The Mystery Completed, Pt. 1

Ronald Weinland

November 2, 2019

Today we’re going to begin covering some of those things covered in Chapter 6 of the new book.

I have told different ones in the past here the title of the book...which has changed. It’s not that title anymore. It was too long, too hard for the purposes of advertizing, if you will, being able to put something like that on the internet. If you have something too long it just makes it much harder to work with, and so I started looking at different things, possibilities of different ideas, throwing around all kinds of things.

I was pressuring Jeremy into helping me with some of that. Anyway, it finally came to the point where he went into the different chapters and some of the different things being stated there and so he just happened to pick one of the chapters and looks like that might be the title of the book. So anyway, I have to get all that run through first as far as copyright type of thing is concerned, making sure that no one else has anything like it, and I think we’re okay, so anyway, I’ll probably give that later on once it’s finalized.

But I do want to start with Chapter 6 because there are things that God has been revealing to us that to me I find exciting. It’s like a conversation we were having last night, that it’s like having pieces of a puzzle, but in this particular case here we had some pieces of the puzzle, but they were not in the right spot. Have you ever done that in a puzzle? You see something and you think that this is probably going to go in this little area here and you find out, whoa, it belongs clear across over here. That’s what’s happening with some of this. God is continually clarifying some things and things that have been written in the past, it’s still been a process of writing and thinking along the lines of what we call the present truth.

The reality is there were different things that have been given through time, and especially during Philadelphia and so forth, that there are a lot of pieces of the puzzle there that God gave and some are smack on right in place. I’ve written about some of those in the book that to me are exciting, that God blessed Mr. Armstrong to see certain things about Europe that have come to pass now, fully come to pass especially last year with those ten nations in Europe that came together in a military alliance for Europe, and whether they are those ten nations or another ten, at least they are set as far as a treaty is concerned, as far as their purpose is concerned, an alliance is concerned. Whether Great Britain is a part of that, right now we don’t know. But I find it very interesting that they can’t get out of the union yet. So they may be a part of it. There may be a reason why they’re going to be a part of what happens at the end here as well. Could fully see that being a purpose that God’s working out and why He would be doing it this way at this time.

So things we thought could not happen in times past because of the fact that they’re Ephraim. But the reality is Reuben and different ones in times past have been involved in part of the European Union, or the rise of the European Empire, if you will (better stated). I don’t like to use “Roman Empire” because that basically ended after Napoleon. But the European Empire that was prophesied as a part of Daniel, which is a part of what is covered in the book as well – trying to give a bit of a background to people so they have a better understanding so they can grasp some things in history and what’s taken place and why.

Anyway, I find it awesomely inspiring that God’s helping us to put these things in better position, and one of these has to do with everything that leads up to the Last Great Day. I’ve mentioned many of time that I know that there are many things written in here about the Last Great Day that we don’t know, and after mentioning those, God began to show some of that, what some of those things are, and yet there is still so much we don’t know about that and the Millennium. The reality is God will continue to reveal more and more to us especially as we come closer to those things being fulfilled.

I think of the Millennium and the end of the thousand years. The reality is that when we are approaching the end of that period, whether it be in the last 200 years or whatever, there is going to be an incredible focus in the world in what God is doing to prepare for a massive resurrection of people and that is really impossible for us to grasp at this point. But by that time, after we’ve gone through 7-800 years of history as far as a new era of time, as far as God governing the earth and technology growing to the level it will by that time and the proper use of it, we’ll be able to better understand how God’s going to do it. We’ll be able to see it better. But there is going to be a lot of work in preparing for it because that’s going to be God’s focus and He shares with His people whatever that focus is at that particular time.

Just like right now. It’s about the end-time. It’s about the coming of His Son, and because of that He’s giving us much more because we’re there. So those things are inspiring and moving.

Anyway, getting back to this, some of what’s covered in Chapter 6. I’m actually going to begin reading parts of the book at points here. Not all of it but just part of Chapter 6 as we go through it, but I’m going to throw in some scriptures as we go along to cover some things in the midst of all this that will help us to have a better picture of what is being covered throughout that chapter.

This is probably going to be broken up. This chapter is probably going to be broken up into one or two, three, maybe, series, I don’t know, but I want to give different titles as we focus on specific things in that chapter. I’d rather than just having a chapter 6 and massive, you know, twelve sermons, or whatever, I don’t know how many it’s going to be. Maybe there will only be three. We’ll see. But I imagine there are going to be more as far as the series is concerned.

So this is Part 1 today. Sermon is entitled The Mystery Completed.

So before beginning in this chapter it would be good to first ask what is meant by an expression that’s used here in scripture here that we’re going to be looking at “the mystery of God.” What comes to your mind? Because it’s spoken of in the book of Revelation and other places as well.

So again, we should understand what that is quite quickly, especially if we think of a particular book that was written, Mystery of the Ages. It’s about God’s purpose and God’s plan, why He created mankind and how God is going to complete what He has revealed in His purpose for having created us in the first place. It’s about Elohim. Everything always has been (what God has been doing). It’s about His family. That’s His focus. That’s His desire. He shares that with us, He gives us greater and greater understanding as we continue to move forward in time. I thought it would be good to go back and look at some verses on this because even though this was mentioned in part at the Feast I think it’s very difficult for us to really grasp how exceedingly blessed we are to know and to see the things that we do.

The more that we are able to do that the better we can see, the more we can see what God has given to us to the extent that He has, it can’t help but stir up a greater thankfulness and a greater sense of humility as well, if we grasp it, of all things, of all times, of all people what we’ve been offered and what we’ve been given. It really is hard for us to grasp that because we come into the Church, we go through a different process in our lives of things we experience. For those who have been in since before the Apostasy there have been incredible experiences of having experienced huge congregations, a massive structure of the ministry in the Church from region to region, this area alone having nearly 1500 people and what was it, four or five congregations? Five when it was said and done and I believe three full time ministers in the region and some part-time. Not part-time, but some serving as assisting the pastors in the area. We’ve all had incredible experiences through that process.

After a while we just kind of get into a routine going to Sabbath services, going to the Feast of Tabernacles, going to the various holy days, and we don’t see our lives as clearly as what we need to sometimes when we need to step back and just grasp what God is doing with us and what He’s given to us. So we read a lot of things in scripture that we become familiar with because we look at certain things every year at the Feast, at the holy days, and in time if we’re not careful those things don’t move us in the same way. The day they are not moving us is the day we’re in heap big trouble. That’s happened to thousands of people before you just in this age alone. Thousands! Thousands since the Apostasy. Opportunities given to people that for whatever reasons they couldn’t accept, they couldn’t receive, they didn’t grasp what they had, what they were being offered, what they were being given.

1 Corinthians 2:6. Paul is speaking here to the Corinthians telling them some of the same things we’re talking about here, telling about the marvel of their ability to know and to understand and to hear things that others can’t see, that others can’t receive in the world around us, that you can’t share with people around you, you can’t share at work, and though we try sometimes when we first come along because we’re excited, we share things with people, and we just unload the whole load, you know, all at one time if we can. Then after a while we find out that wasn’t such a good idea because then attitudes begin to change toward us. We go through these things, we experience these things, and it does a lot to this mind in how we respond and react to it.

1 Corinthians 2:6—However, it says, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, or in other words, maturing spiritually, being matured, if you will, by God. “Being perfected by God” is a better way of expressing that one. So they’re maturing, being perfected by God, have a long way to go, but the process has begun once God gives us His holy spirit and our minds begin to be transformed. So we get to experience something that is first as far as mankind is concerned. We’re among the first to experience these things. Very few have ever been given these.

I marvel when I think about it’s taken 6,000 years to work with, to mold and fashion 144,000 people! Out of all the billons of people who have ever lived it’s taken 6,000 years for God to mold and fashion a government, a structure that He’s going to send with His Son, already prepared in His family when that time happens, a part of Elohim. Christ being the first of the firstfruits 2,000 years previous, then the firstfruits resurrected all at one time to return with Christ, to set up and establish God’s Kingdom on this earth, a part of the beginning, if you will, of the mystery of God beginning to be completed, that which has been in scripture, that which God has given to people, the prophets, for 6,000 years now. We live at that time where we get to see in part, some on a physical plane of those things happening in the world, some experiencing it even on a spiritual plane in a physical existence, speaking of the world around them in which they will be working, and we are so blessed.

So this wisdom. I love that word because God’s given us a lot of understanding of what it means. It’s His mind. It’s His being. It’s what He communicates. It’s given to us in scripture later as the word, the logos of God. The logos of God is wisdom. It is the mind of God. It comes from God. Everything written in the Proverbs, when you read those things about wisdom, it is the mind of God given to human beings though human beings can’t understand it until they have His holy spirit. Then they can begin to grasp and understand certain things that He’s said. They grow in that. You can’t receive it all at once. You grow in it.

And you have to want it. You have to desire it with all of your being. It’s not just going to be given to people. It’s not owed to people! Yet we get in that state sometimes, like it’s owed to us because we’ve gone through the motions of tithing and going to the Feast of Tabernacles and giving holy day offerings and attending Sabbath services. No, it is not. It’s either in your heart, in your being, and you want it, and your body burns for it wanting it – and if we don’t have that cry out to God to help you to have that thinking and that kind of a mind. Because you have to fight for this right now more than ever.

Already...already had to suspend people and disfellowship people since the Feast of Tabernacles! Thank God I was blessed at the Feast this year because of a different kind of message God wanted me to give and a different format for the Feast that we had peace. I was given peace. But then I find out afterward not everybody is doing what they should be doing. They’re not living the things they should be living. You can’t give this to anyone. I cry out. I write this book and I think about all the people.

I think of what Mr. Armstrong gave, and it came to pass, everything he said about Europe! It’s already happened! The euro – right after WWII. I hit this hard in the book because it’s so profound. Right after WWII God gave him the ability to understand that we were at a moment in time, and he began to see those things and began to put pieces of the puzzle together. God blessed him in doing that, speaking of the 6th revival and what had just happened and knowing that one more was coming. One more of that great statue in Daniel had to be fulfilled. The toes. Not the feet, the toes. See? WWII was more about the feet. WWIII is about the toes and what is going to happen in this final period of time. God gave that to him and he understood.

And for people to hear that they thought he was nuts. Most people really did. Right after WWII to say that Europe is going to rise again, that Germany is going to rise again, that Hitler might still be alive? Because that was the feeling right after that. Nobody knew for sure, and knowing how governments are, what they claim sometimes. Anyway.

It’s hard for people to swallow. They saw the destruction of Europe. They saw the destruction that had taken place in Germany alone, cities bombed, massively so, to rubble, and you think, “You’re telling me that they’re going to be a bunch of nations in Europe unite again in a war and Germany is going to be at the helm of a lot of this? What are you smoking?” Well, back then they probably weren’t smoking anything like that exactly. I don’t know what they were taking, what they were doing. But anyway.

So if you can put yourself in that place at that time and to have heard something like that and to think that’s disgusting. Some people would feel that way. “You’re telling us that Germany is going to rise with a bunch of other nations? That there are going to be ten nations over here in Europe that are actually going to unite and come together? A lot of nations here and you say ten of them are going to rise and they’re going to have a common government and they’re going to have a common currency?” It didn’t even happen in his lifetime. Didn’t happen until 1999 when the Euro came about. They’re going to have a military that unites as ten nations? All those things have happened now as of last year.

So where are we in the scheme of things? Where are we in the timing of things? This isn’t owed to anyone. I can’t stress that enough.

So in writing the book you think it would almost seem like a futile thing. That’s what I’ve been writing about in part of Chapter 7, to even write to people who don’t want to hear it, people that don’t desire to even know anything about what’s taken place, who hear truth about Christmas and Easter, and that Christ died like this with his hands up above his head and not out to the side, and to hear all these things brought out and spoken of? They don’t receive it. They don’t accept it even though the proof is staring them right in the face, of what started in 325 A.D., and it all started there. They don’t want to hear those things.

And yet we can see it. How much time do we have yet? It could still be 2020. That’s my first marker. I’m still running toward 2020, okay? That’s my marker. Once I get there I’m shooting on to the next one which is 3½ years up the road. Might get a shock; it might come sooner. God might reveal something else. I don’t know! I don’t have the foggiest idea. Okay?

So how blessed are we to see the things that we see, to have what we have, the word, the wisdom of God? ...among those who are being perfected, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. That’s the world. Their wisdom is not God’s wisdom. Some of the best things they might come up with are flimsy, weak compared to God and the mind of God, and the truth of God and what God’s accomplishing and doing in this earth.

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery... Because it comes from God. It’s something that you have to have God’s spirit to grasp it, and if you don’t have God’s spirit working with you, even before you come to a point of baptism, and especially after that point—that’s just the impregnation of God’s spirit which guarantees certain things, obviously, to your life—but even in the process of being called out of the world or growing up in the church and making certain decisions about this way of life, everyone has to make their own choices. In that process then individuals have to decide and they have to ask God for help to see and to understand. God blesses people who grow up in the Church. God blesses people who begin to be called out of the world and their minds begin to be opened up to see various things, various truths. Then it’s up to them how they deal with that because they can see and understand certain things.

They understand things about Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles and what is taught that’s going to happen on this earth soon, that Christ is coming back, that a government is going to be established, 144,000. All that knowledge, they have. What an incredible thing to be so blessed. They can have understanding and knowledge of it. People in the world don’t have it. You can’t go out and talk to others about it. You try. You can go out and talk to friends about it. See how far that goes. See how long they stay your friends. They don’t want it. “Boy, you’re a religious nut. How did I ever get tangled up with you?” Affects all kinds of relationships.

People have to make choices in the midst of that, don’t they? What do they want? What do they really want? Young and old alike, it doesn’t matter. Whether it’s people growing up in the Church or people who have been baptized in the Church, what do you want? Do you really believe these things? Do you really cry out to God for help to hold on to what He’s given and ask for help to grow in understanding even more so of those things you’re being given?

We don’t have a lot of time! And what we do with our time is so important now. We’re coming in toward the end of all this and we don’t know when it’s going to slam us hard on this earth, okay? Whatever your relationship is with God it’s going to be what it is at that moment in time. So people are being judged with whatever they’ve been given, whether baptized or not.

Young people, you’re being judged as well with what you’ve been given. It’s up to you what you want. If you want the world, you know what? God’s going to give you the world. I had to make some suspensions in that as well.

If young people don’t want God’s way of life you don’t have to come to services, you don’t have to go through the motions of going to the Feast of Tabernacles. Stay home! Okay? God doesn’t owe you this way of life. You have to make your own choices as to what you want, okay? I’m crying out to you. I hope you would make the right choice. With all my being I wish you would make the right choice. But if you think as a pastor I’m going to stand around and watch you do the things you do that defy God’s way of life, that has speech in it that you should never even talk about, spread things about other people, whatever it is you’re doing, work on a holy day of all things, Atonement, you think you’re going to be able to continue in God’s Church, that I’m going to tolerate that? Do you think God tolerates that?

I’m sorry. I don’t mean to get loud but I tell you what, we need to be shaken up. We don’t have a lot of time. After all I’ve said about God is not playing games, we are in time of judgment as we have never been in God’s Church because we’re being refined and prepared for a new age. God isn’t just going to give things on a silver platter to those He’s blessed so much. If you want it, grab a hold of it. If you want the world, you can have that and God will let you have it. You’re going to have all the suffering, all the pain and all the misery that goes with it though you don’t know that yet. You think it’s glamorous. You think it’s attractive. You think the styles and the dress and the functions that people go to and the things they do is exciting or whatever, whatever it is that’s in your mind! You can have it. God isn’t going to keep you from it. You want it, go for it. You either want this or you want that. There is no middle ground in God’s Church, in the environment of God’s Church.

We can only understand what we understand by the spirit of God in us, and those who are baptized, a greater judgment is upon you. I know there are going to be more. That’s what hurts. I’ve had to experience this so long in my life in God’s Church, primarily because of all that we’ve gone through and because of the Apostasy and everything that happened after that with a remnant. Betrayal, betrayal, betrayal against God, of not embracing what God offers, not treasuring it, not valuing it, the mystery of God.

It’s a mystery because the world can’t understand it. It’s not given to them to know so it’s a mystery. Only you can speak of it. Only you can talk about it. Only you can share in it. Young and old, it doesn’t matter. You can know certain things. You can have knowledge of various things that others in the world don’t have, that people in the Church, who were a part of the Church at one time, have lost. Things about Passover that you see and you know and you understand. Unleavened Bread. Pentecost. Trumpets. Atonement. All the way through. Feast of Tabernacles. Last Great Day. Awesome what God has given, and to know where we are in time? You see it to whatever degree, whatever level you do. So you have to make choices.

This has a lot to do with this sermon series, this chapter. God is showing so many things that are sometimes almost depressing because of human beings and their choices. Our nature is so vile. Our nature is so corrupt. If we don’t see it, we don’t grasp the battle. If we don’t engage in the battle we’re consumed by it, we’re imprisoned by it, we’re in slavery to it.

I’ll throw out something else here because it has a lot to do with where we’re going in this. “Babylon, Babylon has fallen, has fallen.” When is that? We’ve primarily taught it’s at the return of Christ. Babylon hasn’t fallen by any measure at the return of Christ; hasn’t even come close to falling at the return of Christ. The Millennium is going to be spared from that, but what about the Great White Throne? Only when that is over has Babylon fallen because Babylon is going to be resurrected! All the billions of people who have been consumed in false beliefs around the world, in traditional Christianity and that great big Church that started it all, they’re all going to be resurrected as a whole. Not everyone, but the vast majority of them will be. Where do you think Babylon will be then? Destroyed?

I think God is revealing and showing more and more that there are going to be so many who never choose His way of life, who are never going to be in His Kingdom. If a third of spirit beings who have never known anything but God, who have that make up and they don’t have carnal human nature, if a third of those can turn against God Almighty, what about human beings who are riddled with a nature that they chose? Because we are. It is our being. Selfish. Inward. Opposing God. At enmity with God. Because that’s the only way that God can create Elohim, is by letting us experience that in these weak physical bodies and to make choices.

Do you want this crappy world and all the vile stuff that’s out there, all the evil, all the pain, all the suffering? And you don’t know it until you have it. You want to take drugs? What happens? You hear some of these things, a Kennedy that just died, an overdose or whatever it was. You think what a horrible thing. I think of the tragedies in that family. Different families in life and things that people go through. You want to experience something like that? You want to go ahead and try it: “Hey, yo, man”? You want any of that? You can have it, and it can destroy you. “Oh, it’s not going to destroy me. Won’t hurt me. I can control it.” Like to say a lot on that one that you really don’t want to hear.

We have people in God’s Church who do that sometimes too. You know why? Because we have human nature in God’s Church. I know I have it. I have a ton of it myself. That’s why I know we have a lot of human nature in God’s Church. Okay? And too often people succumb to their own human nature and go back into the world.

If you want it, cry out to God for it, “I want it with every fiber of my being.” That’s what you’ve got to have. That’s what you’ve got to decide. Do you really want it, what God is offering? If you do, you’ve got to fight for it. Do you know what that means? You’ve got to fight self. You’ve got to fight it. You’ve got to fight that nature because it wants to pull you away from what is true and what is right. But if you want the world, God will let you have it.

We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden which God ordained before the ages for our glory... It’s about the opportunity He’s offering us, to mankind when we’re called, when we have the opportunity to choose it and we desire it, we want it, and we begin to fight against our own nature and begin to fight against the pulls of this world because we see something of greater value.

The pearl of great price is not written for a nice, little, pleasant story. “Doesn’t that sound sweet and nice? The pearl of great price. Give your heart to Jesus.” Some of that stuff just makes me want to puke!

It is a pearl of great price when you see what it is that God has offered, and if we don’t value the truth that God has given to us, well, no one else can make that decision for us. You’ve got to decide for yourself. How valuable is it to you? Do you grasp what you’ve been given? This life that we have, this little speck, this little moment in time, it’s so puny. And sadly, sometimes you don’t know it until you get toward the end of it. Then a lot of things start flashing before you.

You know, life. What is a greater purpose? You grow in a greater wisdom if you look to God for help and guidance and blessings and the ability to grasp what’s important. What is important? It’s what He’s offering us. He lets us live in this for a time so we can learn things and then we have to make choices. God’s Family, the awesomeness of what God is offering us, we really can’t grasp because even if He told us all those things we wouldn’t understand it. So we have to make choices a little bit at a time as we go along and see how we value various things, whether we’re willing to fight for them, fight for Passover, fight for the 14th, fight against those who want to tarnish it and destroy it and turn it into something else. Fight for Pentecost. Fight for God’s holy days. Fight for God’s truth. It means you have to stand for God’s truth against everything else that comes against you, that works against you. Because only you can do that.

So different things pull at people. Sex. Well, how long is that going to last? How long is that going to last? How often do you want to plunge yourself into that situation in life, if it’s not right and just before God? How enjoyable is that really going to be if you don’t do it right before God and what God has said, “This is the right framework to work within. You want to do something different? Well, you don’t need Me then. You don’t want My way.” See?

Something else? Some addiction to something else? What is it you want more than God, more than the truth you’ve been given? What is it you want? People trip up all the time in God’s Church. They want something different. They want something different than what God is offering and yet God has blessed us with wealth beyond what we can really grasp. That’s why when I talk about some of this and mention some of this, the mystery that we’ve been given, the truth that we’ve been given, we don’t grasp the real depth and value of it. Because in the truth is life, life that goes beyond this physical life.

I don’t care what age you are you’re all going to get old and you’re all going to die. Your body is going to rot one day. It’s just going to decay. That’s just the way life is. So you have to make choices along the way. You want to have your own heyday while it’s like that, if that’s what you want, well, that’ll dissipate and go by the wayside too. There’s only one thing that lasts and you can’t compare it with the things that man thinks he can have that God says we shouldn’t have. When it’s all said and done those things are totally foolish and unimportant in life.

We may never get out of this chapter. I mean, in Corinthians let alone Chapter 6.

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. We can speak it amongst ourselves and we understand what’s being said because of God’s spirit. Others, others could tune in today (which they’re not going to), but others could hear what’s being said and turn that off, find a different channel, whatever. They don’t want this. So very few want it. And those who do, well...

So only we can understand it because of God’s spirit and you can lose that. Over the past few years, over the past many years, the farther back I go the more that numbers are added to it, but every year I see people who lose it, who begin to lose it, who begin to lose the truth, the mystery.

...the hidden, again, speaking of the wisdom. It’s hidden; that’s why it’s a mystery. ...which God ordained before the ages for our glory, because of what He’s offering us, to become a part of Elohim, which none of the rulers of this age knew. No people have ever known. The rulers haven’t known. Rulers today don’t know. They don’t understand. You think what they’re dealing with and wherever it is in the world and what they think is important? It’s not important in the scheme of things. It is to them and that’s their life. In the time of Christ (that’s what it’s talking about here, especially), those rulers, they didn’t know what was going on. You know Pilate sat there and listened and he couldn’t truly find anything worthy of death, and yet the Jewish leaders they wanted him dead. He was a threat to them. They wanted to see him die. They hated him.

...which none of the rulers of this age know, for had they known it, they would not have nailed to a pole the Lord of glory. They wouldn’t have done it. If they’d really known what we know. If they had really been able to see what we see.

But as it is written: Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man

the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. You cannot love God until He first loves you. It starts with a calling or growing up within the Church. Because God blesses us then. He blesses us with the ability to learn, to know things, to understand things that others in the world don’t know. Then we all have to make choices and decisions, and if we want it fight for it.

So what has to happen is we have to change to a point where we begin to love God then because of what He’s giving to us, because we begin to see it, that mystery, the truth, and it becomes more important to us the longer we’re able to receive it and be around it if we so choose. It’s up to us to choose.

But God has revealed them to us through His spirit. It’s only by God’s spirit that we see and know what we do. Whether being called or growing up in the Church it’s by God’s spirit that we see certain things. It’s not in us yet. But then once we’re baptized then we have the impregnation of God’s spirit and then we are able to grow and have certain guarantees then that go with that from that point forward and our lives just continue on in the truth that we can embrace. So it’s a matter of God’s spirit. But you can lose God’s spirit. You can begin to quench God’s spirit.

How often have I cried out? How often have those through time cried out? How often did Mr. Armstrong cry out in Philadelphia? And sometimes it pricks people in the heart. Most of the time it doesn’t. Because it all boils down to your desire and your relationship to God. If your relationship with God is you want this and you’re praying to God for God to open your mind, to bless you when you go to services, to bless you in receiving what’s given, and on and on it goes, and your desire is to embrace what He gives when He gives it and to strive to apply it to your life, you want to see it, you want to understand it and you’re asking God for help to do that, then God will bless you more and more in that process.

But if one isn’t, they’re not going to receive it. It’s so much of the message of what Christ had to say. “You receive not because you ask not,” so if you don’t really want it, if you’re not crying out for it, if you’re not valuing what He’s offering; and that’s what it’s about. What he said, this is what it’s about. It’s about the truth. It’s about what God is offering us. If we want it we have to ask for it, “I want Your spirit!” And you don’t stop doing that. You keep praying it. Every day of your life, “I want...I need Your spirit because that’s the only way I can see what is true and be on guard and grasp the things I need to grasp and to be inspired in the things that you’re feeding us.”

But God has revealed them to us through His spirit. For the spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. It’s a marvel, God’s spirit, and how it works in our minds. I love it. I love the way God just continues to bless us in growth. It’s like the puzzle and seeing that, oh, that’s not over there, it’s over here. Move it over because it gives a whole better picture now. I can see it better. I can understand it better. It’s more inspiring and it opens up other areas to better understanding as well. That example Mr. Armstrong gave about a picture, about the pieces of a puzzle, so true!

For what does a man knows except by the spirit of man which is in him? By our own reasoning, and our own reasoning is really screwed up. Human reasoning, it sucks. It really does. We’re relying on self and you’ll come to the wrong conclusions when you rely on yourself because God’s not in it.

Even so no one knows the things of God except by the spirit of God. It’s impossible. Evidence of that has been around our lives, especially for people who have been in for a long time, because you see people who were here at one time. It’s like the song we sang at the Feast, “Walking to God’s house side by side, counsel blended...” It’s talking about talking about this way of life, excited by what we’re being given, by what God is feeding us and those things that move and motivate us, and then something happens. All of a sudden, they’re against you. All of a sudden, they believe something different. What happened?

Even so no one knows the things of God except by the spirit of God. So you can lose it too.

Now we have received, not the spirit of this world... Who wants that? ...but the spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that have been given freely to us by God. Awesome to understand that. God just blesses us and freely given these things to us and it’s up to us to receive them. It’s our choice. What an awesome choice! So of all human beings right now, to think... And I think of how small we are and we’re going to get smaller. I think, how small are we going to be? How much time? I don’t know. But whatever it is I intend to be here until it’s over, until this quits, whatever, so be it.

Verse 13—These things we also speak... We’re able to speak and talk about things that others can’t grasp and know but we know. ...not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the holy spirit teaches. It’s a powerful thing, God’s spirit, His holy spirit, something the angels have never been given. That’s a marvel to me, when God revealed that. Awesome!

...comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Everything fits together and the more God reveals the better things fit together, the picture becomes clearer. That is such a beautiful thing, it really is. It’s awesome!

But the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God. So people out here in the world, you tell them certain things, they can’t receive it. They can’t. They don’t have the ability. They don’t have God’s spirit. So why write the book? Well, that’s about how futile it seems sometimes. Because it’s what God has given to His people for 6,000 years – “Tell the story. What you’ve been given, tell it.” And in time, and candidly, it’s at this time, God will begin opening minds in His time in a way that will dumbfound us. It’s up to God when He does that.

But the natural person, if you will, natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God for they are foolishness to him. So when people hear these things they just know you’re nuts. They don’t think about it. They can talk to each other and say, “They’ve really jumped over the cliff, haven’t they?” People who are scattered, they think the same thing about this body, “They have really... And after all, he did go over to Terre Haute for a while, didn’t he? That kind of sums it up and proves it, doesn’t it.” See, they can’t help that because they don’t have access that we have, the ability to see things clearly and to understand what is true and what is false.

People mock and make fun of you when they hear certain things that you believe. They may not say it to your face but you know that things change in time, certain friendships change in time. I think of friends that changed with me in time. Didn’t take too long because I didn’t think like them anymore and I really didn’t care to be around them anymore. In fact, I wanted to get away from them because I wanted to change, so I had to leave, I had to go elsewhere. In time I was able to come back and they didn’t bother me and they didn’t know me after that. I knew them but they didn’t know me anymore, thank God.

...they can’t receive them for they are foolishness to them, neither can they know them, because they are spiritually discerned. So it comes from God.

Mark 4. Incredible parable here, if you will. Mark 4:3—Listen! Look... Different way of saying it, behold, whatever, a sower went out to sow. So we know the parable of the sower. And it happened, as he sowed some of the seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured it. So here is a story going along and it goes through the different things that happen here, matters of growing things and so forth.

Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of the earth. But when the sun was up it was scorched because it had no root and it withered away. Some seed fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked it out, and it yielded no crop. Now, in every one of these examples when God plants something it’s up to us what we do with it. If He gives us something, it’s up to us. What happened here was up to each individual that it was given to, okay? Opportunities, the ability to see certain things that they couldn’t see before, to know certain things they didn’t know before and now choices have to be made. Everybody is responsible for their own choices. Young and old alike, it doesn’t matter; you’re responsible for your own choices in life as to what you will listen to and what you will not listen to. Nobody is making you think the way you do. Nobody is making you choose the things you choose.

Verse 8—But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increasing and producing. Again, choices, choices, choices. ...some thirty times, some sixty, and some a hundred. And he said to them, He who has ears to hear, let him hear! Well, we understand those things are spiritual. We understand what is said here.

But when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parable. And he said to them, To you it has been given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God. It’s a mystery. God works with various ones and let’s them understand what He’s saying. He gives them the ability to comprehend what He’s doing in their lives and how He’s working with them. Traditional Christianity thinks they understand this parable. They don’t understand it at all. “Oh, we understand the parables. It says it right there. It tells it a little bit later in a few verses what it’s all about.” But they put it in the perspective of their beliefs and they’re all wrong. We understand what it’s all about. We understand the process of being called, they don’t, and choices that people make along the way.

So to you it’s been given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God, but to those who are outside, all things are in parables. They just can’t see it. They can’t understand what the mystery of God is all about. It’s about the mystery of God. It’s about why we’re created.

What an incredible thing, Mr. Armstrong given the ability to know, and to grasp, and to write certain things about Elohim and what it means, of what we’re called to, of what we’re to inherit along with Christ. All things under our feet; we can’t grasp all that, but we believe it. To be a part of a spirit family composed of spirit, God’s Family, the Family of God? Don’t know what that means. We’re not there. We’re not in it yet. But we believe it. We know it’s great beyond human imagination and understanding.

...so that; Seeing they may see and not perceive. So they read these things and they don’t grasp what it’s about. They write about it. They talk about it. They tell others about it within their perspective of what they think it is and they don’t understand. And hearing they may hear and not understand; unless they should turn, and their sins be forgiven them. It’s not their time. So that would mean then that God would have to give them the ability to see and understand through the power of His spirit because He has a purpose for them to come to repentance. God is the one who calls us and brings us to repentance. No one can come to repentance on their own.

The world, there are people who want to change. There are people who with what understanding they have desire God’s help in their life, and God has mercy on people in the world, He truly does. There are those who are genuine in spirit and genuine in heart, but it’s just not their time yet. I think of different ones, of things that have happened through times past, of things that are in the heart and minds of individuals. They don’t want to be the way they are, they don’t want to be held captive to certain things they’re held captive to.

I think of the song Amazing Grace and a bit of the story that’s involved in that. You know, such a  deep desire to see certain things on a physical plane, a hope that they have of being something different, they don’t have to be the same way that they are, and that fight and that struggle, but not with knowledge yet, not with understanding of mystery of God yet.

How blessed are you that you see it? Others who want it, who desire change, who desire help in their life to get out of the misery that they’re in, the drama that has encompassed their lives, and they can’t escape it. They don’t know what to do. And yet we do. We can have a peace in the midst of a world that doesn’t have any peace at all. In a world that has nothing but drama we can have peace if we embrace it and fight for it, if we’re really peacemakers ourselves.

And he said to them, Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. It’s God’s word and when God opens up the mind to receive His word what’s left? Choices, choices, choices, choices. You can’t receive the word unless God gives it to you.

It’s not just going out here and throwing seed around and it’s not like the book going out there and sometimes these concepts we get and people can read it and they can understand. No, they can’t. They can’t. They can’t. They can’t. They can see certain physical things. Sometimes people respond and they say, “I believe that. I believe it.” There are certain things they can see. They’re latching on to something they see truer than what they’ve seen before, but they can’t see it yet. If that makes sense. They don’t see it spiritually yet as to what God is offering them. They’re getting closer and at some point God will bless them and be able to see it, whether it be now or in a Great White Throne. But when God does call someone and the seed is there, the word is there, then there are choices that have to be made. It’s not just because someone slams a Plain Truth on the ground there in front of them and all of a sudden they can open it up and have the ability to see it. No, they can’t. Not until God does something with the mind, with His holy spirit.

And he said to them, Do you understand this parable? And how will you understand all the parables. The sower sows the word and these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts. I’ve seen this over and over again. I’ve seen these things fulfilled in God’s Church. Because we see it spiritually. We see this in the way it’s actually happening in life in the Church, in those who have been given opportunity in the world.

I think of all the people at one time that we used to visit and it was hard to keep up at times. Headquarters would send out various things and you’d make various visits and go out and people that could see various things and then Satan was there to take away what was there in front of them.

These, likewise, are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness. I’ve seen that happen. That happens in the Church. People are excited. They see something they’ve never seen before. They’re able to talk with others about the mystery of God, the truth of God. ...and they have no root in themselves. Why not? Choices, choices, choices. Why not? Why no root? Well, if you’re not responding to what you’re being given, if you’re not making changes, if you’re still fooling around with the world, if-if-if, then you’re not going to be well rooted and something is going to come along in time and you’re just not going to be able to make it. You’ve got to want this. You’ve got to fight for it. You’ve got to cry out to God for it. You’ve got to ask Him for the help to become deeply rooted in His way of life, if you will.

...and they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises... Just too much. I’ve seen this over and over and repeated over and over. Some trial that will come along, something that tests people, that tries people, that it’s like, “This is just too much! It was easier when I was back in Egypt around the flesh pots and we had plenty of food then. Things were going smoother at that time. I didn’t have to worry. I didn’t have battles like this,” and people go right back to it. God lets them go back to Egypt when people have the opportunity of receiving the truth. Unlike the Israelites, they weren’t allowed to go back. The sea closed. Otherwise, they’d have gone back just like we do as human beings.

I like it the way this is stated, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake. What does that mean to you? It’s because of the truth. So a trial comes along because of the truth of what you believe, what are you going to do? Do you stand firm when you’re challenged in various things and you say to an employer, “Sorry, but I mentioned that when I first started here. I’m not going to work on Friday nights.” “Well, then don’t bother coming back.” “I can’t; not going to do it. If it means my job, so be it.” It’s just the way we are.

Sometimes people can’t do that. Sometimes people cave in, give in, whether it be before they’re baptized or after they’re baptized. Could even go to work on the Day of Atonement, one of the most important days of not doing work that God stresses, “You don’t do work on that day.” It’s magnified on that particular day. It’s a day of humbling yourself. It’s a day of not eating and not drinking so you don’t have to worry about preparing food for yourself. So you don’t even do that work! It’s a day of really focusing on the fact that you don’t do any work. So if you do, what’s going to happen? Bye-bye. Sayonara. Auf wiedersehen. Do svidaniya.

I understand some of those don’t mean what I thought they did. It’s not fully good-bye. But that’s not bad either if it’s with a desire of seeing again. So, hey, hopefully that happens that individuals, when they come to that point, they’ll make a choice to come back when they repent.

Now, these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches... “Well, got extra bills this month and I just can’t do it. I don’t see how we can do this,” and you let down in that area and then after a while it becomes easier not to give God His tithe, His... Only ten percent.

...the deceitfulness of riches, the desire for other things entering in choke the word. See, it’s like that choking that umbilical cord and there’s less flow of God’s spirit. How long is God going to allow and tolerate such things in our lives? Because it’s still going on to this day! People who are not being faithful and true to God. It’s better to do as some have done in times past. Just do one or the other – leave or stay. That’s your choice. Choose life or choose death. It’s your choice. Nobody is twisting your arm. It’s your choice, your free choice, but don’t lie to God, don’t lie to God’s people, don’t lie to the Church, to your Mother.

...and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things entering in choke the word. If you want other things go for it! If that’s what you want, that’s what you’re going to do anyway, isn’t it? Go for it. Do it in a big way so that your fall can be greater. That would be a blessing.

...and it becomes unfruitful. But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it... Because, see, those are choices. Others heard it – what did they do? ...and accept it and bear fruit. Choices, choices, choices.

God’s spirit can’t help but produce fruit. If we’re crying out for God’s spirit, if we’re working, desiring God’s spirit to dwell in us, God will bless you with fruit. He will bless you. That’s what He wants. He desires to give of His holy spirit! Christ died so that you can receive His holy spirit, God’s spirit! That’s why he died – so he could dwell in you, so he could work with you, so that he can mold and fashion you. That’s why he died! So that you could be forgiven of your sins and receive an abundance of God’s spirit. ...some thirty, some sixty, and some a hundred.

So in the book: “It was just stated at the end of the previous chapter that this final Seventh Trumpet, which also marks the Third Woe upon mankind, additionally marks the most meaningful and significant moment of all human history. It marks the completion, the end of the final end-time countdown that began on the 17th of December in 1994.”

Awesome, to understand what we’ve experienced. Something prophesied to be at the end-time, that Christ was not going to return, couldn’t return until this event took place within God’s own Church. Because, you see, the primary focus of all prophecy is about God’s people. It’s the mystery of God, Elohim, and we are the beginning of that process, the Church. Awesome! So God’s primary focus is first and foremost upon the Church, and so to understand these things, that God said this isn’t going to happen, he’s not going to return as the Messiah until this event takes place, and then to understand after that that there are actual prophetic counts taking place that we are watching, that we don’t fully understand, obviously, but that we’re watching. At some point it’ll be complete and when it’s complete we’ll marvel at what it all meant. We understand what a lot of it’s meant already, but more is going to be added. So God just adds more to the understanding as time goes along and so we’ll learn as we go, as God leads, guides, and directs us.

Again here, mentioning some of these things about the Seventh Trumpet which marks the Third Woe upon mankind. Again, the beginning of that chapter, of some things that are mentioned there. I’ll come back to that in a moment, but I do want to mention something here first of all about the Apostasy, because this is what it’s talking about. It’s when a countdown did begin.

I thought about not even going to these verses, but I think it’s important that we remember this, remember our history that didn’t happen too long ago. 2 Thessalonians 2. We’re just going to read a few verses here. We pretty well know it. Because it’s all the context of what Paul is writing here, that don’t worry, don’t be concerned about that day because it’s not going to happen until this takes place. So we know what that was all about and it talks about the man of sin, the son of perdition that has to be revealed first of all.

Now, there are some things here that God is making clear as time goes along too even more and more that a lot of this isn’t just about him, it’s about the original one, which is Satan. Because what he did here was by the power and the influence of Satan. But so much of God’s plan and purpose of what He’s doing all the way up through the end, for the mystery of God to be completed, includes him. It includes what happened to the angelic realm. That plan is not complete until some of those things are taken care of as well. Because Elohim can’t fully exist and come into being and the end of mankind come into being until all is taken care of, until this is completed, the mystery of God completed. It’s what some of these prophesies are all about and things that God has given us to grasp and understand about His plan and purpose.

2 Thessalonians 2. It’s like Babylon. We understand, oops, doesn’t belong over here, it belongs over here because it gets resurrected. The same minds, that’s in their minds. As long as it’s in their minds, until it’s gone, Babylon has not fallen, it still exists. And candidly, it is going to get resurrected even amongst themselves. It’s almost impossible to believe such a thing could happen in the Great White Throne. God is going to give blessing to, have government by God, through Christ and all that are in the God Family at that time, but to understand that when it’s all done that there is something else that’s going on during that time period. You can’t make people want God. You can’t

Just because a society of people are governed by God, just because you see and know the truth that you never saw before or you’re given knowledge of it, doesn’t mean you want it, doesn’t mean you choose it any more than all who have come into the Church who have left it. There may be vast numbers who when it’s all said and done don’t choose God. It’s a choice. And candidly, we talked about some of those things at the Feast this year, because the reality is to be as the sand of the sea, it’s a lot who will not choose God. That’s almost hard to imagine, but God’s letting us see it more and more, that, oh, yes, it’s going to happen.

Yes, it’s going to be God’s government over billions of people, the world is going to be at the height of technology after a thousand years, of things we can’t even begin to grasp and comprehend that are going to be around at that time, but there are going to be people that they have human nature, and if you lived something all your life it’s not so easy to change from it, if there are certain things that you embrace and you liked it better.

You think there might be people who are resurrected who really enjoy Christmas a lot more than what God has to offer? That after a hundred years of living around what God offers that they really don’t want that, they want something else? Choices, choices, choices.

You’ve got to want with all of your being what God offers, because He’s not just going to hand it out to people. There used to be a time in God’s Church where we really believed that the vast majority of human beings are going to come through all this, in the Great White Throne that the vast majority of human beings who have ever lived will be able to enter into the Kingdom of God. No. No. No. It’s not the way it’s going to be. Vast numbers...vast numbers, as the sand of the sea, are going to turn against this way of life to where God has to bring their life to an end forever. Choices.

In 2 Thessalonians 2:9 it says, Even him... It’s talking about, again, the son of perdition, the man of sin, whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders... It’s so easy for human beings to dismiss that. It’s like, “We’re in the Church. This being can’t intervene in our lives and do certain things in our lives to turn us away from God.” Oh, that’s not true. It’s our choices, and if we don’t embrace what God has, if we don’t embrace and understand the importance of obedience to God and wherever our number one, our number two, and our number threes, and if we’re not fighting on those things and once we start to conquer those we see other ones and twos creeping up and we have to fight that, and if we’re not in that fight and want to get rid of our human nature with all of our being we give him power, and people who don’t fully embrace God’s way in the Great White Throne, they’re just waiting. When he’s brought up it’s going to be an easy harvest for him. They’re no match for that.

If they don’t really want God’s way of life, if they’re not convicted of it and they’re just going through the motions – and there are going to be a lot of people like that, who go through the motions and kind of conform. That’s happened in God’s church where people just kind of conform, especially when we were a lot larger. A lot of people were conforming. They liked the fellowship. They liked the friendship because it really is much better than what’s in the world, as a whole, because people are striving to treat you better, they’re striving to treat you properly, they’re willing to acknowledge when they’re wrong, they’re striving to be friendly, they’re striving to change the way they are and the way they were in the world. So there is a friendship that can be experienced within the Church that is unique with God’s people.

That’s why when we go to Feast sites you know what? People like us, as a whole. Some of you have commented a lot about that this year, about some of the people who worked at the hotels and so forth and how glad they were to see you there and you could see their countenance. Sometimes you can see people’s countenance change during that time period because they enjoy God’s people. Comments are made constantly about how, “There are no other groups like yours. We enjoy working with you. The others, we don’t enjoy so much.” They kind of dread it sometimes when they hear another group is coming in, a large group, “Oh, goodie,” and it’s a church group, “Oh, goodie!” They cringe at that sometimes because they’ve experienced a lot of bad things from church groups – a lot of adultery, a lot of drunkenness, a lot of things that go on. Sometimes that’s happened in God’s church, too, but not on that level.

So there is a difference with God’s people because the majority are striving, desire, want to live what is right, see. That’s the way it’s been through time (I’m talking about). People when they’re around God’s people, they like what they see. They don’t understand it. Again here, there are friendships that exist, that can exist within God’s Church, but where is the individual? Conforming or loving this way of life, loving the truth, loving what God is giving, wanting it, desiring it in their life, themselves seeing the need to change and become something different and be better toward others, to change their thinking toward others. Choices.

...whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders. So we saw this in a massive way happen within the Church. Anybody who’s experienced it knows exactly what I’m talking about, sitting in a Sabbath service and someone getting up and preaching a bunch of garbage, going back to the world, what they were called out of, and then people talking about “Praise God!” “Praise God!” “Praise God!” You think, get me out of here as quick as I can. They’ve got a spirit and it isn’t God’s. Because those kinds of things happened. Incredible, some of the things that people witnessed. People who used to be in Sabbath services week by week by week conforming, going through the motions, and then when that being was there and he poured out his power, and the spirit beings that were there, they were open vessels to be used by them, no match for them. If people don’t want God they will receive something else.

Those who don’t want God by the end of the hundred years, they will receive something else. It’s this being one last time in a very powerful way. No human being apart from God’s spirit can stand against that being and his influence in their lives, in their minds. That’s should be something that scares “the you know what” out of people, but that’s not the why you choose to do the things you do. It’s because you love God, because you want His way of life. You can’t conform to it.

...and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness and those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth. What an awesome thing. We either love it or we don’t. We’ve had people who just haven’t loved the truth. They haven’t loved what Mr. Armstrong was giving. “He talking about those two trees again? Give me a break! Did you hear anything new today? I fell asleep three times. I tried to stay awake. I was pinching myself and I fell asleep three or four times. I just can’t stay awake when he’s preaching. He’s just talking about those two trees and every time I listen to him he’s talking about them.” Those are the kinds of things I heard! Amazing! Why are you warming a seat? Why? Didn’t love the truth. They didn’t even get it. They didn’t understand every time he spoke he was adding something new about what he was saying. Because he was so on fire with what God was giving to him he was trying to share that, and people didn’t get it. Why? They were already cut off from God’s spirit. Laodicea was already rampant by that time, rampant! The spirit was already there. Lukewarm. Asleep. Asleep, sound asleep.

...they didn’t receive the love of the truth, so they might be saved. What an incredible thing. It’s the truth. It’s through understanding it, through embracing it we’re saved by that. We’re able to come out of Egypt. God is able to bless us with greater life. He’s able to give us in time, Elohim.

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, He allows it to happen. He allowed Satan to come along and what happened in the Church? An apostasy that just boggled the mind. Can it happen in the Great White Throne? Hmmm... Yep, big time. More caught off guard than ever before by that time because someone who’s sleeping for a hundred years isn’t going to be any match when that happens, or for fifty years, or for ten years. It doesn’t matter. People don’t really want God’s way of life and they’re just going through the motions and conforming and it’s not in them, they don’t have a love of the truth. To receive Elohim you must choose to love the truth. Either you do or you don’t, and if you don’t when it’s all said and done you don’t receive it. It’s not owed. It’s a choice. You can’t make anyone choose it though you might wish you could, though you hate to see them suffer because they make the wrong choices.

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that they all might be judged who do not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Sad to see that happen in people’s lives – choose unrighteousness, choose to live wrong, choose to go out and party, choose to go out and do this or do that, whatever it might be.

But we are always bound to give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth. What a beautiful thing that we understand. We’re sanctified. We’re set apart for God’s purpose, to change within the Church, the environment of the Church, to be impregnated with God’s holy spirit in the mind, to bless us with growth and in time through right choices and desire to fight against carnality and the world around us and against false spirits in this world, and we embrace what God has to offer us, we grow spiritually. In time He lets us live on to age lasting life, everlasting life—incredible—in a family that you can’t begin to comprehend yet, in a world you can’t begin to comprehend yet.

The times you’ve been the happiest in your life, the times you’ve had the greatest peace in your life, the moments that you’ve experienced the greatest inspiration in your life, that will be your life always above and beyond those things that we experience even temporarily with God’s spirit within the Body of Christ. We can’t grasp that, what that will be like, but that’s what it’ll be like.

Sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth; they go hand in hand. You can’t pick and choose. Some do. “Well, I don’t think women should be ordained. Think I’ll go back to this other group that understands that women shouldn’t be ordained.” Okay. Bye-bye. Choice. Fine. God will let you have it and you’ll suffer for it.

Going on in the book: “Before this countdown ends mankind will have destroyed over one third of all life on earth. This massive nuclear war is stopped by God in what is revealed by the beginning events of the Seventh Trumpet. When the countdown ends is when the first event of this Trumpet begins.

However, this last Trumpet also reveals the beginning of a new countdown for the completion of God’s entire plan and purpose for mankind. The beginning of this next countdown and completion of God’s plan starts with the return of Joshua the Christ returning to this earth to rule the nations.

This chapter will focus on this very moment in time that marks these events and the change that takes place from that day forward that will alter the course of the world forever. It is good and positive change, and brings true peace and equitable prosperity beyond imagination.”

When I wrote that and thought about the word “equitable” and what it means I couldn’t think of a better word to express the fairness it will be for all people because the world has never been fair and just. I think of an individual who responded one time, who couldn’t make the changes, and it’s kind of rusty in  my thinking here, but it seemed like they were from South America, maybe Brazil, and I think they were living in the New York area, somewhere that they’d moved to, and because of their life and because of what they’d seen, basically summarizing, paraphrasing some of what was stated in what I can remember, it was like I hope these things are true (because of what they have seen), that the world might be like that or become like that. But they couldn’t receive it and they couldn’t change and they acknowledged that, basically.

But I thought what a horrible thing to see some of the conditions in this world. Even that sometimes we just don’t grasp how blessed we are to be a part of Manasseh and the blessings God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That’s why we have what we have, because of His promises that have been fulfilled in the greatest nation that was prophesied to exist on earth in time. This is it, and now toward the end of it.

Sometimes it’s hard for us to grasp the things that are taking place in this world and how bad this world is right now. I think of all the upheaval that’s taking place in you name it. Things are stirred up out there, I’ll tell you. Lebanon, Spain, France – we’re talking about public upheaval and rioting that’s going on – Hong Kong, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Venezuela. Where else was it? Egypt. Where are some of the places that have been on the news here recently, all these places and cities that are having upheaval? I know I’m missing some others. Algeria, I believe it was. Different nations. Horrible what’s taking place out there. The world is really, really shaky right now. It’s just a matter of time. I just hope the 144,000 are really close, here it is. And when that day happens...

It’s going to happen exactly as God wants it to and exactly as He’s working with it because He orchestrates it all, which is a marvel. We can’t grasp such things. If we look out in the universe and are in awe of that He can orchestrate this, powerfully so, the Great God whom we serve.

So, equitable prosperity. What a beautiful thing. Fairness, justice, opportunity. It’s hard to grasp that kind of a world we’re getting ready to move into and to work with. We get to be a big part of helping to change so much of it. I can’t wait.

“This new era will be a time of healing for mankind and for the earth itself.”

We have done so much damage to it. I was looking up because I was looking at a particular area thinking about some of the deserts and things about the Sahara and things that we have done to make things worse on this earth. I mean, vast regions of the earth we have made worse than what they were. What the Romans did in northern Africa in stripping things and then what’s there now? Nothing but sand.

I remember visiting Ephesus, and I think I’ve shared this before, going to Turkey and going up from I think it was Kusadasi is the name of the area there, from a ship and taking a tour up to see Ephesus, and then when you get there and they show you certain areas right down from the library, this huge library that was so well known at that particular time, and then right down from that this walkway, a road type of an affair in rock, it’s there. Right below it, not very far down, is nothing but dirt and earth. It was once a port and there’s nothing there all the way to the ocean, or the sea out there, I guess it is, which was about 8-12 miles away (and I can’t remember exactly how far). Nothing but dirt and it used to be a port that used to come all the way up there to Ephesus. It was a port city.

They take you by it and you think, how could this happen? They explain it was those Romans. They stripped everything away and it silted in. We’ve destroyed so much of the earth and you think what we’re doing today is far worse than what people did back then. The oceans that are filled with plastic, it’s a shame, it’s a crying shame what we’re doing. It truly is. We are ruining the earth that God gave us to dress and to keep. We’ve done a horrible thing. We’ve done horrible things to it. We’re going to have a time of healing it, working and doing things right. Farming that’s going to be done correctly. Anyway, there is so much work ahead to help heal the earth.

“This new era will be a time of healing for mankind and for the earth itself. It is then that the earth will begin to become renewed and cleaned up from all that mankind has so polluted and destroyed. God reveals...” Yeah, here it is right here: “God reveals that even the deserts will begin to be productive as mankind begins to reverse what it has done that caused so much of the earth to become nonarable.”

Can’t even farm it anymore. Can’t plant anything. Rain doesn’t even come anymore in some of those regions because we’ve actually worked to destroy so much that patterns have been changed.

Anyway, going on: “That which takes place on this one day starts with what is described as the completion of the Seven Thunders and in what happens in the very first event that unfolds at the beginning of what the Seventh Trumpet then announces.”

So I’ll ask you, right now in your mind what is the first thing that takes place in the Seventh Trumpet.

Revelation 10:4. Or what do we think some of the most important things are that take place at that time? Revelation 10:4—Now when the Seven Thunders sounded I was about to write; but then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, Seal up the things which the Seven Thunders sounded, and do not write them. And the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land then raised up his hand toward heaven and gave oath in Him who lives forever and ever... In other words, this is from God and this is what God, basically, has promised to mankind. ...who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and all things that are in it, the earth and the things that are in it, and the sea and the things that are in it, and declared that there should be time no longer. It’s a Greek word that means “not any further; no further.” In other words, something is changing here where time isn’t going to continue on as it has. A great change is now going to take place on the earth.

Going on in the book: “Previously, it has been told how the First Thunder first began when the Sixth Seal of Revelation was opened on the 11th of September in 2001, on 9/11. From that time events from all seven Thunders have been sounding. The events of those Thunders...”

And I think of the last one. I marvel at that one, I really do, because this book is being written for that very reason. Things have accelerated so fast, God has given us so much, a greater understanding of Him and what He’s doing at this end-time that this has needed to be written now, okay? That just helps to magnify that even more. To me that’s inspiring (if you know the seventh Thunder).

“The events of those Thunders continue sounding right up to when the height of them has been reached at this very moment in time being spoken of here. So it is stated here that this oath from God concerned this specific moment in time. Daniel also wrote about this oath concerning end-time prophecy.”

“God had promised mankind that there would come a prophetic time in all human history when He would bring a completion to one period of time and introduce a new one.” That’s what this is all about. “That which is being spoken of here is that very moment in time when one period becomes completed because that time would no longer continue; it would go no farther.”

Thank God! We have made a mess of things over 6,000 years. When mankind’s self-rule comes to an end, indeed, like the angels do, they glorify God, they thank God.

“This is then connected to what is revealed next in Revelation 10:7—But in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished...”

Kind of an awkward way of expressing this in English because Old English sometimes, the way things were stated a little bit different, and so some of these things are carried over in many translations and it becomes like, “Well, what do you  mean ‘should be’?” We use the word “should” a little bit differently. It’s not like, “This is going to happen.” “It should be.” Well, no. This is dogmatic. This is what’s going to happen, in other words. That’s what’s being said here. That it should now be finished, is what it’s all about; in other words, it shall be completed, fulfilled, accomplished. That’s what the word means.

So again here, this is something, a mystery, “the mystery of God should now be finished.” So something begins. It’s about the mystery of God. It’s about Elohim. It’s about the resurrection of 144,000 who return with Christ, the first great resurrection from among mankind, and they enter into Elohim. This is the great harvest, spring harvest that we speak of. This is the beginning of the mystery of God being revealed to mankind because now mankind will be able to be in the presence of the God Family.

What an incredible thing, that Christ will manifest himself physically as he did before when he was on this earth, the 144,000 being able to physically manifest themselves as well. We can’t grasp what that’s going to be like. People being able to see them, to talk with them, to meet them at a Feast of Tabernacles, whatever it might be, whenever it might be, to see them, TV, whatever it is, to see things that are said. Those things are going to happen. The technology is there to enhance that, to make it even greater. Can’t imagine.

Moses, Noah, Abraham, you go back through time, Abel, all able to manifest themselves, for people to know them. I can’t grasp that kind of a world yet but we’re going to get to live it. Awesome!

So it’s the beginning of something that God has foretold from the beginning of time, the mystery of God. It’s about Elohim. It first begins right here at this moment in time. That’s what’s being covered here and discussed as we’re going through this particular portion here.

So again, “But in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel...” In other words, this is the first great event that takes place because of the sounding of the seventh angel. Those things are being held back, we understand that, to a point in time, and so when that’s finished incredible things take place here, and just before this, obviously. “...when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should now be finished,” is how it should be translated, “as He declared to His servants the prophets.”

So God has foretold these things through time through prophecy, through the prophets, and it’s about the beginning of His family and what we are all being offered to become part of.

I’m going to stop there today and we’ll pick it up next week in Part 2 as we continue.