A New Phase For This End-Time, Pt. 2

Ronald Weinland

October 8, 2020

Feast of Tabernacles Sermon

We are continuing today with Part 2 of this Feast series. While living spiritually what it means to be sitting in booths, we’re learning about that and what that means, that we’ve been doing that over a period of time. As we grasp that and begin to understand that more deeply, more fully, it really helps us to become strengthened in the power of God’s spirit. God wants us to understand how He’s working in our lives, wants us to see those things. I think it’s quite unique at this Feast of Tabernacles, showing us even more powerfully so that we are, in that respect, as we grasp this, sitting in booths as we yield to that process of how God works in our lives.

Not just here at this Feast of Tabernacles, as God is telling us about this and giving us this, but obviously, all the time. That’s how we’re to live, especially in this new phase for this end-time, which is the title of this particular series. A New Phase For This End-Time. This is Part 2.

Before continuing it’s so important that we digest what was stated at the very beginning of the series, therefore, I’m going to repeat it.

As we experience, as we live in or through this new phase, we are to be learning from what we are experiencing. This is something, again, that God wants us to understand, the importance of experience. That it’s not just a matter of learning something. It’s not just a matter of being told something and God reveals a particular truth or whatever it might be. That’s important, obviously, but to experience some of those things and the process of how God has done it, and to come to a deeper understanding of that is a powerful thing, it truly is. It’s the power of His holy spirit at work.

We’re to be learning from what we’re experiencing in these final stages of this end-time. We’re to be learning from what we see God is doing on this earth. And right now, things are stirred up more and more and we have to realize that God is in control. He is allowing a demonic world; He is allowing Satan to begin doing things. That will just increase more and more until he comes up to that point in time where he is released in power.

Some power continues to be given to him but he comes to a point where he’s given, in essence, full power that he’s had in times past, in ages past when the Fifth Trumpet event begins and Europe comes together in ten nations and does what it does—which we know of what it’s going to do—and that’s been prophesied a long, long time ago, and things that God began to give to Herbert Armstrong to understand more clearly, things that we’re seeing more clearly as time goes along.

And so, to witness these things, to watch these things, as Johnny talks about, a front row seat. Candidly, I’m in a mindset that I’d kind of like to be on the back row. But anyway. That front row seat isn’t always the best place to be. But I know what he means by that, and we do as well, obviously. We see it because we see what’s coming. We recognize what’s coming. We understand those events that are going to take place in time.

But we see an escalation of things that are happening around the world in, basically, Thunders. Those are going to become stronger and stronger until that first event begins.

I may have it in my notes somewhere here as we go along, and we’ll come to that maybe in Part 3, but just to see the process as it’s taking place, to see what’s happening in the world, and so forth, there is a process we’re going through that we’ve been told about for a long time and to watch those things, again, is incredibly inspiring, it really is, if we’re able to see it.

Again, we are to be learning from what we see God is doing on earth. Because God’s in charge. The demonic world isn’t. Mankind isn’t. But God allows things to take place to fulfill a greater purpose. And candidly, it’s one of the greatest experiences of all for mankind. It really is. Mankind is a part of this.

Mankind has to experience this, something that God has talked about throughout the Old Testament about judgment, things that are spoken of in judgment over and over again in the scripture. People have misconstrued those things as being like an individual thing and there you are, you die, and then you stand before God. It’s not about those kinds of things or things that are going to happen to people at different times or especially at a time later.

It’s about now. It’s about a time at the end of 6,000 years. That’s God’s judgment. It’s God’s judgment on the earth for what has taken place for 6,000 years, how mankind has been, refusing to live God’s way, refusing to listen to Him, and because of that God says there comes a time of judgment. We live in that period of time. That’s an amazing thing to understand. We’re going to witness those things.

Again, it’s incredible what we see taking place. All a part of prophecy that’s coming to pass.

So again, we’re to see what God is doing on this earth, understanding that He is in control. But He allows mankind to experience many things, and this is, again, the greatest experience of all, that a third of mankind is going to die. That’s a horrifying experience.

Those in the flood, they experienced something, but at different stages there. Maybe they were able to hold on to a log. Maybe they were in a little boat for a while, whatever it might be. But in time, God made certain that none of them lived. Certainly, those scenarios had to be there. Or they just starved because there was a long period of time that if they didn’t have the food with them and so forth, that was going to take place. But God made sure that one family survived. Again, that was a different and a unique experience there.

But for mankind to have a time of the greatest population, obviously, the earth has grown to, billions on earth, and the kind of technology that we have, and to now experience something of this magnitude, this indeed goes down in history, the greatest experience of mankind—not a pleasant one at all—where God ushers in His Kingdom and gains control of the earth or takes control, His rule.

Instead of letting mankind do what he’s done, God takes control. That’s a beautiful thing. But it comes at a horrifying experience for mankind.

But that’s something that mankind can learn from in different stages at different times whenever they’re born or whenever they’re resurrected later on. All those who are resurrected in the Great White Throne, they’re going to learn about that witness, that experience of what so many went through. Many of those, obviously, resurrected in the Great White Throne, and that witness then among billions of this very thing. They are there in the Great White Throne because they died en masse. Incredible.

So again, to teach us some of the most important things in life. Experience, to teach us some of the most important things in life. We cannot rule ourselves. For mankind to be experiencing what they are right now, to have the kind of political system in different countries, the kinds of things that are taking place as far as an economy.

People look at these things and (depending on where you live; because it’s not that way everywhere in the world), but in the western world, as a whole, especially, there is incredible wealth, incredible ease, in that respect, of life. The ability to travel like we do, the ability to have electricity that does so much for us. All these things. Incredible, what mankind is experiencing. To have all that taken away just like that? Incredible.

There is going to be a witness of those things in a very powerful way because of what they experience, and that’s going to continue on in time.

Their sitting in booths is going to be a little different than ours, quite a bit different, but they’re going to learn the same process. Because it’s something we have to learn and to understand. A lot of people are going to reject it, but a lot will receive it as well and come to understand, “That’s right. We weren’t able to govern ourselves. That’s right, the system was filled with greed,” the kinds of things that happened as far as the different economies of the world through time.

So again, we are to be learning from what we see God is doing on this earth and we are to be growing through what we’re learning in these experiences. Because that’s how we become convicted. Head knowledge isn’t enough. You can learn things and that isn’t enough. With God it has to become a conviction, of an agreement on your part, of a choice on your part that yes, you agree with God. That’s only through the experiencing of these things. Otherwise, it’s not true, it’s not real, it’s not completed, it’s half-baked. If that makes sense.

In Part 2 here I was going to jump into what we need to cover concerning this new phase for this end-time that we have entered, a phase that we actually entered right after Pentecost of 2019. We’re still learning, and because of what we’re experiencing now we’re going to learn a lot more.

I’ll tell you what, for me it’s been, and I know it has to be for you as well, the speed at which God (if you look at the Seventh Thunder), the speed at which God is revealing things and helping us to grow, it’s hard to keep up with it.

I get letters in from different times from different people, not even a part with us, bringing up things that they see that are different than what was written a few months before. It’s like, yeah, that’s right, because there’s more of a story here and you’re going to have to read the whole story to get that. To keep up with it, even to edit things, it’s tough, it really is.

I know that some of you make comments that you’re afraid you don’t grasp it all or you don’t see all the things that are being spoken of, and to have all the Thunders and Trumpets. Don’t worry about that. You don’t have to worry about that. You’re experiencing various things, you will learn, you continue to cry out to God, but you don’t have to have all that in your mind, to be exact in all that. But the more you are able to see and grasp, that’s just a blessing, it really is. And if not, again, don’t beat yourself up, don’t worry about it.

There is a lot going on, and I don’t know about you, but for me it is hard to keep up. There is just so much out there, there really is. I think of last year’s Feast, and then the book was written, and some things God revealed that helped tweak that. You can’t go back and rewrite it now in the book here, because some things have changed since that time. But we can just keep bringing everything up to date and trying to keep up as best we can.

To me, that’s an awesome process. It’s a beautiful thing when God just continues to give you more and more and more and it accelerates faster and faster and faster. That in itself should stir us to grasp and comprehend the Millennium is not far off. We’re closing in.

We have felt that at different stages, at different times. I think of my wife and I after marriage, different planning, whether to have children or not. Because we were at the end-time. We knew it was five to ten years up the road. You planned your life accordingly. Every car we’ve ever purchased has been our last one. Every car! And the one I have now is my last one. I know it!

But you learn to live your life like that, and you learn from that experience, because God teaches us through that as well. His time isn’t our time. Our time, when you get to this point and stage of your life, at a certain point that kind of speeds up in your mind as well because you realize just on a physical plane there’s not a lot of it left. It’s a cycle of life and you don’t know when that’s going to strike. You don’t know when it’s going to happen. But it’s going to come, and you don’t fret about it, you don’t worry about it, your life is in God’s hands. There’s a peace in that.

We go through many things, many experiences in God’s Church, and we learn from that. We’re to be learning from this one as well. But God is letting us know at this Feast of Tabernacles especially, that we are in a final phase. I eluded to a bit of what that might be because I don’t know because God has not shown that. There’s a purpose in that. That’s the purpose of this experience.

He’s always been revealing things all along the way. That’s why going through the sermon yesterday, in Part 1, going from one truth to another, it’s how God has unlocked things for us, but we’ve had to do it through experience. He could just give it to us and put it in the mind and say, “This is the truth.” “Okay.” But where would the conviction be? It would take a long, long, long, long time to come to grasp and to grow in that kind of conviction. But when you’re experiencing some of this along the way it becomes you, it becomes who you are. Who we are is to become more like God, to be more at one in unity and harmony with God. That’s the goal.

And so, we become more like-minded with God because it’s God’s mind. He gives us more and more; helps to see what He’s doing and why He’s doing it the way He is, the things that are happening in the world, the things that have to happen. You know, through time, the more we in the Church have looked at things and it talks about massive numbers of people who are going to die, sometimes that’s just pretty hard to deal with when you really think about some of those things. But when you become convicted of why it has to be that way, there is a peace in that. There just is.

Just as in the flood. We didn’t live there, but we can go back and learn from that now and grasp that better. There is a peace in knowing those kinds of things. Especially, the Great White Throne. I mean, what an awesome thing, the peace of knowing that, that whatever happens to all no matter what ages, they’re going to be such a better world, far better than the beginning of the Millennium. Far better than the beginning of the Millennium.

Those who lived through this and go on into the Millennium, it’s not a picnic. Its not a picnic. When Herbert Armstrong talked about three and four generations to get things to a point where they’re kind of leveled out and will be that way for the rest of that period of time until the Great White Throne, it isn’t a picnic.

We’ve had these concepts of a utopia, and so forth, and we’re learning that’s not true. It’s going to be hard work.

I think of Johnny in a sermon, I don’t know whether it was last year or when, but going into some of those things and talking about how long, because it just kind of rings in my mind, though I’ve read it many times as well, but when he said it, it’s just like, wham, how long it takes to bury everyone. I mean, that experience alone for mankind and those who live through that, that’s horrible. I can’t grasp that. Months and months and months. In one place it speaks of a six-month period of time, in one region, in regions all over the world that are hit so hard. That’s a horrifying experience. But with us there’s a peace in that because we grasp life and death. We recognize that when someone is dead it’s just a physical body.

But people in the world don’t think that way and it’s going to take time for them to grasp that and understand that. They’re not going to know that right away. So, the pain, the suffering, the hurt, it’s going to be immense in the beginning, it truly is, things we can’t even begin to comprehend on such a massive scale. We’re to be there to help.

We’re to be there, those who continue to live on into a physical life there, to be a part of that as well, in a very powerful way, to be a part of a foundation of starting something and that God’s going to build upon in ways that would make your head spin, candidly. But you’re going to have a part in that. You remain faithful, God will give you what you need at that time to do far, far more, truly.

We have these experiences and you can’t put a price on how valuable they are, truly.

So again, we are to do this, as I’ve been mentioning here, because we must truly see the point of how God has been working with us and leading us into more truth and far deeper conviction of His truth. That’s what it’s about. I hope we’re beginning to see that in a bigger way right now, that conviction and why it’s so important to have that, not just the knowledge. Because we have to grow far beyond that. And by doing so our focus, our vision of where God and Christ are leading us becomes much clearer, much sharper, much more exciting to live it as well, this thing of being in booths.

I think of a verse that Herbert Armstrong often quoted in Proverbs 29:18. It says, Where there is no vision, the people perish. But those who keep the law, happy are they. Now, it says a lot. But in the context of what we’re describing here, “where there is no vision.” So, the clearer we can see things about where things are going, where we’ve been—it’s the thing of sitting in booths—candidly, the stronger we will be. The clearer something is, the more conviction that comes through the experience, we’re going to be far more fulfilled, we truly are, to grasp our part in this, to grasp the journey we’re on and what is taking place.

Where there is no vision, the people perish. But this is also tied in then, isn’t it, with how we live our lives. It says, But those who keep the law… Because a large part of the message at the Feast as well is about our looking more deeply at ourselves, striving to be a part of helping to clean the Church up, and that begins in us. We must become more purified, in that sense, sanctified before God. Sanctification has to do with being set apart for holy use and purpose, but God’s spirit must be in that, and the fuller God’s spirit is in that the more sanctified we can be. But that has to do with being purified and cleansed of sin. And so, that’s a process.

The more that’s working in our lives, the better and richer our lives become, but this has to be a part of it. That’s why I cry out so much about the simplest of things, about Holy Day offerings and the importance of timeliness. Now, some have worried about, comment came up the other day about if they go through a banking system and it doesn’t get it out right away or whatever. It doesn’t have to be on that day, but you are timely in that sense. It’s important to you, God’s Holy Days.

When we come up to a period of time of a holy day, as long as that system is working, my point was, if that’s our focus that’s the way it should be. But if we wait until the end of October? That’s why I said it’s not the offering at Halloween. It’s not the offering of Thanksgiving (in the United States). It’s not the offering of Christmas time. And yet that happens too much in God’s Church! And it shouldn’t.

That’s why it’s expedient that we grasp the importance of placing God first. If He’s really first in our minds and we’re placing Him first, we don’t have to have a basket in a room. We don’t have to have a basket passed around. We are adults. We are mature. We are supposed to be mature in our lives. And so, we don’t need all these things anymore.

Maybe it’s a convenience, that’s fine, but we are set up in a manner that it’s better that people just get it sent in like they do their tithes, but in a timely fashion. That’s not about the process. It’s about our relationship with God and the timeliness of it. How we’re thinking; that’s what’s important.

That’s why I marvel sometimes, six months later, “Oh, I found this in the drawer.” “Oh, I found these money orders here.” “Oh, I know that I meant to send it in six months ago and didn’t do it.” I can’t help but think in my mind, “Where is God? Where is your relationship with God? How important is God to you?” Do we not know what it means when God says in those three seasons of the year, which we grasp and understand has to do with the Holy Days, and so, that’s added to it as far as a Church is concerned, and so, we’re told that on those high days that there is a portion that we’re to send into God, to give to God because of our relationship with Him of obedience, the law.

If we don’t do it timely, and six months up the road or whatever, it’s like, “Oh, man, that slipped my mind.” And I wonder, “Well, how often in the last six months was God just slipping your mind? How many days did you go without thinking about God? How long?”

Because I know that your prayer life sucks in that case! I know that it stinks! Because you don’t have a relationship with God. If God is important to us, we will pray. If we recognize how much we need God’s spirit every day we will pray. If we don’t do those things then God isn’t in our mind. He really isn’t! Where is God?

So, in God’s Church we have to be purified and cleansed before Christ’s return. So, every one of us needs to focus on, “What can I do? What do I need to do? What must I do? Where are there things that need to be cleaned up?” Because every one of us have things that we can focus upon and strive to do better spiritually in a relationship with God. Every one of us.

Work on that number one and two, and cry out to God in three, and cry out to God for help to get these things addressed. I’ll tell you what, it’s exciting when you do it that way. Because you know what? You may have to keep at it for a time, you may have to keep at it for several months or a year or whatever the time you have left. But if you’re fighting it, you’re going to make progress in it. If you’re really fighting it, you will make progress in it and you will feel better because of that, you will know that you’re doing better because of that, you’ll have greater confidence because of that, because you know that God is helping you. You know that these things are changing in your thinking, your mind, your mouth, what comes out, or whatever it might be, because God’s been answering your prayers and helping you to grow more.

There is nothing we can’t tackle with God’s spirit in the mind, conquering and overcoming. There is absolutely nothing that we can’t conquer, truly, with God’s guidance, direction, help, and inspiration. If God’s first in our lives and we’re praying accordingly, wow, the power of the universe! God wants us, to give us that kind of help to change, to grow.

Where there is no vision, the people perish. But those who keep the law, happy are they. There is a peace. There is a fullness of life. A peace with God’s spirit if we’re living God’s way, striving to clean self up more and more and more.

The Hebrew word translated as “happy” actually has more to do with the meaning of being “blessed.” And so, yeah, we’re blessed. The more we focus on putting God first, the more we seek to get rid of the sin in our life, the more we want to be at one with Him, the more we fight that fight, the more we really, really seek to have God first in our life, these are the things that would never happen.

Those kinds of things when I see them, I’m frustrated by it because individuals, all individuals have the ability to have God first in their mind, and when we’re not doing some of those things in the simplest of ways it shows we’re way, way, way, way back there somewhere. We’re being left in the dust. And candidly, in time, we’ll just drop off because there is no strength left. That’s exactly what’s been happening over the years.

Actually, a lot of cleaning has been taking place over the last three years just in that process, just in those areas alone, tithes and offerings. I can guarantee you, I’m telling you, all other sins in our lives, the secret sins, the things we think that no one knows, God knows every one of them. God knows everything that’s in the heart and in the mind. He knows when He’s first and He knows when He’s not. Those things we must conquer.

Every one of us has sin. Every one of us has our numbers one, two, and three, and four and… But we have to work on those. Candidly, when we work on those, the five, six, seven, and eight begin to be taken care of too because we’re growing stronger spiritually. It’s a beautiful thing.

So again, we are blessed when we have the vision, when we’re closer to God, when we know that we’re living His way of life more purely, more perfectly. Because He’s in our mind. We’re thinking about that relationship every day of our life, and if we’re thinking like that you’re going to be on guard, you’re going to be on top of things when they come your way. You’re going to be able to catch things more quickly. Something happens up in the mind and you can stop it. When you can stop it up there, oh, what a blessing. When it comes out of the mouth, it’s too late, or in some other action, it’s too late. But if you can catch it in the mind, that’s where you want to catch it. Truly.

So, this verse is more accurately translated, “Where there is no vision, the people perish. But those who keep the law,” meaning it’s about the law, yes, but it’s about God’s way. It’s about the direction, the instruction that’s given to us by God. We receive much of that, obviously, and the way we receive that is through the Church. And so, that’s given to us by God, which includes the truth and how it was given. “…they are blessed.”

So, everything that we have, all the truths that we have, everything that God has given to us, it all is part of this.

Covering these truths that we have been, like we did yesterday in going through those, and I couldn’t help but be struck today by an individual sitting here today who went through that at a Feast of Tabernacles one time. The truths that we’ve been given. It’s been a while. So, that still sticks in my mind when I think about the truths and I think about that sermon, and I think, that’s what we need.

We need to keep focused constantly on the truths that God has given to us and to grow in those things. Because there’s been a lot of suffering to give those to us. Like I mentioned yesterday, there’s been a lot of hurt and pain and suffering that we’ve had to go through to have those revealed to us. What awesome experiences, to have that kind of pain and suffering and hurt that we have in order to have the blessing of what God has given us as a result of that. There is no value you can place on those things.

That’s why I mention so often there is nothing I would trade of anything I’ve ever experienced that’s been hard and difficult. All the backstabbing. All the front stabbing. You know, yes, it hurts, but I wouldn’t give up any of those experiences and things that have been done, betrayals over and over and over and over and over again.

Because I understand what we have been going through in this series about Samuel and what happened when they said they wanted a king and he started to take it personally. You can’t. It’s about God. It’s about their relationship with God, and when that isn’t right, your relationship with someone doing those things, of that mind, it won’t be right either. Because it’s about God and we have a fellowship with God.

Again here, incredible what God continues to give to us through the experiences we encounter. This has much to do with our ability to grow and be strengthened in conviction and vision, as I’m saying over and over and over again, because we need to get it. We need to think on that. We need to grasp what God is offering us, what God is giving to us.

I was struck by just by the fact that there are three sermons in a series. I’m inspired by that. I’m moved by that. Because I recognize the importance of that. I know when God gives something of that magnitude at a Feast of Tabernacles, this is important. Just in that itself I am moved by the fact that I know, I know how important this is from God and Christ, that we seek to grasp what He’s giving us. It says reams, it truly does.

And so, these are things that God desires we embrace in order that we become more zealous. Because that’s what it’s about. If we really see these things and grasp these things we will be able to become more zealous and more confident. Moving forward we’ll have a greater confidence, and that has to do with faith, a confidence in what we see and what we know.

You think, “We know these things.” Yeah. Hang on, because when things start happening more and more, those things are going to be tried. The stronger you are, the more you’re going to be able to help others, the more God will give you in order to be able to do so.

So again, it becomes so much even more important, what we’re covering, as this is the process that can help us to see how God is working in our lives. For God to share that, His mind, to grasp how He’s working in people’s lives, to understand the spirit of that? Not just the fact that He is and we see a bit of a product, or some product, or a lot of product, it’s the process. It’s to know the mind of God, why He does what He does in the way that He does and the timing He does. All this, it’s learning more about God and He’s sharing that with us.

I don’t know about you, but to me I find that awesomely, immensely exciting. This is the mind of God! We have the truth because of the mind of God. But when He starts sharing with us that entire process and the whys of it and the wherefores and the how and all of that, it brings it to life in a far greater way. It really does.

And so, there is so much to this matter of experience and what we’re experiencing, so grab a hold of those experiences and cherish them and recognize the value of them.

We’re going to look at some more truths, rather than jumping ahead in some of this. We’ll get there. Part 3.

Again, if you can grasp this more deeply as we go through this, one experience that led to another, it’s a matter of coming to understand God. He doesn’t give us everything all at once because we can’t receive everything all at once. Why? We have to experience it to have the conviction. He wants us to have the conviction because that’s it in a nutshell. When you’re convicted, when it’s in your mind, the mind has changed, you’re convicted of it, you agree with it. That’s what God wants. He desires that we have absolute agreement with Him. That’s conviction!

When you have that kind of conviction, nothing can take it away. You have that portion of God in your mind. It’s God. What an awesome thing that we have more, we can have more of God in our mind.

34 (13) Of all who had been scattered, God has been working with a remnant out of it as a final witness of this end-time.

We came to see that because of the things we were experiencing. I think of different ones who had their minds opened up at different stages, but the one that stands out the most is how God worked with one evangelist. About 2005, I believe it was, if I have my year right, down in Australia. I may not have the exact year there, at a moment in time, but it was around a Feast of Tabernacles and he was going through a bookstore, a used bookstore, and came across a book. It probably was the only one in Australia in a bookstore, but it was the first book, The Prophesied End-Time.

He didn’t buy it because, well, I don’t remember what it cost but he knew that he could get it free. I got a charge out of that. So, why pay a dollar or two when you can order it and get it free? So, he got his own. He got a nicer book. It was a cleaner book. It wasn’t one that was on the shelf. It wasn’t one that had any pages tabbed. (Which it may not have. May have been perfect condition.) But I got a charge out of that.

So, he got it, started reading it, and God started opening his mind. Incredible! That many years after the Apostasy. That many years after the Apostasy God worked with someone to awaken them out of sleep.

Now, this helped me immensely, and I can’t tell you how much. Because of this experience God revealed to me some things, helped me to become more deeply convicted. Candidly, it was a final part of a conviction about a remnant. There were things I was seeing, had seen as different ones were being awakened, but this, when it happened at that stage, that many years later up the line, to see the power of God Almighty to awaken someone out of a spiritual sleep, it just all fit together.

It revealed what God is doing and what God was doing. At any time, God can awaken someone out of a spiritual sleep. It doesn’t have to be right after the Apostasy. Because mine was right there at the Apostasy, right after it repenting began and God began and was working with different ones of us to do those things. For a purpose. Not because of how good we are or anything else. It was because He had a purpose. It’s like a calling.

And so, to be brought out of a sleep, God has to draw you out of that. He’s the only one who can do it. To see it, I love the process we went through there because it was at around the Feast period, if I remember right, but at certain points we were growing.

2005. What happened in 2005? All those sermons about Yahweh Elohim, the Eternal Almighty God, the only who has eternally existed. The only one who has eternal existence in Him. Then about Joshua, which we called “Jesus” at that time.” To make it clear that he (“Jesus” at that time), the Christ was not Yahweh Elohim. To go through all those sermons, every sermon at the Feast that we were building upon.

Now, we had started receiving some communication and then my wife and I would talk about, “Well, now when they hear this one, this is really going…” I mean, that’s a big one. For the Church, if you were in the Worldwide Church of God and all of a sudden you came to that, that’s going to reveal a lot, isn’t it. Either God is giving it to you or not. Because you can’t see it unless God gives it to you, and that means He’s working with you and drawing you.

We were talking about, “I wonder what’s going to happen now. We’ll see what takes place now,” because there was that feeling and knowing by what was being said that there was this excitement, as we are when we’re called. But when you’re awakened you go through a process and it can be that excitement as well in the same sort of way, but candidly, even on a greater plane.

When you’re awakened out of a spiritual sleep, like we have been as far as the Church is concerned, because of all those years of what they had experienced in Worldwide when God was working with them, when they had a relationship with God and not asleep, and now, all of a sudden to see what took place and to put it together, the growth, the ability to see certain things many times greater. It’s an awesome thing to see, to witness.

Then the next thing that came right after that was the two witnesses. So, it was like, “Okay. The response to this and this series at the Feast was good. But now, in the meantime, in the communication back and forth, two witnesses. I wonder how he’s going to take this.” Because we were already tied in together, just desiring this. You love the process. When someone is being called out of the world, you’re excited, you hope they can make those different choices and so forth, and you’re hoping for them. You see a bit of a glittering in the mind.

There is someone in Argentina right now that sent in, to me, an exciting letter. I actually had two from Argentina. One doesn’t get it at all. The other one, though, there’s something going on there. And so, it’s going to be exciting to see the process here, if they’re able to continue to respond. But once you’ve been in God’s Church and you’ve gone through a period of being asleep, and God then awakens you out of that sleep and stirs you up by His spirit and you make the right choices, that’s awesome.

Because what do we desire? We desire mightily that anyone in our past, if they can be drawn, wakened, called. That’s going to be so exciting. I mean, right now through COVID we have a hard time not being able to give each other a hug. We haven’t seen each other for a time and it’s difficult, so people like tap elbows or whatever. Anyway, to follow the smarts of it all.

Anyway, we desire this with those. Can you imagine different ones you know of, whatever period of time it is, especially if it were to take place now, some individuals you know at this time, of individuals you would think, “That’s not going to happen.” But when God opens someone’s mind and helps them to become excited, wow. To be able to embrace them and to know there is no hard feelings. No matter what they did or said. Because a lot of those who were close to us have said some pretty bad things about us, like, “You’re stark, raving mad!” “We know you’re nuts,” and have treated people accordingly, sometimes pretty nastily. But you don’t hold that against anyone. You realize they can’t help what they’re a part of and what they’re in, and until that is shaken.

But when it does, to be able to embrace them? Everything is gone. They may feel a little sheepish by what they’ve said. You let them know, “None of that matters. You’re here. That’s what matters.” The excitement of that is going to be so incredible.

Again, going back down there to Australia, this was exceedingly moving to me because he made it through the two witnesses. Because his comment was, basically, that was next. It was like this experience. You’re experiencing these things and it’s like, “Well, yeah, that makes sense. That should be next.” That excitement was there. Then finally, we’re all on the same page. Finally, that journey of coming out of that period of time in the Church and then being alive, alive more spiritually than ever before! Because when you have all these things that have taken place and you understand it and you see it and you’ve experienced it, now God can give you more power, more in the mind to see and to understand. That’s exactly what was taking place.

That, in turn, helped me immensely as God’s apostle. It truly did and convicted me more fully then of things that were beginning to be shown. But when you have that there and you know it, it’s beautiful and it’ll never leave. The mind of God, the purpose of God, why He’s doing it that way, that at any time, the conviction to know because you’ve experienced it. Because it can’t happen without God’s spirit! The writing of those things, the knowledge of those things didn’t change him and his wife – God’s spirit did! When you know that’s the only way those things happen, you see God. You see what God is doing. That’s inspiring because that’s the witness. That’s the power of it all.

So, you’re able to see what God is doing so you come to a deeper conviction all people who have ever been baptized in God’s Church who fell asleep, if they hadn’t rejected and committed an unpardonable sin, which some have done, perhaps a lot of the group who went back into Protestantism because that’s a dangerous place to be; but others who fell asleep or just lost hope because they didn’t have any answers, if individuals are asleep God can wake them up at any time. Tomorrow. Next week. At the first event of the First Trumpet. During the fifth event. During the sixth. Maybe even during the seventh, when at that point you can’t deny what you see happening – Christ’s return, Christ’s coming? Whew! Or some point right afterward. Or in the Great White Throne. God can resurrect someone and awaken them spiritually at that time.

What an experience that will be. That’s why it talks about there’s going to be some weeping and gnashing of teeth. There’s a witness in that, but a greater conviction as well of a relationship with God that should always, always, always be there.

34 (13) Of all who had been scattered, God has been awakening a remnant out of it as a final witness of this end-time.

Because as God was revealing truth for individuals to see that and believe it as much as any other truth that God has given, to see it and to know it’s true, what a miracle. What an awesome thing to have witnessed, to be a part of, to see those things taking place. And so, greater conviction.

38 (17) The 144,000 are all those who have been called and tried by God over the past 6,000 years who will be in the first resurrection at Christ’s return.

Well, this was a process of an experience. What was it? Well, we were up to about a hundred thousand baptized people. The concept, the belief at that time, the present truth at that time was the 144,000 were going to come out of that body, those people during Philadelphia and Laodicea.

And so, when that was destroyed, in large part, when that was scattered in all part, then what does that mean? Well, the only thing left is what some groups out here believe. They may be five thousand people, six thousand people, eight thousand people, but whatever that is at this point in time (or smaller), but whatever that is, if you only have that knowledge to that point in time then somebody is going to have to get a lot bigger. Someone is going to have to get a lot bigger than Worldwide ever was for that to be fulfilled.

As much as people who still believe they’re going to go to a place of safety, we learn these things through time and through experience. We knew a long time ago you couldn’t get a hundred thousand people in there, but anyway, or 144,000 plus all the rest who are families and so forth. It’d have to be millions or so, whatever, in order to be in that region of the world over in Jordan.

We’ve learned a lot through experience and God has let us experience these things for a purpose and for a reason. We become so convicted of what really is true, of what He is showing us, and we begin to understand the reasons why. There is a relationship with God that is strengthened. Your confidence, the faith you can live by because of that becomes much, much stronger. It’s a beautiful process, it truly is.

38 (17) The 144,000 are all those who have been called and tried by God over the past 6,000 years…

Gradually, God began to show it’s been over a long, long period of time, because many have been called and few have been chosen. So, even if you had 144,000 baptized people in the Church, that doesn’t mean 144,000 have a right relationship with God. Because the truth in human life is they don’t. At any one time in God’s Church, doesn’t matter when it is, God has given me that experience to know the Church has always had people in it at every moment in time for the past 2,000 years, who are not fully convicted, not even, sometimes, close to being convicted.

Those things come out at different things that happen in life. Tithes and offerings. Should be a no-brainer. The Sabbath. The Holy Days. Sometimes how people address those. It becomes exceedingly important because it reveals how people think about God. Sometimes it’s hard for people to see that because they don’t really see God in it. They don’t grasp that.

So, how people approach the Sabbath, the importance of being able to be together with others of God’s people when they have that ability? I remember when we were called down in Kansas. For two or three weeks, whatever it was before I went back to college, we got the visit. I didn’t know my dad was writing in to headquarters at the same time I was writing in and asking questions, so we were receiving different mail, started receiving different mail, and actually started sharing the different kind of booklets we got, were getting, because we had different questions and we didn’t’ know that we’d both written off for a visit. The minister let us know, he came down and visited us, and invited us to services.

Well, we were kind of dumbfounded because, really, all we could think of was how do people get baptized? They’d have to go all the way to Pasadena. That’s the only way you could get baptized. We didn’t know there were Churches all over the country. When we found out there was one in North Platt, Nebraska, 3½ hours away… Wow! That close! Now, to a lot of people 3½ hour drive every Sabbath there and 3½ hours back it’s like, “3½ hours?!”

I get a charge out of Europe when you go over there sometimes, to go that far it’s like it’s a major trip in Europe because everything is so close, people are closer. It’s like, “Why are you going clear down there?” So, different concepts that people have about that.

I grew up in an environment, a farm type of environment where people just didn’t travel very far. One of the largest towns to us, close to us, we had one about 35 miles away, one about 40 miles away, and we might go to either one because the town I was in was “really big.” We had a hundred people in it and that was really stretching it. They were really spread out. We had one of the highest, largest high school classes ever when I graduated there. That was because I went ahead an extra year, went through in three instead of the four and so, it added one more to this class. We were a class of eight! They hadn’t had a class of eight since the 1930’s. So, man, we were going some place.

For people to travel back then it was 40 miles. That’s about all you really wanted to do. That was a max. So, to go to Colorado, to Denver, something like that, that was a major trip and you had to have some pretty strong reasons for doing it because you just won’t travel far. So, to travel 3½ hours to services? That would be seen by most in that kind of community as being, well, nuts. “To go to services? To go to a church? We’ve got all these churches here.” Now, there weren’t many but in some of the larger towns like the one of 3,000 or whatever people it was that we travelled to, it had several churches in it. “So, why can’t you go to one of those?”

Today, if we’re not careful, we don’t value the opportunity of fellowship like we should. And so, even in that people can let down in. Some people can’t help it. There are a lot of people who can’t help it. Sometimes you’re stranded where you are, like my son is down on an island. It’s a beautiful island but it’s not the Feast of Tabernacles island where others can visit. It’s hard. We miss him. I think, I know, he misses by not being able to be with everyone at the Feast.

We have a lot of people who can’t go to different places because of health or whatever it might be. Just saying that different ones are popping into my mind in different places in the country where they can’t get together on Sabbath services. They’ve lived a long time in that state now a part of us. But some probably haven’t seen brethren for fifteen years, twelve years, maybe twenty, so remote in certain places by themselves. But they keep going on. Now, they would treasure the opportunity of having someone close to them. They truly would.

Sometimes if we’re not careful we don’t treasure that fellowship because we don’t see God in it. But it’s about God. God wants us to see those things. So when we have those abilities, those opportunities, we should cherish them. It doesn’t mean something doesn’t happen where you can’t do those things every Sabbath. That’s understandable. But to hunger for that, to want that, to make effort for it, wow.

So, the 144,000, again, incredible. 6,000 years; we finally came to a deep conviction of understanding that’s where they’re coming from. This thing of the twelve tribes, people were so hooked up on the physical part of it, “You’re going to have 12,000 out of this tribe, and 12,000 out of this tribe…” You get twelve tribes; you know what that adds up to? 144,000. Wow!

I guess all the people being called in the area, region of Manasseh in the United States then, if they were going to fit into that, if you looked at it just that way, I guess everybody wasn’t Manasseh, there had to be a lot of the other tribes in there because there sure weren’t those things in Gad and Naphtali and some of those in Europe, so those numbers weren’t being called over there, so must be some of the descendants are over here and somehow they fit into that. People were trying to make things fit because they were so stuck on something physical. Amazing.

What an awesome thing in just that one truth alone when God finally showed us and helped us to understand through these experiences, because of what happened to the Church, and then He gave it to us. When He gives you the truth then and you see it, you think, wow, now I understand. Now it brings understanding to these verses and they come alive in a way they never did before – the great multitude and all those things, a number that no one can number. You can’t look out on a vastness of 144,000 and number them.

But the most important thing out of that was because it was over a period of 6,000 years you can’t number them because only God Almighty knows how many He’s called and worked with over 6,000 years. Because we have short lifespans. That’s why it says what it does, “And no man can number them.” Duh! We finally learned that. But we couldn’t know it until we saw it and until we experienced it and went through that. Then God showed it to us. I hope you understand what I’m saying. If you don’t, you need to catch up on that one. (Just kidding.)

Awesome to realize. I think of that first 4,000 years. God didn’t work with a lot of people but He worked with people all through that period of time starting with Abel, righteous Abel, and then on, one here, one there, a few here, whatever it might be during those periods of time.

Then, finally, the Church was established, and most have been called in the last 2,000 years. But when it’s all said and done there will be exactly 144,000. It changed the understanding and the ability to read those scriptures and made them come alive.

49 (28) Joshua the Christ will return to this earth on a Pentecost, along with the 144,000. Pentecost in Old Testament times was the day the Wave Loaves were waved before God to be accepted by Him.

Now, I’m not going to go through the whole story of here, of conviction and what happened during this process. But basically, it started soon after the Apostasy, that God began to bless us with deeper conviction and understanding about the timing of Passover. Though there are only three scriptures you really need, that Herbert Armstrong used in the book about God’s Holy Days or Pagan Holidays, Which? He used three scriptures in there about Passover, and the bold, black headline reads something to the effect of, “14 or 15th,” something like that, “Passover, Which?” Something of that nature.

But anyway, he brought in this concept of a 14/15th Passover and that it’s on the 14th day. Three scriptures prove it. That’s all you need. But it wasn’t enough for intellectual people coming out of Philadelphia and going into Laodicea. It wasn’t enough for intellectual people, the one who was known as the most intellectual evangelist in God’s Church during Worldwide. Supposed to be the smartest of all and teaching students about a 14/15th Passover right under Herbert Armstrong’s nose, in a sense, because he had classes and he had a lot in the ministry.

Because Pasadena was the largest college of the three colleges and most of the ministry came out of Pasadena over the years. And so, he taught those classes and infected a lot of minds and they became ministers. God allowed it to happen for a purpose. It tried a lot of people and it tried a lot of them as time went along. Because every one of them had the choice of reading Herbert Armstrong’s book or listening to this intellectual individual that some just oohed and aahed over.

Since the Apostasy some of that oohing and aahing has made me nauseous, sick, truly, to the point of a gag. It’s like, “He could sit on the front row and God’s apostle would be up there preaching and he would have a book open and he’d be reading it. He could read that book and study that book and he could hear Herbert Armstrong preach.” Think, no, he didn’t. No, he didn’t. He was just doing something he shouldn’t have been doing.

So, this process then of Passover, the things that God revealed over a period of time, and things about Trumpets and Pentecost and the Wave Sheaf and the Wave Loaves. Over time, it took a lot of years since the Apostasy. Passover, getting that firmly set. Pentecost, because we had to address that next as a Holy Day, and because a lot of ministers out here who had been scattered and some of the different groups out here, this was the next thing that came up and how people were observing it. So much of it was just wrong in how they were observing and how they counted it, and so forth, because, well, they didn’t understand.

God blessed us then because we had to attack that. We had to address those things so that we could help others who were receiving some of this swill and garbage and twisted scriptures and reasoning, to show them what was right.

That’s where I learned something so important. You don’t have to get caught up in the arguments of others as to why they might have said this verse and what they’re saying about it that’s stupid and wrong and stupid and stupid and stupider type of thing. You just have to be shown the truth. And you know what? The more you study the truth the more stupid you’ll see the other stuff is. Does that make sense? Anyway, that’s what happens.

The more you see the truth, the more grounded, you focus on that, you don’t worry about other people’s stupidity. I’m seeing, thinking of different ministers out here who were teaching that. Every one of them had different scriptures and a twisting and a distorting of them to prove their point.

If you got bogged down in all that you’re just wasting your time. Because it doesn’t matter what they say because it’s just foolishness, it’s just ugly, it’s hideous. And so, we focused on the truth and God opened up incredible doors there for us. That led into things, like I said, Passover to Pentecost, and then down the line farther on God began to help us to understand the importance of the tie-in between the Wave Loaves and the Wave Sheaf. It’s like, duh!

But we had to experience a lot of years of doing it the right way, of right understanding so that God can open up more. Then when we came to that point in time, He would let us see it and then we’d look back and think, “Oh, why couldn’t I put that together back then?” Because it wasn’t God’s time. He wanted you to experience some things first so that when you came to that it’s in the mind so deep nothing is going to take it out. It’s there. Incredible.

So, jumping ahead I’ll just skip some of that because we understand those things. But in a part of this, this 49th Truth about Joshua the Christ returning to earth on a Pentecost along with the 144,000 and the importance here then of the Wave Sheaf and the Wave Loaves being tied together, and the importance that God placed on the Wave Sheaf that helped us to understand the importance of the timing of those things. Timing becomes exceedingly important then on those days and what they reveal and when God is going to do it. Because that’s what it’s about.

So, there is one portion of this truth that I want to repeat, need to repeat as we’re still learning why. This, to me, again, I can’t give you my experiences and I can’t convey all of those, but there is a process whereby I know how God has worked with me and so forth and some of these things that take place. But to me one of the most fascinating things, in one respect, is something that God just continues to add more to that we haven’t been able to fully see because we’ve had to have some other experiences along the way. We still have to have some more.

I believe with all my being it’s in this final phase that this will all come to fruition as God reveals it. But it has to do with the year 2008 being the year of God’s final witness. That was something that was given that was equivalent to when I went home for the first time and I was told about the Sabbath day and I just knew it was true. So was 2008, God’s final witness.

Now, He didn’t give everything about what this was going to entail. He gave portions. But it brought us to a new present truth to address certain things that helped to reveal yet other things that God was going to give and things that happened in that year that He brought us to grasp and understand. As we’ve gone along, we’ve been able to go back and see more about what actually took place.

The point of this being is I can’t give that to anyone. It’s something you experience, and when you experience it, it becomes deeply, deeply a part of you and there are things you begin to recognize and see then about God and how God works and why and it becomes more exciting. It becomes more fulfilling. Because, again, it’s a matter of seeing God at work, the mind of God, and why. Then you begin to agree with various facets.

Some of those things have helped me in knowing how to work with people. Because I’ve recognized and learned from what God has shown and how He’s worked with us in these matters. So, it shows me a right way, a true way of dealing with certain situations. Well, anyway. I can’t give that. It’s just a process you go through.

So, I want to read that portion about that 2008 and why it’s been such a focal point in God working with His remnant Church.

… God reserved this revelation, for this very end-time, to be revealed at the time of the beginning of His final witness that He has been establishing.

You have to understand, there has always been a witness from the very beginning, from Adam and Eve on, of mankind and how mankind responds to God. It’s been an ongoing thing. There is a powerful witness about Israel and when God began to work with them. On and on it goes through time, different things that God has placed as a witness, a testimony. It’s about mankind.

In all those periods of time, because there are people in all those times who must be judged, it’s a matter of a witness that’s been there. Not that all were able to see it and grasp it because there are different people in parts of the world that have never heard it and never seen it. They don’t have to because they’ll have that in the Great White Throne. That’ll be their time. But for those who have, powerful witness.

So, it’s like some thinking, which to me is awesome, The Plain Truth, the telecast, the broadcast going out to the world and the Church that was scattered was of the thinking that it isn’t finished yet. The gospel hasn’t gone into all the world yet. But where is God? Where is God in the thinking in all this? Herbert Armstrong knew what his commission was, “And then the end would come.”

Laodicea was the end as far as the eras and so forth. It was within that era that the apostasy took place. It was in the end. Thank God Herbert Armstrong never had to see any of that, to see the devastation, the decimating of the Church to the degree it was, because that kind of pain, I can’t imagine. You know, when you work with all your life and dedicate it and see what happened. And so, he didn’t have to see any of that, and basically, scriptures say exactly that. Exactly that, of what he would not have to see. He was spared from all that, thank God.

All these experiences of what we’ve gone through and what we have seen, they’ve all taught us along the road. We’re to learn from that, and again, I think of his life and what he went through and what he saw and what he gave, and then what we did with it. A witness in every one of those stages, of what had to transpire and what had to take place, all a testimony to learn awesome lessons from.

To think that the gospel hadn’t gone into all the world? Well, it was because of not being able to put it altogether. But God helped us, blessed us in retrospect, to start putting some things together, to be able to see because of what was happening. It’s like what happened in Australia. That was God’s hand. I had a part in it, yes, because I was maybe writing something, but I didn’t do it. God did it. That’s the witness. That’s the evidence. And so, we’re inspired by those kinds of things.

We see certain things that happened that led up to the Apostasy, we see certain things after Herbert Armstrong died. We recognize what began to happen. We come to an understanding, if we’re seeing what God is doing, it was done. After the Apostasy it should have been clearer than ever. But it wasn’t. The gospel went into the world to the level, to the extent that Herbert Armstrong, or that God wanted Herbert Armstrong, to do it. After he was done, that was it, his commission was over. The very next verse tells us what will happen, “Then the end will come.” I mean, it’s so simple. And yet it isn’t because it’s a matter of something spiritual that God has to give us to see the simplicity and the beauty of it. But through experience.

It’s those things that lead to greater understanding of what God has been doing. All the way up to 2008.

…God reserved this revelation, for the very end-time, to be revealed at the time of the beginning of His final witness…

So, there’s always been a witness. What Herbert Armstrong was given to do was a witness in the world in a very powerful way, especially in this nation, Manasseh. Because the work was the greatest here. God gave to this world, to this country, I should say, it’s greatness, it’s power, it’s might, and so God raised up the Church here in this part to be able to reach the rest. What an awesome thing to witness, to see, to grasp, to understand why and what God did. He raised up a nation to be the most powerful, to do the most powerful work that He’s ever done on earth in 6,000 years.

But this country here? Seventy years—plus—but seventy years primarily, a message going out. And everybody rejected it. That’s the witness. Except the few that God called. But it’s a testimony against the greatest nation that’s ever been here. There was no effort to change anything. There have been peoples in times past when they have heard certain things about God and from someone, that they have responded to it and said, “Yes, that’s the way we have been,” and they have repented. Even within Judah. Even within Israel for a period of time, short though it was. But primarily within Judah.

Then that witness has been there, how there are people who have responded to different things. But all this that went out, so plain. God made it plain. Called it that. I think of the name. Names mean so much to God. The plain truth went out, but people rejected it, nevertheless. Whereas that then, I should say, became a witness against them. Rejected.

That’s not a small thing. What does it prove? It proves that every human being has a responsibility of choices that they make in life. And without being called by God your choices will always be the same. You will reject God. That’s the witness of 6,000 years. The only way you can receive, the only way you can choose something true and right is if God begins to open your mind through the power of His holy spirit. Then you can make choices and live by those. Before that, you have no ability.

So, the witness is yes, this country, the greatest country the world has ever known, still rejected someone who was God’s own apostle right there in California. Even tried to put him away if they could. They wanted to destroy the Church and he had to move, or he was in another state. That became a blessing, a kind of a place of safety for a period of time. Awesome, what has taken place in God’s Church.

This “final witness” began on Trumpets of 2008.

I can’t give that to anyone. It’s between you and God to come to a deeper conviction, to understand what He’s doing. The more you use those things, of the dates that are there, what started? It’s just like we came to the point where we realized that all Seven Trumpets have been blown. In the beginning all that could be seen, all that I could see, is the First Trumpet has been blown. But the reality was God brought us through a process there, a conviction of, an understanding of, no, all seven were blown, they just have events that have to take place.

God’s timing… We expect something to happen. “Well, if it’s blown, then it’s happening. It’s got to happen right now.” No, no, no, no, no. It’s like the Seventh Trumpet. To come to understand that it takes 1,100 years to complete it, the event of the Seventh Trumpet, is awesome! It’s incredible! The Third Woe, two phases of it that fits in with that, awesome! But we had to go through a lot to come to that point so that God could show it to us to where the conviction then becomes much, much deeper.

This “final witness” began on Trumpets of 2008. The scope and complete meaning of this witness has not yet been fully revealed.

How do I know that? Because God keeps showing me more things of what happened and why it’s so important. Constantly seeing more things.

What has been given is that it will continue right up to the time when the destruction from the first four trumpets begin to be poured out upon the earth. God’s final witness is about His Church…

There are still things we are to learn and are learning from and will learn much more later on, what happened in 2008 when Trumpets and Pentecost was addressed. There are things we’re learning and are to learn about something that came to pass, candidly, about the importance of, “Let no one take your crown.” It’s happened for 2,000 years when God has called people, but it’s had a greater impact and greater purpose and meaning toward the end here and something we’ve been living.

Sitting in booths. Because this is when it’s happened. Incredible. Some of us, not all of us lived when the Apostasy took place and all the things that have followed since that time, the re-establishing of a body of people, a remnant that was established by Pentecost of 1998. Awesome, to understand these things, to have lived in these things.

Just like I mentioned yesterday to grasp and understand that first cycle, that first period of time of 1260 days, of time, time, and a half a time, if you will; what it says in Revelation about a being who would not have ability to hurt God’s people, that they would be protected for that time, time, and a half a time from that being.

Because the Church had been decimated and we were coming out of those things and had to become established in certain things in our life. And finally, by that time, God’s remnant had been established. But Laodicea continued on to that point in time. I hope you can grasp some of the meaning of that. Laodicea was still there. A lot of people were being given opportunity. A lot in the ministry were being given opportunity, which has a great impact then in what they say, of others who hear it.

Again, all this was happening over that period of time. And slowly but surely, the deeper we got into that 3½ years the more that others became set in their thinking, in their ways that weren’t yielding to God. Yet in the midst of all that God was bringing together a body. Awesome!

Then we went into and have had five more periods, five more cycles. So, is that counted into a seven or is there more? I don’t know. But I’m watching closely, and I know a lot of you are, that’s why I’m mentioning. We’re in a new phase. We don’t know what it is. Seven may be there. Seven may be yet to come. Whatever it is, we’re in a new period of time and we have to stay close to God and learn the things that are coming out in this series and the series before this, and all that we heard during this Feast of Tabernacles. Because things are ramping up, speeding up powerfully so. I hope we can grasp that as we go through some of the things on the Last Great Day.

It could be any time, brethren. We don’t know. That’s why we have to be ever so close to God, ever so focused. Because though I have looked at every car being the last one, though we weren’t sure what we were going to do in certain things after we got married, family and so forth, though so many of those kinds of things have happened, there’s never been a time like this one, obviously. We are so, so close.

But our timing isn’t God’s. We have to learn through that. We have to learn a lot about what happened between 2008 and 2012. We lived something at that time. You want to talk about sitting in booths? That, candidly, was some of the greatest preparation for the end-time. That was, candidly, some of the greatest preparation for the Kingdom of God than anything I’ve ever witnessed God’s people go through. And to God, it was beautiful though it was not understood. It was all for a purpose. Though some couldn’t see it, couldn’t grasp it, and may have some troubles with some of that, I don’t know, but the more they come to understand 2008 was God’s final witness, which is for the Church and for the world, they will begin to see more and more.

God’s final witness is about His Church, the world, and an evil spirit realm led by Satan.

He’s not out of the equation until he’s out of the equation. He’s a very big part of (and that demonic realm), a very big part of what God has been doing. We really can’t grasp that to it’s fullest extent, of what has been taking place for possibly billions and trillions of years. We don’t know. But there are relationships there. There are relationships there that God Almighty has with an angelic realm. There are relationships there of things that have to do with betrayal within that angelic realm. There are things of judgment that have to take place within that as well, that God has to work through, that He will work through and has a process and a plan for that. That when we learn more about it, we will be more inspired by that as well.

But the greatest of all those is what God is creating in the sense of Elohim. But all that is a part of it, it really is. We need to see that and think about those things because it’s part of this experience and understanding that we can have, of how important this is. Because this bears a lot with what’s happening here at the end-time and what God is going to allow him and them to do. He knows what they’re going to do. They know what they want to do. But God has a purpose in fulfilling it and doing it.

Because there are things about God, the righteousness of God and when He says certain things, He follows through no matter how long it might take, no matter the suffering and the lack of peace that there might be. Now, to see and grasp all that, to grow in that is bigger than I can express by any measure. Going on:

This final witness is about establishing a complete and final judgment upon these three groups.

Sit in the booth on that one for a while, because there is a lot there. There is a lot there that you can become more deeply convicted of and have more the mind of God. Because what does that mean? When you grasp the judgment of God and why and how God does His judgment, the more you can come into oneness with that, the more powerful it becomes, it truly does, the more meaningful it becomes, the more at one you will become with God Almighty.

So again, because of these many and varied experiences God and Christ have led us into more and more understanding and insight into how He works in our life. I hope that means a lot to every one of you. Because to see that and know that? Being worked with is one thing, to experience certain things in life is one thing. But to really grasp it, to really see it, that’s exceedingly rewarding and convicting.

This has much to do, or so very much to do with understanding and that of being encouraged with or about moving forward to the events of the first four Trumpets that will at their right and proper time begin to shock this world. I think God is preparing us. Some things have been said at the Feast here that really struck me deep. To understand what it’s going to be like when that first Trumpet event takes place. The First Trumpet blast happened a long time ago, in the sense of thinking back to 2008. Seems like a long, long time ago. And in some ways, it really wasn’t.

But to grasp what’s really going to come, what’s going to happen, incredible. Things we can’t really grasp. Because you’re going to be afraid. You are going to be so afraid when those things happen. It really is. But we’re being prepared for that.

So again, this sermon has been about a shift in our focus. (I have so much here to go through and I know that I’m not going to get through it all.) Let’s turn over to 1 John 1 because this thing about experiences, I hope you’ll embrace that more and more as you’ve heard it during the Feast here and think about that from time to time, of how valuable and how meaningful these things are that we go through. They aren’t easy. They weren’t meant to be easy. There are times that they become very difficult. But they’re what make you, mold and fashion you, strengthen you.

1 John 1:1—That which was from the beginning, which we have heard… So, not just physically hearing something, but it’s about that which goes way, way back.

That which we have heard… So again here, it’s about that which spiritually, which comes through experience, which we have seen with our eyes… So, both physical, but even more deeply that which is spiritual. Again, a matter that’s learned through experience. There are things we grow in, we learn in, which are a matter of experienced in this process.

There are things we see about God, about Christ that are a matter of experiences, which we have looked upon, having to do with God’s word, and our hands have handled. So again, it’s about this experience. What do you mean your hands have handled? Well, the truth of God, the things you’ve been able to grow in as a result of that which you’re able to see, which, as it says here, which we have seen with our eyes.

And so, they lived in a particular period of time of things that have taken place. If you go back, especially the time of Christ, of things that some of those saw and did, John, as an example and then the things he wrote, the book of Revelation that he wrote, and he’s talking about passing these things along. But so, there are things you see literally. But when you come to see them spiritually, that’s what it’s all about, that’s the importance of it all.

…which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled. So, it wasn’t just about him, it’s about what he said. Because that’s what you take with you when he’s gone. He’s still there. He’s our High Priest. And so, all these things being conveyed to the Church.

…which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life. That’s what sitting in booths is. That’s what it is. It’s about God’s word and how it is able to live in our lives. The more we yield to it and the more we understand it and we see how it works, the more these experiences that exist as we seek to obey God more and more, it’s about handling the word of God. It’s about the mind of God. It’s the experience. Every one of us, we’re filled with experiences since God began to call us. It’s God that’s been doing that. It’s God Almighty.

No one on the earth has experienced these things, but we get to experience it, what it’s like to receive of God’s spirit, what it’s like to be inspired by God, what its like to have our mind opened and to see something we couldn’t see before, and then all of a sudden later on, farther up the line, even that can be tweaked mightily because God reveals more of the picture of a particular matter. Whether it be Pentecost not on a Monday but on a Sunday, whether it be that, whether Christ is going to actually return on a Pentecost because of the importance of the Wave Loaves and being tied into the Wave Sheaf. All these things, they’re inside of you. It’s about God being in here.

Sometimes we don’t realize how much of God we really have and what that means. Because the only way we see these things and know these things is because of God, because of God and Christ dwelling in us. It’s not by our ability of studying and reading. It’s by God’s spirit. We know that that is only enhanced because of a relationship we have and a desire to repent and become stronger in that obedience. God has a lot of patience with us. He puts up with a lot of stupid things in our lives, a lot of error in our lives. He allows some sins to continue on sometimes for a long time.

But there is always that time that has to come when some things, some of the deeper things have to be addressed more deeply inside of us, and God lets us know this is that time. God is letting us know this is that time. Mainly, because we don’t have much time before Christ’s return.

Just like those two elders I talk about, and I told them, “This is coming; this is what’s going to happen in the Church. This is what I expect of you, to stand up for those things that God has given to us through Herbert Armstrong. Then there’s a man out in Pasadena who’s going to expect you to stand up and do what he’s been telling you. Which one are you going to do?” They became upset because it was like I was being hard on them. I was just telling them the time has come, you have to make a choice. That hits us all at different times. This is a very powerful one that’s hitting God’s Church.

Because all this stuff that’s been going through the process of being cleansed up in the last year, three years, four years, this measuring of the temple thing, is not over. It’s going to be cleansed. Either we’re a part of the cleansing because we’re engaged in it because of ourselves, or we’re not. We’re experiencing that. We’re experiencing the very end of the age. No one has ever experienced this exactly like us because Christ didn’t return at their time with 144,000. He’s coming in our time.

A lot of things have happened in the Church that have been allowed to happen till death in people’s lives. Not now. This Body will be cleansed and that which is in it will be cleansed. That’s different than times past. There’s always been sin, always been some hideous things that have been taking place in God’s Church through time in people’s lives. God is letting us know that will not be the case for those who live into a new age. They will not have the honor. They will not have the recognition from others. “You were a part of the remnant Church at the end-time.”

For if we have those kinds of things in our lives, that would be a horrible thing. Because it’s God that lifts up, and if we strive to do it by carrying something with us that’s wrong, that’s sin, in this case now, because of the timing and because of the world that’s getting ready to be established—I’ve said this before—God is not going to allow it.

Whether it be something that comes up within the Church and we’re able to see it and I have to address it, it has to be addressed within the Church, that someone is separated, or some several people are separated, or if God Himself does it, and He will do it. If it has to be with something like the first event, the second event, the third event, the fourth event, or the fifth, because the fifth is the most devastating of all upon this country.

It does the greatest destruction on this country, the fifth does. The other four just cause a crippling to where when the fifth hits it has no ability to respond in same, in kind. God’s going to allow all that power to be zeroed in over here. City after city after city. We cannot imagine.

The only way even physically to be assured of certain things, obviously, is by God’s protection, by God’s intervention. God has all the power in the universe to give us that. But if we’re not doing what we should be doing we will be a part of that destruction. Mark what I have said. You won’t go past the Fifth Trumpet in this country. Some of the other countries?

But at some point, if it be the Sixth Trumpet in some countries around the world, because of what’s going to take place, those who are in God’s Church who live faithfully before God are going to be those who continue the fight to the end, who are fighting against self, who are repenting of their sin day in and day out, who want God’s way of life, who are willing to fight for God’s way of life, who want that right relationship with God and they keep fighting for it, keep working for it, building upon their prayer life day by day by day. Not letting days go by where there is no prayer life with God. It doesn’t have to be for long periods of time but it’s about a daily relationship with God. It’s about that which is in the mind!

For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, or “we have seen,” the word there, “it.” What have we seen? It’s manifested in God’s people. His life is manifested in us. That’s why he died, so that he and his father can live in us, dwell in us, so we can see those things in our mind that no one has an ability to see except that God gives it.

…and bear witness. What is that about? Experience. Experience, experience, experience. We bear witness. We have a unique experience. In this age, what a unique experience we have. Sometimes we don’t grasp the value and the importance of what God has placed before us that we have the opportunity to live. I don’t care how bad it gets, how hard it gets, I want the experience. Because it gives the molding and the fashioning that God is doing. Whatever it takes to knock of some of these chips.

It’s like this big old block and you start molding and fashioning. Physically, we can see that. You make a statue and you’ve got to keep chipping away. Well, that doesn’t look like this person, or it didn’t look like me! You’ve got to chip this away. You’ve got to keep chipping and some place you have to be a little more careful how you chip. You just keep chipping until finally.

That’s the way our spiritual life is. It’s a lot like that. We just have to keep chipping away until we reflect God more fully in our lives, truly. But we have to do the chipping because it’s about self and this isn’t stone.

I think of Mr. Armstrong in things that he wrote about himself. It’s like I could see, kind of, this old car down in the gully rusted out and it’d been burnt, and it was this whole frame, the way he described it. That’s the way he felt about himself, portrayed himself. It was God that made him. But what he was, that’s how he saw himself, of no value, of that which has to be changed, of that which is just a piece of junk, no use whatsoever. That’s why it’s down in the gully there. Nobody is trying to fix it because it’s all rotted out and it’s just no good. That’s what we’re like.

I tend to think more along the lines of this feces stuff I’ve been talking about, big pile. That’s worthless too. A lot more worthless than a piece of junk in a gully, because at least you can go up and walk to it. It’s not a stench. Our nature, my nature, I know, is a stench. The only thing that makes it pleasing, good, is God’s spirit, is God’s life, God’s mind.

For the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness. We experience and declare unto you that eternal life. They’ve experienced things that they’re sharing and telling them about. They’re beginning to see …which was with the Father and was manifested to us. “We’ve gone through that experience and sharing it now with you.” They began to experience things.

…that which we have seen and heard, experienced on a spiritual plane. That’s what he’s talking about, a desire to share that then. …we declare unto you, so that you may also have fellowship with us. In other words, share in the same truth.

Isn’t that what this is all about, a matter of fellowship and a matter of sharing, and a matter of experience? That’s why we really need to see a whole lot more, this matter of fellowship that we have in the Body. Some people don’t cherish it. They don’t make sacrifices to go and be with others of the same mind more often when they could be doing it.

But it’s like, I’d rather sit down in my chair, my comfortable chair at home because I can now watch this on my big screen TV, and I don’t have to go very far. I can be really casual about this. Well, I didn’t get to Starbucks this morning, but I can have my coffee and enjoy this. You think, but what are you missing that you may otherwise have opportunity for?

So, it doesn’t mean that in some cases because of finances or whatever, that it has to be every Sabbath, but to make an effort at that? To grow? I mean, what else could be in our minds but that?

But that’s a matter of valuing a fellowship that we recognize is not just some kind of one-sided thing that it only happens when we pray to God. Because that’s been in people’s minds in God’s Church far too long and we have to get way past that one to grow like we need to grow. It’s not about our own personal relationship with God and that somehow, we’re okay because “I pray to God about this and it’s okay.” No, it isn’t.

God gives us a body, the Body of Christ, and that fellowship because God is in every being, every person that has the impregnation of God’s spirit. Do we have problems? Do we sometimes rub each other the wrong way? Sure. Sure. That’s the beauty of God calling so many people with so many different backgrounds and so much different kind of thinking and different kind of ways of doing things and whatever, because there are so many ways. We have to learn to judge righteous judgment and not by how “I” see it and by what pleases “me,” and because they like the same things “I” like and they’re easier to talk to and whatever.

Sometimes you just have to really work at talking, you know, and being around. There’s something learned in that just by the experience of how you feel toward them. Because God’s spirit is in them; you’re dealing in part with God and with Christ.

Do we see it? Because I’ll just tell you right now, it’s not real strong in the Church to the degree it could be and really should be.

We declare unto you so that you may also have fellowship with us; for even our fellowship is truly with the Father and with His Son. He’s revealing the very thing I’m talking about. He’s discussing that. …Joshua the Christ. It’s God and Christ who reveal understanding and growing understanding to us.

So, we write these things to you, that your joy might be full. So here is even just a communication that’s done through writing, but it’s a fellowship and it’s a part of that. It’s a part of teaching. Then when they have the opportunity of having the real thing together even more so. All about experiences, what we experience.

I think I’m going to stop there, though I have much more. But there is only so much that can be given in a certain time limit. I know I have more time but I think that’s all said it well for the day, to end on that point about experiences and at the last here, to grasp that some of the greatest experience we have with God and with Christ is with one another in fellowship. The more that we can see that, that we’re a family and we’re a growing family and we all have differences, and we learn.

That’s why I love this one verse where it talks about, basically, it’s about the word “tolerate” one another. It’s not like the world thinks about tolerating one another. Because it’s like, “Well, I’ll tolerate them…” It’s a word that has to do with “enjoying the differences.” It’s savoring the differences. It’s about the differences that we have and appreciating the differences.

We can grow closer together because we come to appreciate the differences. Of what? Of how God works in us in our lives. You can learn about God and Christ more because of our fellowship. He has desire for all His creation. We all have certain obnoxiousness about us. We all have certain things that some have a hard time with, if we really get to know each other well. When you’re around each other a lot there are certain things because we’re selfish and we tend to pamper this “our way,” whatever that definition is. It’s all different in us, isn’t it?

It’s a growing experience, a growing experience, experiencing something about a relationship with God and His Son that you can learn from sitting in booths in fellowship and understanding the importance and the magnitude of what that means. God has given us so much about this matter of sitting in booths and everything we experience of the truth, of His way of life, of the family. On and on and on it goes. We have a long way to continue to grow in always, always, always. But it’s a matter of getting rid of this and seeking to have more of the mind and the conviction of, the very mind and being of God Almighty and His Son, Joshua the Christ.