won’t change by choice. That’s what happened before the flood; it was to that point, people were so corrupting their minds, their lives.

So again Ecclesiastes 3:1 here, it says, To everything there is an appointed time. I like how that’s stated. It’s like that word “appointed time,” and when we talk about that, God has appointed times for us for the holy days. Today is an appointed time. It’s a set day, the ninth day of the seventh month at sunset we enter into, as soon as that sunset takes place, we’re in the tenth day and we’re in the Day of Atonement. It’s an appointed time by God. He set it for us.

Now, some things are set like that, as far as observances are concerned, but To everything, it says, there is an appointed time. There is a time for every purpose under heaven. So again, we don’t tend to think this way as human beings.

A time to be born... Well, we know when that happens it goes by quickly. It may not seem that way before a mother gives birth, before a woman gives birth, becomes a mother, but you know, it’s a difficult time. Men don’t have to go through that. I’ve been thankful for that. It’s an experience that God allotted for women to have and it’s a beautiful thing, it’s an awesome thing, it’s an incredible thing that takes place, that life that’s there.

…a time to be born. So one comes out of the womb and they begin to breathe, life begins. A physical life begins, breathing in air, and, in that respect, no longer dependant on the mother for life, but now independent in life. That independence begins immediately and continues on, and the carnality grows, the selfishness grows. Just the way of carnal physical life. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life, it begins to be developed because of the very type of creation or existence that we have by design for incredible purpose. Because there is no other way for Elohim to be created than for a physical body that can be called, that can be baptized, that can receive the impregnation of God’s spirit in the mind to become transformed and changed, by choice, free choice.

I mean, people become excited about paintings and I think of some of the things on the wall, the one behind me here. Mankind has great ability when it comes to different things in art and so forth, and people become excited about some of those things. It’s a good thing to enjoy beauty. And people, we hang things in our houses that are various things of art or sculpture or whatever it might be. Sometimes I think we have too much around here. After you get to this point in life it’s time for downsizing because everything you’ve ever accumulated in life you put it out somewhere, as a whole, a lot of it, and, anyway, another story. Those who are older understand that and in profound ways.

So I enjoy those things. I enjoy looking at them. They never get old, in that respect. But God’s word, God’s way of life is far more beautiful. Things we’re going through today, they paint a picture in a spirit realm, if you will, in a spiritual way that goes far, far beyond what man can make, what man can do. It’s far more profound, far more exciting, far more inspiring because this is something we can have every day of our life in us. That’s just something we learn and experience.

A time to be born; A time to die. I’ve confronted that several times already and it’s just what it is. Shouldn’t be any great fear in it. Shouldn’t be any great worry about it. When it happens it happens, life goes on. Those who look to God will be blessed by God. Those who don’t will suffer and be given an opportunity later on. But that time will come. That time, those who have to wait a thousand years, they don’t know they’re waiting. When they die it’s going to be just like they took a nap and they wake up, but in totally different surroundings, in a new world, something that is going to dumbfound them and help them to change when they see what God has done for a thousand years on this earth, and on and on it goes.

So sometimes in life we tend to live drama, we tend to make drama, we tend to worry and fret and want to control things, and some things are just flat out of our control. This is one of them. When you die you just die, it’s over. You don’t have any control of that. When it happens, so be it, especially when you’re called and you have opportunity. If people aren’t called, then again, that’s a thousand years. The time will pass and they will be able to be resurrected and brought back to life again. Life goes on, time will pass. There is a, as it says here, “To everything there is an appointed time.” God’s time and how life works and how life continues on and how we can be a part of that.

A time to be born; a time to die. A time to plant... “A time to plant.” A time to pluck what is planted. Just the way it is. It’s appointed time. It’s there. A time to kill; a time to heal. So again, whether it be animals, the food you have in your refrigerator, there’s a time to kill certain things. There are times to, as it says here, time to heal. I don’t need to go into those; you have sermons on these, each one of these little phrases.

A time to break down; a time to build up. There just is. Everything has something in its time. We have something in our time, whatever that time is depends on what we’re focused upon and how we’re using it.

A time to weep; a time to laugh. There are times to cry. There are times we do cry as human beings and things we experience that hurt inside, sometimes because we don’t understand or sometimes because of the suffering that is there and it gets to us that is on an emotional plane. “A time to laugh.” Things that happen sometimes we’re able to see humor, and even there we learn wrong humor and right humor in God’s Church as we become atoned, going through the process of becoming atoned to God. Because you look at what people laugh at in this world and sometimes it’s just really sick and they think they have to have the ugliest and most crass of things sometimes in order to be funny, in order to have people laugh. That’s such a perversion of the mind. Cleanliness in humor, there’s not much of it out there anymore. It seemed like there were so many decent comedians at one time, sometimes they go off and in order to have people hire them or to have larger audiences come in to see them they have this pressure upon them to become crass, to bring in things of a sexual nature that are not good in the way they talk about women and the way they talk about.... I don’t need to go there.

A time to mourn, and a time to dance. So there is a time to mourn as human beings, to mourn the suffering of people, to hate to see the suffering of people, to understand what it is in order to have empathy and to feel for people when they’re going through various things, a loss of life, whatever it might be that people experience. Just sometimes not knowing what to say but just to be there for them. On and on it goes.

So there are times for that. There are times for that, a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing. In all these periods of time the time becomes richer if and to the degree we’re striving to do things God’s way, if and to the degree that we’re striving to be at one with God. That means to be of God’s mind, of God’s thinking. If something doesn’t agree with God we shouldn’t want it mixed in with our time.

A time to cast away stones; a time to gather stones. A time to embrace; a time to refrain from embracing.

Verse 6—A time to gain, and a time to lose. A time to keep, and a time to throw away. We have to make those choices and decisions in life, what do we keep and what do we throw away? A time to tear, and a time to sew. So again, all these things in time, all these different things that occupy our time, from the time we get up to the time we go to bed, a time to go to bed, a time to get out of bed. All these things – choices. And how do we use it? Do we use it to become atoned to God?

A time to tear; a time to sew. A time to keep silence, and a time to speak. There are times that we’re tested in those things. We have to judge those things. When do we speak and when do we shut up? When do we keep our mouths closed? When do we refrain from speaking and sometimes refrain from what we are speaking. Well, again, those fit in beautifully with this process of becoming reconciled, atoned to God. Are we doing it God’s way? Are we striving to do things God’s way? Is God included in the picture? Do we pray about God’s presence to be with us in those activities, or so many of those activities of our life? Do we strive to make certain that we’re on guard against the things that interfere, the things that aren’t God’s way? Because if something isn’t in agreement with God’s way then it’s against being atoned, of being reconciled to God, of being of the same mind of God.

So we need to see things in that light – is it in agreement with the mind of God? How do I think about it? Am I in agreement with God?

A time to love; a time to hate. For me I think God’s way, to love God’s way, to love God’s law, to love God’s truth is to love God, and having it in practice in our life, how we think about others then in our relationships, God has to be in the picture. “A time to hate?” I think of hating self; I hate the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. We have to hate those things. If we’re to conquer and overcome certain things in our life we have to learn to hate that which is not in harmony and unity and oneness with God. Truly. Because unless we hate what is against God then the mind can’t become convicted of what is right and what is love.

A time of war; a time of peace. Peace is better. Peace is the best, and so we strive for peace. Sometimes we have to war in order to have peace. We have to enter into war, into battle, to conquer self—that’s a great battle in itself—in order to have peace. That’s why we’ve gone through much in the past year, and even at the Feast last year when I had that little llama and would squeeze it at the Feast of Tabernacles. Because that brown that came out, that’s just drama, drama from the llama. Often we do that as human beings. There is just too much drama that’s not God’s way so we have to fight self to conquer self so that we can be at one with God—a time of peace—in order to have right peace. True peace comes from God. That’s why peace and drama are the opposite of each other. They truly are. They just don’t mix.

To be free of drama is to have peace. I love peace. I love God and I love peace because that’s the mind of God, that’s the being of God. God, He gave up peace a long time ago when He created an angelic realm that had the ability of free moral agency in the sense of deciding what they were going to do, knowing full well that in time there would be those who would turn against Him, whatever that period of time was, and for them back then it well could have been millions. We don’t comprehend that, millions. See, seventy years we’re allotted, in a sense, as far as basic human life, average, in a sense almost, of human life, if you will. We have the capacity to live that. Some have the ability and capacity to live beyond that, and now today with technology we can go past that. I’d have been dead quite a long time ago if it hadn’t been for what we have today, back in my fifties, mid-fifties, back in 2005. I’d have been gone if it hadn’t been for modern technology. So we go through these things in life of what we’re able to have and how long we’re able to have it.

So again here, What profit, it goes on to say, verse 9, What profit does the worker have from that which he labors? Do we recognize that when we work for things that are right and good then there is reward and blessings in that, when done God’s way, when atoned to God? I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything beautiful in its time. God has. “Beautiful in its time.” So even in this physical human life there is so much beauty, but man has corrupted it, man tends to corrupt it, and that’s what must change. That’s what we’re called to change. You have no control of anybody else. You can’t change anyone else.

Too many people try to change others. There are people out here, people in God’s Church, too often that try to change, control other’s environment, things about others. They can try to work with things to a time, but after a time the mind is set and you can’t help them anymore, they’re set in their way. It’s between them and God as to when certain things will happen and whether their mind will be opened up to what is true and right so they can have a right life. What you do have control of is yourself and only yourself. That you can change. So too often people have drama in their life because they’re trying to control others, the lives of others. And you can’t. God doesn’t do that with us. He doesn’t control our lives. That would be against His way totally.

He has made, God has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity into their hearts, into the hearts of mankind. Isn’t that an amazing thing? There is something about mankind that wants more, that wants to live forever their way. So people tend to live their way and at the last if they can have this little thing done in front of them and some water sprinkled on them right there when they’re gasping for their last breath, and if that can happen, then everything is okay, you’re going to have peace from now on. You lived like a fool on the earth before this, you lived wretchedly, you lied, you cheated, you committed adultery, you whatever, you stole, and you did all these bad things, but if you could have that little magical thing take place when you’re right there on your last dying breath and say certain words or agree to certain words it’s okay, you’re going to be there forever.

So there is this thing in the human mind, even in different religions, where they go on to something else. They might come back as something else. They might come back as a cricket, maybe a roach. They might come back as a rat. They might come back as a snake, a monkey, whatever it is, and they just keep going around this life cycle. Somehow they go into this other life and there is this mystery of life where you might come back as a human again someday, might be millions of years going through the animal world or something, I guess, and you might get another crack at human life, but you’ll never know it, but life just goes on. What a horrible thing! So it’s in the minds of carnal human beings to want to live longer.

He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. So that’s why I think so often about the things that we have, what God has given us in the Church. He’s given us so much, so much to understand about Him going way back in time. We have been given in the end-time, since the Apostasy, so much in the sense of understanding a spirit realm and how that a spirit realm was created before life was ever created because there had to be a place for spirit life to exist. We can’t comprehend that. Then a physical realm was created. You can’t comprehend that mind. You can’t comprehend such a thing, and within it then physical life, and then physical life, as God says, attests to the reality that He exists, that there is God, that there is a Creator, that life doesn’t just happen. That you can’t have laws and order by a great blast and everything just exploding and all of a sudden beauty comes out of chaos.

So even on a physical realm God says that mankind is without excuse. Truly! So what do people rather? They’d rather worship the creation rather than the Creator, it says. That’s the mind of man, worship the creation. That’s what people have done. Big fat people, the big fat stomach, different gods at different times that were people or in the image of people, various things through time, animals, worshiping animals; Egypt was filled with different kinds of things they worshipped. Some of the things they worshipped were the very things God used as a part of the process of the plagues they had. All the frogs, and how wonderful was that that they were all over the place and stinking up the place after they were dead? And on and on it went.

Verse 12—I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice, and to do good in their lives, to do good in their lives. There is a reward, there’s blessing there is satisfaction from that in life. There is a fullness in that that escapes, so often, the human mind. ...and also that everyone should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all their labor. In other words, this is where fullness of life comes from, enjoying what you do. I think of things that are done today where there is not that satisfaction and joy, that people have robbed themselves from that, and a lot of it because of society and pressure from employers and so it’s about money, money, money and profits and so people are pushed to do things and they don’t take satisfaction in what they do and they become lazy in what they do and workmanship becomes bad. I think of building of houses and how it’s, because of the cost factor and pressure of time, and so people cut corners because they want to make more profit, and what it’s like. But what a horrible thing!

I think of the remodeling of this place here, that did some work on this past winter and it was a joy and I have a joy of looking at it. It’s a joy to enjoy something like that, the fruit of your labor. My wife and I like things that we do in our yard when we have that time. And sometimes we don’t like it as much as others because you’ve got to keep it up, too, you’ve got to maintain it once you do it. You know, the dress and keep things. You put it out there, you dress it, dress the yard, then you’ve got to keep it, you’ve got to maintain it. That’s a part of life. And you know what? There is a joy and a satisfaction in that.

But people today, it’s harder to think that way today than it was many years ago. Even then people didn’t grasp much of that, but far more than what they do today, where people took pride and satisfaction in what they were able to do. A right kind of pride, not a wrong kind of thing. It’s looking at a job and saying, “I put a lot into that and this is good, this feels good. The craftsmanship, thankful that I have that ability to be able to do that. What a gift from God!” Anyway, on and on it goes.

So again, there is that which God has given mankind to enjoy, but in this day and age people are enjoying less and less and there is more calamity because of it, things are stirred up more than ever before. What a horrible world we live in today. People lost in the electronic world. It’s like being lost. It’s like they could somehow go through a machine and be out there on the internet, in the vastness of life, one’s and zero’s. Life is lost.

So again here, verse 14 it says, I know that whatever God does it shall be forever.

Well, let me finish this other one. Let me read verse 13 again, And also that everyone should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all their labor. There’s pleasure in that, joy in that that God has made for us to be able to have. –it is the gift of God. Indeed, it is, and if people can see God in it what an awesome thing. The more that we can see that the happier, the richer life becomes, the more we become atoned to God, the richer life becomes. Because that’s when we can begin to see those things more and more. The more we become atoned to God the more we can live that and see that.

I know that whatever God does it shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken from it. God is in control, thank God. God does it, that all people should fear before Him. It doesn’t mean to be afraid. It means to fear to do any other way. That’s what so much of this day is about. It’s about that kind of fear, to fear not being atoned to God, to be fearful of turning away from God, to fear not repenting, to fear not humbling ourselves. Because if we don’t we’re not able to have what God has planned for us. God has planned so much for us to have so much beyond. But so often in this human life when people get wrapped up in the physical, in style, in self, in how they’re seen and where they live, and what they drive, and on and on it goes, to the point that those things become more important than God being in the picture and being atoned to God and doing things the right way. Because that’s where you learn. That’s where you are able to be atoned and reconciled then to God, through a lifelong process of striving to be in unity and agreement with God.

So time passes more quickly than you can grasp, until you become older, then you begin to even grasp it a little bit more. Or just old. You don’t have to be older, but just old, whatever that is. So you don’t have to think about that and meditate on that, but you know when it happens, you’re getting old, things are changing in your life, your body isn’t able to respond as well as it did to certain things before. On and on it goes.

So how do you use your time? So we need to be cognisant of that and we really should be from the day we’re baptized. How do we use our time? Is it God’s? I mean, are we dedicating it to God, offering an offering made by fire, whatever comes along that we strive to do it and live it God’s way no matter what the suffering, no matter what the hardship might be? Because there is going to be hardship in living God’s way of life. There truly is. Hardship sometimes from the world. Hardship from the spirit world sometimes. Hardship sometimes because we’re saying no to self, because we’re battling self and wanting to change so that we can become more fully atoned to God, reconciled in a unity and agreement with God, convicted of what is right.

See, when we’re not convicted and we’re doing our own thing something has to change in the mind. That’s why just repenting isn’t enough. The mind has to be different. Only God can help it to become different. That’s where conviction comes in, conviction of what God says, that once convicted and it’s set in the mind it’s always there – God is right.

So do you seek to afflict your soul now in fear of living anything other than what God has shown us? Too often people haven’t. We’ve had far more people go by the wayside than those who have stayed, even in PKG. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds more.

So again, do you seek to afflict your soul now in fear of living anything other than what God has shown us that is required of us in order to become more fully atoned to Him? That’s the kind of question that we’re to meditate upon, think about today, that we’re thinking upon right now through this sermon as we’re listening to it, this Day of Atonement, becoming reconciled to God, repentance, change, wanting to think differently, wanting to be convicted, more deeply... That’s what conversion more fully is, the change, the conviction. Because real change, lasting change is a matter of the mind, of the conviction of the mind, to know that you would never, ever, ever work on a Sabbath day—never!—for an employer or for yourself. You would never do that. That’s a conviction, an agreement with God.

So in whatever areas that we’re not convicted yet, well, God will work with us. He’ll help us to see those things. We have to be willing to go through whatever is necessary in order for that sometimes to even be brought to the surface—the gold and the silver being refined—so that we can then see what needs to be removed. But if we see the ugliness then we need to work on it, we need to pray about it, we need to fight it. Otherwise, it’ll just sink back down into it and be covered up again until God have mercy on us and let us go through a fire to where it’s lit up again and heated up again so that we can see it again and hopefully then address it and say, “I hate this and I don’t want it!” and cry out to God to fight it so you can become more fully atoned to Him. It’s about repentance, change, conviction, conversion of mind, transformation of the mind, being atoned to God. So again, indeed, this day is about becoming reconciled, atoned to God.

Romans 5:8—But God commends His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It’s just the way of mankind. Carnality, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life, it’s in sin which requires the death penalty. So to continue on in life, to have life that continues on then a change has to take place, reconciliation, atoning has to take place because sin is against God. We have to be atoned to God and it’s a process in order to come into unity, a oneness, and to be at one with God.

Verse 9—Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. Wrath is about the execution of God’s judgment. At different times in our life judgment has to be executed. In life there are times of judgment for that. This wrath, in this respect, that is from a Greek word, means something different when it comes from God then it does when it comes from man. Because man never does it righteously, in that respect. God does because it’s always a matter of judgment. It’s not a matter of some kind of anger, because God loves us. It’s just a matter of duty, of responsibility. It’s a matter of love for His family, a love that must come through it all, of peace that must be there. If others do not choose that then there has to be the execution of judgment.

He didn’t want Lucifer to decide what he did. He didn’t want a third of the angels to choose what they chose, but they chose it. The execution of judgment – quoted or translated as “the wrath of God,” makes God, the way man looks at it, a bad thing or a harsh thing and it’s not. It’s a matter of God’s love that they don’t have to continue on.

So if we can grasp that in the angelic realm we need to grasp that in the human realm as well, that there are those human beings that have so corrupted the mind. If they don’t want God’s way of life it’s a matter of love that they should not live on in torment nor torment and hurt others. So out of that kind of love its better that they not be granted life—and God is the one who can grant life and give life—so they don’t continue on in that existence hurting themselves and suffering nor cause suffering to others. It has to come to an end.

Sometimes in God’s Church there is the execution of (it’d be translated as “wrath”), but it’s of God’s judgment and sometimes people have to be cut off from the Body, not to have fellowship with the Body. No one wants that. No one wants to see that in others. But as a matter of love there are times that those things have to be executed.

So again, there is a time for various things to be done. There is a time that God grants mercy and a time where mercy can no longer be granted. So again, difficult things in life, difficult battles, hardships to get where we’re going. It is a battle and it takes time. It takes time to conquer self. It takes time to conquer the pulls of this world. It takes time to conquer and fight against a spirit world. We’ll never fully conquer it all—God’s merciful, thankfully—because we’re incapable of it. Finally, we’re granted and blessed with a time where God says, “Now I know you. Your mind has been transformed to the point where now you can be given life, and with My life you will always be at one with Me.” What an awesomely beautiful and exciting thing to contemplate, when finally Atonement has come full circle and we have it, fully reconciled to God. So it’s a process. It takes time. It’s important in how we use our time and what we choose along the path in our time.

Verse 10—For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, atoned to God, that’s what this is about. It’s about the death of His Son, what was given in order to give us the ability to become reconciled, atoned as human beings. Sin has to be forgiven, first of all, so that we can receive of, taste of, experience the mind of God, the being, the spirit, the word of God in our minds. That’s why only by that ability and by that blessing and by such forgiveness and such reconciliation and mercy that God gives are we able to be in fellowship, are we able to continue on in the Body and see what we see. Because the only way we can see the truth and know it is because God gives us that ability, as I mentioned earlier. Just something so simple about the day from the ninth to the tenth of the seventh month, “ba erev,” that is so simple and so plain, but so many have, so many in the Church through time, so many up to the Apostasy and afterwards, even those who continued on, who had opportunity to be awakened out of sleep, chose the wrong things and chose some of these things that were against something that’s so clear. But it’s not clear. That which is spiritual is not clear on a physical plane. It requires God’s spirit. So the glory and the honor goes to God and His Son and we’re blessed to receive of that into our lives.

For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, been reconciled we shall be saved by His life. Yes, that he’s High Priest. That’s a part of it. But as High Priest he gives us the opportunity to receive him as our Passover. Then intercession is able to be made, in that respect. We have the ability then of having access to the very throne of God through him, and because of what he did, then we can have his life and that of his Father living and dwelling in us and we in them on a spirit plane, meaning we are able to have this unity, this harmony in spirit and God working at transforming our minds during that time of grace in our lives that we have access to now. So we’re to use our time wisely to continue in that grace and in that mercy until this process is complete.

Verse 11—And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Joshua the Christ, through whom we have now received the atonement, the reconciliation. It’s through him that we have this being able to be at one with God. In the Church we have this. We’re able to be atoned. It’s the process. We have this atonement with God. We’re not there yet but we have the process at work in our lives. We have the process of reconciliation working in our lives and it’s the mind that’s being transformed and being changed so that we can indeed become more at one with, in unity and harmony with God.

Now, too often people don’t grasp the importance of time, and grasping how we should strive to more fully latch on to it in the sense of seeking to use it better, especially in using it wisely to become more fully atoned to God. What about our prayer life? What about our relationship with God? How do we look to God? Where do we include Him in our life? Do we want to include Him in our lives in what we do and our plans, and not just on the Sabbath but throughout the week?

So we really are not to be conflicted by this in doubting our commitment to live this process of seeking to become more fully atoned to God. We are not to be double-minded in this but fully committed to, or I should say, committed in humility to latch hold what God has sacrificed to give us. So it takes humility, denying of self, knowing that our way isn’t the best way. You know, sometimes people get so wrapped up in their way and what they’ve read on the Internet and what they’ve seen here and what they know and you think, yeah, a lot of that’s just not all true. Just because it was out there and you read about it doesn’t make it true. We find out we have error in our lives, we have things that need to change. We have to be careful of what we latch on to. We have to look to God. That’s what we latch on to and hold on to more than anything else.

James 1. James 1 talks about some of this, this going back and forth that we sometimes do as human beings. I’ve seen so much of this take place. We don’t want to be that way. We want to be fully committed to God’s way, not our way. When we’re holding on to our way then we’re not of the right mind, we’re willing to hold onto a portion of God, you know, the Sabbath, the high days we observe, certain routines we go through, and then we’re trying to hold on to our ways. That’s wrong thinking. That’s a double-minded person, trying to be double-minded. One mind, our way, and then God included in part of it on another way.

I think of people who have gone through the motions when it comes to things like (and I use this because it’s so simple and it’s out there for this purpose, so that we can learn from it) individuals who don’t tithe faithfully. That’s been with us like a plague. It’s always been out there but it’s been more manifest in this end-time in the sense of all that we’ve been given and yet sometimes... I think of one individual who was given such mercy for so long and talked with personally and with mercy and grace given to them in kind tones and kindness of spirit and just wouldn’t tithe. A little bit here...a little bit here, you know, a little bit there and then misusing the monies and the funds that they had.

To think, what a horrible thing, to be of such a mind to do one’s own way and play this game of being in services, of being around God’s people, of having not true fellowship but a kind of fellowship, on the surface fellowship to be in attendance with them, to enjoy the friendship – that might be a better way of expressing – friendship around others on a physical plane, but not in real fellowship. Because real fellowship is a matter of God’s spirit living within us and then that bond we have with each other because we have that mind toward each other of being in the Body of Christ. But sometimes it’s just a matter of friendship and because people are holding on to their way and not really trying to conquer and overcome it, because that means change, that means repentance, that means humbling ourselves, so that’s not being atoned to God.

This is what this is talking about. James 1:8—A double-minded person is unstable in all their ways. Because everything is a lie. Everything! You can’t live one’s own way and ignore God’s way. Either we’re striving to change or we’re not. Either we’re striving to conquer and overcome and being atoned to God and humbling ourselves, or we’re not. Too often we get caught up in this matter of pride and so we have to fight against that, and that requires humility of spirit. This is what it’s talking about.

So a person who’s double-minded in this, they’re unstable in everything. Because just going to services on the Sabbath or a holy day doesn’t make them stable and sound minded. Not at all. On the contrary, they’re robbing themselves of what they could otherwise have so they’re unstable in those ways as well, and that’s great hypocrisy, even. It’s idolatry, spiritual idolatry. Coming in amongst God’s people it’s an abomination on a spiritual plane.

Let everyone who is lowly in spirit... You know, if we’re striving to humble ourselves, and we can’t do it perfectly, but if we’re trying and striving to change and crying out to God to be somebody different, to fight the weaknesses we see that God brings to the surface for us to see, well, that’s a humble spirit and God says we’re to rejoice. You know, oftentimes when people see themselves and certain things in themselves they beat themselves up. We do it to various degrees. Over time you get better at it, not beating yourself, but of understanding what the truth is. Sometimes people just beat themselves up and they feel so low about certain things. No, it’s just what you are. It’s who you are. Thank God, rejoice that you can see it, because now you can work on it, you can fight against it. See, because when you see something like that to that degree you can come to hate it more. The more you hate it then the more you can come to love what is right with God. That’s the process, so a time to rejoice.

I’m thankful for things I can see. I don’t like what I see when things are revealed to me, especially when I slip and do something stupid, say something stupid, respond in a wrong way in this world or in the simplest of things it can be in society, how people act and what they do. Just to rejoice that we can see it because they can’t. So we can rejoice and be thankful we can see what we do so that we can change, so that our minds can be transformed, so that we can be more at one with God.

Who is lowly in spirit, rejoice in that they are exalted, or raised high. You know, God is the one who lifts us up and if He’s working with us we are raised up, we are given a glory, the mind of God in us, a portion of it, a portion of God’s spirit. How blessed are we to be raised up like that, to be a part of God’s Church in the end-time? We have been elevated mightily. That takes humility to be even in that life, to have that, to experience that. The more we can grasp that then the more we should desire a humble spirit, to humble ourselves before God.

...but the rich, you know, filled with pride in their own way, just won’t change, won’t address certain things, just holding on to pride because we’re so lifted up by what we think, by how we feel about ourselves, you know, we’re not wrong and our way is right and my way is better than your way and you should do things my way. If you just see something that I’m telling you then you would understand. You think, no, no, no, no, no, no, that’s wrong thinking, lifted up with pride in our own way, the rich. You know, if we’re reliant on ourselves then we’re not going to look to God. Reliant on ourselves for what we can do for ourselves and how we can do it. I thought about going into something else there about some of that, but anyway.

...but the rich, lifted up with pride, lifted up in self, one’s own way. That’s not lifted up. Being lifted up by God with His help, that’s humility because then we’ll be able to see something that we can’t otherwise see, the need to change and what we have to change, and be thankful for the oneness we do have with God. ...and that they are made low... ...but the rich and that they are made low. So again here, that’s something to be thankful for, but when it says here to rejoice, those who are lowly in spirit, in that they are exalted, raised up by God, let everyone rejoice in that, and that for the rich that they are made low.

So be thankful when you go through the fire and God humbles you. See, that is what this is about in part. If we don’t yield ourselves to the process then if God’s called us His desire is to work with us. He wants us to succeed because He’s given us of His spirit, we have the impregnation of it, we’re His begotten children. The world isn’t begotten yet. They’re not being worked with like God’s people are. Their time will be later on. For everything there is a season, a time, an appointed time. For them it’s another time. For you it’s right now.

In that case there, when someone is lifted up, if we don’t respond and God’s working with us He will humble us. When we are lifted up be thankful when those things happen, when you are brought down to see self and see things that need to be changed and God humbled you, helps us to continue in a humble spirit. We experience things of humility, whatever it might be in our life, to remind us who we are and what we are and our need for our reliance and dependence on Almighty God to come through these things.

...but the rich and they’re made low, in other words, brought to humility, lowliness of self, because as the flower of the grass they shall pass away. The flower of the grass, the plant. It goes on to say, For the sun no sooner rises with a burning heat than it withers the plant; and the flower thereof falls away, and the grace and the fashion of it perishes. We see these things physically in life. ...so also shall the rich person fade away in their ways. We come and we go, and we have time, when God calls us, to humble ourselves. We’re either going to be humble and be atoned to God, seek humility and become reconciled to God or we’re going to be rich and fade away in time and the time passes us by and not have opportunity that God has granted us.

Verse 12—Blessed is the person who endures temptation; in other words, trying and testing, whatever we go through, the fire, for when they are tried they shall receive the crown of life. Without being tried, without going through the fire, without going through hardships and difficulties, and through that process then choosing God, seeking to be atoned to God, seeking to do things the right way, God’s way, that’s the mind we have to have. So again, for when they are tried they shall receive the crown of life, when it’s all said and done, fully reconciled, fully, finally atoned to God. For right now, it’s a process we’re in. This process of atonement is active in our lives, it’s working in our lives. Today we’re humbling ourselves...or you are. I will on that day, too. We won’t eat and we won’t drink, we’ll go through a physical act of humbling ourselves before God doing things God’s way. We’re to learn from it the spiritual portion of it, that we are to humble ourselves before God all the time, denying self, saying no to our ways and saying yes, and rejoicing in God’s ways, being atoned to God, to think like, to want to think like, to be in agreement, unity, and harmony with God, the word of God, the mind of God.

So it says here, blessed is that person who endures this trying and testing, for when they are tried they shall receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. We will love Him the more we love His ways, His truths, His way of life.

So again, grasping the importance of time that God has placed before us that we are to manage is so important, again, to the fulfillment and meaning of this day in our lives.

Let’s turn over to 1 Peter 1:10—Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that should come to you. So there were things written that spoke of another time. So much, that’s what prophecy is about, it’s about another time. So much of it was about the Church, it was about the Messiah, it was about things that would lead up to the end-time and a greater fulfillment of God’s plan then, then the Kingdom of God ruling on this earth, and then the things that go beyond that.

Verse 11—searching what, or what manner of time, the spirit of Christ… This is something that people have so misunderstood because they think, well, if the prophets then had that spirit of Christ was he alive back then? That’s not what it’s talking about. I think of, I believe it’s 1 Corinthians 4 that people misconstrue and misunderstand, some of the things there because they don’t grasp that only God has eternally existed. Only Yahweh, Yahweh Elohim has eternally existed, has self-existing and eternal life inherent in Him. He has the ability to give life and to give age-lasting life, but it’s from Him and Him alone. He said, “I am God. I am Yahweh Elohim and there is no one else.” Incredible! But people don’t accept that. Simple words that are stated but until God gives us the ability to see we just, people can’t see it. What they can see is something that’s false and something that’s not true, and it’s a mystery...it’s a mystery.

...searching what or what manner of time the spirit of Christ, it’s “of” or “about” Christ. That’s what it’s about. It’s about the Messiah. It’s of the spirit of the Messiah, the spirit... searching what or what manner of time the spirit of the Messiah which was in them was indicating. In other words, being about the Messiah. God was showing to them about the Messiah, to write about the Messiah. So it was this mind, this spirit from God about the time. They wanted to know the time. When is this going to be? When is he going to come? It’s about this spirit of prophecy and that which was prophetic about Christ that was in them that God had given to them to write about. They wondered about those things. That’s what it’s talking about.

It says, “of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully,” diligently. They wanted to know. Again, simple. Again, it wasn’t about something about Christ living at some period back in this time and giving these things to the Old Testament prophets. It’s about God’s spirit and about the timing, about what would come with the Messiah, when his time would come.

...which was in them was indicating when it testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ, of the Messiah. So even as Isaiah wrote about these things about Christ, that spirit of God that was in him, a prophetic spirit, spiritually, if you will, about the Messiah, of when it was going to come to pass. So it was all about prophecy and it was about that which was being revealed about the Messiah to them at that time. God was revealing to them about Christ, about the Messiah. They were being shown things.

So again, it’s talking about this that came from God about Christ. ...which was in them was indicating, they could see something, they were able to write something to the degree God gave them the ability to write. I think of that which we read on Passover night that talks about what the Messiah was going to go through, the death he was going to experience, the beating he was going to experience, and so forth, that we read. So it was that spirit that was in them about Christ, which is what the word means. It was about Christ, of Christ, about Christ, about the Messiah. ...which was in them was indicating when it testified, the spirit. Not “he.” It’s amazing what mankind has done. Well, it’s not amazing either because there is a being behind it.

…was indicating when it, referring to the spirit, testified beforehand of the sufferings of the Messiah, of Christ, and the glory that would follow. To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the holy spirit sent from heaven—things which the angels desire to look into. So we know that in God’s Church. We know that there are things they don’t know yet that God reveals later on. Because they don’t have God’s holy spirit. So God gives it then, Christ is given that to give to the ministry of the Church, to teach the Church. Certain things are revealed at certain times the angelic realm has had no knowledge of so they desire to know, they desire to look into certain things, and as especially as some of those things are being revealed of things that were written by the Old Testament prophets that are happening now. That’s the context of all this, different things at different times, about Christ when he came as a Passover, Christ when he was resurrected, Christ as his work as the King of kings or as the ruler of God’s Kingdom, the Messiah. All those things that are contained in this is what this is talking about.

Verse 13—Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, be sober minded, realize the time that you have, that you need to use it wisely. Be sobered. Be sobered by your weaknesses as a human being. Be sobered by the pulls that are out there in this world. Be sobered by how easy it is, the many who have gone astray in the Church.

…gird up the loins of your mind, be alert, be watchful because it’s about the mind. It’s about being able to become transformed. It’s about becoming reconciled and atoned to God, the mind changing. ...be sober and hold completely to the hope of the grace that is to be brought to you at the revealing of Joshua the Christ. Well, he’s been revealed to us and is continually being revealed more and more. Just the name Joshua is a greater revelation about who he is, you know, and what was told to us, the truth that’s there now, that freedom that’s there that we have.

...as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts. We have to conquer and overcome those. We have to keep on guard against those because they can pop back up in life and do so often at times because there are certain things that were molded in us at a young age and sometimes they’ll just pop back up when you’re least expecting. You have to be on guard against things that don’t agree with God, things that are not atoned or at one with God.

…not conforming yourselves to the former lusts as in your ignorance; (verse 15), but as He who has called you is holy, you also be holy, or become holy, in all your conduct. That’s what becoming atoned means. Being reconciled means going through this. ...because it is written, Be holy, for I am holy. And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to everyone’s works, it’s about what we do, our work, the work of applying His way of life, the work of fighting against self, the work of being on guard. We have to be involved in that. We can’t just let life happen and let ourselves do things that are wrong.

Conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear. Fear of doing things your own way. ...knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver and gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish and without spot. So he’s pictured in Leviticus 16 in the offerings that are there from the high priest and the two goats that were there. One represented Christ. The other, the azazel. Again, by the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemish and without spot.

Verse 20—He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you... He didn’t come into existence until the last times. 4,000 years had already passed, more than the time span that man’s going to have on this earth. Because mankind will only be here 7,100 years total. After that there will be no human life and only God’s Family will exist after that’s all over with; spirit life, age-lasting life for those who are able to become a part of that family.

...who through him believe in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Therein purifying your souls in obeying the truth through the spirit... We can’t do it on our own. We have to cry out to God. There are just things we have to cry out to God for help to do. When we see things that are wrong, help to conquer, help to fight, help to stay in the fight, help to overcome various things, for help for the mind to be transformed, to be changed, for God’s help and grace and mercy to be convicted of what is right and to hate what is wrong.

...in obeying the truth through the spirit unto sincere love of the brethren, genuine love of the brethren. This is what God has given us in the Church, others within the Church, we have a fellowship. Not just an area of friendship like Philia, not just a social type of fraternal love, but one that is beyond that that is a matter of recognizing God, that God is here, that God’s children are here, that how we treat one another is how we’re treating God. It truly is. It’s how we think towards God and God’s word and God’s truth and God’s mind, and so we desire to be at one, to be atoned to, to be reconciled to God to have that mind, to have that thinking. That’s what this day is about. It’s not an easy process. It’s a difficult one. Being humble is difficult. Fasting is not fun. It’s difficult. It’s against the human mind. It’s against human nature. It’s against what we are as human beings. We want food. We want drink. We want water. Water has greater meaning, probably on this day, than any other day, on times you fast because your body so needs it, craves it, wants it, made to have it.

…therein purifying your souls in obeying the truth through the spirit unto sincere love of the brethren, so love one another fervently with a pure heart. This is what God has placed before us. When we fail in those things, when we think wrong in those things toward one another, toward others, we have to get that corrected, because the problem isn’t them, then, it’s us, it’s our mind if we’re not thinking right, if we’re not forgiving, if we’re not patient, if we’re not loving. If we take something personally and become offended then you have a problem. Not them, you. No matter what they did you have the problem. If they have something to repent of then by God’s spirit they will come to grasp that and hopefully be able to repent. That’s our hope for them too.

...having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, begotten of God’s spirit, of something that’s incorruptible, God’s mind, God’s being, God’s life, the spirit of God, the mind of God, the word of God. We’re begotten of that, the word, the mind of God. To have that, access to that so that our minds can be transformed, to heal the human mind so that it becomes one, one in full agreement with God? Now, like I said, it’s not going to fully happen until finally we’re brought to that point where the mind has been transformed to the point where God says, “Now I know you.” Now we can be given age-lasting life in spirit life and always be at one with God and God always dwelling in us from that point forward, no longer in the physical pulls and weaknesses of this human life.

...having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible through the word of God, the mind of God, which lives and abides forever.

Verse 24—Because, All flesh is as a plant, and all the glory of anyone as the flower of the plant. The grass withers, and the flower falls away, we die. We’re here for a time and then we’re gone, but the word of the Eternal endures forever. So it’s the mind. The mind is so much more important, obviously, than the body, and the mind becoming transformed, the mind being atoned to God. Because that’s what’s being atoned to God. Your body isn’t. Your mind is. Your thinking has the opportunity of becoming reconciled, atoned to God, to be at one with God. The mind must be, in the physical body, must be fought against. In other words, to strive for humility, to fight against pride, to fight against anything that’s our way and striving to make sure that whatever our way is it’s God’s way, it’s in unity and agreement with God. When our way is God’s way then we’re in unity and agreement with God. So some things in us are God’s way. Other things are not. Therein is the battle, the process of reconciliation.

...but the word of the Eternal endures forever. Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you. So again, we have other things we could look at here but incredible process we go through.

So again, how do we see the time that God has given each of us? How do you see the time that God has given you to become atoned to Him, to God? And furthermore, how are you using that time? That’s what this day is about. It’s about time. It’s about a process of time, a process of reconciliation, a process of being atoned to God, and it takes time.

Let’s close here by looking at Ephesians 5, the last area of scripture that applies to, mightily to our lives right now. Ephesians 5:8—For you were once in darkness. The world is in darkness. What a blessing that we’re not. What a blessing that we see light, that we see truth. ...but now you are in the light of the Lord. Walk as children of light. Should be self-explanatory – in unity, and harmony, and agreement with God, God’s way.  ...(for the fruit of the spirit is in all goodness, righteousness,  and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. What does that mean? What is acceptable to the Lord? His way, His mind, His being. Are our ways in unity? Because that’s what’s acceptable to God, when our ways are in unity and oneness with Him. This day, being atoned to God, reconciled – a process.

Verse 11—And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, again, should be self-explanatory but we have to be told these things and think about these things and pray about these things. Don’t tolerate, don’t allow your way or the world’s way. Fight against it.

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. It’s a word that has the sense of conviction, being convicted; to be exposed, to be convicted. So it has to be seen clearly, exposed, in essence, for the mind to become convicted of what’s wrong and more deeply convicted of what is right. That’s what you want, to be atoned.

For it is shameful to even speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light. So we want to be close and draw closer to God. That’s where the light is. God’s spirit reveals. God’s spirit illuminates truth. That’s what we want to hold on to. We have to humble ourselves to receive that and live it in our lives. ...for whatsoever makes manifest is light.

Verse 14—Therefore, He says: Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. Well, we’ve gone through a period of being asleep and you can’t have that in your life because slumbering and sleeping, you can become sluggish, and if you aren’t careful you will start to slumber and sleep and God has to wake you up. You’re cut off. You have no more flow of the spirit. When you’re asleep spiritually you’re asleep. God doesn’t want that to be a part of our life. We’ve had that experience with some of us who lived through Laodicea and came up to the time of the Apostasy.

Verse 15—See then that you walk circumspectly... It means in an exacting manner, if you will, careful. ...not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.  Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. In other words, to yield to atonement. To yield. To want atonement, to be at one with God, to be reconciled. And do not be drunk with wine... I love this verse in what it says now. Mankind can be. You can have too much. ...in which is excess, the point being, but be filled with the spirit, because there is not too much of God’s spirit you can have in your life. The more you  become atoned to God, the more you have of God’s spirit living and dwelling within you the more at one you will be with God.

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