It Is God Who Calls Us, Pt. 1

Ronald Weinland

August 1, 2020

Just like in the Feast sermons, I have to say that I’m always inspired when I see how God is leading us and the subject matter that He gives to us and some of these things I can see how sermons are working toward the Feast of Tabernacles this year.

You can always look at a period of time and see how God works with us, how He molds and fashions us. When I had Wayne’s sermon last week, the first one that he did that was ready to be done. It was done several months ago, many months ago. I don’t remember the exact time, but it’s been a long, long time ago when he had that ready, and so it’s been in the box ready to go whenever I needed it. And so, Saturday, I used it this past week and his sermon was entitled I Choose You. It’s about our calling. It’s about things that take place in that process. I already had this sermon completed, that is following that, and it’s entitled It Is God Who Calls Us, Part 1.

So again, very inspiring to see how these things work together and without communication or anything of that nature. God does it. So, I always find that exciting, to see how these things work out like that and fall into place.

Herbert Armstrong served God to fulfill a very important role for the end-time, the period of time that will lead up to the conclusion of 6,000 years that God allotted man’s self-rule. He understood the period of time he was in. God gave him that and there is so much to learn from how God worked with him during the time of Philadelphia and how He’s working with us now. To me those things are exciting when you can zero in on them and see how God works. There is much He shows us. As a matter of fact, there is quite a bit going to be given at the Feast this year that is about this, that kind of spins off a bit from it, from what is being shown here. So again, this all works together in what we’re leading up to.

He was filled with this purpose and always maintained a sense of urgency about the commission that he was given. He referred to this scripture often that I’m going to quote, which you know, Matthew 24:14. He recognized this was his job, the role that God had given to him, referred to it as a commission that God had given to him. And this gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations; and then the end will come.

Now, he knew that he was being worked with in the end-time, and if you look at a period of seventy years, eighty years, whatever the period of time is now, eighty plus, right in that area, there was that period of time especially after WWII that he came to understand prophetic matters concerning Europe and what was going to happen there and that there would be another great war.

All of those things are understood in a context of it being the end-time, but to understand the timing of that, we didn’t know. We knew that there was going to be one more great war, a last revival of Europe. Again, that was given to him. He knew that. He had a sense of urgency about all that. He knew that he was in the period of Philadelphia. He knew that that was how God was working with him. He understood what had happened during Sardis. God gave him the understanding that the Church had almost completely died out by that time, but He wasn’t going to let it die and end. Obviously, it continues on so God raised him up in the thirties there.

It’s an incredible story when you see, again, it’s a matter of how God works. Because it’s God’s work. It’s what God does. All for a purpose, all for a reason, and we learn from those things. That’s awesomely inspiring, especially in the time we live in because we can look back and see all this in a magnified way that others really through time haven’t been able to.

So again, we are awesomely blessed to be able to have such ability, to have such knowledge and understanding. So, in the midst of all this, again, being filled with that purpose that God was giving to him, knowing that we were entering into a period known as the end-time, not knowing the exact time but looking ahead and knowing it could come quickly. Even after the end of WWII he felt, believed that it could happen quickly. It could if that was God’s purpose at that time.

But again, we learn through all this. We can look back and see how things have worked. How do you do that, primarily? What happens in the Church. It’s about what happens in the Church that you can learn most of what God is doing. That’s a powerful thing if you understand that, if you learn from that. That’s a part of what this sermon is really all about.

So again, he was filled with purpose and always maintained a sense of urgency about that commission, that the gospel had to go into all the world. So, he pushed! He really pushed hard! He pressed the budget to the max all the time. He really did and some found fault with that. Those who found fault went by the wayside. Every last one of them! Because you can’t do that in God’s Church because it’s God's work and God does the work. God worked through a man and raised up an apostle for the end-time and when people criticized him and condemned him their life was not good later on. It really wasn’t. There are some horrible, hideous things that have happened to many in God’s Church because of how they turned against Christ. They became antiChrist. We ought to know these things.

Anybody who refuses the calling God has given, turns away from what God has revealed to them, doesn’t grasp what’s up the road for them, it’s hideous, it really is, what people can do to their mind, the mind that God has given to them. It’s a precious thing. That’s all we have. This body isn’t going to go with us, but the mind does. What is up here in the spirit that God has placed in mankind, that spirit essence that is everything about who we are, what we are, what we’ve ever known, that will continue on when put in a different body. The body goes away, or you’re given a new one, physical. I don’t want that. I want the spiritual one. I think we all desire that.

He pushed the budget of “The Work.” That’s what we called it. That’s what it was referred to. He called it “The Work.” God’s work, but it was the work. Again, oftentimes there was a call, a plea because we found ourselves in a predicament where we were maxed out and then a cry or a call went out at different times, at various stages. I think at various stages. It was for the Church to learn from as well. Each one of us was tried in that. There are many who went by the wayside who didn’t deal with that properly. Others? God was in their heart and mind. It was a part of them. They were glad to respond to that.

We’re tried in those things. What is our response to what God is doing? Not to what a man is doing. We all make mistakes. We all do things that are mistakes. But you know what? God even blesses in those circumstances depending on the situations because of various things that I don’t want to get to right now. It’d take too long to go through all that.

But again, “The Work.” I remember when the house that was being dedicated to God was being built. I heard leaders in the Church, ordained individuals criticizing Mr. Armstrong for doing this. There was a financial difficulty during a part of that and the comments that were being made, that I heard, was like this, “Well, God may be trying to tell him something – that he’s not supposed to build this. That’s why we’re having these problems.” Anyway, I learned a lot from that, from that kind of attitude, that kind of spirit. Because it’s a wrong spirit. It’s a wrong attitude. Rather than supporting and being behind something and pushing something forward and seeking to cooperate to make it work, because that’s what you do, others found fault with it and found fault with the individual, found fault with the direction that things were being led.

So many of those things were allowed simply to try and test God’s people. What is our spirit? What is our attitude? So those things happen every once in a while.

Even to this day I hear ripples, every once in a while, of attitudes, attitudes about what we’re doing during this Feast of Tabernacles. I would be afraid for some of you, truly, because of my understanding of the history I’ve seen in God’s Church since being called back in 1969, and if some find fault with and complain and murmur and grumble to others in God’s Church, which has happened... Just at this time of the Feast of Tabernacles it’s helped me to be a little more concerned about where we are in time and what’s taking place that sobers me. Now, I don’t want to get ahead in sermons. This is so hard to so sometimes when you have Feast sermons coming and you want to get into some of those.

But I would be afraid. I would repent deeply. Anyone who has murmured, who has grumbled, who has complained, who has found fault with the decision that was made about not to have the Feast site in Canada, not to have the Feast site in Cincinnati, not to have the Feast site in whatever it might be, and to do things in a different manner. Surely, we’ve learned by now that murmuring, complaining, division, and discussing those things with other members in the Body, how does God look upon division and divisiveness and murmuring and complaining?

I don’t see many people who come through that. That’s my experience since 1969. It takes a lot of repentance and a lot of inward introspection, if you will, looking inside and coming to a stark realization of how evil, of how wrong that kind of thing is. Because God Almighty does not look upon that lightly. He truly doesn’t. I would say some have stepped over the edge too far already just in that, just in that alone. As a trial, as a test to see how we respond, to see how we work together and cooperate together and do it by the guidelines that have been given as far as I’m concerned as God’s apostle, to give out information to the Church that this is how we’re going to do it and that you can work together. So many have worked together so well in this and some haven’t. Well, it tries us, doesn’t it?

There was The Plain Truth magazine, millions of copies going out. Incredible, how large it was. Incredible! Millions of copies going out. Larger than Time Magazine, which was the largest magazine as far as the world is concerned that was going into the world. The Plain Truth magazine and all the different languages that were there. Powerful! The gospel going into all the world to the degree God wanted it to, desired it to.

Now, the reason we’re going through some of this is if you can see what God is doing and understand this is God’s work then you can learn from that. All the scattered groups out there should have learned from all this just on a plane of itself, just looking at it logically, realistically because of our history, because of our past, because of understanding this is God’s work. You can look at the Church at any time and you can learn from what God is doing. You truly can.

It’s been one of my greatest inspirations through time here. You know why? We’re God’s people. We are what He is working with to mold and fashion. He’s not working with the world. He is working with the world only in the context right now in the sense of what is going to happen in the end here as far as what different nations are going to do, who is going to do it, and to the degree that He’s going to allow Him to do it. Because He’s in control! He’s not making them do it but He’s going to work with and is working with different ones so that everything is in place, that the spirit and attitude that they have (which is not from God), will work into His plan at exactly the timing He wants it to.

I hope we have eyes to see some of these things. What’s happening with China right now? It’s heating up. It’s heating up more and more. They’re broadcasting things through their media, which is the communist party that does this, toward the United States and about the United States. A lot of it is centered around some of the things happening in the South China Sea. It’s a lot more than that though right now because now we have COVID on top of that and we have the world that’s getting a little upset about this. Primarily here.

Others are still playing these games, rubbing shoulders. I don’t want to get into some of that. Watching governments, watching people and the things they do sometimes can be truly irritating, to see how they function, to see how they work. Several nations that are part of Israel, scattered Israel of old, who are rubbing shoulders with the Chinese. It’s going to be to their detriment when it’s all said and done, but they think it’s okay for them right now, and taking sides against one of their brothers, us.

And so, if we know the history of those things and where all those nations scattered to and what God raised up, and to see some of these things take place should be very sobering to us right now. It really should be. Because we’re zeroing in on time. We really are. I hope everyone knows the exact time it’ll be. When the sealing is complete.

But you know, God is in charge of that and He knows how to work with individuals and people and to teach us along the way. He’s fully in control of all those things and He has His period of time that He’s working with that He hasn’t revealed to us. We’ve learned from what we’ve gone through and He’s shown us much through that, which we’ll talk about at the Feast of Tabernacles.

The telecasts, larger than any other religious telecasts in the world. Radio broadcasts larger than any other in the world—Awesome!—that went out. The three campuses for a purpose and what God was doing at that time because of something that Mr. Armstrong saw a need of as far as training and working with and trying to deal with so many who were being called into the Church. Awesome! Especially the campus in Pasadena where so much of this revolved around, where he was most of the time.

So again, incredible history of things we’ve gone through. The Work.

In the midst of all this was a growing Church that God raised up to help accomplish “The Work” to the degree that He intended for the end of this age, of the gospel going into all the world. That was God’s purpose and God’s plan. And you know what? It was planned a long, long, long time ago before any human beings were ever created and that’s very difficult for us to comprehend, that we serve a God so powerful, so mighty, that things have been planned, things were planned, there were things planned before the angelic realm was ever created.

Awesome, to understand the Great God we serve. Then to know where His focus is first and foremost? The Church. The Church. Others will have that focus upon them in the Great White Throne. Some, well, many in this world today, will have that opportunity during the first part of the Millennium.

Again, it’s God’s work. So, the size of the Church was for a two-fold purpose – which, one was just mentioned, the work, to accomplish the work, to support a great work that was preparing for the end-time. The other purpose was to draw and prepare a sizeable portion during the period of Philadelphia, in a time of relative peace, because the same thing wasn’t going to happen during Laodicea, for another purpose that God was going to accomplish.

A sizable portion was called during the period of Philadelphia who would be molded and fashioned to fit into that Kingdom that Herbert Armstrong was commissioned to preach into all the world: “And this gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world.” What’s getting ready to come to this earth. We’re nearing the end of 6,000 years. All these things that he taught: We’re nearing the end of 6,000 years, Christ is about to return to this earth, this time as the King of kings, as the Lion of God. Awesome, what God gave to him that we have the benefit of.

So, one can learn a great deal from this period of Philadelphia, and Herbert Armstrong often spoke of a great truth concerning this, a truth that the Church began to lose during the period of Laodicea. Ministers lost it. By the end of Laodicea, by the time of the Apostasy it was gone. It was kind of dumbfounding to look at that and to think, “Do you not see?” And I understand why we are able to see when we are able to see. Because we can only see what God gives us to see because He has a purpose in giving us to see it.

We’re blessed then not because of how great we are or anything by that measure whatsoever. None of us came out of the Apostasy because of how well we did things because of how we were better than others during Philadelphia or Laodicea. Because we were not! It’s because God had a purpose.

Just like in a calling, God chooses certain ones that He has a purpose for accomplishing something through. That reason and that reason alone is why some of us throughout the Church are here today who came through the Apostasy. He awakened us. We were as guilty as all the rest for what happened. Incredible, to understand those things. But He blessed us to see it. So just as in a calling we’re exceedingly thankful that we have such an opportunity. Because we’re not better. We were not better than anyone else who went through the Apostasy.

Again, the Church lost this. The scattered Churches, every one of them lost it. They didn’t have it. They haven’t functioned according to it whatsoever.

John 6:44—No one can come to me, Christ said, unless/except the Father who has sent me draws them. Beautiful. Beautiful verse. Awesome! Spoken of through the period of Philadelphia. Mr. Armstrong referred to this and others like it, about a calling that we had and yet every scattered group lost this knowledge of how God works.

Now, do they know about a calling? Sure. Do they make decisions according to that truth? No, not at all. Because it’s not as important as it should be. It’s not a focal point and a grounding point like it should be and we are to understand that in a very powerful way, and because of that we’re able to look at the Church and what takes place within the Church and know what God is doing. We don’t do it!

Just because millions of Plain Truths went into the world doesn’t mean diddly squat of and by itself. Unless God is in it and He was in it because people were called through that process. They either heard a telecast—watched it, saw it, heard it—or a radio broadcast, much earlier on, as that was. I remember so many people. You’d run into people at the Feast in different places around the world and they would talk about how that they would turn on their radio late at night because things would skip, or you could reach because some stations then were able to boost their signals higher at a particular time and so it was not uncommon. Did the same thing, eleven o’clock, eleven thirty, twelve o’clock at night, to listen to his broadcasts. Awesome! Radio broadcasts that you couldn’t hear if you weren’t close to one of those radio stations during the daytime that might be across the United States. So again, awesome things that took place.

But you know what? Not one person was in, in that respect, as far as in the Church, except for this. So, those were tools that God used, obviously, to reach out in the world, but people who heard it didn’t just decide, “I like that. I like what he's teaching. I think I’ll check into that Church!” Now, undoubtedly, a few did, like people do in the world. But they don’t last long. That happens. It’s happening today in the scattered Churches. People hear something and they associate with something, but to be called, to receive of God’s spirit, God does it from the very beginning.

If that’s the purpose, God draws someone, when He opens the mind to see things. Not that they might on a plane come into agreement like people do when they jump around their various churches and they see a certain thing that they have learned through what they have seen just by the experience of jumping around from different churches. You know, you might pick up a little bit here just by a knowledge alone by itself.

“Baptism! Yeah! The Greek says immerse! What’s this stuff about sprinkling water on a baby?” And so, they learn that. That’s not a matter of a calling. It’s a matter of being able to learn something that’s there in front of you. The Sabbath, the seventh-day Sabbath commanded forever, blah, blah, blah, you know, things, and so, they look at that and they think, “Ah, the Seventh Day Adventists, they’ve got it right,” and so people went to the Seventh Day Adventist. Then they’d find something else there that didn’t click.

Now, if you’re being drawn into God’s Church, I’ve known of many who have gone around at different Churches like that. But when the mind is opened up to the truth that’s awesome because now you see things just by hearing it! It’s not because you know, you’ve seen that “Oh, this word ‘baptism’ in the Greek means ‘immerse.’ It’s a word that means ‘to immerse the body,’ not to sprinkle.” It means so much more then, doesn’t it?

I talk about this because I will never lose it. I remember when my mind was opened. When I went home around ten o’clock at night to go back from where I was at college, to go back home to work in that particular area during the summer, and my father had been listening and had received some literature. He wanted to talk to me about a few of these things that night when I got home. Now, to hear him talk about God without using curse words, I was in shock! “That’s dad?” So, I listened because he was talking about God, which he would never do. He wouldn’t darken the door of a church. And so, I listened. I heard about the Sabbath. Immediately, I knew it was true! I didn’t have to go anywhere else. My mind was opened.

To hear about the migration of the Israelites, the ten nations, the lost ten tribes that went into the north, into Europe, carried there by Assyria, and where they migrated to. To understand that this nation fulfilled the prophesies concerning Manasseh. That Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada fulfilled that of Ephraim. I knew it was true.

How can you explain that to someone? Other truths that were there. The Holy Days. I knew it was true just by what I heard.

Now, see, when you experience a calling, when you know and you can come to understand and know things and understand that you did not learn this on your own, that it was just given to you in your mind, it becomes an awesome thing, and it’s something (if you hold to it), it just doesn’t go away. It’s going to be there.

No one can come to me, except the Father who sent me draws them. I love this word in the Greek language because it means “to drag.” I had to be drug a little to get to that point so I could listen when it was given. Had to go through a lot of different things that led up to that point in time. Had to experience some hard things in life. I refer to it as being hit in the head by a 4 x 4, which is a (supposed to be, which is not) 4”x4”x4’ pole. Not a 2x4. I had to have something thicker.

I believe that with all my being, that I had to go through things to humble me so that when I heard it my response could be different when God began to work with me. If I hadn’t been humbled before, I know me at that time and what I would have done. It would have been to say, “You have been smoking something...” Of course, we didn’t know about that back then. I didn’t.

So, God drags us. He brings us to that point. Do you know why that word means that much in that respect? Because your carnal, my carnal, our carnal human nature resists God. It means we fight against it. It’s kind of like a picture of your heels are drug in and you’re holding on to something and you’re being drug and your heels are pulling up the dirt behind you, that you see the ruts. “He’s being drug!” Because you’re resisting. We tend to fight.

That’s why so often then God brings us through a process of being humbled so that we’ll receive what He has for us. Awesome, to understand that process. It happens differently with everyone, but there are a lot of similarities as well.

...and I will raise them up at the last day. Whatever that day is for the different ones who are brought along.

It is written in the prophets, And they shall be taught by God. Beautiful! Because that’s what has to happen. God has to begin putting something into your mind that you can receive in no other way. You can’t go give it to someone else. I tried it. I remember the house being full of relatives on one evening and sometimes we make a mistake of not just answering a single question they might ask. We dump the whole load. We go from the Sabbath and Passover and Holy Days and the migration of Israel and we just let them have it.

But they can’t receive it. They can’t get what you get. At first, they might be interested in some of it because they’ve never heard anything like this and it’s kind of like their jaw drops down a little bit. They knew you. They knew what you were like and you’re saying these things? It’s kind of what I was like when I went home. And so, you listen. But unless God’s calling you and drawing you, your reaction is not going to be the same. So eventually, they begin to think you’re just nuts. You’ve gone off the deep end. You’ve gone too far.

It is written in the prophets, And they shall be taught by God. God has to communicate it. That’s how God teaches. Now, He does it through a process of time as well, that when we begin to hear it we hear something and He does it through a communication, through His holy spirit, to help us to see it in the mind. He teaches us. He implants it into our being. Then we have to make the choice of whether or not we’re going to embrace it. That’s our choice.

So, we might be receiving a calling, but we have to make choices along the way.

As a minister, my wife and I having visited many people, we have seen this process where people have obviously been called, their minds have been opened up, and they’re able to tell you the things they have gone through and read, and you can see, you can tell that they see it. But then they make some kind of decision along the way, maybe financial, maybe because of a mate. I have certain people that pop up in my mind I still remember to this day, going back several decades and visiting, and because of those decisions they didn’t continue on. And so, God didn’t continue with them either. They weren’t drawn any farther. Because you have to make choices in response to what God gives to you. It’s a beautiful process, it really is.

What it says here about this, “And they shall all be taught by God,” is a beautiful thing. It really is. Then if we make the right choices, He’ll teach us more and more. But it’s always through the holy spirit in the mind that lets us see it. It’s like a light bulb that goes on in a particular area. It’s like a new truth, when something comes along, and you wonder, “How could we not have seen that before?” But you can’t until it’s God’s time to give it to you.

Therefore, everyone who has heard, and has learned from the Father, comes to me. That’s what you do. If you want to start the journey, as God is opening the mind, what do you do? It starts with Christ.

Before the holy day season ever begins it starts with Christ. It’s not a Holy Day, and it’s called Passover, because Christ is our Passover. Awesome! Beautiful! And if we don’t make those choices, or that choice in our life we can’t begin the journey, and so, we’re blessed that God lets us see those things and gives us the ability to make choices.

Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God, he has seen the Father. Again, this is not a physical thing, let alone something that is a matter of sight to see, whether it be physical or spiritual, ever how you see spiritually. It is spiritual in seeing, yes. Understanding, seeing spiritually is what this is all about.

That’s why I love what it says in John 14 when Christ said, “If you have seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” And they didn’t get it because they didn’t have God’s holy spirit yet. The disciples that were there, it was like …? And one of them said, “Just show us the Father and we’ll understand. That’ll satisfy us.” Basically, he let them know, “You don’t get it.” He went on to tell them it’s not a matter of physically seeing. What he was saying, “If you see me,” what do you see? Is it a body? It was the truth. It was everything he had taught. It was the mind and the purpose, the plan of God. He said, “If you see...” basically, “If you see that, you see the Father because it comes from the Father. It’s all of the Father.” It’s a beautiful thing.

Most assuredly, I say to you, He who believes in me has everlasting life. So, if we are able to believe in him, which is believing him, not just the fact that he came and died like the Protestant world does it. It’s so far beyond that. We understand that. We see that. We “see” that on a spiritual plane, to understand that he is our Passover. This is where the journey begins, that we can be forgiven of our sin. That from the moment that we are immersed in that water and come back out of it and have hands laid upon us and receive the impregnation, the begettal of God’s holy spirit—the begettal of God’s holy spirit—an awesome process begins. We’re waiting of a time of actual birth. But it takes many years of growing in that state for the mind to be transformed, to be changed, and we live that.

Most assuredly, I say to you, He who believes in me has everlasting life. We have it dwelling in us right now. That’s what the impregnation of God’s spirit is. Now, we’re not there yet to that point, but we have it in us already. We have a portion of it in us already and if we continue to embrace what God has given to us and make the right choices along the way concerning those things He has placed before us and we choose God, “I choose You!” How awesome is that, hearing that last Sabbath and now this? I Choose You. And as long as you continue to make that choice in your life it’s there and the guarantee of what’s going to transpire even if you die is there. You’re going to be resurrected spirit in life – if it’s the first resurrection we’re talking about right now. Others, as time goes along here, it will be later on. We understand that.

I am the bread of life. That means things to us that no one else can understand nor grasp in any fashion or form. He is the unleavened bread of life, the word of God made flesh that’s able to dwell in us that we experience and can share in as well. As our minds have been opened up, we have that in us. What a marvel! All from God.

So indeed, all this is about a calling, being drawn by God, dragged to a point where we have to make choices as we’re being brought along like that. But then if we come to that point and we make the right choices it’s a process that’s begun in us. It truly has.

Ephesians 1:15—Because of this, I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Joshua, and your love for all the saints... So, he’s speaking of the Body, of this Church, of this area, and complimenting them on something that they are doing right, in that respect. He’s excited by that, by what he sees because he’s had some other struggles along the way. He had to write the Corinthians a few times and they were being called out of an environment that was really a difficult one. Yet it was the Church and they were being drawn out of that. That society that they lived in was so corrupt, and the people’s minds and what had infected their minds, they had an incredible battle on their hand. An exceedingly sexual promiscuous society in that area that he had to deal with, and it took time to get through to them and bring them along.

So again, at the very beginning of something like this, to have this group of people here, to let them know this is an awesome thing that you have. I have heard of your faith. That means that you are given the ability to believe and you’re living by that. “You’re living what God has given to you and it’s evident in your lives.” He was thankful to see that.

...of your faith in the Lord Joshua, and your love for all the saints. So, it’s a beautiful thing when the more quickly that people as they’re called come to see this and recognize this bond we have, that we are a family, that it is on a spiritual plane. The love that we have and share with one another, it’s really so profound, it really is, because it goes beyond human love. We’re able to see that and know that about one another.

...and do not cease to give thanks for you. He was thankful for what God was doing in them and how they were responding, the choices they were making along the way.

He says, as making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Christ Joshua, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom... This is the desire we all should have toward one another. But it is the desire of those whom God has called to work with, to lead guide, and direct the Church that this exist in a very powerful way.

As an apostle this is what he’s saying to them, that you may be given the spirit of wisdom. What is that? It’s the word of God. We understand what that means. The word of God that comes alive in us through the spirit of God. That ability to see more and to learn more, it’s a growing thing. We’re able to grow from month to month, day to day. Well, we don’t see that in our lives, as a whole, we see certain changes that take time. But they take place and we’re able to look back from when we were called and the different stages that have led up and the trials we’ve gone through, that we’ve learned through that were hard, that were difficult, that sometimes brought us to the edge, and we had to ask difficult questions and made the choice of moving forward and crying out to God for help, for forgiveness. Mainly, forgiveness, because so much of that process requires that we be able to see ourselves and how much we really need God, and so we cry out ever more for Him.

So, his desire was for them to be given the spirit of wisdom, which means that the word of God comes alive more and more in their being, that they’re able to see more, that they’re able to read through what Paul had sent to them and grow even more because of what he’s telling them.

...and revelation in the knowledge of him. When I read that I think of how much we’ve been given. I think of how PKG started, or just before it started, but what God had to show us during that 3½ years, that first 3½ years that we were protected from Satan, as it talks about in Revelation. Because we had to have that period of time to grow, to be reestablished, in the sense of being awakened and to shake off so much of that which came out of Laodicea and to get things back on track, for God to work with us and prepare us for what was ahead.

And it started with Passover. That was the big problem that had to be addressed first and foremost in the Church of God that was scattered. Passover. Found out that the group that I was affiliated with, that we were affiliated with, some of us in the beginning, the largest of all the groups that had splintered, a guesstimate, very close because of the people and what they were teaching, that a half of all their ministry believed in a 14/15th Passover, which was sick, perverted, taking away from the truth that God had given to us, that should have been so very clear just if they had listened to what Mr. Armstrong had to say on three simple basic scriptures.

But they lost it somewhere along the line. And primarily, because of one evangelist who betrayed God very early on, that people were enamored by (if that’s the right word), in awe of, students who listened to him, who watched him as Mr. Armstrong was at the podium preaching and he was reading a book, supposedly because they were in awe that he could read a book and listen to God’s apostle and do both at the same time. “Isn’t that so awesome? He can read...” whatever it was he was reading, and still hear and be inspired by Mr. Armstrong... I doubt at all if he listened at all to what Mr. Armstrong was saying, to be candid about it, knowing what the choices he made in his life.

I get a little bit riled up by these things because thousands of people were hurt by that man and what he did in his betrayal of Joshua the Christ. He was an anti-Christ. He really was. Because he began to teach in his classes at Ambassador College 14/15 Passover. They lapped it up and they became ministers, ordained, and went out to different Church areas. But they knew what Mr. Armstrong taught! But in time that began to work on them even more. At different stages then it would come out.

After the Apostasy it came out and different ones began to teach in their congregations a 14/15 Passover because they were more in awe of that man and of the Jews, meaning those who were supposedly scholarly in Hebrew, because surely they understand everything that’s written in Hebrew about the Passover. So, they must be right!

Think, no, Christ condemned them when he came 2,000 year ago! He told the teachers they were wrong! Did they get better after he came or worse? And so, we had a lot of, candidly, a lot of ministers who went to Jewish scholars to see what they said about the Bible in the Old Testament. I would always think, “Are you nuts? Let it get out both ears, all that garbage. Tilt it both ways. Whatever. You’ve lost your mind!

The inspiration, the truth comes from God Almighty, not any scholars! And yet they began to teach you could go to commentaries and study that for giving of sermons. You could see what different people have done. You could study... I can’t even think of the stupid word they use. There is a word that’s used by Protestants in the study of scripture, Bible. I’m so glad I forgot the word because it used to irritate me so much. They had their own fancy word and I’m glad to have lost it. Don’t tell me. I don’t even want to hear it.

We had all kinds of ministers before the Apostasy who started doing this. They started preparing their sermons in a certain way that ministers in the world do it. You think, where is God? Don’t you understand that if it doesn’t come from God you might as well shut your mouth and not speak on the Sabbath? If it doesn’t come from God on the Holy Day you should shut your mouth and not speak. That’s the blessing to God’s people rather than to teach them something that’s stupid and in error that you got out of a commentary that isn’t true at all.

What does the world have in truth? Diddly squat. Nada. Zero. Zilch. Wish I had that in the different languages.

Sick world, and sick what happened to the Church. But we had to experience that to learn from all that. So, over half the ministry. You think, what a horrifying thing.

Passover was the big thing that God blessed us in addressing from the onset. And you know what? God gave to us more then than we’d ever had in God’s Church of greater proof. Now, sometime people want to get into certain things and argue about them, whereas if they would just listen to the three basic scriptures it’s there, those that Mr. Armstrong gave. But God gave us a ton...a ton. “Bane ha erebyim,” what it means in Hebrew, “between the two evenings,” some of those things that have to do with Passover. On and on it goes – “ba ereb,” “ereb,” “ma ereb.”

So, if you go back and study some of those things that are on the site about Passover you can come to see there are stronger arguments, though you don’t really need them. But it’s great to know them if you’re able to know them, because it adds greater teeth then to the truth. God just magnified it more and more. It’s about something that happened at sunset on the 13th and it ends on sunset of the 14th, and it doesn’t budge either way. It all happened on the 14th.

Some things you’d think were so simple. But they felt that the Jews must have something there in the keeping of the Seder and their misunderstanding of certain things and why they changed certain things even after the death of... well, what happened during the time of Christ.

There are reasons for that, too. They didn’t want him to fulfill, for anyone to be able to say that he could have fulfilled the Passover. They had to have something that was different. There is always a being behind all that anyway.

So again, verse 17, that the God of our Lord Christ Joshua, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. Because it all begins with him and continues with him. For without him the ability to be forgiven of sin day in and day out, we lose out. We can quench God’s spirit. We can cease to be able to be worked with by God. Awesome, to understand those things.

Verse 18—The eyes of your understanding being enlightened... It’s like that light bulb again. It’s just when God gives it, it’s so clear and you learn from that, “This didn’t come from me. I didn’t learn it on my own.” God gives it, and when He gives it, it’s a beautiful thing.

...so that you may know what is the hope of His calling. That is our life, “the hope of His calling.” We understand that a process began by being called, by being drawn to Him. We then make the choices as to whether or not we’re going to continue on. We have to make those choices throughout the rest of our life as God reveals truth to us or instruction to us.

“This is how we’re keeping this year’s Feast.” Okay! Sounds good. We’re going to do it just exactly that way. We’re going to make it work because this is what we have. We’re going to see what we can try to do to best observe it and keep it wherever we are. We’re going to make it at time to rejoice before God because that’s what God commands us to do. The last thing we’re going to listen to, let alone that would ever come out of “my” mouth, would be to criticize any of it, to find fault with any of it. To think that, “It’s caught me off guard!” Well, there are going to be a lot of things in life that are going to catch you off guard.

I’ll tell you something else that’s going to catch you off guard. The First Trumpet. Nobody is going to be prepared for that though we prepare for it. Now, we are prepared on a spiritual plane, but you have no idea what it’s going to be like. You just don’t know. You don’t grasp it. You can’t, because the world, no one’s ever experienced it. You haven’t experienced anything like it in your life.

What’s an apostasy? You’ve never experienced it until you go through it. You can be told about it, but you don’t know what it is until it happens.

COVID-19, what is that? Oh, it’s quite an experience. We see all kinds of reactions in the world about it, different governments making different kind of decisions. Most of them political. They have nothing to do with COVID.  A lot of it is about power and power over people and politics between different ones, fighting, disagreeing. Satan loves it. He just stirs up the pot. Stirs it up more and more. He’s got people where he wants them.

He knows that he’s at a point that he’s going to be allowed to do some very major things in the earth. The most powerful and the last before it’s over. He knows it. He’s been around a long time. There are things that he fears. There are things he’s tormented by. He’s tormented by his end because he knows what that is. He knows he has an end. He knows there are people who know that now. Incredible.

He likes to see suffering. He loves to see human suffering. He loves to see suffering within the Church. He loves to see individuals let down in the Church. He loves to see people murmur and complain because he can work with that. He will work with that and God will let him work with that to the degree that others allow it to happen.

...the eyes of your understanding being enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what is the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. So, we are thankful to see what we see, to know what awaits us. To understand that we’re so close now to an incredible resurrection that God yearns and desires in ways that we can’t even begin to grasp. He’s been doing this for 6,000 years with mankind and working with different ones all along the way...all along the way.

In the first 4,000 years, not that many. But He worked with them individually, not in the Church, not with Christ by His side, but by Himself worked with different ones that are written of in scripture. 4,000 years! He developed a relationship with them as they developed a relationship with Him. He yearns for the time, the moment that He can give them life forevermore.

Everything He’s done is about His family and the creation of His family. He’s had long, long patience, and now another 2,000 years, and now more that have been able to be worked with in the structure of the Church, and those who have been called into the Church. Because people had to be called individually before that. They weren't called into a Church. Very few in 4,000 years. But into the Church people have been called, been molded and fashioned.

...what is the hope of His calling, what is the riches of His inheritance in the saints, what awaits us? The longer you’re in this human body (when you’re in the Church,) the more you yearn for and look forward to the time that we won’t have human life anymore.

Now, we have a necessity to have human life until this phase of God’s plan is accomplished. Because we have another thousand years that’s going to be awesome, and a hundred years beyond that that’s going to be awesome, of human life, to fulfill the potential for whatever it is in God’s family. But what an awesome thing once we’re past all that. I mean, that, to me, is exciting, to think of after we’ve gone through all the suffering, all the pain.

That’s why it talks about in Revelation God is going to wipe away all the tears, all the sorrow, all the hurt, all the pain that is in human life. Because as long as we’re selfish human beings that’s always going to be there – jealousies, envying, disagreements, drama, drama, drama. It’s just there because we’re selfish as human beings. But in God’s family it’s gone. That doesn’t exist. To have that into endless time, we can’t comprehend that. But we look forward to it. I look forward to it.

I look forward to what we’re going to be able to do over the next thousand year, and I look forward to what’s going to happen in the last hundred years, of all who have ever lived who are resurrected and given opportunity to see what we see. But more, because they’re going to see what God did during a thousand years with His government on earth. Awesome!

We see more than anyone in 6,000 years because of where we are in time. But those at the end of the Millennium and resurrected, they’re going to be able to see more than what we do. Because much more is going to be given. Christ is going to give much more. Awesome! We get to share in that, different phases of it, whatever that might be.

...and what the exceeding greatness of His power is toward us who believe. There’s power. There’s incredible power there, the power of God to transform this mind to the point where He can say, “Now I know you,” so that we can be then born into His family. Not just begotten into it but to go through that entire process of all the trials and testing and things that take place. Because it’s all about the decisions and choices we make as we go through those as to whether we do indeed, as we heard in that sermon, “I choose You.” What else is there to choose? And so we learn through the process until we’re there.

...and what the exceeding greatness of His power is toward us who believe according to the working of His mighty power... So, it’s God’s power that accomplishes that in us. What an awesome thing to understand that God’s working with us. If we have the impregnation of His holy spirit, He's working in every one of us day in and day out. We experience things. We make choices. It’s not something that’s done quickly. It’s something that’s constructed over time.

...which He worked in Christ. Always going back to looking at what happened in Christ’s life, that we can inherit the same thing. That’s what He tells us. If we can inherit the same thing we have to go through a process.

...when He raised him from the dead. Look at the power of God. It’s what He’s going to do. The power to resurrect, the power to give life, the power to take life, the power to give life again.

...and set him at His right hand in the heavenly. So, how do they quote this, “In the heavenly.” Whatever. We know that means something different to the Protestant world. Thankfully, we understand it means in the spirit realm. That’s where God is. That’s where God the Father is so that’s what it’s talking about. It’s where Christ has been for nearly 2,000 years. Just like it talks about in Leviticus 16, that that’s where he went, and until he returns and has done all with his family that needs to be accomplished, in other words, to be resurrected, and then he’s going to return. In other words, the final sealing of the 144,000.

Verse 21—far above all principality, power, might, dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. Time. So again, about Christ and the plan and purpose God had before He created anything in the spirit realm even, that He had this plan for His Son. Because everything was centered upon that and established upon that. He is the chief cornerstone. Everything is built upon him. Incredible!

...and put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all to the Church. So, in God’s government he’s always going to be the head. But all things have been placed under his feet, as it talks about in Hebrews, and will be for all who inherit. Not in the same place, as in a family. We will function automatically in a beautiful way, harmony and unity, and it won’t be a matter of jealousies and envy and lust, “Well, I wish I had that job!” “I wish I was him.” Because that’s what Lucifer did. There won’t be any of that in the Family of God.

2 Timothy 1:6. So, he’s speaking to Timothy, worked with him to mold and fashion him, sent him out to different Church areas and so forth because he couldn’t be there.

2 Timothy 1:6—Therefore, I remind you to stir up the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. Now, whether this is a part that began with baptism? But it’s really about him as the minster because he is the one, in that respect, who ordained him, and reminding him of the job that he had, of the responsibility he had. He’s reminding Timothy of some of this and talking to him on that plane, to stir up the gift of God, which is what we receive at baptism, the impregnation of God’s spirit, but when given a specific job then there is that which God gives to accomplish that as well, and he’s reminding Timothy of that.

For God has not given you a spirit of fear, a word that means “cowardice” in Greek, “and fear,” to cower in any fashion or form, but to be bold in what you’re doing and how you’re doing it, to stand up for whatever. Whatever comes your way, do it. It’s God’s work.

…but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. So, that’s what God gives through His holy spirit, the blessings of God’s holy spirit in all of our lives. But in this case Timothy had been given more to accomplish more, to do a job because Paul couldn’t do it.

Therefore, do not be ashamed of the witness of our Lord. What does that mean? That’s for all of us. What is that witness? It’s what we live in our lives. It’s what comes out of our lives because we yield ourselves to God, we want God’s way of life, we desire that Christ and God the Father live and dwell in us, through us. We strive to live a life that reflects that, how we’re living. That’s what we should all be living, isn’t it? God’s way of life, obeying God.

That’s the witness of Christ, that he is in your life, in other words, that he’s living in and through you, that you’re able to be forgiven of your sins through him, and therefore, you’re able to have God the Father and Joshua the Christ live in and through you in your life. You’re able to live and function in a way that others in the world can’t. You can work on your carnal human nature and seek to conquer it and overcome it. You can deal with things in a better way in life. You can have a sounder mind than what you see in the world around you. Not perfect, but a soundness of mind that comes from God if you yield yourself to this process.

That’s something you don’t see much today, is it, in the world. I mean, just soundness of mind. It’s getting nuttier and nuttier out there. It really is. I mean, I’ve never seen a time like this. Of course, I haven’t been around that long on the earth. But in the span of time it’s pretty much to the end. That’s the way it is.

But in this world of technology that we live in, to see what we see today, governments, leaders? I don’t care where you look, there’s just not a lot of soundness out there anymore at all. I mean, just basic soundness of mind, of things. I mean, really! Defund the police. How dumb is that? Seriously? I’m not trying to take a political stance, it’s just a logical soundness of mind. What will happen in a carnal world without policing, without police? Are things done that are bad and wrong? Yes! Work with those. Continue to work with those. Strive to do better in anything in life. But to do without it? You’ve lost your mind. What are you going to do when you would like to see them come your way?

God says they are there for our good. That’s what He says. “I’ve given them there to you for your good.” Policing. Military. It’s a carnal world, not a spiritual one. Doesn’t mean you do it. Doesn’t mean you become involved in it. But it’s there for you, as bad as the world could be with those things. Some of that may turn against some of you at different times. It’s still best to have it.

It’s what man has until the Kingdom of God becomes established on this earth. Then we don’t have to worry about that anymore, do we? Because all the government’s going to come from God Almighty through Christ administering God’s government through 144,000 on the earth. That’s going to be so incredible!

You won’t have lawyers, lots and lots and lots, and lots. There won’t be a lot of schools for learning law so that everybody has to have a lawyer to do anything and everything, to sign any document in the world. There won’t be a need for a lot of these things, to go into a court and be there for, not weeks and months but years to go through a process for a judgment to be given. There won’t have to be any worry about political correctness. “You did it. This is exactly what you did. Would you like to see it?” Because they don’t have to have cameras. If they want to, they wouldn’t have to have cameras to show what someone did. Think about that a little bit.

It can be manifested to people what they did. “This is what you did and this is what’s going to happen to you because of it.” It’s swift judgment, quick. We don’t need these things anymore. Don’t have to worry about people gathering around courthouses to burn them down. It’s not going to happen. We live in a crazy world. We truly do.

How blessed are we, though, to see these things, to know these things about a government that’s coming to this earth? Just the fact that people are all going to be taught the same thing about God, about Christ, about the Sabbath, about the Holy Days, about the plan of God. Where there won’t be confusion of religions let alone in traditional Christianity as so many varying ideas and beliefs out there that conflict with each other. Let alone all the other things of various countries around the world who have many kinds of religions. None of that. There won’t be any mystery. God’s going to reveal what is true for everyone who wants to see it.

How blessed are we through a calling we’ve received to be able to see what we do because God decided to call you? You can’t figure it out. You can’t know why. You can just be thankful and seek to make the most of it. You can’t understand it, it’s just a matter of a choice of being thankful and growing in gratitude and thankfulness through time and striving to respond in that manner, loving God, loving Christ, growing in that love toward them, and in so doing toward their people.

Getting rid of the disagreements that we have with each other, the harsh judgments we have toward each other, the finding of fault with each other. We come out of the world to learn to get rid of that filth. Because it’s filth to think wrong toward one another, to judge incorrectly through whatever in our own minds, the way “I” see it, the way “I” feel, the way “I” think about it, the way “I” think it should be done. Well, let’s see… When is the last time that God counseled with you to see how something should be done? When did He last manifest Himself to you and say, “How do you think we should do that?” Or do we look to God and learn from Him how things are to be done, and strive to do it His way?

It’s a lot different, isn’t it? We’re to learn to love each other and care for each other and want each other to be in the Church, to be able to receive the truth from God. As Paul talked about earlier… I was going to say that anyway and I don’t think I got around to it. But, basically the same desire that he had is what we should all have, in that respect, toward one another, that everyone’s minds be able to see the truth when it’s given, that we be able to continue to repent of sin, that we be able to see sin in our lives.

I see sin in things that people do wrong and I don’t go out and just wave a big white flag and say, “Hey!” No, it comes through here, and if we have ears to hear because we’re looking to God to lead, guide, and direct us, and we’re wanting to see ourselves and we pray to God and ask God, “Help me to see myself. Help me to see the sins I need to repent of, the foolishness that I’m doing in my life that I really need to stop doing and look to You and Your way of doing things,” especially the sin, God will show you and He’ll help you to repent if that’s your heart and your desire.

In preparing these Feast sermons, I’ll just be real candid with you, I hurt for the Church. Because things are not going to get easier, they’re going to get harder. Your choices and your decisions have to be because you love God, because you want God’s way of life above everything else that comes your way. You choose Him and your desire is that He choose you. Because you’re not chosen yet in that regard, in the sense of being sealed, or chosen yet as far as whether you’re going to live in the Millennium.

Some make choices sometimes and I cringe and think you have no guarantees that God has given to you that because you’re attending Sabbath Services that you’re going to live into the Millennium. Because you don’t realize how bad it’s going to get and how much you’re going to need God to protect you. You can plan and prepare and you can have a lot of things saved up and prepared and planned for, but to come through it? Within the environs of God’s Church even more so it becomes significant because there is judgment here before it’s on the world. Because a lot of that’s going to be left to time and chance in the world. With us it’s not a matter of time and chance, it’s because God has drawn us and called us and given us an opportunity, and if we treasure that He will bring us through.

I think of some things going on right now and I’ll just throw it out at you. There are decisions being made as to who is going to be sealed that haven’t been made yet. You remember the one who betrayed Christ? Gave him a kiss and he was rejected of the twelve. Well, it came down to two. Who is it going to be? Because there are others who had followed along, who had been along, who had witnessed these things along the way. There were likely even more. But it came down to two that they knew of, that they knew that it would be from them, and God had to reveal who it would be.

There are similar things in what’s in front of us because of choices we make, because of decisions we make. I think of the scripture that says, “Let no man take your crown.” If you want this way of life you’ve got to fight for it. You’ve got to know in your heart and your being that God is first, and if it’s not for now, that you know your desire and your heart is to live on into a new age and to be a part of something exciting and inspiring. But to be fully rejected? To not have choice or opportunity for either? That, to me, is horrifying, because we have great opportunity before us right now – unique in all ages – at the end of an age.

God made certain that there were thousands who didn’t get to go into the promised land. He can do it with a few dozen very easily.

Therefore, I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you by the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Therefore, do not be ashamed of the witness of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner. He brought that out. Because I think it was in this here I was reading here recently, and I don’t remember if it was in the book of Timothy, but one of the books there where some various kinds of studies that have been done in people’s life, in Paul’s life and the other disciple’s lives, and it might have been at this one here when this was mentioned that it was a matter that he was actually waiting sentence for the timing of his death, to be executed. That was for Paul at that time.

So, things happen in people’s lives, and you think of what they had to go through, and they did it because it was a part of God’s plan and God’s purpose. Here was Timothy, of things he could learn from this process, of the one who taught, molded, and fashioned, worked to help mold and fashion him through the power of God’s spirit, of things that he learned from Paul, through Paul. Here it is he’s to go out and do various things. He’s telling him to stand tall and don’t worry about what others say. Don’t be concerned about those things. Be true to your convictions that God has given to you of a sound mind, of the power of the holy spirit.

Because sometimes people make decisions of certain things in their life because of how others think, how their relatives think, how their mate thinks, how their children think, how their parents think, how someone else thinks and what they say, when all that matters is what God thinks and His Son, Joshua the Christ. That’s what matters, and our relationship with them. That’s first in our life. You hope that others are able to see and learn certain things through what they see in your life, through that witness of God living in and through you, and in time they will. God says there will be a time, as a whole, that there will be a day of rejoicing when they see because of God’s spirit why you did, why you made the choices you did. But again, he’s telling him knowing carnal human nature and the way we think and respond.

I think of different ones and the way they responded when I had my little journey for three years. Was it three and a half? No, it was three. You know, I really don’t know and don’t care. But it was long enough, with a little thing around my ankle for a long time before I even went in, and then finally the three years when I was there. And you think, I know of individuals who were ashamed of that and made choices because of what happened then. I can’t help that. I can’t help them. I know others who were strengthened through the process. Awesome, what God gives to us.

…but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, because it’s a matter of God’s work and what God does. And every one of us, nothing happens to any of us that God isn’t in it. God is in it. Everything that happens to you!

I wish we could see that more clearly in God’s Church. If you have dedicated your life to God. If you love God and Christ and you’re striving that they be first in your life nothing happens to you but that God allows it. And that, as a whole, then is going to be a matter for you to learn through, to grow through. Because His concern, His desire is that you grow spiritually so He can continue to create within you what is needed in the mind.

That doesn’t come easy. We have to go through hardship and trial, times where we have things happen in our life where we have to make choices and decisions. “Oh, we can’t have organized Feast sites this year.” “Okay.” “So we’re going to do something different.” “Okay, let’s do it. Let’s do it exactly how we were told we could do it.” “Sounds great.” “We’ll make the most of it at a bad time.”

It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better in this world. We have no idea what it’s going to be like when that First Trumpet and that Second Trumpet, the Third Trumpet, and the Fourth Trumpet go off. Then when the Fifth one goes off that’s when the worst of it happens in this country alone. You can’t grasp that. You don’t have any capacity. You can believe it, but you can’t grasp it yet. You don’t know what the experience is going to be like until you’ve actually had the experience.

That’s not to cause people to have unfounded fear, because we shouldn’t. We just understand it’s a phase of something the world has to go through, because sadly, the world has to experience some really horrible things.

Think of what it’s experiencing right now. Has it humbled the world? Maybe a little bit in the beginning, but not a whole lot. I think of the plagues that came on Egypt. Took one after another after another after another, massive things that had to happen to where the whole nation was nearly totally destroyed. Basically, that’s what they ended up telling Pharaoh, “Let them go or we’re all dead people. There won’t be anything left.” Then God wiped out Pharaoh and his entire army and there wasn’t much left of Egypt. There really wasn’t for a long time.

We serve an almighty, all powerful God and we live in some horrible times and something has started. A process has already started. It’s affected the whole world.

I think of when 9/11 happened. The whole world knew of it, but it didn’t affect the whole world. This is affecting the entire world. Think, “Well, so did the Spanish flu.” Okay, but this isn’t over with. There is more behind it.

Mankind has to experience a lot before they’ll begin to be humbled to where they’ll listen to God. What a horrible thing that the human life is like that, so defiant of God.

The only way you can hear God is if God gives you the ability and for most of mankind it has to come through a mighty process of being humbled. He can’t just pour out of His spirit upon the world to let them see the truth yet. The world has to be humbled first. That’s what God is getting ready to do.

…but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy (a sacred) calling. Set apart for holy use and purpose. That’s what “sacred” is, “holy” is – “set apart for holy use and purpose,” God’s purpose, the calling. We know that. Something that God is involved in. He draws us, He calls us. No one can choose and decide they’re going to accept this truth and this way of life on their own. They wouldn’t want it unless God draws them to it. But choices have to be made then.

…a holy calling, not according to our works… It’s not because of how good we are, how well we’ve done things, that we deserve it. We don’t deserve it. Because of sin no one deserves anything that God gives to them. But God has a plan and a purpose for Elohim. He made us this way for a purpose. Awesome! When it’s time that He wants to show us His mercy, He will show us His mercy and His love. He will call us, He will open our minds to what is true, and our lives begin to be, if we make the right choices, incredible changes.

…not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace. Grace, which means being drawn, being able to be loved, to show that love. Because God isn’t showing that love to the world yet. He draws some to be able to be drawn to a point of repentance so they can be forgiven of their sins, so that He can dwell in them because He can’t dwell in them until He can draw them and open their minds through His holy spirit. But He will not dwell in them yet until they’re brought to that point in time that they’re able to go under the water and be forgiven of sin.

Then the process can begin, the impregnation of the holy spirit that follows. Then, from then on, it’s a matter of continual repentance in life. That’s what grace is. Patience that God gives to us. That’s what grace is. God shows us grace. Patience. He gives us mercy. He gives us forgiveness of sins, and on and on it goes. He gives us of His love. All these things are a part of grace.

So, it’s “according to His own purpose and grace.” You can’t know what it is no more than you can if you were part of those who were awakened from a spiritual sleep after the Apostasy. It’s God’s choosing. It’s God’s design for whatever it is He’s working out.

...which was given to us in Christ Joshua before time began. We already know that, don’t we? Awesome, what we understand. That it wasn’t as though God made human beings, as some have thought in time’s past, and looked at Adam and Eve and it’s like, “They have sinned. Now what am I going to do? What can I do to save them now? Oh! We need a Passover!” It wasn’t like that. Before anything was ever designed everything was based upon that structure, that mankind would be created in time in order for God to create His own family, and that Christ would be the pinnacle of it. Awesome!

…but according to His own purpose and grace, which He gave to us in Christ Joshua before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior, Joshua the Christ. Now he’s referring to this time now that they have experienced and lived through. He experienced something unique because he was struck down blind. He was Saul who was going around being in charge of killing those who were following Christ, putting them to death.

He was the one who gave the approval to have Stephen killed, stoned. He gave the nod of approval by his authority and so Stephen was stoned to death. Incredible! And then God struck him down, blinded him. Incredible, things that have happened in times past.

...but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior, Joshua the Christ, who has abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Again, beautiful scriptures here and what’s being spoken of.

Well, this is going to be more than a two-part sermon, I think. Sometimes I get wound up in certain subjects here and this is one that there is so much here. But if the Church, the scattered Church had understood and remembered God does the calling. You see, because of knowing that we are able to gauge and have gauged certain things that we have done within the Church by understanding that process.

With the first book that came along, as an example, we could have poured a lot more money into advertising. We did a certain amount, we did certain things, but then we pulled back. Why? God does the calling. Now, there is a purpose for having it out there and there was a beginning for us and what went through, the experiencing of those things that went with it, but it was primarily for the sake of the Church, and to my knowledge we have maybe two or three with us to this day, I think, that have come because of that book. I said one at one time. There are some others that let me know, “No, it was that book that I first read.” So, not much happened with it.

Then the second one. That’s where God in His time was calling people. Because we were getting ready to go through something that in time you’re going to learn was far more powerful and meaningful, concerning 2008, than what we still grasp and comprehend, although much has been written about it. But our ability to see it all still isn’t there. We’ll continue to grow in that through time.

So, what was revealed concerning that, but started back in 2006 when it was published, God began to call most of what we have to this day within the Church. I’ll mention that far, far, far more have gone by the wayside than who have remained.

That’s why you’re sobered, we should be sobered by the scripture, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” Because a reality is, in time our being chosen depends upon whether we continue to do as Wayne mentioned last Sabbath, “I choose You.” You have to do that throughout your life, to choose God.

So, we’ll come back to this and build upon it next Sabbath.