All Belongs To God, Pt. 1

Ronald Weinland

December 28, 2019

Last week while in Europe I was going to begin addressing a new subject that would have at least two parts to it and decided not to do that because it would mess up the order of things, because if I give something over there they get it first and then there is Part 2 and how do you do this. It just gets totally messed up so I decided to wait until I got over here to begin this particular series.

I have a lot to read in the introduction here, which I’m going to do, and obviously, you all know because of the announcements I made here. But those that hear this over in Australia and other places don’t know that I’ve just talked about it. But again, we were over there to secure a place for the Feast of Tabernacles there in Spain, which we have done, and again, this has had an impact in some of the thinking because of history and just thinking about human nature and all the civilizations that have risen and fallen through time.

When you see those kinds of things you can’t help but be impacted by it and that works in tremendously in what we’re going to be covering in this sermon series because there is a lot that can be learned. There are things that we need to ever be growing in and learning, and this was something in this particular context that helped promote that or push that forward in a way that is unique. You’ll see that as we go along and talk about that.

But anyway, as I mentioned in the announcements earlier, the location of this particular site that we have there was the first on our list and we were able to secure that. We were there a week before Christmas and I thought that this would prove to be a good time of the year, that we’d be able to escape this season of the year. I mean, after all, we’re going to be in Europe and they don’t believe exactly the same things we do here in the States about some of the celebration of that unless, I found out, you’re in a Catholic country.

So we didn’t escape the Christmas drama that surrounds this particular time of the year. A lot of the same music, even in English, was being played in the stores and the mall. Thankfully, we didn’t spend a lot of time in the stores of the mall. But I don’t know about you, but that stuff just drives me nuts. I hate to get a song in my head. One day Laura got a song in her head that she’d heard in one of the stores and she was having a horrible time getting rid of it and I told her get a hymn in your mind and start singing that in your mind and maybe you can wash it out of there or whatever, and I said, “But don’t tell me what the song was!”

But anyway, I was really rather shocked to see so much of the same kind of thing that’s going on here in the U.S., I really was. I was taken aback by it because I know there are differences in beliefs in different parts, even in the north they’re different than what they are in the south.

Oh, and I do want to say one more thing. I was so impressed by how friendly people are. Bowled me over! I was told that the southern part of Spain is more so like that than other regions even throughout Europe, but people were not only able to, most being able to speak English, which is nice, incredibly friendly and helpful, pleasant, at peace. You could just see it in their countenance. I was rather dumbfounded by a lot of that. Again, a good thing to experience.

But this part here about the season wasn’t as good. Christmas trees, they’re there. Lighting, music, Santa Claus! Some places here don’t even believe in the same kind of thing like we do about Santa Claus, you know, but you know what it’s about? It’s about merchandising. It’s all it is. Drawing people. The decorations and things, they’re not ugly. You know, you see trees in colors and stuff, and that’s why I’m so glad in the subdivision we’re in its all white because it’s a winter scene. You can have winter scenes now and trees covered with white lights. But when you get to the color part and you get to the other things they put on the trees sometimes and then they go far beyond that and I hate it with a passion.

But anyway. I do have to say one thing though. I did find it kind of funny a couple times when certain songs were being sung from the Spanish in English, and it was the accent. It would be like me trying to speak, sing a song in Spanish. People would be laughing because they’d think that’s funny, you know. It’s not making fun of but just kind of funny, the sound and what you’re hearing.

So by the time we got to the Netherlands we did get relief because it’s different there. It’s a Protestant nation, as a whole, and it’s not the same. You don’t see as much in lighting and so forth. I don’t remember ever seeing a Santa Claus. We did see some trees on occasion. But there’s a big different from one part of the country to another there in Europe and what they are. It was explained to me it’s because the Protestants have their own ideas and beliefs that they’ve been passed down, but Catholics have stuck close to what we have here in this country, in that sense, as far as tradition and so forth. So again, didn’t escape it.

Again, all this is being mentioned so that you can understand a little of how this affected us, of being totally unexpected, and the message was clear in the advertising in stores. Everywhere you looked it was heavy merchandising. That’s what struck me. It’s all about merchandising. Then when you think about that I can’t help but think about Ezekiel 28. That’s important to learn.

What we’re going to be covering in this sermon is important to learn, why God wants us to see these things and how this is so incredibly important to understanding the process He’s taking us through to eventually become a part of His family. It’s really quite incredible how God works with mankind, the plan.

In writing this book it’s coming home so much more in the sense of what God is doing, where we are, and it’s so exciting to see how God can work with mankind and how He does work with mankind to eventually offer everyone an opportunity. Sadly, though, we know that billions won’t receive it, which is, again, another part of this sermon.

So again, heavy merchandising that’s in this particular season of the year just to draw people into a store with a hope of creating the atmosphere of spending and buying gifts. That’s what it’s about, and when witnessing this and then a few of the old places and the castle type fortifications in that region that go back hundreds of years, and the history that’s there, again, I was struck by the futility of mankind—you can’t help it—and the futility of leaders and what they have tried to build up. Mankind, everything he strives to do on his own, the names that they try to make for themselves, or the countries or nations have done for themselves and what has happened to them when they’re brought down, again, awesome lessons to learn from all this.

Again, it’s what prompted this particular series, of seeing these kinds of things taking place and recognizing what has taken place in nations, the havoc they’ve raised, the evil that went with a lot of the things that took place, slavery that took place in building a lot of these things, the conquering and the mass killing of people. It’s just been the way of mankind and it hasn’t changed.

So much of the evil that’s going on to this day, I can’t help but think of people that are sent off to wars, whether it be Vietnam in my lifetime, seeing the things that are going on in parts of the Middle East when you think of Afghanistan and Iraq and all the things and nothing changes. I think of Afghanistan. What a nightmare!

Talk about Taliban and all the people that have gone from this country and died there and for what purpose? What has been accomplished? It seems like we can never learn. Mankind has a hard time learning what they need to learn, but it shows the stubbornness of human nature. To glorify those things or to build them up as being something we have to do to keep them from coming here? Give me a break! You know, it’s insane, it really is, but people believe what they want to believe. I’m so glad we’re getting close to the end of it all.

Anyway, this new series is entitled All Belongs To God. All belongs to God. If mankind could only learn that. Even we in the Church, we have things to learn about this, to tome to understand that even more deeply. We know that! Yes, you know that! You know God’s the great Creator. But how much is it really in your mind and in your being everything I have, everything we have, God has blessed us to enjoy. When it’s done right, when we have what we, to recognize it.

That brings up the thing of gratitude then to God, love to God that He’s so mercifully given us, so much. And look what we’ve done with it. Look what mankind does with it. Even we in the Church, there are things that we have to learn, need to learn from these things even more deeply as we grow more, as we seek to draw closer to God, to come to appreciate more deeply everything we have and to understand how blessed we are.

I marvel at that. I was talking to some people earlier. I marvel that God can save me, that God can save us! It’s a marvel because of what we are. That’s another thing to understand, the process of how and why we were made this way in the first place. It’s incredible.

Anyway, as I mentioned, Ezekiel 28 comes to mind. But today we’re going to go back a little bit more and read something in Ezekiel 28 that generally isn’t covered when we talk about the being that started this whole thing of turning against God, of merchandising against God, because that’s what he did, and that’s what mankind does. But we’ll read this first, Ezekiel 28, just to be reminded because again, this scripture screams volumes when addressing what’s been described by being in Europe in this Christmas season.

Ezekiel 28:14—You were an anointed cherub who covers, and I set you so. I just marvel at that verse by itself talking about Satan, talking about Lucifer before he turned against God. God talking about, “You were an anointed cherub who covers.” When you see the two with their wings spread over, when that description is given in the ark of the covenant, over the throne of God, and you talk about these great beings that were made, archangels, and their position in things we have not learned yet, but they’re awesome in how they were a part of God’s government and at the height of the angelic realm and how they had power, great powers to accomplish and do much in the universe when you talk about a physical universe and what God created out there. They weren’t all just standing back twiddling their thumbs watching God. They had a part in it. They had a part in what God did. We don’t fully understand that because God hasn’t fully revealed that, but they did, and they were given responsibilities in that.

So to think about some of those things and to see that there was a third one here and what his position was at the height of it all in what God had created, and He said, And I set you so. We shouldn’t have to be reminded. I think of being called into God’s Church. God set us so! We weren’t looking for it. On the contrary, we would never have chosen it. You would never have chosen God’s way of life except God had to work with you to open up your mind to begin working with you.

As I’ve mentioned before, I had to be hit by a 4 x 4, and some people ask, “What’s a 4 x 4?” Well, it’s supposed to be – and that’s the merchandising of man because there really isn’t 4” anymore. It’s like 3½ by 3½, a post, but they’ve cut off a ½ an inch on each side so they can sell more of them and they still call it a 4 x 4. It’s supposed to be 4” x 4”. I think that’s the dimensions. Anyway, there you go, just like they used to do when they had silver coins and they had to put these little edges on them then so you can see where they whittled it. You know, skim it off, and gold coins, and they finally learned how to measure a way... Anyway, mankind always cheating, always trying to get an edge on somebody else and here it is with a 4 x 4.

Anyway, I had to be hit by one. Not literally, although my jaw, when it started it felt like it. Because I’ve explained that before, how I got hit in the jaw by a guy and it started waking me up a little bit. It was the first time I really prayed in sincerity to God after that, because I was at an all time low because of different things happening to me in my life. I was throwing it away on the kind of life I was living, a junior in college, and I knew that. It’s pretty hard when you’re majoring in some of the things I was majoring in and then all of a sudden to get a hold of it and you’re behind and how do you catch up? How do you make that right?

So I had to have the “you know what” knocked out of me. If I hadn’t, I would never have listened to God. Because I had heard, I had seen The Plain Truth before in laundromats when I was a freshman in college in another place there in Kansas. I remember seeing it. I remember looking at it. But you know what? Nothing was clicking because I wasn’t being called yet. But I remembered seeing it and I remember hearing Garner Ted while I was working in a grocery store there and at a gas station, remembered him, hearing him at different times and thinking, this is different. But if it came to any part of religion I was tuned out because I was sick of religion. People tried to get me to come to some of their Bible study classes and I’d go to their Bible study classes.

Anyway, we all go through different things and none of it made any sense. Immortal soul? Well, explain that one to me. “Uh, well...” What’s a soul? “Well, uh...” We’d have these Bible studies. You ask certain questions like, “Well, this makes a lot of sense, you know, what you’re saying...” So I couldn’t stand, even back then, thank God, the mushy, fake stuff that’s there. That’s why I hate the spirit of Protestantism. Because it’s fake and it’s a put on. It’s not true. It’s not real.

Anyway, so when God began to call me I had to be hit in the head. A lot of you did. Now, God worked with different ones of you in different ways. Some of you didn’t have to be hit the same way. So, finally, I was willing to listen. Again, we all go through different things, but the spirit and the mind is one of resisting God. So when it says here, “I set you so,” we need to understand, “I am sitting here today because God set me so. He gave me an opportunity to be a part of something incredibly great.”

I think of this being here who turned down the greatest thing at that time that God had ever created! He had everything, in the sense of the angelic realm, in power, in responsibility, in authority and glory, and he misused it because he wasn’t satisfied and he didn’t fully agree with what God was doing and he wanted something a little bit different. He began to find a little bit of fault.

I think of the way we are as human beings and what I’ve seen in God’s Church over 50 years now, and I think of the incredible human nature that we have that fights and resists Him. He wants to give us so much and He wants to give to us more than He gave to him! But He’s not going to give it if we don’t truly desire it with all of our being, cherish it, embrace it, love it, love Him. That’s what we have to grow in. We’re ever growing in those things.

“I set you so.” God put us here in His Church. You didn’t want it. You weren’t looking for it. You weren’t desirous of it. If you were called out of the world, you weren’t desiring to keep the Sabbath day and Passover. You didn’t even know about them, as a whole. Feast of Unleavened Bread? “Well, what’s a Feast of Unleavened Bread? That sounds “great”! What’s leaven?” So we have to start out pretty meagrely just to learn a little bit. Feast of Tabernacles? Pentecost? Atonement? “Oh, you’re going to go without food for a whole day? And water, all liquid, for a whole day?” Oh, that’s something we all want to do. “Let’s join. Let’s go to that Church! Let’s go to the Church that meets on the seventh day, because that’s going to help your finances.” That’s going to help them, isn’t it? Because most people work on Saturday. Well, they did back in my time anyway. Don’t anymore as a whole.

People have to work more than five days it’s like, “I don’t know if I can do it! That’s a lot!” I’m sorry. Now the work week in Europe is getting smaller and smaller and they’re talking about it in different parts of the world because “we can get more people working if we have less hours. If we can get it down to thirty hours then we can afford to have more people working.” Then some people, “It’s still a lot. Thirty hours in a whole week to have to work? Man.” Doesn’t that blow your mind?

Anyway, God says, “I set you so. I gave you this. I placed you here.” How much do we see that? How much do we cherish that, truly, down to the deepest part of our being? How grateful are we? Everything we have, every truth we have, the richness of the blessings of the truths we have?

We’re not blinded to the fact that there was an Apostasy. How great is that? I feel so sorry for those who are scattered, hundreds and hundreds I know who don’t understand, who are still looking. As my wife talked about, nations and what they’re going to feel toward the end, that even at the end, as it’s brought out in the book there, they still think they can win and come through this thing and build back up again. That’s the mind of human beings.

That’s the way the scattered Church is, “We can still become great again, big again like we were.” So a stubborn resistance and a working toward something that God’s not in, and if you believe in 144,000, that’s going to take a little while because, “Man, we’re pretty small now and it seems like we just keep getting smaller. We were 7,000 at one time and now we’re down to 4,000? We’re kind of going the wrong way and it’s a long way from 144,000.”

I’m sorry, but you need to feel bad about that, that people are caught in that kind of blindness that once knew the truth and set where you set in services. The fact that you’re still able to be here? God set you so. Nobody is here because of how well they kept the Sabbath, because of how well they kept the holy days, because of how well they did anything. Not because of our goodness. Everybody fell asleep and that’s sin. God mercifully gave opportunity to a portion, to a large portion really, but many refused it. Out of that, by the time the first 3½ years was over, He established a little group, a small remnant. Incredible. God did it. We didn’t.

How incredible is that that God set us here in a remnant Church? Those of you who have been called to be a part of the remnant Church, how blessed are you that in 2007 or 2008 or 2009 you were called and had opportunity to see something that you didn’t see before and to be a part with a little, a small group. “How big is your Church? And you have to drive how far? You are really loco aren’t you?” Anyway, we know what people say.

But to do it and to be grateful for it, to stand tall in the midst of it all? “Yeah, I get to do that. I get to not work on the seventh-day Sabbath. I get not to work on holy days. I get to go before the great God of the universe and He molds and fashions me.” Of course you never can tell anybody that! But if you see that, how wonderful is that? Everything you have, the mind you have to know the truth, to know what God is doing, do we grasp it?

Because this being didn’t. He lost it. He lost it! He had everything handed to him on a platter of jewels, the richness of things. That’s what God says. You were upon the holy mountain of God. You have walked back and forth in the midst of the stones of fire. “The angelic realm, back and forth, you were on top of it and I set you so. I set you there.” You were perfect in your ways from the day that you were created until iniquity was found in you. The height.

Anyway, it goes on to say in verse 16—By the multitude (abundance) of your merchandise you became filled of wrong. That’s what’s being said. The word is translated “violence,” but you know, people who translate these things don’t know diddly squat about what the truth is. They don’t know what is being said. They don’t know. They don’t stick to the words of Hebrew sometimes and they try to interpret it by their own understanding of certain things. It just says, “What developed in you is all that’s wrong, your wrong thinking, your wrong ways. By your merchandising wrong became developed in your being, what is wrong, not right.” That’s what he’s being told.

You became filled of wrong within, and you sinned. It starts in the mind. It’s how we think. To understand what it means by “merchandise,” we think of goods, we think of, as a whole, things that you can see, a package here, whatever, but it goes way beyond that in what God is talking about here on a spiritual plane. Those things we want, those things we desire to have, and how you can promote something that is wrong, that is not of God, thinking and so forth that is not of God, to have something different, to do something different.

Therefore, I will cast you as profane out of the mountain of God. We know what the “mountain” is. Mountain is a government. ...out from the government of God, O covering cherub, and I will destroy you from the midst of the stones of fire, from the midst of the angelic realm. It’s coming. God’s going to do it.

That which is the greatest lesson of the human mind in so many ways that we have to learn is we’re at one with God and love God and choose God and recognize God as our creator and our God and are ever so thankful for that and nothing else gets in the way and we’re humbled by that always in our thinking in our mind and we esteem God in everything. Everything is God’s. All belongs to God. Thank God we get to share in it by a very merciful God that desire to share it all. Life is about sharing. That’s what His desire is for us, to share in it all.

I looked at some different definitions of merchandising. One of them I thought I’d read. “Merchandising is everything you do to promote and sell your products.” Well, we think of that. We think of products. We think of things that are in the store, whatever it might be, different electronics or whatever it is, things that people want.

We don’t tend to think of where all those things come from and what this is speaking of, because it has to do with ideas. It has to do with your ways. Even in merchandising there are different ways to present things, and so forth, to draw people in. Well, the most manipulative, the most conniving, the most deceitful and horrible things of all are the merchandising of ideas and thoughts that are against God’s way of life. I have seen that ever since I’ve been in God’s Church, of people who have merchandised, ministers who have got up and merchandised something different.

I think of one that was transferred here one time from Kansas, and I remember after graduating from Ambassador going back there for...a little lesson here I guess it was. (After we got married.) I was going to say to the beautiful, flat plains of Kansas. I’m sorry, but I like rolling hills, I like trees, I like water, and I grew up where there wasn’t much so I appreciate when there’s more. It’s just me. It’s a beautiful area and I’m not trying to get hate mail from Kansas. Anyway. But everybody has something different they like.

Some people like to live in the desert. I don’t. A lot of people like to retire and go down to Mesa and Scottsdale and Phoenix region, and Tucson and some of those regions in the south, just like some like to go down to Florida from here.

So we’re talking about ideas because that’s what Lucifer did when it came into his mind of things he disagreed with God. To market ideas is a little different. It’s a very conniving thing. Just like that minister did that I was telling you about. One time they had what, Mr. Armstrong sent out what was called the Pastor’s General Report to the ministry. Oftentimes they would read what Mr. Armstrong read in there to the congregation. One time he was dealing with a certain situation, and I don’t remember what it was, but he was so proud of himself he asked me into his room to look at this, what he was changing for the Sabbath sermon. He said, “And I’m going to add this to what Mr. Armstrong said and change this a little bit here,” in order to, basically, get to some, a situation he was working with.

Merchandising. Twisting and distorting things. It wasn’t what Mr. Armstrong said. It took away from what Mr. Armstrong said. But it did what he wanted. He wanted something different in the congregation. He wanted a change. He wanted a response from certain ones because of something he thought should be different in how it should be worked with. That’s how things are done. People come up with what they might consider to be an innocent idea when it turns out to be so foul and so evil.

“Merchandising is everything you do to promote and sell your products.” I think of what people have done to sell. I think of what happened in Toledo and how different ones got together and began to talk. We were away. I don’t even remember where we were one time, but we were away. Oh, in Texas. We went down to Texas. We were gone for a short period of time, came back, and I didn’t know all this stuff was going on, that people were sharpening their knives, daggers—let’s put it that way—getting ready for a big showdown as time was going on, the ministers, the leaders of the area there. Anyway, different ideas, “The way I want to do it,” “the way we want to do it.”

Some of it is kind of funny. It’s like when it finally came down to it, it was like, “You can’t go down to Cincinnati anymore. You can’t go down to Georgia. You’re our minister! We’re paying you.” Something that was driven home to me very powerfully so, even when we split up in the Apostasy, was no, I work for God and He takes care of me.

Anyway, ideas, thoughts of how to do something different, not seeing God in the picture and how God works within the Church. It’s been a big problem for a long, long time.

“Merchandising is everything you do to promote and sell your products once the potential customer is in your store.” You know, I’ve seen this. I’ve seen people gravitate to each other in certain situations and because they’re not happy about something and how does it start? I think of these things that happened up in Toledo, as an example again, because they’re still fresh in my mind in the sense of how rank and how evil it really was. They start talking about a certain thing and find a common ground. They may not be in agreement with each other, which so often they’re not, because when they finally get together and do their own thing they have squabbles amongst themselves because they’re still not happy because why? Because each person kind of wants their own way. “I see it better than you do,” type of thing. “I should be on top and you shouldn’t... You don’t see things well!” That’s just human nature, isn’t it?

So you draw them in and when a person starts listening to something else? Danger. Danger, danger, danger! But those things are our past and they happened. But this is the kind of thing we’re talking about because Lucifer did this to a large part, a third of the angelic realm—incredible—and he did it in this manner. So one begins listening; they begin buying into something different than what God has given. Even if it’s just a little, doesn’t matter. That’ll do it.

“So when we talk about merchandise,” this definition was saying, “we are talking about products available for sale.” Oh, yes, buy into it. They want you to buy into it. They want you to think the same way they do. They want you to embrace the same ideas. “Since the sales process often starts with the eyes...” which I thought, you know, that’s interesting – lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life because that’s all involved here.

It starts with the eyes. It starts with what someone sees. They see something different. It’s an amazing thing that took place in the angelic realm. They’d never seen those things before, and there are those who gravitated to it because they saw something and began to embrace something that was different from what God had revealed to them. They never knew anything different. That’s an amazing thing to understand.

God told them, gave them everything that was there, happy, fulfilled, doing things within the creation that God had out here, what He was doing, and busy at it, enjoying it in ways that we can’t even begin to comprehend, and then finally these ideas started entering in. Something different and they were drawn to it. It’s amazing how the mind can work that eventually can turn against God.

“So when we talk about merchandise, we’re talking about products available for sale. Since the sales of these often start with the eyes merchandising typically involves presenting products in a visually favorable light.” So it doesn’t always start off as appearing as evil. It seems innocent. It seems small. I’ll tell you, it’s amazing what can happen. That’s why we have to always be on guard. Because none of us have the strength. None of us have the strength to resist a being that’s out there. That’s why I love that scripture that says, in essence, “Greater is He that’s in you than he that’s in the world.” That’s our strength. It’s God Almighty. Being in the temple, being in God and Christ and them in us through the power of the holy spirit. That’s why we pray as we do daily. That’s why we cry out to God and ask for Him to dwell in us and we are blessed to dwell in them. Because if we’re not able to have that, we can lose what we have. So many have before us.

God gives us opportunities to see some of these things in a greater way. So we’re ever growing. Even in what we go through now we’re able to grow on to a higher level of understanding and appreciation and being far more solid as a part of the Body of Christ than ever before. We’re very blessed in that, we truly are. Anyway, I’ll stop there.

In writing this fourth book, again, I’ve been struck even more deeply than ever, I should say, about how false religious beliefs have spread throughout the world and how Satan has worked to deceive mankind, because of looking at things about what happened after Babylon and how because of the languages some of these things spread. The only thing that was different in some of the religious beliefs at that time had to do with different languages. Then as they began to separate they took on their own nuance, if you will, each one of them, but false and related in different ways and they grew powerful on the earth.

Satan is a powerful, powerful, powerful being, spirit being, adversary to God, and very cunning. We are no match for him. Our strength is God. Our strength is in the spirit of God, being in unity and oneness with God.

So looking at some of these things that have happened you can’t help but be struck by how Satan has deceived people into believing some of the things they have through time in some of these different civilizations that have risen and fallen, luring mankind into embracing different ideas, opposing ideas so that they’re not at peace with one another. So there’s not a unity in that either because he doesn’t want that. He wants them to be deceived, but to have many differing ideas about that so that they are, in essence, warring with each other as time goes along because that’s what he loves and desires to see with mankind.

I think of those different nations. I think of what’s happening in Europe right now. Europe, it’s finally dawning on them there are two great religions that don’t mix. They don’t mix. You can’t mix traditional Christianity with what has come in by the millions upon millions upon millions into all of Europe in a Muslim religion, Islam. They’re adversarial to each other very powerfully so. Incredible, what’s happening in the world. But this has gone on for centuries and centuries and centuries and the different ideas that people have.

Look at the wars the Protestants and Catholics have had with each other. It’s just the way it is. Protestants with Protestants. Incredible things that have taken place. And all, supposedly, praying to the same God to bless them in their battles, to go out and kill those who are opposing them because they’re right. Isn’t that amazing? They’re so right they’re going out to kill others because they’re wrong and we’re the right ones. Human, human life; so futile, so ugly, so vile what mankind has done.

So again, these things have come out even more so, to see that power of that being and what he’s done through time. I don’t know – I think it’s been in the book already (maybe not), but just to clarify it in case it hasn’t been, Satan is that great false prophet spoken of in Revelation. You know it says, “Cast into the same…”? It’s so distorted what’s said there, “…into the place where the false prophet and the beast were.” It’s the same one! It’s just a description of Satan. It’s that being but at different times how he functioned and worked as the beast in history. He is the false prophet. He has been ever since he did what he did to the angelic realm. He became the great false prophet, the one who began to teach things different from God. Incredible!

So indeed, in reading this it’s quite incredible how he has masterfully worked to lead selfishly motivated human beings into embracing such vile and evil practices through history. Some of the most atrocious ones I think of are when in history and how people were tortured to accept a different belief, to recant, or whatever it might be, their beliefs. You think, how stupid is that? You think you really change someone’s mind by torturing them? Do you really think that changes the way a person thinks? Just because they say certain words? Pretty dumb, humanity is, has been. All going back to Babylon. Incredible.

We’re going to turn over to Revelation 3 in a moment. But again, looking at how deeply deceived traditional Christianity is today, again, thinking again about some of the things that are written, ideas, doctrine after doctrine, idea after idea – merchandising. Look at the power of it in the world. You try to tell someone something different? You try to tell someone that he was like this, not like this? You’ve got a bit of a battle on your hand. People are not going to be happy hearing those kinds of things. They think, “Who are you? What’s wrong with you to say such a thing, to take that away, to say that didn’t happen that way? To say his name wasn’t Jesus? And where it came from?”

Thankfully, things are going to happen fast, and we’re not big. It wouldn’t be so pleasant with the kind of hatred that exists in people’s lives. It’s hard to grasp how evil history has been. But anyway, it reminds me of some of the things we have talked about. You know, again, the nature of mankind, he knows what’s best. It’s a spirit. It’s an attitude. It’s in us all. It’s what we have to fight against. We don’t know what’s best, God does, and the desire should be to come in unity and oneness with His mind, His thinking.

Like the series we had about judgment, how to judge righteously; not our way, not the way we see it, not the way we think it should be. Because all that’s just a bunch of garbage! If we can really see “the way I see things,” “the way I think about things,” “what I think is right,” is a bunch of garbage of and by itself. The only way it has any value is that if it’s 100% in agreement with God Almighty. Then it’s right. But if it comes out of us and it’s not totally in agreement and unity and oneness with God, it’s a bunch of garbage. It really is. So those things can sometimes be so difficult to grasp and then to understand, truly.

Anyway, as we talked about in those past sermons, the nature of man is self-reliant, we don’t need God. Sometimes in the Church we don’t realize we’re being self-reliant, we’re not really practicing the things we should because God says we have to do things a certain way.

Prayer? It’s not a question of whether we should be doing it or not. That should be so easy and elementary.

Fasting? It should be elementary; it should be a part of our lives.

So we talked about some of that in the series entitled Fighting for God’s Way and there was a particular verse that I think is good to start this particular series on, or to begin this before we talk about any other scriptures that follow this. Revelation 3:17. It’s hard to understand this for what it is sometimes, but the more it can be deeply engrained in our being, in our minds, the better off we are.

Revelation 3:17—Because you say, I am rich... It’s not that we say that or even think that. It’s the spirit and attitude of our actions, what our actions reflect. When we’re not relying upon God, we’re being self-reliant. We’re saying, “I am rich. I don’t need You.”

Satan started it. He didn’t need God. He was going to do it a different way. A third of the angels followed him thinking they were going to do the same thing. They’re rich in their own thoughts and their own ideas. They don’t want God’s ideas. They don’t want God’s thoughts. They don’t want that kind of thinking. They want to do something different.

I couldn’t help but think about some of this this morning, thinking about understanding the Great White Throne and what it’s going to be. Not what we’d thought it was going to be. When you take people who have lived in all these generations of all these cultures and all these civilizations that have risen and fallen, and all the things they have experienced, especially when you see some of the kinds of lives that people lived, all the partying that people gravitate to and the kind of lifestyles that go with that, the debauchery, the drunkenness, the drugs, the immoral sexual environment, and all these things that you mix together in a great, big cauldron. Yeah, and these people are resurrected – they still have the same minds as when they died! To think they’re not going to try or want those things? We deceive ourselves, we truly do.

There are going to be so many who don’t want, just as they don’t want it today if you were to tell them, don’t want what God has to offer. So be it.

I am rich... Again, a spirit of pride and self-reliance, to live life our own way “like God.” God’s way is right. He established it all. He lives life a certain way, yes. But when we think that our way is right or we start doing something in a different way—neglecting prayer, as an example. If we don’t do those things there is a spirit and an attitude there that’s reflected by our actions that’s deep down inside of this mind that has to be gotten a hold of, and that we don’t recognize the danger of what we’re saying to God: “I am rich. I don’t need You! Yes, you told me, Christ said it many, many times about the importance of prayer. He set the example for us, things are said throughout scripture about it, ‘Ask and you’ll receive.’” Sometimes we ask amiss as James talks about. On and on it goes talking about prayer life.

It’s whether we recognize how much we need God and want His spirit and not ours, not human nature, not the nature of the human spirit that’s selfish, not one that’s lifted up with pride, not one that lifts itself up like God. Because when we do that we become God, we make ourselves like God. That’s what we’re saying to God. That’s what He wants us to understand. You’re doing what Satan did. You’re saying, “I want to be like You! I don’t want to do it Your way. I want to go on and live around the temple running around out there in the courtyard and still have eternal life my way.” God says there is only one way – His way. Incredible.

So we say things by our actions that come deep out of the deepest recesses of our minds, sometimes that we don’t even see and grasp what we’re thinking and what we’re saying by our actions or lack of action.

“And increased with goods.” Much to merchandise. It’s what it’s about. It’s about merchandising. It’s the same spirit because it’s something different, something you can do different than the way God said it should be, whatever that might be. Even in something simple like prayer. “I can do it a different way.”

...and have need of nothing. Isn’t that incredible? That’s what we’re saying in situations like that in life. We always have need of God. We need God’s spirit every day of our life. Because if we don’t have it, there is a being out there that wants to pluck at us and pick us away, take us away.

...and have need of nothing—and do not know that you are wretched, and miserable, poor, blind, and naked. Apart from God, that’s the way we are. Only with God, only with agreement with God do we have God, if He dwells in us indeed.

So again, this is a description and an attitude of Satan, this right here. See? It’s given and told to people in Laodicea but it’s the spirit and the mind of Satan. It’s how he started out. It’s how he is. It’s how he thinks. He’s rich and increased with goods. He doesn’t need God. He doesn’t want God. From the very beginning he turned against Him. He was self-sufficient, self-reliant, didn’t want anything to do with God.

Incredible, how the human mind can be, but it’s a spirit that God really wants us to come to understand more deeply. That’s why I marvel that we’re going through some of these things. I think back about some of the sermons that have brought us up to this point today and it’s another process of building on things we know, but growing in that, becoming stronger in what is true and right that God wants us to hold on to even more so.

Now Ezekiel 28, but this time let’s start in verse 1. Incredible story. Again, I couldn’t help but be struck by the things I saw of civilizations and rise and fall of civilizations there in Spain, which is all along the Mediterranean. If you look into a little bit of the history it’s even more mind boggling.

On the way back there was a thing on the plane to watch that I watched—I don’t think it was on History, I think it was Discovery—where they’ve gone out and mapped much of the Mediterranean. See, there’s been incredible work that’s been done there because this is the beginning of civilization and history and historians and different people want to know what happened. They have mapped huge regions and found incredible things (which I’ll mention as we go along in some of this), but it goes all the way back to the Phoenicians and their build up of that part of the world, which was where we’re talking about here now in this verse, because Tyre was the center of it all, in that region we know as Lebanon, north of Israel today.

Ezekiel 28:1—The word of the Eternal came unto me again, saying, Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyres (Tyre), Thus says the Lord Eternal, Because your heart is lifted up and you have said, I am God... Now, even within the Church if we do these things on a spiritual plane we don’t say that, but your actions say that you think you’re God. That’s what He’s saying here. “By your actions, by what you’re doing you’re acting like you’re God. Who do you think you are? Everything is Mine! Everything you have is from Me. You have nothing but what I’ve given you.” People don’t recognize that. They won’t accept that.

Mankind won’t accept that. What an incredible thing, they won’t acknowledge Him as the Creator. It’s incredible how the human mind is working or works, has worked for 6,000 years.

Thus says the Lord Eternal, Because your heart is lifted up and you said, I am God, I sit in the seat of God. Again, are those things that people said that went into the Apostasy and did some of the atrocious things they did? Not a one of them. Not a one of them, as a whole, said, “I am God. I sit in the seat of God.” The one who was sitting in the place of authority didn’t say that, but that’s what their actions said to God. Something they couldn’t understand and see that they were saying to God.

Do we see it in ourselves? Do we see what we say to God at times in our lives when we’re not yielding to God in the way we should, when we’re not thinking the way we should, when we’re not acting the way we should, when we’re not applying certain things in our life, like prayer life, like we should? Are we saying those things to God like that? No. But our actions are saying it.

Do we need God? Do we respect God? Do we honor? Not just respect but honor and esteem and glorify God in our thoughts and our thinking, thanking Him constantly, continually in our lives for everything we have because we know He gave it to us?

I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas. So he’s addressing a king, not Lucifer. It’s a king. He’s using this example to teach something very powerfully so as we continue on, and he’s speaking to the king of Tyre over the Phoenician realm of that world at that time. He’s saying “You’re in the midst of the seas.” What does that mean? Well, prophetically we understand what it means. It’s talking about the masses of people, the sea of people, in essence, scriptures that talk about “like the sand of the sea.” It’s talking about the masses of people in numbers, but he uses the word “sea” because it’s talking about the masses of people.

I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas. Yet you are a man, and not God. “Don’t you get it? You’re just a human being.” All the rulers of time who have risen with great power, some so lifted up by their importance that some began to even think they were gods. In the Roman Empire there were some who literally began to think they were like gods. You think, do you bleed? Can you die? Yeah, you’re a great god. Anyway.

He says, You are a man, you’re not God, though you set your heart as the heart of God, as though you were. In other words, “By the way you’re acting, that’s your attitude, that’s your thinking. You think you’re great? You’re over this great nation of people. You’re over this great empire? You wouldn’t have anything here if I hadn’t put it there.”

Behold, you are wiser than Daniel! It’s not what it means. It’s not saying you’re wiser than Daniel. It’s making a statement here. In essence, “You’re acting like that. You don’t need anything more. Look at what Daniel wrote. Look at what Daniel said. Look at how great Daniel was and you’re wiser than Daniel, aren’t you?” That’s the attitude. That’s what He’s showing here. There is no secret that can be hidden from you! “You know everything.” That’s the way human beings are.

Isn’t that amazing how filled up with pride that people are? We have an opinion about everything. I mean, just turn on the news! Sometimes it’s pretty hard to swallow. But to try to get a jewel here and there of things that are actually happening in the world sometimes you have to wade through a bunch of mud to get there. Sometimes my wife gets a little upset with me that I have the TV on listening to a news station, you know. Yep, because it can drive you nuts. Some of the same old stuff going on and on.

That’s one thing about Europe. They actually have world news on there at times. Over here? People over here don’t even know what’s happening in the rest of the world, as a whole, compared to how they’re more up to date on things over there. It’s far more realistic over there, it really is, of what’s happening. When they do hear something, it doesn’t mean a whole lot. “Oh, China and Russia and Iran are having these drills together,” and ask the average person on the street. “Who?” “Where’s that?” “Where’s Russia?” There are probably a lot of people who don’t know that, you know, as large as it is.

“There is no secret that can be hidden from you!” So this is not being said in truth; it’s being facetious in the sense of mocking.

With your wisdom and with your understanding you have gained riches for yourself. “Look how great you are! Sure!” Because that’s how he thought. And you know, that’s how different ones have done.

I think of this place that was built that is so incredible, all these pillars. They didn’t even mine them themselves. They didn’t even go out and cut them themselves. They were already there from the Roman Empire, you know, all these incredible pillars that the Moors came across. This one leader of the Moors, when he came across there, he wasn’t accepted back in; I can’t remember the exact region it was in but farther to the east.

Anyway, he had to go into another area of the world to build himself up in his religion and have followers and to become great and to try to build a name for himself so he built this great, big place. It is impressive, to say the least. I can’t imagine what it had to be at that time. But they pretty much took down what was there in the region anyway and just redid it. But it’s like, “Now, look how great I am, what I have built! A center and people.” Because when you build something big like that you know what happens? “Build it and they’ll come,” like that baseball show, anyway. But this is true. A lot of them went into different areas and built up different areas, like in ports or certain crossroads of traffic. Even in Spain there are different areas that are noted for the crossroads of trade and so was this area of Cordoba.

Anyway, incredible palace, or mosque, they call it a mosque, but it was more like a palace that was built. All for glory, all for showing how great “I” am and for establishing a kingdom in that part of the world that was large.

What happened to him? Who knows his name? Who has it now? You don’t keep it very long, but we act like gods. That’s what God is saying. And to this king? “You placed yourself like God. Nothing can be hidden from you. You know it all. There’s nothing, no secret. You don’t need anyone to tell you. You’re the ruler. You’re over everybody else. You are great, aren’t you?”

With your wisdom and your understanding you have gained riches for yourself, and have gathered gold and silver into your treasuries.

Verse 5—By your great wisdom in trade (merchandising)... All these regions in different parts of the world, especially along the Mediterranean and some of these cities that were built, some of them were incredibly great, they really were. Some of the ruins of some things, I think it was the Minoans they’ve discovered, along the coast, an area, a region. They didn’t know what happened to these peoples before the Phoenicians rose up. They’re some of the biggest, the largest after Babylon.

It was all along the Mediterranean and things that they did, and they have found ruins of things under the Mediterranean and they have found evidence of what happened to the civilization and they’ve discovered volcanoes that went off that were so great that it’s hard to imagine the magnitude of what took place and the type of tidal waves they caused across the Mediterranean even. But they found the wreckage of these things, they have the buildings of these things and massive structures of things that were done.

I think of, if you look on the internet and you see this place of Carthage, the Carthaginians that followed the Phoenicians. Because after they were conquered they moved down to this area of Northern Africa, of Carthage, and they became great because it was all about travel by great boats that they built. They built some massive ships!

But you see what was built there in the picture. There is nothing like it today of that magnitude of where they took ships into these harbors and built, like, castle fortifications around them, one way in and one way out. Awesome! Anyway, some of the things they’re discovering and seeing of these civilizations and people don’t even know about them today.

Who’s ever heard about the Minoans? Phoenicians, yeah, maybe—doubtful. They don’t even know where Turkey is. What’s that? Isn’t that over somewhere by... Isn’t that over by Arizona somewhere? That’s the way people are today, that you ask a question like that and... Anyway.

So by your great wisdom in trade (merchandising)... So that’s what these things were; it was all about merchandising. It was about trade, it was about becoming incredibly wealthy. These civilizations grew up with great wealth and it was all about the same thing. Ever who was over all that and the civilization that existed there, people took advantage of it. It’s just natural. That’s what we do in this country. People become of that thinking then more and more, and some of it’s good and most of it’s bad.

So you have increased your riches, and your heart is lifted up because of your riches. That’s what tends to happen to human beings. You can’t tell them anything. That’s why not many mighty, not many noble, and not many wealthy are called into God’s Church. Because they don’t need this. “Sabbath? The holy days? You people are nuts!”

Therefore, thus says the Lord Eternal, Because you have set your heart as the heart of God... We’re so filled with pride and we don’t understand what our spirit is. That’s what God wants us to understand. We’re nothing. God is everything. Everything belongs to God and God wants to share that with us, and we can be a part with God, but we can’t be otherwise.

Behold, I will, therefore, bring strangers upon you, the most terrible of the nations; and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom, and they shall defile your brilliance. Incredible. This has happened to every civilization that’s come and gone, to leaders that have come and gone.

They shall bring you down to the pit. It’s a word, basically, means “to sink into destruction, into corruption,” “into the grave,” in essence. So in other words, you’re not going to long exist. You’re going to be conquered. Every civilization has been. Every great civilization has been – risen and fallen. That’s why I find the history of some of those regions so interesting. The Phoenicians and what happened when they became conquered, there are some who left there and went down to the area of Carthage, raised up the Carthaginian people and they took over the Mediterranean. They were massive.

Something else, I just have to tell you this because to me it’s fascinating. When you see some of these things, the rise and fall, how long do they last? Well, then they see the Roman Empire rises up and there are some islands they have found, and what they have found they were startled by in the sense of the massive size of these ships that they had, both the Carthaginians and the Romans, because the Romans, in order to conquer them, had to have ships that were more powerful. Even though it was a lesser fleet they surprised the Carthaginians by these islands. They won’t even let people know where this is right now because they’ve mapped it out and they’ve found these ruins now, and people are always trying to find treasure and things of history, and so the governments won’t even let them know. They’ve kept it a secret.

But anyway, they have found these massive metal things that they put on the front of these ships that ripped open timbers. I mean, they are massive on the bottom of the floor of the Mediterranean. They are gigantic! To do what they did, to be on ships of that size, it is amazing. This goes back hundreds and hundreds and two and a half thousand years in this particular case I think it was, or even longer. No, it was a little after that, little over two thousand years in this particular war and battle that took place. But massive ships of things that were built.

When you go back and you study some of these things of Phoenicians that go way, way back it’s not hard to understand how people got to this country and how people were in South America and all over the world very quickly, because they had some massive ships that people knew how to build way back when, truly, some of these peoples and what they did. We don’t generally tend to think that way, but if you look at things that were built they didn’t do things small back then. They were massive. The cities they built were massive. Tyre was massive. Some of the history of those things.

But anyway, this is what He’s talking about. He’s talking to this individual, this king of Tyre, and telling him what’s going to happen to him. And you’re going to come down to nothing, and you shall die the death of all slain in the midst of the seas, in the midst of all the peoples that you think you’re over and living so great. You’re going to die just like everybody else. But you know, people don’t think about that at the time. Matter of fact, people don’t generally think about some of those things until they get up to, oh, close to my age and you realize your clock is running out. It’s just a matter of time. And it’s in God’s hands anyway. Especially in the Church, we understand that. But we understand that in human life. When you’re young you don’t think that way, people don’t think about those kinds of things, that this life is going to pass and it’s not going to be here that long, and everybody dies.

That’s why I marvel there used to be the thought that everybody is going to live for a thousand years in the Millennium and you realize, no, much to be learned about dying, much to be learned.

And you shall die the death of all slain. You’d think that would humble people, but it doesn’t, the reality of it, because it’s like it’s not going to happen and while it’s not happening I’m going to live it to the fullest the way I want to. I don’t need anybody to tell me how to do it.

Will you yet say before him who slays you, I am God? Because God brings all mankind to death. He’s made it that way for a purpose. Because it’s easy to see why God allowed certain nations to do some of the things they did, and certain kingdoms, and to bring them down and keep mankind where he was so that 6,000 years could exist in the manner that it is and to fulfill prophecy in the way that He intended.

But you are a man and no god, in the hand of him who slays you. You shall die the same death as the uncircumcised by the hand of foreigners, for I have spoken it, says the Lord Eternal. Incredible. Simple thing that you would think people could see, that we’re not great, we’re not mighty, rulers are not mighty, rulers are not great, we’re all human beings. If we could really understand it (well, we can’t), we need each other, we truly do. But people would rather compete and fight and the things that happen with human beings.

Anyway, there is much said throughout the Bible about vanity, about pride, about arrogance, and that’s what we reflect when we don’t reflect the fact that we need God. To be thankful that He works with us in the manner that He does, to be thankful that everything we have, to know, it comes from God. Everything belongs to God. So we think we live our lives that way, but sometimes we don’t. That’s when we have battles.

So much is said about futility, about that which is empty, short-lived efforts of pride filled people. We’re not great. People who fail to grasp the reality, again, of what we’re talking about here, that everything does belong to God and we should be thankful and grateful.

So anything mankind can achieve is really short-lived. To understand that is awesomely important, truly is. What you have is every moment of every day and how you live it, truly. If it be before God then we should want God to be a part of it, to share, to share this life in a way that glorifies and honors God and to fight against those things that are different from Him, any thoughts, any thinking, and any actions.

Anyway, some of this reminds me of some of what Jeremy spoke about at the Feast in that Feast sermon that covered some of the book of Ecclesiastes. I want to review a little of that because it fits into what is being covered in this sermon. And candidly, I didn’t realize at the time but what he was talking about in some of this it was reflected because of what he saw there in Spain and some of these same civilizations. Because there is something about the impact it can have on you to have that kind of experience, to see something that others have done in times past, to see a civilization and what happens. To read about it, to look at it in a book, that’s one thing, but sometimes it’s another to get more of that, to see something, to have it come into your mind in the way that that can, and it can have a tremendous impact on you.

That’s why some of these things in this sermon were driven home in a very powerful way, to see, again, the very thing that God wants us to grasp ever more deeply, a mind that we have to fight against, a mind that we don’t ever want to be a part of us, a mind that has conquered so many people in God’s Church. It’s the mind of Satan; it’s the same mind. It’s the same attitude. It’s the same spirit because it’s a spirit that’s different than God’s spirit and it’s a lack of understanding of the need for God’s spirit continually, because that’s the only way you can think right.

That’s why He said, “What came into you is all that is wrong,” that led away from God. All that is right is in God and it’s in God’s spirit. That’s the only source of it. When we understand that then more deeply we won’t be stupid enough, foolish enough to rely on ourselves, even by omission, to not include God in our lives, to not want to have and hold onto an attitude of humility and meekness rather than one of pride and haughtiness. Because we have that. We have that in our being, the potential of those things coming out by our actions and how we think about ourselves.

I’m going to stop there. We’ll come back to that next Sabbath. But again, just talking about some of these things and why, or we’re building up to the reason of why God interjected some of this in the beginning, again, just to drive the point home of why these first few verses.

I do want to read that. I don’t know why I even missed that, this thing about Tyre. Why did I miss some of that? Because it’s an interesting history and I’m going to take a little bit of time to make sure I find that in my notes somewhere. Where are you? I know you’re here, I wrote you. Before we close I want to find it. Oh, yeah, here we are. Why in the world did I miss that?

Anyway, this area of Tyre, it’s an interesting thing because, again, a great civilization, those first few verses in Ezekiel 28, God is addressing him, this king who felt himself so great. Then we think about being called into God’s Church and we see what we are and we’re not great kings, we’re not great people of the earth, and that’s why God doesn’t call them, because they won’t listen to Him anyway. And thankfully, we’re blessed that God begins a work in us, to make something different in us, to be able to work with us – to be ever so thankful that He can, that He humbles us and does whatever is needed in our life to get us to where we need to go.

I don’t care what we have to go through to get there. I don’t care (mercifully) if I have to get hit by more 4 x 4’s. So be it! Whatever it takes! Whatever hardship we have to go through because it’s about molding this mind, whatever it takes. If it takes WWIII to sober mankind?

Look at what happened in WWII. Finally, at least a little bit there was a desire between nations to not have another great war and so they tried to change the face of Europe to bring them into, to integrate into a company of nations that could work together and not get into the predicament they had in WWI and WWII. That was much of the effort of what’s taken place over time through the League of Nations and the United Nations, but even within things of Europe and how it was established after WWII and divided up, the things that took place.

Because the attitude of people at first was one of wanting to do something different, “We don’t want this again!” Look at the atrocity of the power between WWI and WWII. When they saw at the end of WWII what happened in Japan, this shocked people, so much so that they wanted to do things, they were motivated in the beginning to do something about it. But not motivated enough.

Look at what happened to the United Nations. Didn’t take long. But to think about what it’s going to take? God knows the kind of shock, the kind of power, the level it has to come to to really shake the earth so that a very large (not all) population of people will have a great desire to never see anything like this again. Because what they’re going to see we can’t imagine yet, but it’s going to help bring about a change even in the thinking of carnal human beings to the point that God can then begin to work more effectively with people to show them His truth, to show them the lies of what they have believed, and for them to embrace it.

That’s exactly what God is doing. That timing is so awesome, to watch it develop and how God is going to do it. He’s given us the ability to see those things in a clearer way.

Anyway, this story here, interesting about Tyre. I just want to give this to you in the last part of this particular sermon here. I’m going back to look at some of this history about this ancient port city of the Phoenicians, history going back about 2,000 years BC, the Minoans who existed before that and then the Phoenicians that rose up in time, and then they were conquered and the Carthaginians rose up, and all the different things that rose through time.

Anyway, it’s written here (I’ll just read some of this), “In myth, Tyre is known as the birth place of the princess Europa.” Incredible, Tyre, of all places. Now, I didn’t know that until this point here in looking it up and reading about it, even though I wrote about Europa and ole’ Zeus and what he did, you know, the myth there and stealing her away to the Island of Crete. To go back and see and God addresses the king of Tyre. You know, you think about these civilizations and what’s happened and how these things have gone into the world in religious ideas and thinking in traditional Christianity, of all things. Incredible.

Anyway, “It’s the birthplace of the princess Europa, and the name means ‘rock.’” You think, it’s your rock but you are not the Rock, you know, spoken of in scripture. I think, how profound that is because who is the head of this kingdom? The same one God talks about a little bit later in Ezekiel 28, Lucifer who became Satan. It’s Satan. He was over it. He’s been over the different kingdoms at different times in the world; different leaders, influenced them to do the things they’ve done.

Going on it talks about Carthage actually received it’s rise from the Phoenicians “who fled in that region as Tyre and other areas of the Phoenicians were undergoing periods of war and becoming conquered.” So they actually, some of them fled to that area and that’s how Carthage became great, began to become great, the different part there in Northern Africa.

“They were noted for their commercial trade...” All the crossroads, all the things that took place. But it’s interesting here, some of this, “especially by ships which became even greater once Carthage was established. The people of Tyre were known as workers in dye from the shell,” and I don’t know how to pronounce this, “the Murex shellfish.” Anyway, purple. The Phoenicians got their name from that, from the Greeks, from the word for purple because of the dye and what they were noted for and the desire of wealth of garments that had that color in them and the work that it took to produce this. It was unique in the world at that time and because of that there was great trade that took place throughout the world because people lusted after – “I want that purple.”

“This purple dye was highly valued and held royal connotations to it in the ancient world.” Again, it was from a Greek word which I’m not even going to try to pronounce but it’s close to, has “P” in it and “h” and “o,” but that’s about it. Phoinikes, or something like that. Anyway, it means purple.

Anyway, I thought that was interesting to go through and read about a particular history of a people and what happened to them. There’s a lot more. You can do that on your own research if you’re interested in history. But it’s incredible how some of these things tie in sometimes that we don’t even think about and here God brings us to a point and helps us to see certain things that are happening and where Europa came from. Europe doesn’t really know, as a whole, and yet all this history that’s out there and myth and the like and gone on for generations after generations, hundreds of years, and a lot to learn, a lot we can learn.