A New Phase For This End-Time, Pt. 3

Ronald Weinland

October 9, 2020

Feast of Tabernacles Sermon

This is the final portion for this three-part Feast series entitled A New Phase For This End-Time.

This indeed magnifies and encapsulates the fullest purpose for what could be lived spiritually through what it means to be sitting in booths at a Feast of Tabernacles. I find this mightily inspiring, to think about what God gives us at different times and how He leads us through sermons and brings us to a certain point in time. Because if we understand that, which is a part of that very thing, the matter of sitting in booths and learning from that process and how God’s working, it’s the very thing here of what we’re talking about.

Again, I find those things very inspiring, very exciting, and the more we see that the more we’ll be inspired and excited by how God works with us. Because it’s a matter of Him molding and fashioning us as a body, as a Church, to prepare for what’s coming and individually as well because we have to be worked with individually to be molded and fashioned. Then that depends upon us and our response to Him, our response to Christ and God the Father in what we’re doing in our lives, if we are indeed practicing what we are to be practicing. That’s a close relationship with God, understanding the importance of our Passover, of utilizing the blessing God has given us in grace and a mercy to have the ability to be forgiven of sin.

That means we have to repent, and if we grasp that and are using that wisely in our lives day by day God will bless us mightily with His holy spirit and continue to work with us and continue to mold us, and if we don’t, that’s a choice. Every year I repeat this over and over and over again, primarily with the hope that there will be some or one that is moved by that, that is jostled by that, if you will, to respond. Shaken to respond. Sobered to respond and to begin making change.

I remember one time using the expression, because it’s different around the world, how you say things. Here when we say, “Get off the pot,” we know what that means. Over in Europe they weren’t really sure. It’s like, “Talking about marijuana? What’s he talking about?” No, it’s an expression we use here, and there is more to the expression, but I won’t use the rest. It’s basically, “Do your business or get off of it.” And so, it’s about this portion here of our lives sometimes, that we need to make a change, we need to respond, we need to do what we’re supposed to be doing. So, anyway. Couldn’t help but pass that one out.

So again here, as we move forward through this particular series, hopefully we’ve been digesting more fully what was stated at the very beginning of the series. Again, I’m going to repeat it because all series, as a whole, are based on a particular movement, a particular vision, a particular direction that it’s moving and what we’re to glean from that direction. I want to read it once again.

As we experience, as we live in and or through (obviously, it’s about both; as we live in it, we’re experiencing it and moving through it), this new phase, we’re going to be learning from what we’re experiencing.

I hope we can grasp that as we’ve been going along, as we are coming to a point in time it becomes more exciting, in a sense. Well, think about what God is doing. Think about what Christ is doing. That anticipation, knowing that the world is going to have to go through some horrifying times. But that’s because of us. That’s because of our nature. That’s because of the nature of mankind. Has to be so shocked, so sobered, go through so much hardship that it will humble itself, that it will begin to cry out and ask for help. Otherwise, God can’t work with people.

I’m talking about on a physical plane. God can’t begin to work with us spiritually until we’re dealt with as far as that which is physical in our lives, to get our attention, to shake us, to sober us. The same thing happens in the Church. There are times when people can be shaken, as I mentioned at the very beginning here, sobered to repentance. Because that’s what it’s about. Because that’s where it starts. The world has no care or concern about that right now, but they’re going to have as we go along.

That’s what it’s all about, to get their attention, because only then can God begin to work with people on a spiritual plane. Otherwise, He can’t, He won’t because it’s against His spirit. So, mankind has to be brought down.

I think of all the scriptures, all the different chapters there in Isaiah, in the beginning of Isaiah, and over and over and over again it hits this matter of taking care of the haughtiness, addressing the haughtiness, the pride of mankind and what it’s going to take to accomplish that because that’s the beginning.

We’re going through this now where we’re rapidly approaching all that, but it’s what’s on the other side. That’s what motivates us, excites us; it’s what we’re picturing here at this Feast of Tabernacles, and then on the Last Great Day the next 1,100 years. We’re becoming more keenly focused on those things as well. It’s a great hope and a strength to us in our lives. It motivates us. It excites us. As we grow it’ll do even more of that to where God can work with us more.

So, it’s incredible what we are experiencing, and if we can grasp it, this is going to be some of the greatest experiences in our carnal lives, in our physical lives that we have ever been able to go through, to experience. It’s going to be filled with all kind of emotion, all kinds of things that are going to take place in us. But it’s a highlight, it’s a crescendo, it’s the end of 6,000 years. That’s not a small thing. God has much planned to take place at this time. We know that. We see that.

We are going to witness that. We are called, in part, to be witnesses of that as well. Because every age for the past 6,000 years has had those with whom God has worked, individuals one at a time, whatever it might be, or a few at a time. But for the first 4,000, not very many. Then after that the Church was established and began to work with tens and hundreds and thousands at different times.

So, to be a part of that is incredibly exciting. But we have to understand this is one of the most exciting times of all, because everything that’s stated throughout the Old Testament, everything that’s stated throughout the New Testament is geared toward what is just immediately behind where we are. There are so many through time who would have loved to have traded places with you, to be able to witness those things.

But we’re the ones who are living it and sometimes we just don’t grasp how exceedingly blessed we really are, and the more we can grasp that, the greater the thankfulness on our part, the greater the rejoicing at the Feast of Tabernacles and all year long will exist in our lives. Because yes, we’re to rejoice at God’s Feast more than ever because we can get away from the world, we can focus more on what God is teaching us and showing us, but we’re to learn to do those things all year long just as we are this matter of sitting in booths. It’s to be all year long. We’re living it and to grasp that, of how God is molding and fashioning each one of us.

So, as we experience, as we live in or through this new phase, we are to be learning from what we are experiencing in these final stages of this end-time. We’re a part of it, powerfully so. Not a small part, we are a major part. Because even the finishing part of 144,000, that’s a major part. The end will not begin, the first event of the First Trumpet will not begin, until that’s completed. I can’t help but think about all this as we’re going through this, what we went through in 2008 and leading up to 2008.

As we go along, we learn that there are things that God has reserved for us to learn from by what we go through. There are things in His plan that are reserved to show the power and the might and the beauty, candidly, of God and how He does things, how He works through things. That’s why He’s showing us more. The more we see that the closer that relationship becomes, the more thankful we can become, the more exciting it becomes, and the stronger we become spiritually living in faith. To see those things, to experience those things, that’s what it’s all about. So, God is giving us much for a great purpose.

So, we’re to be learning from what we see God is doing on this earth, and we’re to be growing through what we are learning and these experiences that God lets us have as we continue to press forward. So, in thinking about some of those things back in 2008, candidly, I know that God is giving us a clearer picture by what’s going to take place now. Because there was much we had to learn, that had to be established as a witness, even within the Church at the very end. All these things that have happened through time they have been a witness, but some of the greatest things of a witness have been at the end. They really are or have been.

The reason for that, in large part, is because of everything that God’s done in the world as far as technology and wealth and might throughout the world on a physical plane, but also in the Church. They go hand in hand, in that respect, of all that God has done to bring us to this moment in time where He has given more for a purpose. That’s the only reason we’re experiencing all the truths we do. It’s because it’s God’s purpose.

He could have given all that back to Herbert Armstrong back in 1950 or 1960 or 1970. But that was a growing process as well. There were things experienced that we had to go through as a Church and individually in people’s lives. Laodicea, we had to experience that. We had to go through that to learn from that, and so, God established that.

What an awesome thing, painful though as it is, that God predetermined it for a great purpose. That there would be an era of Laodicea, that it would be an era, knowing full well what mankind would do in an age of great technology, the truth going throughout the world. Then how human beings handle it, to teach one of the greatest lessons of all, that the Church cannot govern well when it becomes larger and larger and larger because we’re carnal human beings and the control of that, we lose it.

Herbert Armstrong did not know all that was going on. We didn’t know as a Church all that was going on, and yet in that last seven years, six years, that period of time, he hit hard various things. We did not know at that time he was addressing the ministry most of all. Because if the ministry would listen, if the ministry would be faithful, the Church would become, would be much, much stronger. But he knew there were problems out there that we didn’t know of. They could come to him eventually when they got so bad in some cases. Sometimes, obviously, way, way, way too late then when they were addressed

But some of those things just were not shared with the Church in the sense of all the things that were happening and taking place for protection. God blessed us with that because there were things that we wouldn’t have been able to grasp and understand. He did. He knew exactly what was going on.

Even in that when you look back and understand that there is this matter of dwelling in booths. Powerful, powerful lessons that were learned to show that we have to have God’s Kingdom. We have to have those who are spirit, those who are set in faithfulness for all time. That’s how they’re able to enter into Elohim, and until someone comes to that point and is able to receive that, that can’t exist. It’s going to break down. We had to experience that to learn that.

It was at the end here, in the sense of the age of mankind and the greatest wealth there is and the greatest power that the truth that had ever gone out in the world, because it went out in radio, became the Radio Church of God, then the Worldwide Church of God as it continued to grow. They realized how much growth was giving in so many nations in the world and the need for ministers and being able to be placed in different areas. Exciting!

Sitting in booths. Dwelling in booths and learning along the way. A lot of that learning happens farther up the road. 20/20 vision is kind of backward sometimes, looking back and then learning from it and seeing, “Ah, now I get it. Now I know what I experienced.” Some can learn it by knowledge, but not to the point of those who actually experienced it. There is a difference.

What was molded in people who went through the Apostasy is different from those who learn about it later on. It’s not the exact same thing because not the exact same thing is being molded and fashioned in the mind. We’re not all to fit in exactly the same place. To understand those things is incredible.

So again, we are to be growing through what we’re experiencing and learning in these experiences that God lets us have as we continue to press forward. So again, hopefully, we can see more clearly how a little history—in some cases a lot of history—but a little history can be so important. Because we lived through things that we don’t grasp. We just don’t see it. We don’t grasp it until God gives it to us and helps us to grasp why we experienced it.

As I mentioned yesterday (I believe), I am still learning about 2008. The more I learn, the more in awe I become of God and what God is doing with us. God knew what was going to happen. All for a purpose so we could learn from it, so we could understand one of the last things that had to be fulfilled in a more massive way, in the sense of ministers and others, who made a choice because of something that was revealed: Christ is returning on a Pentecost and not on Trumpets.

At that moment certain minds slapped shut, could not be worked with from that point forward, because of sin that was already existing in their lives. But this happened in a very big way. Some continued on putting on airs that they’re going to continue on in the Church, but God didn’t let them get by with that because they had made an attitude adjustment in their mind when they heard that and their attitude was so rank, so sick that it could happen at that particular time, their thinking. Again, God didn’t let them get by with that.

So, individuals began to be cut off right then and there. They went along for a time because that was their habit and so forth, and slowly but surely their nature began to come out more and more and more to where it was manifest and either taken care of by the Church or they just made it manifest themselves by their actions in leaving.

It’s a marvel to see how God works, it really is. There is so much to learn by that and how He lets us do various things and how it mixes within the Church. Because we’re to learn from that then. We’re to learn from those experiences, and if we grasp what takes place it sobers us and helps us to understand the seriousness of what God is doing, that we don’t take it lightly.

Because that’s a problem when some people begin to take some things lightly in their lives. That’s easy to do with our carnal human nature, when we begin to let down and take something lightly and don’t understand the seriousness, like I mentioned. If we have to learn something, we didn’t grasp it, we just repent of it. Like Holy Day offerings that I’ve been mentioning and timeliness of various things and our attitude toward God and our attitude toward one another in the Church and so forth. When we see something we just repent, and God receives that when we do it in spirit and truth. It’s a beautiful thing.

So again, hopefully we can see more clearly how a little history can be so very important. In the past, as we’ve been moving forward we have focused on what we are to learn and grow in concerning, again, what we are experiencing as we experience, things we’ve experienced in the past and so forth as well. In this particular case we’ve done this as a part of focusing on markers.

God blessed us with that as well, to go through some of the hardest times. It’s kind of like a goal, a goal post, a marker along the way in a race, whatever it might be that helped us along. We weren’t given everything to see. We weren’t given everything to grasp. But if we have those things to focus upon it helps us to get through some very hard times – truly hard as far as a carnal mind is concerned. There is so much to learn in that, so much to learn. We’re still learning about those things, and if we’re not, we’re not growing.

So, we were given to have markers, which are a strength to the Church, if we can grasp those things. They were divided into very specific segments and became more exciting of what we were seeing and what we were grasping. But it wasn’t the entire picture. But God gave us those things to strengthen us, to encourage us, to help us.

We’re going to look at a little bit of that history as well and be reminded of, again, and see if there are some things that you can see more clearly as well about what we are experiencing and to recognize that this has been a process of sitting in booths. Experience that you can’t become convicted of certain things except by going through this.

This process began as we, speaking of this matter of markers and so forth and what we went through to have that, but this process began as we had first become focused on Trumpets of 2011. Lived it. You lived it, as a whole, different ones of you. You lived what it was like to go through a period of time like that when we had known to that mark, to that point in time at least because of our present truth, that Christ was returning on a Trumpets.

So, why 2011? I hope we all understand that one because it’s important. Because of the message we were receiving of what God had revealed that 2008 was a final witness. It was a beginning, in that respect, of a year that had great importance to God. He wanted us to get that. That was given, then it was given to the Church and we were judged according to how we thought about those things. “Is this from God?” “What is from God?” “Are we still going in a right direction?” “What is taking place?”

Because it forces people to address various things, especially in what followed in all this, an experience of something. These things try and test us as to what is inside, what is in the mind, what is our attitude, what is our thinking toward God. Do we recognize where it comes from? Like so many. Like so many in the ministry by the time we came to the Apostasy, about God’s apostle, “Oh, I learned a lot of good things from him,” as I mentioned here in this series. Even thinking about it, it causes my heart rate to go up a little bit, causes my blood pressure to go up a little bit, because that so infuriates me inside. Because it’s so clear to be able to say, “You didn’t know diddly squat! And what you know, everything you have that has any resemblance to the truth is because of what you learned through him. Do you not grasp God’s government? Do you not grasp how God works with, teaches us, guides and directs us, has from the beginning of time?” That if we can’t learn those basic things of how God works with frail, weak human beings, nevertheless, He works with human beings. It’s our attitude then toward that government that is of God, with imperfect human beings, as to what we do. We’re judged by those things. Can we see faults and weaknesses and mistakes? Absolutely! That’s a part of the process. But it doesn’t take God out of the equation if God’s in it. Those are the things we have to judge and learn from and be judged by.

So again, 2008. I’m still learning from it. I’m still being inspired by it. I’m amazed at how many articles come out and people talk about (concerning an economy), they keep going back to that period of time.

I was thinking this morning about that. I will never forget, in that respect, President Bush and the expression on his face when you could tell he was scared. It was on his face. Sometimes you can’t hide certain expressions. He began to talk what they were going to do, as far as the government was concerned, to abate, to turn aside, to deal with what they saw was happening around the world with the economy and what was happening to the economy here.

Even by what he said and how he said it, he was a man, a leader of a nation who was afraid. Because at that time there they didn’t know if they could turn this around, in the sense of giving us time to deal with various things. But it was God’s purpose and God’s plan that that was exactly what was to take place. Because there were things that were not to happen then. But we had the rumblings of it.

It was like a kind of a repeat, like I mentioned here recently. Some of what people went through between 2008 and 2012 within the Church, the very exact trials, the very exact things are going through now in many cases and how they’re dealing with it. Because now it has to be done differently. It has to be done right before God, and if we don’t do those things, we will not be a part of what God is offering.

He’s given us all this time to grow, to mature, and then to deal with things differently. The choices then are with us. Now, God knows in the entire Body where people are. He knows exactly where individuals are that are being prepared for. He knows the timing of how those things work. It was a part of a purpose that there would be those that we would be able to learn from, who were a part of being called to be a part of the 144,000, well along the way.

That’s what’s even more difficult. Because it wasn’t like this was at the beginning or midstream in a process of growth, it was toward the end and they gave it all up, gave it all up toward the end because of attitude. Well, it all goes back to attitude. Because of harsh judgment, because of selfishness, because of how they still saw themselves as being right.

I think, you know, if we don’t understand things like disfellowshipment to this point in time something is wrong with us, if we don’t understand God and why He does these things. I think of one individual who had been a minister, made the comment when someone was disfellowshipped, and they said, “No one,” speaking of me, in essence, because all they could see was a human being, they didn’t grasp what they were saying. Yeah, they couldn’t grasp it spiritually. But said, “No one is going to tell me who I can fellowship with and who I can’t.” Right there, it’s over with. Right there, it’s over with.

A minister to say something like that in God’s Church? It’s over with. God doesn’t take that kind of “you know what” from anyone. He doesn’t have to. And if by that time of one’s growth and development, just like what happened in Worldwide in Laodicea and different ministers and so forth, if they come to a point in time that they choose to do something different, like 14 and 15, it’s done right then and there. They’re not going to have the opportunity. God’s not going to grant that to them.

I think of king David, who before he died basically said, “Don’t forget what ‘so and so’ did. Do not forget it.” And it wasn’t forgotten. “Take their life,” in essence. That’s what he was telling his own son. “Don’t let this go by the wayside. I let them to this point in time; you’re not to forget what they did. Deal with it. Make sure that you deal with that because it’s just and right. What they did was so wrong, and they can’t be allowed to receive other things through you, from you, that recognition.”

How much more in God’s Kingdom. How much more within the Church? This is our history and we’re to learn from it. These things aren’t by accident. What happened in 2008 was not an accident. What happened in the Apostasy was not an accident. They’re all pre-purposed and planned by God because He is doing the construction of the temple and He knows what we have to have. He knows what we need in the mind to go through in order to be molded into exactly what He’s preparing. We should marvel at that and we should see that, that that’s what God is doing, and to want to yield ourselves to that process. “Holy Father, whatever it takes, do it. Whatever it is, I want to be a part of that. I want to share in that.” God knows whether we want that or not, whether we’re willing to address certain things in our life or not, to put Him first or not. It’s all going to come down to that, isn’t it?

So again, this is our history. Incredible! God allowed us to continue to look toward 2012 for a great purpose. We were to go through that for a great purpose.

We look at those and say, well, if someone says something and it doesn’t come to pass then you’re not to follow them anymore because they’re a false prophet. People don’t understand how God works in His Church, how He’s worked with us from the beginning of time. Amazing. But it all revolved around the choices and decisions that were made, were based upon what God revealed, that it was 2008.

I don’t know how to stress this enough within the Church, but I tried to yesterday. It was like the first time I sat down and heard about the Sabbath and the Holy Days and there is that which is in the mind. You know it. It’s in your mind. The more we’re able to see that process and we recognize it has to be from God that it is there to that magnitude, to know that you can’t figure it out, you can’t know it, but it has to come from God.

It’s like sermons. If it isn’t from God, I don’t want to waste my time. I don’t want to waste yours. It’s no good. So, we look to God to inspire us, to give us what we need. That’s why you see sermons that fit together, like the opening service and different things that fit together, things that led up to the Feast and so forth, that series that I gave about choices, or about a calling. Before that, hadn’t been planned at all (God planned it), I Choose You, and then the series about a calling. Because that’s what we have to do all along the way as a matter of a calling.

Those excite me. They move me, they inspire me as a minister to press forward. We need those things. All of us need things to give us strength and courage. All that comes from God, encouragement.

I’ve always known then, 2008. Didn’t know how it fit together, made choices and decisions, and then with the present truth we had made conclusions that turned out to be wrong. But God let us have those because He knew what I would do with the present truth. I’d be faithful to the present truth. Misunderstand certain things? Absolutely. Because it wasn’t given. Because the conclusions that you would naturally draw from certain things as they happen, well, they’re not always correct. So, we press forward and then God shows us.

So, we learn through what we experienced as we were seeking to follow God. We grew.

I can’t help but think of what happened as a result of heading into and then coming up to that moment. I mean, people were waiting to the last minute, the last day, because it was so much in our minds, “This is it.” We lived it. That was a beautiful thing to God. I hope you understand that. What people did, who did that in their minds and their spirit, that was pleasing to God, very powerfully so.

Then after that we needed help, we needed answers, just like we did when we have come through different times of trial, and God reveals something to us. We grow through that. It’s a beautiful process.

So, in 2006 as the book 2008—God’s Final Witness was being written God began to reveal that the year of 2008 was of major importance and a countdown during this end-time. God had been showing and getting closer and closer to a point of helping us to see we’re almost there and there are certain things taking place that He wants us to grasp and comprehend how He’s been doing it. Certain things began to become clear. A little bit. Not a lot at this point in 2006, but still things were beginning to be revealed that started to put parts of the puzzle together to be a little clearer than what they had been up to that point in time. It was exciting. It was encouraging.

He began to reveal that the year 2008 was of major importance and a countdown during the end-time. It was thorough a long process that we experienced much and grew in far greater truth.

I think of what we went into toward the end of 2012 and I’m awesomely inspired by it, an incredible, basically 4½ years, of what we experienced. That’s what it was about. It was about the experience even though didn’t grasp that’s a part of this sitting in booths things and that’s the learning in what we receive from that and all the things God was giving to us at a time when I was away…and not away.

2008 was to be the focus for a final witness, and it has been powerfully so from God. It’s what any witness is about. A witness is what we go through, what we experience, what God wants us to see. All those who have live through time, whether it be Abel, Noah, Abraham, all the way through time, Moses. There you go, you just keep going through time and different ones that we know about that are written about, and that witness is always there of 6,000 years. But at the end it becomes more important because of where we are, because of what’s getting ready to happen. Everything that everyone has ever looked forward to, a Messiah, he’s almost here. God’s government is almost here.

So again, 2008 was to be the focus for a final witness that God was establishing.

So, it was actually between the period of Passover and Pentecost of 2008 that Laura and I received our first visit from the government. Crazy, what we went through. 2008. So, things were happening in 2008, massively so, and preparing for things we had no idea where things were going to go. That was the beginning of a very twisted, deceitful, and angry attack upon God’s Church, on the leadership, in essence. Things like that have happened in times past. We can relate to that. We understand how people can be.

I think of Deukmejian. I think that was his name out there in California, the Attorney General, and what he started to do and put someone as a judge into receivership of God’s church, or for the Worldwide Church of God. Because he definitely wasn’t over God’s Church. That was intact, always from Herbert Armstrong as God’s apostle. But they tried. We know the result of all those things. Incredible!

It was a hard time to go through. But you know what it did? It brought a lot of things to the surface of people who were betraying. They’d been betraying for a long time, but several evangelists, it all came to the surface. God made it very clear who they were, things that they were doing, and the deceitfulness, the lying. How can you address betrayal except to be sick in the stomach by it?

The exact same thing that Lucifer did they did on a spiritual plane as well and had been doing for some time. All in this mindset of “Who is going to gain control? Who is going to be up here at the top when it’s all said and done? What evangelist or what evangelists together will be able to do this, to be a part of this, to take over that leadership when that old man dies?” Because that’s what they were waiting for. They were just waiting for him to die or to be put away for a time. “Whatever it takes to get this done so we can go on with and make the church what we want it to be, after our image.” Crazy.

The year 2008 was one that has proven to be the time that the volatility, the futility of the established structure and imminent implosion of the world’s economy became manifest. So much was happening in 2008, powerfully so. This was indeed a witness that became established against the world’s system that brought to light the arrogance, the greed, the corruption. There are certain things that bring those things to light sometimes and this event, these events, even in a global economy, began to be brought to the surface about this world’s economic trading practices, the corruption of Babylon.

That’s what it is. It’s a system of Babylon, absolute chaos and confusion because so often those things are a matter of greed and a seeking to have control. Hence things like the Petro-dollar to be in control.

There are nations that want to see this nation end and come to an end because they are sick and tired of the manipulation of being controlled by a world banking system and all the pressure that some try to put on others through this Babylonish system. People are tired of being told what to do. They really are. Incredible. Corruption of Babylon.

Let’s look a little at what was written about this system and its imminent end. All a matter of God’s timing and purpose. Revelation 18.

We have to, we are to grasp what we go through, why God allows us to go through various things. It’s as simple and basic as why God allowed the Apostasy. He could have kept it from happening. He could have kept Sardis from happening. But it wasn’t His purpose. We learn through these things. We grow in these things. The witness of Sardis is exceedingly important. It will be throughout the Millennium and the Great White Throne.

What happened next as God began to raise up the Church, restore truth to the Church is a powerful teaching tool for the future. So is Laodicea. So is the remnant.

Revelation 18:1—After these things I saw another messenger coming down from heaven, having great authority. Well, those who are sent by God have great authority. Those who are sent from heaven, the angelic realm, when they have a message that they’re to convey, carry great authority. It’s from God. It’s from God. It’s not their message, it’s God’s message. God has chosen that means to do certain things, that the angelic realm, in this case, can be a part of, can share in the excitement of what God is doing and how He’s working with His people to prepare Elohim. And so, they’re excited by that.

Then those who receive the message, those with whom God is working, that becomes exciting to them and they experience something unique and different to themselves in their spirit and their attitude and willingness to change and grow and repent.

…having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. Well, it’s really not about “his glory,” that the earth was illuminated with. That’s not what it’s saying. It’s about the message! “The earth was illuminated with it’s message.” That’s what is being shown here. One that’s prophetic. It has great meaning in it because it comes from God and it’s going to come to pass, and it’s about how God is going to bring things to an end that have been going on from the very beginning, that Lucifer started.

He is the author of Babylon. He is the author of chaos and confusion. He is the author of trafficking by his blabbing mouth, and causing division and chaos, saying things to divide people, to turn them away from God, whatever it takes, that he became a master of it. That’s why he is able, has been able to do what he’s done through the centuries with mankind. It’s all been a Babylonish system, and it’s sick, perverted, distorted.

Then he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen. Oh, it’s going to illuminate the earth. That’s what this is about, the message. It’s a powerful message. This process is going to take place. And so, “the earth was illuminated with it’s glory.” What does that mean? Well, what a beautiful thing when finally it comes to pass and God has destroyed the system of Babylon and it begins to establish that which is so powerful and mighty and beautiful, the glory of it all, the glory of destroying that which is destroying the earth, to destroy that which Satan has built and constructed that mankind has yielded to.

When this is done, when it says this, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, what an awesome thing! ...and has become the dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit. There are things here, written here, that just have not been understood by people. It’s like, “Well, what is this, this thing of these foul spirits? Well, ‘the cage of every unclean?’ What?” It’s seen physically. “What is ‘this cage of every unclean and hateful bird’? What is a hateful bird?” The word “bird,” it’s just it means a flying creature. Every hateful flying creature. Well, what are those? It’s describing what it says, demons. Where they are, what they’ve been going through, through time, the prison of foul spirits, the cage of every unclean and hateful flying creature. So, that’s what it’s describing here. It’s all about the same thing.

It’s about demons. It’s giving a description of what they’re like, what their character, what their minds are like, the ugliness of it all, that which comes out of them, hateful. They hate God’s plan. They hate God’s purpose. They hate God’s creation of mankind. They hate it! Everything they do is geared toward their hate for those things so deeply in them. So yes, they’re foul spirits. They can’t think right. They want to destroy everything that God has placed before them.

It’s similar to Revelation 20:10. I marvel at this one here that’s been so long misunderstood, and still misunderstood by a scattered Body, that God has blessed us to grasp and understand. Just as He has this one here, these things haven’t always been known. We read through things sometimes because they’ve been written, and after a while (which is good), we see the truth. We read it and we see it for what we’re able to translate it up here, for what it’s really saying.

But we haven’t had it that long because we haven’t always done that in God’s Church. We forget those things. And yet we’re not to forget what we experience so that we can read things like that and see the truth. What an awesome blessing, the experiences we have that strengthen us, that give us greater understanding.

I’m just going to read this to you, and I’ll go back to Revelation 18. But this is Revelation 20:10—and the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, and then the rest that follows. Basically, it was stated where it says here, where the beast and the false prophet… I don’t remember how it says it exactly in the King James here. I should turn over there. Let me turn over there and read it exactly like it says it. I have the New King James. Even the old King James is a little bit different here in some of this and what it’s stating and how it’s stating it. I wish I had that in front of me.

Again here, in Revelation 20:10 it says here, the devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are. And so, “are” is not really in the Greek language there so they basically had said, we had said in times past that what this is saying, “Where the beast and false prophet were earlier cast,” is basically how it was interpreted by us. Because that’s all we understood with the present truth.

This beast and false prophet were seen as being different. Well, who is the beast? Who is that false prophet? Well, basically it was felt that it was a leader of a great church who was going to gain great power toward the end, who would deceive so many in the world. And you think, just like through time and as time went on, it didn’t fit. So, how is he going to deceive anybody in God’s Church? It takes someone in God’s Church to basically deceive someone in God’s Church, like we saw with the Apostasy.

Again, some of these ideas about who might be that great leader at the end. That’s why there was so much focus upon certain leaders coming out of Germany. Herr Strauss. How many of you remember him? Okay? Because things were written about him in The Plain Truth and so forth, and I think in Tomorrow’s World or one of those. Anyway, whatever its title. But some of those things because there was this thing as far as prophecy was concerned, who was going to fulfill the role of the beast? Because it’s going to be the person who leads all this at the end. No, God has shown us that’s not the case.

But we can’t know certain things until we go through certain experiences and God shows us what is true. We have grown to a point of realizing it can’t be that leader of that great false church who could be called the false prophet. Is he going to be thrown into some kind of a fire when Christ returns? Well, we don’t know, but it’s not about him. It’s not about this power that he has supposedly. It’s not going to be that one leader over there, that these two are the two big bad people in the world who brought this to a head. No, it’s not, not at all.

God blessed us to come to understand what this is about. Just like the other one was about the demons. …and the devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where, meaning the place of, and that’s all it’s saying here, the place of this beast and this false prophet. That’s what he is. He is the beast. He is the false prophet. He is the one that must have an end brought to his life for all that he’s done through time within the angelic realm and with mankind for the past 6,100 years when this comes to pass.

Awesome to come to maturity where God blesses us to see such things and to be able to see it when we read it then, though it be written wrong and in New King James, or whatever it might be. We’re able to translate. We’re able to see it. We know what it’s saying.

…and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. Even that we haven’t understood very long. Because once he’s cast in there there’s no torment. It’s over. What kind of a torment can a spirit being have? What’s this lake of fire, and he’s going to have to experience this for all eternity, for all time? God isn’t like that.

It’s like human beings thinking that this God would have human beings go to this place upon death, if they don’t live right, where it’s hot, it’s kind of like this place of flowing lava? You know, it gets pretty hot and once in a while you’re going to step in that and it’s going to burn or someone is going to come up and jab you in the rear with this hot pitchfork thing. These kinds of ideas, how hot this place is. You haven’t experienced anything back there. No fans? No air conditioning. It’s going to be hot! You think it’s just goofy and strange, isn’t it? But we don’t know what we don’t know until God reveals it to us.

So again, what an awesome thing that we can read such things and understand what it’s talking about and we learn, we grow through what we experience and God reveals a little bit more and a little bit more and we experience something. Just like in this process here, to come to understand exactly what this is saying, what a beautiful thing, it really is.

This being tormented then? God blessed us to come to understand. Even their believing what’s going to happen, there is something unique about the human mind about the present. The future it’s just not here, it’s not real yet, and things can change. Whatever it might be that’s in the human mind or even in a demonic mind. But the point being is God has shown to us what this means.

Anyone, anyone, anyone, anyone who has sin in their life is tormented. They live in torment. They don’t grasp that they’re living in torment. Anyone who has drama in their life is living in torment. Because that’s not of God. Until we have peace. That’s why we want peace. We want to have the peace of God. We want to have an environment of peace. We want to have fellowship, which will come in God’s Kingdom, but we start learning it here, that is one of peace, one of God’s love living and dwelling within everyone. We are to experience these things and desire these things.

The point being of all this is that this being has had torment in his life because he’s not happy. He hasn’t been happy since the day he rebelled against God. That’s hard for people to grasp and understand.

The day you sin, the day you say, “No one is going to tell me that I can’t fellowship with someone else,” and reject what God says about disfellowshipment, they’re going to pay a price for it.

So again here, what an incredible thing. We pay a price. What is that price? An unhappiness of mind, an unsound mind, a mind that has chaos and things don’t fit together properly and this stuff that works in our thinking in our minds that just isn’t good. It’s hard for us to grasp that kind of unhappiness. We’re just not happy. Happiness, rejoicing comes from God by living His way of life. The more we’re able to do that in unity and oneness of spirit the happier we are, the more we’re able to rejoice before God for what He is giving us, for His truth, for His way. It’s a beautiful thing.

But that being, Lucifer, the moment he started going in a different direction had torment in his life. Now, did he grasp that? Did he know that? Did he acknowledge that? Did he admit that? Absolutely not. Because people who have that don’t know that. They don’t know that they’re in torment. They don’t know what it’s like anymore to have full peace in their life or to have access to greater peace in their life, like within the Church if we have those things happen.

It’s something that we have to experience to go through. It’s another one of those experiences. How we handle it, what choices we make along the way.

So, what a beautiful thing that God has brought us to better understand then what it means, “tormented day and night forever and ever.” We understand what forever and ever here means. Until there’s no more “ever.” We’ve understood that for a long, long time.

When individuals come to an end at the end of that hundred years, the smoke, it goes up, it says, forever and ever, until, we understand, it’s all burned up. It’s gone. So, it will go as long as that exists, and when it doesn’t exist, it’s gone, it’s over.

That’s what it’s talking about here. It will happen until that end comes. So, it’s talking about that period of time. How blessed are we to grasp, to know, and see those things? It’s so clear. The world reads these things, or we’ve read them in times past perhaps in a way we just didn’t grasp and understand.

So again, the present truth, the grasping of experiences to get us from here to here, to realize that certain things don’t fit. We’ve had to go through a lot to grasp this. There are people out here that still think that there is an individual, a religious leader, that fits this false prophet. They don’t have anything else. Just as much as there are those who still think they’re going to a place of safety over in Jordan. They still have that because they haven’t had that experience of the growth and having to address things.

Just like the 144,000 and a great multitude, to know that, no, that is the great multitude that only God can count because He has constructed it through time and we haven’t lived there. Our little span of time is not so great.

Anyway, what a beautiful thing, God’s way of life, God’s truth, the experiences He lets us have so we can build upon those things and become stronger and stronger and His word becomes more and more exciting. More of the mystery is removed, because it’s a mystery until God reveals it. We don’t see it; it’s a mystery until God reveals it. God is removing those things more and more and more. That’s His purpose at the end leading up to Christ’s return.

So, going back here to Revelation 18:2 about this Babylon has fallen, has fallen, and become the dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, a cage for unclean and hateful flying creatures. They’re all the same thing. Just an expression of what they are.

Verse 3—For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath (the rage) of her fornication. Oh, have they, and especially of those who have greater control of that, of that Babylon, especially when you look at an economic type of thing. They all drink of it. So much so that what can they do? How do they address this? Petro-dollar: how do they address that? Well, now some are trying to address that. But they all drank of it, of the same thing.

The banking system. They’re all pretty much tied into it and those who try to go outside of that, that control, it’s control, and those who try to go outside of that – because otherwise they can have sanctions put on them and they can’t have the same ability to maneuver within that same banking system so they have to find some other system to barter – that’s what it’s talking about. They’re locked into it. They drank of it until they started breaking away finally, now, at this time, at the end. But they’re still tied into it, they really are.

I don’t want to use that expression, but “so” if you do and “so” if you don’t type of thing, the “d.” Anyway, that’s kind of how people are. What do you do, you’re a part of it? You’re a part of Babylon whether you like it or not, and because of time, they become, the world has become more a part of Babylon.

Thank God it’s going to be destroyed. It’s sick! It’s perverted! It’s selfish! It’s greedy! It’s everything that is of that one being. It’s not anything of God at all. It’s going to be a beautiful thing when things are cleaned up. Babylon is fallen, then the glory of God can begin to come through His Kingdom, His system, His way of doing things. Man can begin to learn and be freed from that kind of evil. Because it’s evil. It really is.

…the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. Because that’s what it’s about. And why? Because people are greedy. They want a piece of that pie. So, that’s how they got into it. They wanted a piece of the pie. “There is something in this for us.” Yes. There is something. That’s why they did it. That’s why they wanted to be a part of it. “Because look, that’s the greatest wealth in the world, and if we can have a piece of that pie, wow.” Then after a while they came to know that they were locked into it and you can’t get out.

So, I love the way this is expressed here, “the nations have drunk with the wine of her fornication.” You got what you wanted and what do you have now? It’s like, not real happy with it, but this is what we’ve got to do. What else can you do?

…the kings, meaning the rulers and the leaders, of the earth have committed fornication with her. Oh, yes, they have. Spiritual in nature. They don’t know that. But it’s so far away from the way of God and it goes farther and farther toward the way of that one being.

…and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury. Corporations, trading… Until now. Now it’s a little topsy-turvey, especially with COVID. It’s forced nations to turn inward. That was kind of starting already by certain things that were being said from this country, where nations were becoming to turn more and more inward. But all a part of something that has to come to pass, prophetically so, where they have to step up and decide their own course away from, separated from, to the point of even attacking the other.

That’s what it’s going to come down to. God knows how to orchestrate it all so He allows a demonic world and Satan to do various things to bring about a fulfillment of prophetic events and to help humble the world in a way, the only way where God can begin to work with it through His Kingdom. There is absolutely no other way but the perfect way that God Almighty is doing it. We should know that with all of our being.

If we think there is some other way to do this better, we are sick in our minds and do not grasp the glory and the power and the purpose and the workings of Almighty God. Truly. It’s a most perfect way to deal with mankind, to establish then God’s Kingdom on earth, to have the greatest potential for the greatest ability of growth and production in the millennial period.

We know that has its flaws because of human beings, even with that. But what a beautiful thing for the earth. No more wars. No more glorifying of flags that are waving against each other. No more of treating it like this is holy, this is sacred. No more glorifying and advertising with toys and so forth, war and that it’s a great thing then to go to war, to go and protect your rights, your country, whatever it might be wherever that country is. Whether it be China or Germany or Great Britain or the United States, or wherever it is and this concept then of military.

That isn’t God and it isn’t from God. But He’s allowed man to have certain things and do certain things because that’s the way of man and that’s the only way that man can deal with man. Those things have been allowed to be established for a purpose. God has allowed some of those things and worked through some of those things within a very bad system. Because it’s Babylon. It’s Egypt. It’s Assyria. All things that reflect that which is bad and wrong.

But it’s God’s purpose we experience those things, experience those things so He can bring us to His family. I hope we see the process more and more clearly as we go along.

…and the earth has committed fornication with her. And the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury. The Greek word means “insolent luxury; sensuality.” It’s against God. It’s against God’s way. It’s the way of man, that kind of lust, that kind of greed. Thank God we see it and want to escape it all.

Then, notice verse 7 as stating prophetically what is yet to happen to her: In the measure that she glorified herself, and lived luxuriously, in her insolent luxury, in the same manner give her. It’s prophetic. So prophetic, and so important of what God gave us to understand it actually began in 2008. It’s when it began, this process here of what we’re talking about. Because there are certain things that are set that were there and God is bringing it to a point, giving certain amount of time to the world yet. It’s a final witness that started through this process and yet it’s going to be the same result except far worse now. Far, far worse for the world.

Because the farther man goes along and the more mankind defies God and will not address what’s in front of them, the more God allows them to experience their desire, their hope. People want certain things. Sometimes the strongest teacher is to let them have it. Let them experience it. So, that can be worked with later on in the Great White Throne or whatever, or in the millennial period, the beginning of it, or whenever.

But God allows us so often to have what it is we really want. Everyone who has ever chosen to leave the Church, God has let them have what they want. He doesn’t stop them. He tries to encourage. He tries to admonish. He works at those things. All as a witness and a testimony and so forth that becomes established. But the reality is if someone wants a certain thing… And you know what, once they have it, it isn’t so fun, it isn’t so good. Sometimes far greater hurt, pain, and suffering comes as a result of it, far greater perversion of mind becomes a part of the process. This matter of being tormented, whether they grasp it or not, is far, far greater than before, far, far greater than what was happening before.

…in the same measure give her torment and sorrow. They don’t grasp it. People don’t grasp the things that they’re even sorrowful about in life and regret in life. It means by what they’re hurt by. They don’t realize, you did that by your own choices! Your sorrow and your hurt and your suffering is a result of those stupid choices when you should have known better. You are responsible for your choices. No one else is, you are. Now you’re suffering through it. What do you want? Free ticket? To pass it all up, let it go disappear? It doesn’t work that way. Life doesn’t work that way. We are to experience those kinds of things to grow from.

…in the same measure give her torment and sorrow, for she says in her heart, I sit as a queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow. What an incredible thing, human beings. It’s like, we’re not going to have to suffer. We’re going to turn this around.

It’s like 2008, “We’re going to turn this around. We are going to turn this around! That isn’t going to stop us. We are bigger than that. We can conquer this!” “We can take care of this COVID! We can conquer this!” We don’t even grasp yet.

If people really grasped what is coming up the road here because of what’s taking place in corporations and businesses and the rippling effect that has not been addressed in any fashion or form yet in people’s lives? It’s just kind of a wait. But it’s coming. It’s like a giant tsunami. Can’t see it yet. It’s like because we can’t see that yet fully that we’re going to get this turned around. Because we are so great, we can do this. We can conquer certain things. No, we can’t. Where is God?

God’s going to let us experience it, the world experience it, this country experience it. Awesome! Awesome prophecies. Awesome what it’s saying here. Sobering, what’s being said. An attitude. It’s an attitude of haughtiness and pride. It just gets into a stronger spirit of pride and haughtiness against God. “We can do this.” “Nothing can keep us down.” “This isn’t going to hurt us and destroy us. We may have to suffer for a little while.” “We’re all in this together. We can do it!” You think, we’re really in this together aren’t we? Look at them fight and scrape and scream and holler and become more divisive. Look at the attitudes and the spirit out there.

But the bills are coming. Somebody is going to pay. Everybody! Babylon, Babylon has fallen. Starts right where Babylon in this modern age began, in the greatest nation the world has ever known. All a part of God’s purpose. It’s the beginning of the fall of Babylon.

What will the fall of the petro-dollar mean when this doesn’t exist anymore as a bona fide nation, as a nation that’s able to respond, as a nation that’s able to deal with various things? Well, the world is going to have to develop something else, huh? That’s what they think. It’s a reset. It’s the greatest reset in history. They can’t reset a thing though because one thing leads to another. One destruction leads to another’s destruction. It just gets greater and greater until God steps in and says, “No more!” and He begins to destroy those who are destroying the earth and may destroy more than what that Sixth Trumpet event will.

We should know how much that Sixth Trumpet event destroys because God makes it clear that event in itself states they will destroy a third of the earth. To think that something could happen later because of the haughtiness and the pride of mankind, that mankind would still resist God, resist what is taking place? Because they don’t grasp nor acknowledge what’s really happening. But God will destroy it and stop it. Awesome to understand.

So, in returning to the flow of this sermon and our history, as a result of the importance being placed on 2008, Trumpets of 2011 became our focus for the conclusion of the end of the age. Again, we understand why, or we should. Because that was the present truth, that Christ would return on that Trumpets. So, with that being the year then certain numbers would only work as they fell in 2011 in Trumpets, that being a 3½ year period from 2008. We understand that those things will fit into a specific area in time.

Let’s now zero in even more on this history that regards the prophetic end-time period that we have experienced and how God has led us. Because, again, this is a part of what God wants us to grasp. Our journey and our recent history and what’s in front of us. Because it’s about this experience.

You are going to have, you do have the opportunity of having so much more, receiving so much. Because this matter of the Seventh Thunder, I cannot, we cannot keep up with it on the website, nor can we try. We do to a certain point.

There is that which we have the opportunity to grow in more and more and more because what we’re preparing to go through, the greatest times of 6,000 years of human history, the height of it all, and it won’t be just a physical matter and event or events that are taking place. There are going to be spiritual things happening in our lives that are going to work to mold and fashion us in ways that we don’t even grasp yet. We really can’t. I’m not going to go into those. It’s enough to grasp and understand that there is this matter of looking to God in a way that we never have in our lives.

You will look to God, you will be moved and motivated because of what you’re experiencing, if you desire that, if you’ve chosen this way fully and convicted of it fully in your heart and mind, that there will be that desire in looking to Him in ways we have never experienced before. It has a spiritual implication to it, a spiritual part of that that’s very powerful and will have a great power, in that respect, of molding and fashioning in us some of the finishing touches of whatever we have to have to go on into a new age as far as the 144,000 and that part, or the part of going on into a new age as a part of God’s Church.

So again, 2011 became our focus, Trumpets did. So, it’s good to experience, zero in even more on this in what it’s talking about here.

Some of the things we’re living right now, I marvel at. I had written here in my notes to zero in on even more on this history that regards the prophetic end-time periods that we have experienced and how God has led us because all these experiences of these periods of time have tremendous power to them in the sense of our lives. But God is making it clear at this Feast of Tabernacles that this is what we’re to do. We’re to focus on this more than ever before, the experiences we’re having, and learn from that process of what God is doing. Because it’s about sitting in booths and experiencing this ever more so moving forward.

We are actually living this process of sitting in booths in a way that we never have in God’s Church. This is a part of a vision that God desires us to have, and so, it’s up to us to grab a hold of this and to focus on this more so in our lives because of what’s getting ready to take place. Because there is great spiritual purpose in all this.

So, we are actually living that process right now in a way that we never have in God’s Church because we’re at a time of a matter of a crescendo as far as God’s plan is concerned. The end of 6,000 years, the end of eras of the Church. Even the remnant era of God’s Church, it comes to a screeching halt or end, if you will, of things having been fulfilled.

I love this definition of “crescendo” here, to understand what it’s all about. Because this is what it is spiritually for the Church, it is for the world, and what takes place. But anyway, one of the definitions: “the loudest point reached in a gradually increasing sound.” I think of Thunders. Awesome!

We’re talking about things that just increase faster and faster, happen with greater rapidity as we go forward through all this that we have been told a long time ago, this is exactly what we’re going to experience and how we’re going to experience it. Whether we can see it or grasp it all, it’s there. It’s been taking place and it’s going to get louder and louder and louder, in that respect, even in that area, let alone what takes place with the Trumpets and those things continuing together until this is complete.

“The loudest point reached in a gradually increasing sound.” We understand that this is not a pleasant thing on a physical plane in the world. It’s horrifying. But that will affect us. Because we haven’t experienced much yet.

We’ve had to put on some masks. We’ve had to go through certain things. We’ve had the inconvenience of some of these things, of going to the grocery store and not finding any of the white stuff, the rolls of toilet paper, and people then aren’t joking about some of those things. They’ve even had a run on that again over in Great Britain. I think in Australia, I think, they mentioned that too. Some of these things when they have this shutdown come in again, it’s almost like it’s more important than food. Amazing, human beings.

But it’s incredible what we’re experiencing and what we’re going through. So, we haven’t experienced a lot but we’re going to. It’s not going to be easy through this. We experience a part of this, not the disease, as we use wisdom and so forth, knowing all along through all of this we do our part, but we understand that it’s God who gives us that protection. It is God who will help us. But if we’re foolish and we ask for something, may be that God will let us do that too. So, that will be a pattern of things on into the future.

But this becomes far more intense as we go along because we’re not at the crescendo yet, but it’s building up now. It’s starting to build up more. It really is. We’re going to begin witnessing things.

I couldn’t help but think of that other hurricane coming in right now. I don’t know if you remember this, but I thought about years back here, thinking it’s like every one that’s coming up, it’s like it’s being pushed away. Every one! It’s like, if we’re there, why is that happening? You learn from that experience. You learn, well, it’s because this isn’t the time yet. God’s making that abundantly clear, this really isn’t it yet. But it’s going to take place and these things are going to become greater and greater as we go along.

I think of all these fires. Every year here they’re becoming more massive, the greatest on record and so forth, over and over again. Whether it be here, Australia, Europe, different places, of things going on, craziness in weather in different parts of the world. These things are going to get a whole lot worse. But that’s just a small thing compared to what’s getting ready to take place. Because we’re talking about these building up more and more because it is a matter of a crescendo when it’s all said and done.

We’re experiencing those along the way. We’re not going to be immune from those. It’s not going to be exactly like what took place with the Israelites and being brought out of Egypt. They experienced some of the beginning of those things and didn’t have to experience any of the latter part of those.

On a particular kind of plane as far as protection is concerned, yes, that will be the case with us as we truly are at one with God, seeking to be at one with God. But we’re going to experience it, nevertheless. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to be pain and suffering in a magnitude you’ve never experienced.

How can you describe something you’ve never experienced? You can read about certain things and recognize a suffering of human beings and watching those things and seeing those things, but even to this level there’s never been anything like what’s getting ready to take place. That in itself is a horrifying thought. But it’s a part, still, of molding and fashioning you with experiences that no one else in the world has ever experienced, that God can use those things when it comes to the Church to mold and fashion things within us that are awesome. It will for a good reason.

For the world, it’s for a good reason, to bring to humility, but for us it has a spiritual factor in it. And so, what we’ve been experiencing all these years, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2012 and 13 and on it goes, and all these things that have been taking place, they’re molding things in us that could be molded in no other way.

God knows what He’s doing and we have to continue to follow in faith and thankfulness and gratitude as we are able to begin even more so to see these things at work in our lives and recognize the value and the importance in it. God is doing it. Awesome and it’s beautiful, it truly is.

Again here, “the loudest point reached in a gradually increasing sound; a highest point reached in a progressive increase of intensity.” Awesome! Explains it perfectly, what it is. We’re going to experience it. We’re going to see it. Not experience it in the same way that the world is, and we can’t understand that fully yet. Because why? It’s experienced. It only comes through the experience that then we see, and God will help us to see things and grow in things even more so than we have to this point in time.

Now, that to me is exciting, in one respect, but apprehensive too because it’s not a pleasant thing. Just like apprehensive, I think when I was dropped off in a little place over in Indiana, and three back here in the back. I have to be careful don’t get choked up. One of the most horrifying experiences of my life. Just a fact of knowing how it was affecting them, their response, and yet it’s produced things in me that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world. Awesome, what we go through sometimes that are exceedingly hard.

But then, I’m quickly reminded of it’s still pretty easy compared to what a whole bunch of others have gone through, through time. Because I’ll tell you what, there has been some incredible suffering out there in the world. I often think of Paul. He experienced so much suffering. He really did. I don’t know what he looked like when he finally was there in Rome, but the scarring, the face, everything else. He had to be carrying things on him that could be seen very clearly. Not a pleasant thing because of all that he had to experience and all he went through. I mean, if you’re hit by rocks over and over again to the point that they think you’re dead and they drag you out, you’ve gone through a lot, okay. That was just one of many things.

So, we can think about things, we think maybe we’re going through a difficult time at certain times, but then you’re reminded. It’s like transportation. Don’t ever complain that you can go to a nice area where you can grab a bite to eat most often and you can sit in nice, comfortable chairs, and then you can get on this thing that flies into the air and takes you so far away to another spot. The ease and the comfort that is so incredible.

If ever a complaint comes up, you know what I think of? I think of a sweaty donkey. My wife and I talk about some of that. A sweaty donkey. Because that wasn’t easy for them, walking as they did through various areas, riding on something like that. With my hip problems and different back problems, and you think of what they experienced? Think, wow, I’ve got it so good.

So, if we ever get impatient or whatever at an airport or you know your flight gets delayed and you’re going to have to wait three hours? Now, we’ve had some where you’ve had to wait eight hours and things, and it’s like, aargh. Because we live now, we don’t live back then, but it’s good to be reminded of what it was like back then and realize they would still laugh at us and say, “Well, that was really hard to have to wait at that airport for eight hours. You’ve got a restaurant over here that was fixing all your food for you. Boo hoo!” It’s amazing what we’re like as human beings.

This focus on markers all began by zeroing in on Trumpets of 2011 back in 2007, and that was the present truth. God made it so clear that it’s 2008 that’s important. The book’s title. The book title and everything else. But then we had to deal with where we were, what we knew to that point in time. And candidly, a lot of these things we’re still dealing with because of our past, of what we knew and what was taught about different things that were going to happen, especially prophetically at the end-time and still dealing with some of those and those getting tweaked in our lives.

So, it’s been along process but it’s been exciting because of how God molds and fashions us. We can’t learn it any other way. That’s what is so beautiful about it.

So, for a long time we’d believed, again, Trumpets. We know all that. I’m just going to read this one here, Revelation. You don’t have to turn there but Revelation 10:7—But in the days of the voice, or the sounding of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as He has declared to His servants the prophets. We took that in a particular way. We took it as seeing something, believe that Trumpets was, again that particular Holy Day, because of the Trumpets and because of what the Seventh Trumpet is all about. So, it just seemed to fall into place. But God revealed to us later on it may seem like it, but it’s not where it’s supposed to be. We learn from that.

I just want to share you with this quickly, too. I may have it in my notes, and if I come to it, I’ll just jump on past it. But this thing about the Trumpets. That was a kind of a hard thing to go through and to learn that. But we had to experience it in order to learn it. God used that process anyway, so we’d become convicted of it, but this concept of when a trumpet sounds that’s when it happens. Because that’s what was taught – basically, when this Trumpet sounds this will happen. When this Trumpet sounds this will happen. But it’s not like that. The sounding of the Trumpets, important, awesomely important in a matter of timing and what God is doing, but the event that follows, our time is not God’s time and so our physical carnal concept is right now. That’s what we thought because we didn’t know.

Even then I was struggling with some of that when it came to a point in time of realizing, because it was like, well, the First Trumpet has blown because this is the period of time and God has made it clear this is what these dates are. But little bit later on, because of what we were experiencing, God was revealing and showing no, they were all blown at the same time, the same period of time, one, two, three…

They were done as far as God’s purpose because it was a matter of the message. That’s the Trumpet. When God said this is what’s taking place and this is what’s happening that’s what was taking place and happening on a spiritual plane of what God was saying was going to happen physically in this world.

That’s why even to me, it’s a marvel to come to finally to a point realizing when the event of the Seventh Trumpet takes place, now we realize it’s not just a short, little event that happens right then and there, it’s one that lasts for 1,100 years. How awesome is that? We couldn’t have known that or learned that or been able to believe or be convicted of that if we hadn’t have gone through everything else that led up to that. I hope you see that. I hope you understand that, that this process of going from one to another of how God works with us and convicts us of something is a little here and then it becomes cemented, and in time He can give us more, give it faster and faster.

That’s what’s taking place. We are experiencing some of the fastest growth. We started doing that especially around 2013. Things accelerated; God began to give us things in a faster pace than ever before in the Church! That’s why I’m excited by it, I marvel at it because I think of between last year’s Feast and this Feast, everything that’s come along where things have had to be addressed along the way where God is showing its continual tweaking. A certain piece of the puzzle is not yet fully there yet or we find another one here, well, this is where this fits. That was so clear, but we couldn’t see it until it was God’s time.

I hope that makes sense to you. It’s going faster and faster. We live in an incredible time where God is just pouring out more and more and more and you can’t keep up. I can’t keep up with what I write and preach. To me, that’s inspiring. It’s difficult. Thank God for His spirit that He gives to us to help us that it’s there. Here’s the picture. I have to go back every once in a while, “Yep, that’s the picture.” Awesome! Because I love that example that Mr. Armstrong gave about the pieces of the puzzle and it’s just becoming clearer and clearer; there it is right in front of us.

Again here, I’m going to roll through part of this. I’m not going to go through everything but just as much as I’m watching this, and I’m going to share this because I don’t know yet, because God hasn’t made it a hundred percent clear. And, candidly, I’m a little more cautious right now. Be careful here, but anyway, if I have to, I’m going to. I’ll say whatever God gives me to do and say.

But I think of this process of learning about – I love it – the 1335 days, of how we learned that, of how that became manifest. It’s not about the number 1335 at all! It’s not about the number at all! To me, that’s exciting to realize it’s about what that number represents in Daniel. It’s about the 144,000. It’s about the sealing of the 144,000. We take something as being a literal number and try to figure out where does this fit. And yet, in that respect, it does end up fitting. We have seen things that fit into that particular pattern and we have learned from that. But that’s not the primary focus. The primary focus is what God fulfills within the meaning of all that, a final sealing that takes place.

So, we are living through a particular time now where we have quit setting our eyes on specific markers. God is letting us know indeed, just as this sermon is, a new phase for this end-time. We have entered into a period of time that is unique in one regard. We don’t know all that’s there yet, but we’re being told to hang on because there are things coming that are going to happen faster and faster, louder and louder and it’s going to be new to us. It’s not about having a specific period, though it very likely is because God works that way.

That’s why I think of that period that is very much in my mind right now. Well, let’s just say the last period of Laodicea. Because we know that Laodicea ended on Pentecost of 1998. It was over. We had 3½ years protection from a demonic being, from the power that he had to attack us as His people. He brought us through that. He brought us, a remnant, through that, that was able to continue on. We have learned much then through that particular process. A new stage, in that sense. It’s part of an overall count, in one regard, you can see it. It’s exactly 3½ years. But whether it fits into what has been written in the book right now about seven complete periods of time, I don’t know.

I’m just throwing it out because we’re watching, we’re still to be alert. But we have to realize that because we don’t know exactly when that event of the First Trumpet takes place. We don’t know how long it’s going to be from that event to Christ’s coming. There are still things we can watch and observe and wonder.

Because that’s what we should do as God’s people, to be alert to what may be taking place, to be prepared for those things. My desire and I’m sure your desire would be, that once the first one takes place, the first event takes place, that it doesn’t take long before the seventh. Because this is not going to be easy. It’s going to be hard on all of us. It’s going to be hard, hard, hard on the world. But if it must be done, so be it. If it must be for a longer period of time, if it must be for a year and a half, two years, whatever it might be instead of maybe sixty days or ninety days or whatever we might desire in our heart and being, well, God will show us. But we’re to watch and to understand that some of this can begin happening very soon. We don’t know exactly when.

The next thing that takes place, don’t know what it is that’s coming. We didn’t know COVID was coming. We didn’t know what was going to happen. I mean, I hope we understand that this fits in in a powerful way with what is to happen at the end. It is an incredible Thunder. It is one of the greatest ones we’ve had thus far in a single event like this, but it just continues on. What’s behind it? Because there have been a lot of Thunders within this as well, happening at the same time in the last several months. Powerful, powerful, powerful, getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

That first event isn’t far behind it. You have to be on guard. You have to be alert. Your desire should be, what my desire is, that God is making it very clear, “I want to work on self more and more and more. Anything that’s out there that interferes in that relationship, I want it gone. I want to be at one with God as much as can be in a physical human life, to have that heart and mind that David is noted for. A man after God’s own heart. A desire of being very close to our elder brother in a close relationship. A desire to see his coming that fills my life above and beyond any other desires in this sick, polluted, carnal world.”

There is nothing here worth saving or trading. You know, I used to think of that bowl of porridge, and you think, it’s like, “You’ve got to be crazy! You gave up a birthright for something to eat?” That’s just how stupid we can be sometimes because we want something so much. Then God lets us have it. To throw away what we’ve gone through? Yet people have done it. Every year people do it! It just blows the mind.

It’s because they can’t see. There is no vision of what’s taking place and what God is doing and why we’re experiencing certain things. Because they want a different experience. We want something in the world. We want someone in the world! Or if we don’t want them, we want to look at someone in the world! How sick is that? To give up what God is offering us? Or to do other things, engage in other things in our thinking, in our mind, in our actions that are not godly at all? God knows!

To have more peace in our live, to be more at one with God? That’s what’s in front of you more than ever before. We’re there. These things are happening. The Thunders are going to get louder and louder and you’re going to suffer more and more around you. Inconveniences, yes, and other things. But God will take care of and protect His people. But it’s going to hurt in the mind. It’s not going to be easy. It’s not going to be pleasant. It’s going to tax you in ways in your relationship and your thinking. You have the opportunity to grow in faith in a way that no one ever has in the same manner.

We’re unique in time. We are blessed in time. I mean, I can’t express what it’s like to know I live in this time. Of all human life, this is the most exciting, most dramatic, most incredible time of experiences in a relationship with God that anyone has ever been offered. That, that should stir us. That should excite us. Hang on to it. Grab hold of it.

So, we are at a point in time now that could, I don’t know, fit right into the same thing of a repetition of something between 2008 and 2012 that started in 2019. We’ll see. Exact duplicate in time and place. Trumpets to Pentecost.

Will God do it that way? I don’t know. But it’s not going to be easy no matter what happens. I hope you understand what I’m saying, because I’m talking about the question: Have the seven periods been fully completed? If they have and it counts that period of time we were still in Laodicea, then 2019, for what we don’t understand and what follows, we don’t know.

But if it started and God is using that count as a part of that in 1998, when we became established as a remnant of God’s Church, we may have had a kind of a trial run kind of thing, of something that God is going to fulfill absolutely so at a moment in time. But He let us experience different things because we had some of the greatest growth, some of the greatest times of reaching down deeper inside than ever before in our lives that have been rich and meaningful and powerful in a relationship with God.

So, with that I think I’m going to conclude this. So hopefully, especially through this three-part series, you’ve been sitting in booths. God has let us experience something, know something, be told something that should be more meaningful to us than ever before in His Church. It’s beautiful. To me, I mean, it’s absolutely awesome.

So again, hopefully, especially through this three-part series, you’ve been sitting in booths and can hear what God is telling us.