Our Journey of Perseverance, Pt. 4

Ronald Weinland

March 27, 2021

We’ve been focusing on a series that is very much about this season of the year, as today is Passover, and obviously tomorrow the Feast of Unleavened Bread begins. This is Part 4 of the series entitled Our Journey of Perseverance.

To me this is a very inspiring area that we’re going through right now and focusing upon. It teaches so many things. But this Passover today, I thought I’d mention, is even more special to me in that respect, is very special to me as it falls on a weekly Sabbath and it’s exactly 40 years ago today that I was ordained on a Passover during the weekly Sabbath in 1981. So, incredible how time flies. Let’s see, thirty-one, hmmm. Where did it go?

Anyway, it’s amazing in all the things that we go through in that time and I was reminiscing somewhat with Johnny today talking about things of our past, talking about things we’ve gone through since the Apostasy, and it’s incredible the journey we have been on just since the Apostasy, let alone forty years of what’s taken place in the Church at the end, toward the end of Herbert Armstrong’s teaching in the Church as an apostle and his death in ’86, and then the start of a new era that began as far as Laodicea was concerned and what gradually took place in God’s Church because of a Laodicean spirit of being lukewarm.

All the things that we’ve experienced hasn’t been easy and that’s the whole point of having the name “Israel,” because it has to do with perseverance. You have to really want this way of life. You have to be dedicated to it. You have to throw your life into it and understand what you committed to when you entered into a covenant agreement with God. That’s an awesome thing to understand, the importance of that ceremony, of what was said, of what we said, in essence, to God at baptism.

Of course, then Passover and Unleavened Bread shows so much about the beginning of that journey and the things we are to go through and have to fight and so forth.

So, we’re going to now continue in this current series, and we’ll pick up right where we left off last week. There is no need to go back and review the scriptures as we’ve done at times because we fairly well know the direction we’ve been going through some of this.

Except for one area of scripture I do want to go back and just mention again because it really is profound what is being said, and it has so much to do, even again, with Passover and understanding what we went through last night, what we observed in keeping the Passover, as we went through John 13, 14, especially John 14, 15, 16, 17, in through there, and all the things that God has revealed that so many don’t understand, even have never even learned as far as the scattered Body was concerned and what God has given to His Church at the end of an age. Incredibly inspiring, exciting, the most important things that God has ever revealed to mankind.

So again, that verse that we’re going to look at that I mentioned here that I want to review is in that song of Israel that followed their being delivered out of Egypt on a physical plane. Which is very much a type of what God is doing to redeem His people on a spiritual plane as we’re being delivered out of spiritual Egypt. So, we understand that and all that goes with it. There is so much there, truly is. Anyway, the process of all this is contained in the meaning of Passover and Unleavened bread.

It says in Exodus 15:13, and I just want to mention again before I read this, I think how it’s so easy to just read through things in a story flow, especially in the Old Testament and we read about the Exodus and then they’re led through the Red Sea in a way that didn’t exist but it’s a way that God made possible. Again, the lessons that we learn from that, that there is a way, the only way of life to be lived, that God has to reveal that to us.

We have these types that God has given throughout scripture, of things we’re to learn from, things that happened on a physical plane that we’re to learn from on a spiritual plane as God teaches us and leads us. The same is true here as we come into this portion of what is being taught or what is being given. But to understand that when these things were given it doesn’t matter where it is as a whole in the Old Testament you read, it’s not just a story flow, and the types that are there or the things that are there are for a purpose. Everything teaches something along the way and most of that teaching has been for God’s Church in the last 2,000 years.

That’s why I marvel at how they didn’t just come up with, and bunch of them around a campfire when they came through the Red Sea and after eating one evening got down behind the fire there and started putting together the words, and then sending it out to the whole camp that this is what they’re going to sing. It didn’t happen that way. God inspired them, gave them these things.

We don’t grasp and nor understand how it took place, but this is what God gave to them, in essence. So it’s something that God gave to them. They didn’t come up with it on their own – because of what it means – and especially in this verse here.

Exodus 15:13 it says, You in Your mercy have led forth the people whom You have redeemed. That’s what God does with us. We understand that. In His mercy, incredible mercy. The more or the longer, I should say, we’re in this human life, the things we go through, the things we experience, the more we learn of God’s mercy. In that process we’re drawn closer to God as well because we understand, we learn, very powerfully so, He is an exceedingly merciful God.

The world doesn’t understand God. They see Him as harsh, as cruel, as demanding, and they don’t grasp the mercy in His way of life and His desire for us, and His love for us that far exceeds anything that human beings experience.

“You in Your mercy have led forth Your people whom You have redeemed.” With such love. With such mercy. With such desire because of His plan, this process of being redeemed.

You have guided us. God has to guide us. We know that! We understand that no one can learn this way of life, no one can come to know Christ, to understand Christ, to understand all that is revealed in scripture about him. People talk about, “Have you given your heart to the Lord?” or “Have you accepted Christ as your Savior?” or things of that nature. And they’re empty. They’re meaningless in that respect because they don’t know what they’re saying. What they’re carrying with them and what they’re saying is something that is not real; it makes people feel good, in one respect, inside about themselves, but it has no meaning to it. There is no truth in it.

God has to guide us to Christ to reveal him to us. That’s why I love the example in Leviticus 16 that we read so often on the Day of Atonement when it goes through and talks about the two goats, the one, the Azazel. One represents Christ and one represents Satan. But the point of the two goats is no one knows which is which unless God reveals to them which is the azazel.

Now, that’s an awesome thing to understand. Even in that it’s a type of something that teaches something far, far greater later on that we can understand now because we grasp and comprehend that God had to reveal to us who Christ was. Because otherwise we would be as the rest of the world. We wouldn’t know. We wouldn’t be able to see him. Incredible!

You have guided us in Your strength. It’s by His great power that He has chosen, that He has planned this in this manner, that it can be in no other way. Because it’s a matter of His holy spirit that has to enter into the mind to be able to see these things. Only by God’s holy spirit can we see.

You have guided us in Your strength. It’s not “guided ‘them,’” candidly. That’s added. In context it’s about He has guided us in His strength. He did to the Israelites on a physical plane, but it’s spiritual in what God is revealing here. It’s not about that which was physical and them coming out of Egypt. It’s about that which is spiritual and coming out of spiritual Egypt, coming out of sin.

You have guided us in Your strength to Your holy habitation. All that God reveals to us, has revealed to us, just, it flashes before me. John 14, John 15, John 16, 1st John all the way through and the things that God has given, the reason that Christ died. Yes, to have our sins forgiven so we could be forgiven of sin because he spilled his blood to the earth. But what was the purpose of that?

That’s what God has revealed to His remnant Church at the end of an age before Christ returns, that we can begin to take for granted if we’re not careful. Because as a whole, it’s not been understood. We didn’t understand it before the Apostasy, but God has given it to us. Awesome.

It’s so that God the Father and His Son can dwell in us on a spiritual plane. We are God’s holy habitation. God has chosen to dwell within mankind when He calls us. Christ made it possible. Because God will not be around sin so sin had to be taken care of through the sacrifice of our Passover and then God will dwell in us. He desires to give us of His holy spirit because only in that manner can this mind be changed, conquered, and overcome, to be transformed into that which can be born into God’s Kingdom.

That’s why I love Herbert Armstrong’s examples there of what God revealed to him, that we as the Church are like an embryo not yet born. We’re not yet born into God’s Kingdom; we’re begotten into God’s Kingdom. We’re in a begettal stage, if you will, not yet born spirit. What an awesome analogy, a type of something on a physical plane that teaches us that which is spiritual that God is doing.

That’s God’s desire, that we enter into His family being spirit, but it begins here in the environment of the Church. He desires to dwell in us so He begins to dwell in us now, His holy habitation. But not the one that’s to come, not the one that’s to be created. That’s later when we’re spirit because then it will be for all time. Not just for a temporary time as long as we live, until we die or until we’re maybe changed at the end of the age here from mortal to immortal, as it talks about. So, incredible!

What an awesome verse. It really is. It’s an awesome, meaningful, inspiring, powerful, revealing thing that was given way, way back then that they didn’t understand what it was about whatsoever. Most who have ever read it have never known what it’s about.

Where was His holy habitation? It wasn’t in the promised land. It wasn’t in the tent. It wasn’t in the tabernacle that was built by Solomon. It wasn’t there! That’s not His holy habitation! He makes it really clear in scripture. We are. Awesome! This is where it begins. We begin this process because of Passover, and then we can begin to come out of Egypt. Incredible.

Again, as it was stated about the Hebrew for this word translated “guided,” literally means in Hebrew “to lead or guide to a watering place.” What an awesome word to use in Hebrew, “to lead or guide to a watering place.” Then water is used in a powerful way as with God’s spirit, but also, we’re going to read some other scriptures that reveal another portion here, but it has to do with God’s spirit and what we go through in order for this to be accomplished.

But it’s, again, about Christ very much so, about our Passover. “To lead or guide to a watering place; to bring to a place of rest.” Then I think of Hebrews, what it says, that this rest that God desires to give us, a peace, a rest. Because in this life there isn’t that kind of rest. Human life is not what it’s all about. It’s a means to an end. It’s necessary in order for God’s Kingdom to come to pass but this is where it’s developed, when God calls us and His spirit begins to work with us and then we make choices along the way as to how much we value what He’s given and whether or not we really want to be Israel spiritually.

Because physical Israel is not what it’s about, and yet we carried that with us as a part because we couldn’t help it. That’s where we were in our spiritual development when you go through the period of Philadelphia and even into Laodicea. That concept in the mind is on a physical plane about Israel. And so, things like the 144,000 and the different tribes, 12,000 from every tribe, and then people wanting to know, wonder what tribe am I from? It’s not about that! It’s not about that you’re from a physical tribe or that you’re from physical Israel. Yet that was esteemed, especially if someone had a lineage of Judah! Oh, that was really important!

Think, no, Christ died for everyone, gentile, Judah, Ephraim, Manasseh, it doesn’t matter who it is, to become a part of spiritual Israel. Because that’s what it was all about. It’s a “type.” The types were never the fulfillment. The tabernacle of old wasn’t the fulfillment. It’s just a building!

I think of United when we got started at one point after the Apostasy and there was, like, $14.5 million that had come in fairly quickly and then there was a desire to know how to budget that. There was a desire by some to have a magazine right away because we have to continue on (as some felt), with what Herbert Armstrong was doing because… Why? Because the work isn’t finished yet! His work was never completed! In other words, the gospel going into all the world in all nations and then the end will come.

Yeah, his work was completed and that completed those verses there in Matthew 24. Awesome! But the Body, as a whole, or what was remaining of a vomited-out Body, if you will, separated from God, held on to physical things. And it was as if, well, we’ve got to have a magazine and we’ve got to have a telecast! Because the concept of understanding the truth, that God had completed a work through His servant Herbert Armstrong didn’t exist.

That hurt the mind and the ability to comprehend we had an Apostasy; we are in the end. We are in a different time. But again, God had a purpose of only a remnant to come through all that. That’s why we’re here, because of God’s mercy. If it wasn’t for that we wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t have been awakened (for those who came through the Apostasy).

So go back and we learn from things we’ve gone through. We look at the journey of perseverance and what it’s about, and the name of Israel and how we have misused that. So, the 144,000, thought it had to come from every tribe and they had to be a part of it, and then a great multitude far, far beyond the 144,000.

I hope you’re dumbfounded by those things, in what God gives to us in understanding and what we see, what we grasp now compared to what we had then.

So again, what an incredible journey to go through, to see the things that God gave to Herbert Armstrong, and things that we haven’t understood fully.

I’ll come back. I’m going to go full circle here because I want to go on then come back to some of this.

Anyway, “a place of rest.” Something that this world as a whole just doesn’t have.

So, indeed, what an awesome thing to understand God has called us to His holy habitation, and if it wasn’t for that we wouldn’t have these.

But anyway, let’s go on to Isaiah 44 because I have some other things we need to bring into this and tie together here, this matter of persevering. I tend to, when I go back in those things and think about them… I can’t help it. There are so many things that we’ve gone through. But those that went through all that have had to persevere. All that went through the period of time leading up to the Apostasy and then beyond that have had to persevere through some really hard times, truly, some of the hardest battles in the mind, in that respect, with a Body.

Yet we have to go through this process of growth, as we talked about earlier here, of God giving and revealing things in a progressive manner. There are things we couldn’t grasp back in that period of time about Israel and what Israel was all about and what the name meant and that it was spiritual and not physical.

Isaiah 44:1—Yet now hear, Jacob, My servant, Israel whom I chose. So, we’ve gone through a little bit of that history. God continually has us go back and look at things of history. Why? Because we see God’s hand at work. We learn how God molds and fashions and how He’s worked with us through time or how He’s worked with different ones through time and continually revealing more and more about His plan and purpose. We go through this process.

I love these verses here and what it says here, Yet now hear, Jacob, My servant. So, who is He talking to? Israel. He magnifies it now because it gives a little bit of the physical of what was taking place and the name change and why; and the purpose of it all is to be understood.

So he says, “Yet now hear.” It means “to listen!” To listen! That makes a great distinction between us and the world right now. Sometimes within the Body we learn lessons from this as well, but even applying this (which we’ll come back to this later on as well as we go through the series), but basically, we’re at a point in time where you can look at points of history in the Church and you can see when people have been of a mind to listen and when they haven’t, and when God has stirred up people to a point of a willingness to listen.

Even if they aren’t able to make it all the way as far as a commitment and a conviction, even if they weren’t called all the way, in that respect, to be a part of the Body. Because God’s in control of that. God’s in control of where the Body is, to what degree the Body will be at any point in time. But He lets a lot of experiences exist within choices of human beings and knows what people will do.

God knew what people would do during Laodicea. It’s pretty basic. All powerful, Almighty God wrote those things, had those things recorded, gave them to John. Christ gave them to John. God gave it to Christ. Christ gave it to John. John wrote them, the book of Revelation, and through time in the past 2,000 years bits have been revealed more and more through time, but most of it toward the end here, especially beginning with Herbert Armstrong. God was giving more then to come to understand the value, the importance of eras.

What an awesome thing to reveal! He had to see that. He had to know about Sardis. He had to see what had happened in the previous Churches and now there was this period of Philadelphia and what had to be done and a work that had to be accomplished at the end of an age, that we were at the end of an age.

Philadelphia was the sixth era, toward the end of the age. There is only one more to come! Well, at that time we thought two were going to be together. But anyway, that’s a progressive revelation there as well. And if we’re not careful we’ll begin to take these stories for granted. But God takes us back continually.

Just like Passover last night, every year we’re to observe Passover and we’re to be moved and motivated and thankful and remember the things of why he did what he did. Because if we don’t stay focused, we’ll lose it, because it’s a spiritual matter. And we’re weak, we’re physical, and so we have to be stirred up spiritually on a continuing basis in our lives. God uses these occasions to do that and then He adds each time a little bit more, a little bit more along the way. Even individually. Because we can’t receive it all at once when we’re first called. So at whatever stage you’re in, one year, five years, ten years, twenty years, forty, sixty, whatever it is in God’s Church, we are at different stages in our growth and our development, maturity, and so we’re able to receive, because of that, things at a different level when we hear them.

That’s why we can listen to a sermon, I should say, as an example, maybe it was given two years ago and you listen to it again. But you’ve grown and you pick up something you couldn’t pick up at that time because you weren’t there yet individually. God does that collectively for a Body as well. He continues to give us more. We learn in that manner as well as He progressively reveals things. Awesome, this process.

Again, we can look at the world and we can recognize different times, whether it be during the period of Philadelphia and then Laodicea and what happened there all the way through it, as a whole, and what was happening as far as the Church was concerned and those whom God was calling and really wasn’t calling. Another story…sermon. Then the Apostasy and what happened after that.

Then we come up to 2005, we see a little bit of stirring and a willingness of some to listen. See, we can tell by numbers on the system as to how many people are just listening on a physical plane. Same thing happened then when we talk about 2008. Now, more people were motivated at that particular time, things in the world and so forth. And for whatever purpose and reason, reality is that more were willing to listen at that time. They were willing to look at something.

Whereas, today they won’t even look. They won’t even click on. You think, what’s the difference? That’s how much the world is changing. That’s how quickly it’s turning inward. It’s happening to governments but it’s starting with individual lives. Most of that because of technology and because of where people are with technology today and how they’re using it or misusing it (might be a better term). But they don’t understand it’s being misused.

I’ll tell you, there are some big changes that have to take place soon as Christ returns, some big changes with technology and the use of it.

So, we see this change taking place. We live in a time right now where people don’t care. They are not listening. It’s amazing what this world is going to have to go through before it starts changing. It has to listen to God.

That’s why I think of the book and the comment that’s made several times, “If you will listen to God, He will listen to you.” That’s basically what it’s about. The world today has no desire to listen to God whatsoever, and most assuredly they’re not going to turn to God then. God’s not going to listen to them in their time. When things happen they’re going to be allowed to go through what they go through. Sad. But human nature has to be broken, has to come to a point of humility.

Yet now listen, Jacob, My servant, Israel… Again, the name “God strives,” perseveres, and we’re to learn from that we’re to strive and persevere along with God because it’s about a work of God. God has been working with mankind, working with the angelic realm, all the things that are involved there, persevering, leading the way. It’s about work! It’s about applying yourself with all of your being, in that respect, or to learn that more and more in your life.

There is that desire then if we see it to persevere and to follow that example that Christ set. Because Christ set the example of persevering. He truly did! And you think, “Well, that was Christ. That was the Messiah.” Then we can miss the mark.

So we’re to persevere. So the example is one of God strives, God perseveres, and we’re to strive and we’re to persevere, if you will. That’s why the example of wrestling there is so important, to learn from that. That’s a physical thing and it’s about us, of what are we willing to do?

…Israel, whom I chose. Listen. God reminds us the importance of listening. Now, listening is not just hearing the words. Listening is drinking it in and striving to apply it in life. It’s the persevering. That’s where the work comes from. We have to hear first, listen to what God is saying, consider the things God is saying, weigh the things God is saying in what He’s telling us in the instruction, the guidance, and the direction He guides us. Then if we receive that it requires action on our part, the perseverance.

This way of life is not just handed to someone on a silver platter and say, “Okay. Do what you want.” It’s not like that. We have to change, and we have to want change! And you have to fight this thing, this physical life, this physical existence day in and day out. If you don’t see it as a fight what’s going to happen?

This is what the Eternal says, the one who made you and formed you from the womb and will help you. You know, what a marvel the creation of God to give physical life! I think of what man tries to copy and tries to do, and we can’t even understand.

We can’t understand the human body! Oh, we think we do. We can go in and cut away and do certain things and put some arteries in there to keep it going, and I’m glad of that, you know. But to understand it all? To understand why your blood just stops here and what the skin does and the different organs we have, what a kidney does, what a liver does? How can it do that, be just so small? A heart, a muscle that can keep beating for so long! It’s awesome! Made of flesh, blood is there, oxygen and how it separates in the system.

Things that mankind cannot copy, cannot make. Strives to understand. We are able to work with many of those things and God’s revealing, or God gives the understanding of it more and more even of that which is physical. But to create it? Pshew! We are so puny! But we think we’re so great.

We look back at the medical profession, as it were, just as an example, a hundred years ago or two hundred years ago and things have changed so much. It’s like some of the things that were done back then? I think of the times when they used to cut you and bleed you because they thought that was a way to make you better. And you think, yeah, right! Because we can look at it now and think that was really stupid, you know, and instead of somebody having more energy, ability to fight something, their body is being drained of the very thing they need to have. Anyway, it’s that ignorance and lack of understanding.

But what we’re doing today, a hundred years from now, we’re going to look back and think, man, that was crude. Phew, look at some of the things they were doing. But it’s a process. It’s a process.

But God is bringing us along more and more, and the more that mankind turns to God, loves God, obeys God, the more God will give to them, and He’s not going to do it all for them.

That’s why I think of a time when I talked about healing. People think that everyone at the beginning of the Millennium is going to be healed and have whole bodies. Some got mad and even quit because they didn’t like what God was showing to God’s Church, His Church, that no, it’s not going to be a utopia. That there are things to be learned from getting sick! There are things to be learned from having accidents as human beings, even in the Millennium.

And you think God’s going to stop everything from happening and intervene for human beings every moment something takes place and we do something stupid? Like He owes it to us to give us strong physical life like in a utopia, that nothing can harm us?

That’s not what it’s about. Even people who believe there would be no death during the Millennium! Well, they need to learn the importance of what it’s like that your life is temporary, that you need God, that if you want it you’ve got to fight for it and you’ve got to make a choice, is this what you really want? Do you want God’s way of life? Because God’s not going to do it for us. Not even when Christ is the Messiah, the King of kings over all this earth.

But we’ve had those kinds of concepts in times past because we didn’t know any better, because God hadn’t revealed it fully to us yet. We tend to think physically so we think about certain things we read and it’s like this utopia.

I think of some of the old things that were printed a long time ago and you go back and read some of those now and think…?! But we didn’t know. You are what you are at that moment in time. The more we grow the more we can look back and recognize mistakes and where we were in our growth and development. But we had to go through all that to be where we are, otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.

So again, what an awesome calling that God gives to us and the process we go through and all the things He teaches us and we are so puny.

So, yes, there is going to be death during the Millennium. Yes, there is going to be sickness during the Millennium. God’s going to allow development of what we are able to learn and grow in because He wants us to learn. Ever learning! We’re going to learn things that we can’t even dream of right now.

Technology? We’re going to learn how to use it right, better, not the way we are today where people are zoning out, becoming kind of like zombies. People are addicted to things of technology today. God does not intend that we be addicted, prisoners in bondage to a cell phone. I mean, really! And you can’t live without it, it’s got to be with you, and if that’s not enough you got this on your arm in case you don’t hear it. “Oh! I’m needed somewhere! Somebody wants me!” And you run to it.

If you’re not careful you let it rule you. I don’t. I try not to; strive not to. It’s not a good thing. It’s not a healthy thing to let it rule your life. You are to be in control.

What does that mean to you? Because if you’re not careful you’re becoming in bondage and prisoner to something that is not healthy for you. People are allowing their children to be in bondage, to become bonded, bound to something that if they’re not careful it’s going to hurt their minds and it’s going to be a very hard thing for them to combat and fight against and change in their life. Because they’re going to have to fight it and change it in their life because it’s not right! I hope you understand that.

So, we’re blessed to be able to persevere in a way of life that God gives to us. What an awesome thing.

Verse 2—This is what the Eternal says, the one who made you and formed you from the womb and will help you. He gives us life. What a blessing just to have physical life if…if—which we’re not able to do on our own—it’s lived right. The only way you can really live it right is with God’s help, with God’s spirit. But what is the best in the world people look at and think, this is good… No, it’s not. Because everyone is selfish. It’s our nature.

All human beings are selfish. All human beings in the Millennium will be selfish. All human beings resurrected in the Great White Throne, some of them are going to be incredibly selfish because they’re resurrected from what they were when they died, and some of them lived almost a thousand years in selfishness. And you think that’s an easy one to conquer and overcome? Well, they have a hundred years to do it. God’s very merciful. Awesome! We are what we are, a physical creation. What an awesome thing that God provides us and places in front of us beginning with Passover and a journey if we persevere.

The vast majority of people who have been called to God have not persevered. They didn’t live up to the name God offered them, Israel. Is it your name? Are you Israel? Are you a part of Israel? Are you living up to the name that God has offered to you to become spiritual Israel? That’s what we have to ask ourselves. Because it reflects then how we’re living our lives.

I mentioned last Sabbath about how God looks at little things in life. Christ taught that. We don’t have to have big, important things in life to be judged by as to whether we’re going to be able to handle much bigger things later on. We’re judged by the little things and how we do the small things in a normal, physical life on this earth.

But we think that what we’re doing is not important, that our jobs or what we’re doing is not important. Oh, yes they are, and you’re being judged by how you live that life on your job, in your family.

Yet we have in families people who can’t even get along with each other, who can’t love each other in God’s Church! And I wonder then, is that in God’s Church? Because in God’s Church you don’t live like that.

We were talking today it’s so good sometimes to remember certain history. Johnny and I were talking about this part of it as well, all the things we saw after the Apostasy and so much of our training, so much of how God is, what He’s given to us is learning this is not the way you do it because that is not God’s Church. Spoke of ministers who were absolute liars – after the Apostasy even – absolute liars lying about one another.

Which I think is an interesting thing because it’s happening in the world now the way it happened in the Church at that time. It got to the point where people would bad mouth someone else in order to get rid of them, in order to ostracize them and put them aside. And so, nothing new if you understand it, but people have to tear down someone else and get others to believe the lie of why you’re going to get rid of them.

I don’t know if I should go back in some of these or not sometimes. I think of some who wanted to get rid of me at a point in United. Which I don’t blame them a whole lot because I wasn’t of that same mind, because I wasn’t doing what they wanted to be done. But anyway, I remember a meeting we had one time with someone who was over the entire organization at that time and someone else who was regional pastor at that time and happened to know three lies that they had said about me, spread out within the ministry.

Because this has happened before. This is how they got to people who they didn’t want to be a part or were able to control them, or whatever it might be that they were trying to do.

I had one minister in another area stand up, basically, found out who started them because he didn’t believe what he was hearing because we went to Ambassador together and knew each other quite well. He traced down two of them that were started by the regional pastor and one that was started by the head of the church at that time.

You think, how on earth can any minister of God lie, and not just lie, but lie about another minister, to start something with other ministers, to spread it around so that you can have some control in dealing with the situation. If you don’t like it then you can get rid of them and they’ll all understand it’s because, “Oh yeah, he was like that. He did that.”

Thankfully, God gave me the words to speak that night. I turned to the one and said, “I know of three things that have been said, that have been passed around within the ministry, and I know that two of them came from you. I have a minister on standby on a telephone right now ready to testify to the fact that he knows that it came from you.” He shut his mouth and didn’t speak the rest of the meeting and he apologized afterwards. He acknowledged his sin.

The other one was sitting there too, but I didn’t say, “It was you,” out of a partial respect because of the job he had. I said, “And I know there is another one that went around and it’s from headquarters, and I know who did that too.”

And you think, how could such things happen in the Church of God? The reality is, they don’t. I hope we understand that. If you’re living this way of life there are things you cannot do, there are things you cannot live and be in the Church of God. You cannot have God’s holy spirit dwelling in you if you’re dwelling in sin. If you’re living lies and telling lies, if you’re not living the way God says you’re to live, if you can’t get along with, just like what we reflected last night, what did we look at in 1 Corinthians and what Paul had to say? “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep!”

Not a physical thing that it’s pointing out. It’s talking about that which is in a spiritual relationship. It’s all about because of the relationship within the Body of Christ, because of those who don’t discern the Body of Christ, the importance. It’s God’s body! It’s God’s Church. It’s God’s people. And so, our relationships become exceedingly important. That’s why we cannot have division. That’s why we can’t have things that separate us. That’s why people can’t be in arguments and fights and all the kinds of things that I have seen so much of since I’ve come into God’s Church, which I’m glad to see is so much less today proportionally. Proportionally. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, but proportionally.

It’s very refreshing as God continues to clean up the Body of Christ, the Church of God. Because it’s going to be clean. Some don’t believe that evidently because of what they continue to do. The reality is it’s going to be cleaned.

We’re given the opportunities to change, to conquer, and to overcome. Far more is expected of us, and if we don’t do it, God Almighty has the power to make sure we do not enter a new age. He did it to tens of thousands of people who came out of forty years in the wilderness. Well, they didn’t all come out, did they? Tens of thousands, He made certain that every one of them died in the wilderness up to a specific age because of what they did. They weren’t allowed to go into the promised land, physical promised land.

If God can do that with tens of thousands of people, do we not believe with all of our being and the size we are that God can’t look upon our lives and especially being offered what we are offered that is so much greater than what they were offered when they came through the Red Sea and on into the wilderness and the promised land that followed, that He doesn’t have the power to clean up His Church before Christ returns? Because He’s going to and He’s doing it. No one is going to get by. He’s the judge, and judgment, as always, is now upon the house of God more than ever before, though we be small.

It’s not a matter of size, it’s a matter of the truth. It’s a matter of judgment. It’s a matter of whether or not we are living up to the name, whether we want it with all of our being, Israel. Not physical Israel, not a physical people. It doesn’t matter what our lineage is.

But to have that name that God gave Jacob means so much to God. His name is in it – Isra-EL – God Almighty, if you will, the words that go together; God strives, God perseveres, and we’re to carry that name, to persevere for God, if you will, for His way of life. That means you have to work at it. You have to make changes in your life.

When you know that something is being done wrong in life you do what we pictured last night. You go before God and you ask for mercy and you thank God for your Passover, that you can be forgiven of your stupid sins. My sins are stupid. Your sins, they defy everything that’s right, selfishness. It’s ugly. And we all have it, and we have to fight the fight. That takes energy. It doesn’t just happen. You’ve got to have a plan before you. You’ve got to fight at it. You’ve got to pray to God. You’ve got to develop a relationship with God and so much more.

Persevere. What an awesome thing God has given us to focus upon.

Do not fear, Jacob My servant; Jeshurun, which means “upright one.” So, another name that’s used here, in that respect, which means “upright one.” …whom I have chosen. That’s how God wants us to live once we’re called, to live upright before Him. Not to be liars. Not to lie against God. Not to lie against His truth. Not to do things toward others that are wrong in God’s word. Not to thrive on drama but to be peacemakers. That’s God’s way.

If we can’t be a peacemaker on the small things of life, how on earth do you think God will give us more? Because we’re judged in the little things we do from day to day. We may not think those things are important but they’re everything as to where we are spiritually and as to whether or not we’re going to continue to grow, and as to whether or not God will continue to have us as a part of His holy habitation.

For I will pour water on him who is thirsty. What a beautiful thing! It’s God’s spirit. If we are thirsty. If. We. Are. Thirsty. And we’re the only ones that can determine that. It’s not like when you physically get to a point where, “I need a drink.” And generally, as soon as you start a fast that’s what you want. Because it’s a natural drawing power that you have because you’re physical and you’re weak and there may be a time you’re doing certain things, working harder, you have to be hydrating. You’re drinking more water when it’s really hot outside and whatever. So you’ve got to make sure you’re drinking plenty of water or it’s going to be bad for your body.

Anyway, there are things we learn, we know we need it, and we want it, our body desires it. But you have to focus upon from here, do you want God and what are you willing to put into that? The thirst is up to you. It’s not because you were baptized. It’s not because of something that happened long ago. It’s not something you can rely upon that you’re going to automatically be thirsty. You have to want it.

It’s like sermons or Sabbath and Holy Days, and to what we put into it is what God will bless us to receive. Do we cry out because we know how much we need it? That’s a conviction we have to have. Do we see how much we need it? Are we spiritually thirsty? Because that’s not something automatic like what happens physically when you’re physically thirsty.

Being spiritually thirsty is a totally other matter. You’ve got to want it. You’ve got to ask for it. You’ve got to know that you need it. It’s a matter of knowledge, first and foremost. You’ve got to know how much you need it. You can’t change. You can’t grow. You can’t continue in this way of life. You can’t hold on to the truth even, not any part of it on your own physically, spiritually. You can’t! It takes God’s spirit, doesn’t it? So physically, it can’t be done. Spiritually, it can be because it requires God’s help.

So, what a beautiful thing here, “For I will pour water on him who is thirsty.” It’s a choice. This is something you have to choose. It’s a part of perseverance. It’s a part of realizing, “I need God’s spirit. That’s why I pray.” That is why you pray. You want a relationship with God. You want His way of life and you recognize that without God and you leave God aside you’re on your own. But if you want it, you’re going to pray for it. God will bless you. Because that’s what He wants to give you.

That’s why I think of the scriptures, as it talks about, I think it’s John 14 there where he goes through and says ask what you will and God’s going to give it. Some people think anything you ask for. No, it’s not anything you ask for. It’s what He’s talking about. What He’s talking about is giving of the holy spirit so He can dwell in you and His Son can dwell in you and you can dwell in them. You ask for that because you need His holy spirit, you want His life living in you.

I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and floods on a dry land. There is so much that God desires to give to us, wants to give to us, but something we’ve got to make choices about. I will pour out My spirit on your offspring, and My blessing on your produce. In other words, that which springs from you or as in crops or offspring and so forth.

They will spring up among the grass like willows by streams of water. God is showing here there is that which comes as a matter of growth, as a matter of choice, and if it’s something you want then, if you’ve ever been around willow trees and see how much they suck up water, and they grow and if they’re close to a water source… That’s what God is showing we can all have. He wants to give that to us. That’s what He wants us to pray about if we know we need it.

John 7:37. Again, we know of these scriptures. They’re everywhere throughout scripture, in a sense, but you run across them in different areas of context, but here is one that Christ on the last day of the Feast here, the Last Great Day. It says, John 7:37, In that last day, that great day of the Feast, Joshua stood and declared, saying, If anyone thirsts… Now, the reality is the world doesn’t thirst at all. It isn’t seeking God. God has to seek us. In His timing He’ll call us. He seeks us out, as to who He’s going to call. What an awesome blessing to be called by God, to be drawn by God’s holy spirit. Then it’s up to us as to whether we’re going to respond what He communicates then to the mind. What an awesome thing!

I marvel at the tens of thousands, the hundreds of thousands (because it’s in that number), who through time had that opportunity and didn’t make the right choice. Even after baptism the tens of thousands, tens and tens and tens, and we don’t know how many for sure, but it’s very large, who were even baptized, baptized into God’s Church, had hands laid upon them to receive the holy spirit, and along the journey that they were on, that God was taking them, made choices that led them away from God.

It’s dumbfounding. Because they didn’t make the choice to thirst after what God gave. It wasn’t that valuable to them. That’s a choice we all have to make. How valuable is what God has given? God wants to know that. How valuable is it to you? And you know how He knows? Choices, little things in life, whether we try to resolve issues quickly in disagreements, whether we try to be peacemakers in spirit and in truth, whether we truly try to live and strive to live and ask for God’s help to live something that we know we don’t have the ability to do.

Our actions so often then prove that, that we don’t have that ability. We see the sin, we see the error, we see something that doesn’t agree with what God says we should be doing and so we pray to God Almighty and say, “Father, help me, I’m sinning…” Because that’s what it comes down to, an acknowledgement of our own sins, “…and I need Your help. I don’t know…I’m not able to deal with this properly and the actions, the results prove it. What’s happening proves it. I need help.”

If anyone thirst, let them come unto me and drink. God is so ready to give us help. Look how weak and puny we are sometimes. Look how pathetic we can be as human beings even once we receive God’s holy spirit if we’re not careful. He wants us to come before Him. We must go before Him and continue to cry out for help.

The greatest thing we have to do through all this process of a communication and a relationship we have with God Almighty starts with the Passover. “Forgive me of my sins. I need help.” Because God won’t give us His holy spirit if there is sin in there. We have to ask for forgiveness and that’s sobering. Awesome!

Year by year God takes us through this process and builds upon that and we grow to learn this more deeply and it’s a marvel. To be in awe of what God is offering us, and His desire, we can’t grasp how great that desire is, of what He wants to give to us. He wants to give us His holy spirit. Christ died because they want us to receive the holy spirit, because they want to dwell in us! They want, they’re working for a family.

We have to work too. We have to work to that end. Everything in this physical life is a means to that purpose, what God’s purpose is for us. And it doesn’t just happen, you’ve got to work. So, even God in our life sees, do we work? How do we work? What do we do? Because that’s a physical thing and that will reflect spiritual as well.

Whoever believes on… It literally means “into” or “unto,” me, as the scripture has said… So again, we understand this concept the protestant world has, “Have you accepted Christ, and do you believe on him?” They don’t understand. They can’t help it. But it’s everything about who he is. He’s the Passover and he’s the Messiah, and he’s coming back to take that power as the Messiah. And obviously, High Priest in between, the work he’s been doing. Awesome!

That’s what we’re to believe, that message, that good news that he came and gave for that period of time he was here and then gave to the disciples, which after Pentecost 31 A.D. they began to teach in even greater power and clarity as far as building upon the things that Christ had given to them when they were with him for that three and a half years.

Whoever believes unto (into) me, as the scripture said, out of their inwards shall flow rivers of living water. What an awesome, beautiful thing! That’s the life we can have out of us then.

God doesn’t just give us of His holy spirit and it stops here. It produces fruit. That’s a beautiful thing to understand, is if God’s spirit is present it has to produce fruit because that’s what it does. If it’s not there, fruit won’t be produced. It reveals God’s spirit. Wherever God’s spirit goes it produces fruit. It’s automatic. It’s absolute.

If we drink in this way of life, if we pursue it with all of our being, if we persevere in the battles we have and the trials we have and we see the greater purpose of what it’s all about, to enter into God’s Family for all time, it takes on greater value and purpose to us and we recognize that this physical life is a temporary thing. It’s not very long compared to what God is offering us.

But to us it seems like a long time until you get to where I am or some others in here beyond me, and you look back and think, “Where in the world did it go?” Forty years of ministry. How did that go? Thirty-one years old. It goes by fast, and it’s gone. What’s important?

In time, you just die. It’s a cycle of life. And if we have something that boggles the mind, that takes us into all time in a way of life, there is no comparison. Too often we plan and think about this physical life and not the life to come. We can put greater value on things we do in this physical life, to hold on to it, than the life to come.

…out of their inwards, from inside, shall flow rivers of living water. Well, it begins, can begin to have in our lives as God’s spirit lives in us and works in us, and especially toward one another within the Church and fellowship that we’re able to have, but in the future as well, what’s going to take place.

Now, this he spoke of the spirit, which all who believe unto him should receive; for the holy spirit had not yet been given, because Joshua had not yet been glorified. So again, beautiful scriptures here of what’s being revealed, what’s being given. But again, just going back and looking at some of this, being led to water and what it’s all about.

Ephesians 5:15. A matter of a journey and a matter of persevering, pressing forward, just pressing forward. Doesn’t matter what the obstacle is. I love the definitions that you can go into a dictionary and look at, of what it means to persevere. Regardless of the obstacles, regardless of what’s in front, you keep battling forward, you keep working to move forward because of something that’s there that you’re going to latch on to. With all of your being you fight for that because of its value to you.

Ephesians 5:15—See then that you walk… So again, different places talk about this walk, this journey we’re on, how we live our lives, how we walk in the way of life that God gave to us. We’re to measure those things and look at those things in the small areas day to day, hour to hour, day to day, of what we’re doing week by week.

See that you walk circumspectly. This has to do with “to be careful and prudent in what you’re doing,” in all that you do, candidly. That’s what the word means here. To be careful and prudent. That’s a choice. That takes work. It’s a matter of perseverance. Perseverance doesn’t just happen. Israel doesn’t just happen. We have to make choices along the way. Is that what we want?

…not as fools but as wise. God blesses us with wisdom. I love Proverbs because everything it talks in Proverbs about is reflected in things that God reveals later on about His word. It’s about God. It’s the mind of God. It’s what He communicates to us and gives to us about a way of life.

We’re to be wise, receive what God has, receive His mind, His truth, seek to be at one with Him, to be of the same mind as Joshua. Because that’s the mind he had, the Word of God made flesh.

…redeeming the time. Making the most use of time as it goes on to show, now more than ever, candidly, because of where we are in time. …redeeming the time because the days... Literally, in this time now as it was for anyone who would read this in the last 2,000 years, nearly 2,000 years. …because the days are evil. We live in an evil world. Evil. Everything that’s going on out there because it’s selfish, because it’s done out of selfishness, motivated by selfishness, is not God’s way. The world isn’t living God’s way, and because of that, and because it’s an adversary, adversarial to God’s truth and God’s way of life, it’s evil just by definition. We have to make choices of rejecting that and not letting it take up our lives.

I was pleased to see and hear every once in a while, different comments that come in from the elders as they make their reports and stuff, and some recognizing those things more and more in the world because of things that God has given us to understand, to be taught in the Church, and recognizing what’s taking place out there in the world and being careful that we don’t take sides. Yet people have fallen into that trap even in the last year.

A president and what’s said about a president or what’s said about someone else in politics or some whatever it might be, and if we’re not careful we start taking sides and thinking, “This is better.” Well, there may be some aspects of something that might be better for a particular thing if you’re doing it on a physical plane, but this is not God’s world and people are not living it God’s way of life. If you’re not careful you can begin to think in a wrong way in the sense of taking sides.

Then if that’s not enough, we begin to delve into and go into conspiracies. I think of somebody in a region that has gone into recently things of conspiracy theories. I don’t know how much I can say. Again, it’s taking a side that we believe and uphold something.

There is a being called Satan who has the only ability to have any kind of conspiracy going on as far as the world is concerned. God’s letting him go rampant more and more all the time. But we can’t get caught up in that kind of garbage, of beginning to believe certain things that are out in left field. Because some of these things are like believing in little flying saucers. I don’t mean that that’s what people believe, but it’s that nuts if we’re not careful. That’s worse than taking sides in certain areas. We’ve got to be very, very careful.

This is not God’s world. How much can I say that? This is not God’s world yet. He is letting a being still reign and rule on this earth over mankind. That’s why Paul said, in essence, Satan is the god of this age, this world, the last 6,000 years. That’s why he’s going to be put away when Christ returns to where he can’t broadcast to mankind any longer during the Millennium and into the Great White Throne. He’s not going to be around to hurt mankind anymore and broadcast the kind of garbage and swill and adversarial spirit that he has to stir up mankind, to make mankind give into or push certain buttons.

Because we’re selfish. He knows that we’re motivated by selfishness as human beings and so he throws things in front of us and people, “Give me more,” lap it up. We do if we’re not careful. We have to be on guard in God’s Church. You have to fight against those kinds of things. They will destroy you and God’s spirit will leave because of that.

It’s a matter of looking to God, this way of life, holding on to the truth, thankful that Christ is about to return and correct the garbage that’s out here.

Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. That’s the answer. Don’t be unwise and get caught up in this world and the ways of this world and the thinking of this world and the taking sides of this world and judging things.

It’s not God’s world. He’s going to correct it all. He’s going to bring it down to humility. You read through Isaiah from the very beginning and it starts talking about God is going to judge this world with tremendous power to humble this world, to humble mankind, to bring them to a point where they’re going to come to understand they’re not so great, that we can’t get out of this one.

Because “We can get out of anything.” Whatever country you’re in, “We can get out of this. We can make it through this. We’re going to come through the other side because we’re great!” No, we’re not. Far from being great. But people are going to learn that God is great, God is Almighty, and if they want help, they’re going to have to cry out to Him. Incredible!

Don’t be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. So, our lives should be one of pursuing and persevering, a desire to understand God’s will and how we’re living our lives and how we’re thinking and what we’re allowing into the mind and what we speak to others, how we think in this world. Because it’s all about God, holding onto God’s way of life and upholding God’s way of life and God’s truth.

And do not be drunk with wine, wherein is excess. I love this verse here and what it’s talking about because it’s making a comparison here of something that we can grasp. That you can take alcohol and have too much of it and what it will do to you in the sense of the mind and how you think and dull the senses and dull the mind and what we’re able to deal with.

But be filled with the spirit. The point being is you can have too much of that which will hurt you, but when it comes to God’s spirit you can’t have too much. To pray for more of God’s spirit to live and dwell within you, that you want more of God’s spirit because in that is the revelation of God’s mind and God’s truth and God’s being, and then the unity of oneness we can come to through a process in that.

…speaking… Some of these translations are bad here. But it says, “speaking among yourselves.” That’s not what it says. But it’s speaking to us, in essence, of going through here and talking about of that which we need to have to understand what the will of the Lord is, to be filled with the spirit.

Then yourselves speaking in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. This is a kind of a poetic way of writing something here about a mind that desires God’s will in their life, who wants to do things God’s way. We don’t want to do our own will because we understand we’re selfish. But we want to learn to do God’s will, to judge things according to what God says and how God judges.

That’s why I love what Christ talked about when he said, “I don’t judge.” The context is “…as human beings, as people judge.” Because we judge out of comparisons and other things on a physical plane. But he says, “If I do judge, my judgment is just, because it’s not mine,” in essence, “it’s the Father’s.” It’s judging according to God’s mind and God’s purpose and God’s will. We’re to learn and we grow in that, how to do that.

Then there is that which is reflected in us spiritually because of being filled with God’s spirit. It’s a thinking in the mind. It’s not a matter of being in this group and we’re singing songs and this is what proves we’re spiritual. And we don’t even have songs being sung in services any longer for a period of time here. We learned through that process you can glorify and honor God without having that portion of it. Sometimes people thought you can’t have it. You got to have a piano player and a song leader. God is blessing us mightily. It’s a spiritual thing. It’s a wonderful thing when it’s done right and it’s done together with the proper purpose and so forth, but that’s another story.

…psalms and hymns, spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart. Not verbally in what you say and the fact that because you’re able to say it that this proves you’re spiritual, or anything of that nature. God’s spirit will reveal what’s in the mind, and how we think then and how we live toward God. Those times when you are deeply moved, and how do you express certain things? It doesn’t mean you have it all the time, the same experience, but because of God’s spirit in essence, what it’s saying here, and being filled with the spirit, we will have more of this in our lives where we’ll have this joy of God’s way of life.

We’ll be able to see that the chaos and the confusion and the drama that’s in this world, the freedom from all that. It’s a beautiful thing, a time to be glad, and it’s inside. It’s what we express. Then we can pray to God about it and thank God.

Just like last night. Different experience. I was very humbled by going through and for the first time in my life handing out some wine and some broken bread. I was very moved by that, that I had that opportunity to serve some others in that small, small way, because I’ve never done it. It was very meaningful as to what it all means, what we’re able to be a part of. Incredible, what God gives us.

Then to hear a reminder of in 2019 that was the first Passover we were able to use the name Joshua, that God revealed to us this is the time. What a powerful thing there to be totally removed from anything that’s an association with anything that started in power in 325 A.D. Freed from it all. Freed! What a blessing!

Thinking about that this morning, moved by that. Freed from Babylon. Because that’s Babylon. That’s Babel religiously, and people are in Babylon and they don’t even know it. We have to be freed from that. God has continually, especially in the end-time here as He began to work with Herbert Armstrong as His apostle, began to restore truths within the Church that had been lost through Thyatira, but especially through Sardis, in that period of time, to restore truths to the Church to prepare us for where we are.

That’s what it’s all about. It’s about Christ’s coming, about his return, and to work with those who are going to be a part of that government as far as the 144,000 was concerned. What an incredible process to see, to understand what God has been doing, what He’s given, to experience that and to be thankful for that. Very, very moving, and to continually be coming out of spiritual Babylon.

Now, we come out of Egypt. That has to do with our sins. We understand the type that’s used there that God gives us. We have sin in our life and there is that coming out of spiritual Egypt. We understand the analogies there, the types.

But Babylon, what a blessing to come out of that, you know, Babel spiritually, and people are in bondage to it in the world and they don’t know it. Do we feel for them? Do we look forward to the time they’re freed from that, and all of a sudden, they’re able to experience this inside that we do, the excitement, the joy, the fullness of a plan and purpose that God has?

That’s why it talks about these rivers of living waters and this flows out of us, in essence, and how it states it here as well. These spiritual songs. What is that? Well, it’s not something you do from here, “Blah…” And last night I sang, and I thought, “Man, I sound bad.” You know, I used to lead songs, and I think, pitied the people. But I’ve lost more of my voice in time than I used to have back then. Because I know I was much better back then. Can’t hit certain notes, can’t go up. The longer you’re away from it the worse you get.

But it’s what’s inside. That’s the analogy. We hear something physically that’s done physically, but it’s what’s in the mind that counts, in here. Beautiful.

It’s about this relationship. That’s what it’s about. It’s about this relationship with God, coming into greater unity and oneness with God, this persevering. Because that’s what we want. How much do we want it? You have to fight for it. You have to work for it. You have to fight against this thing.

You have to fight against the world around you, the pulls, to be drug into this cesspool, and against a being that sometimes, if you’re on guard, if you’re really watching and you realize, especially at times like this and this time of year, that being is broadcasting even more wanting to distract you, getting you off on different things to distract you away from what’s important – the truth, what He’s giving us in this time of year.

Giving thanks always for all things. Do we do that? Do we think like that? To realize everything we have God has given it to us. Everything! Awesome! I can’t help but think of it when I walk through the subdivision to exercise and see different things and the changing of seasons and thank God for the beauty of what He’s created, just to drink in what we’re able to drink in at times as human beings. Color! Beauty! The variety! God has given us so much as human beings to enjoy. So, in everything learning to give thanks to God for what He’s given to us.

So, how much of our prayers that we have before God is a matter of thanking Him, glorifying Him, thanking Him? I couldn’t help but think of the scriptures last night and talking about, Christ talking about him desiring to glorify God by what he was going to go through, and how we are in our lives to glorify God by what we do. The reality is if we grasp and understand that it’s because it’s being accomplished by the power of God’s spirit, that that glorifies God. It reveals the power of God.

Christ’s life, what he lived, what he went through, everything that has continued on since that time, glorifies God because God is creating all this, and God is bringing it into being. The fact that it’s brought into being glorifies our Father.

If we respond to what God has given to us and we grow and change, it glorifies God. It reveals the power of God, if we yield to it, to create something that is so incredible. That He can change us from mortal to immortal, yes, but our mind has to be changed first. To think from a selfish way and grow in the unselfish, learning to judge, learning to live it, learning to apply it. Then after we’ve gone through a period of time God can say, “Now I know you. Judged you in all the little things of life and you persevered. You are Israel.” That should mean so much to us.

…giving thanks always for all things unto God the Father in the name of our Lord Joshua the Christ. Always reminded day by day by day, if we’re praying day by day by day that Joshua is the Chief Cornerstone, that everything that was ever planned, everything that began as a part of God’s thinking in His mind, in His plan, began before anything ever began to be created in the spirit realm let alone the physical realm. Awesome! Everything built upon His Son and how He was going to create a family. Incredible.

…submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. It’s about a relationship. This in itself I can’t do full justice right now because it’s a sermon. These few verses here, these three verses here, that’s a series of sermons in itself to understand what is being told to us, what we’re being given and the insight that God has revealed over a period of time to the Church in the end of an age.

Again here, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. There is a way of life we’re to live toward each other, to understand to the degree we learn to love one another within the Body, and everyone within the Body, reveals our mind toward God, reveals our mind toward Christ. If those things are messed up in some areas, then our mind is not right at all with God and Christ, and we don’t have that same mind and something has to be repented of and changed.

It’s important to ask for God’s help to learn how to love one another more fully. Because I’ll tell you right now every one of us lacks in that. Every one of you can grow in that. Every one of you can pray just about that, to be blessed and to ask for God’s help to accomplish that more in your life in how you think toward everyone in the Body.

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. Now, that’s been abused and misused in times past. It’s abused and misused in the world and it’s been abused and misused in God’s Church like a hammer, like a club. It’s like that authority to have power over and you’re supposed to do what I say!

There have been arguments like that in times past in… I can’t say it was in God’s Church. But they were going through the motion that they were in God’s Church. They went to Sabbath services and claimed to be in God’s Church. But God isn’t in that kind of stuff and when people aren’t thinking right. Especially in a marriage, if a husband and wife can’t think right toward each other, mercy, something has to change quickly in order to get your life spiritually right then. Do something and get your life spiritually right and work on that!

So indeed “…submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” Because if we don’t live what God has given us to live, man and woman, in what we’re to think and how we’re to think?

So, it says, Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands, as unto the Lord. There is an order of things. We understand that, and because of a carnal, physical world for 6,000 years pretty much, it’s been that way, because of a carnal, physical world.

God has worked within that realm in the sense of setting order and establishing order even within the Church for the past 2,000 years nearly now because of the world, because of the fact that we’re carnal and physical, and because of the society and the world around us that cannot change, and it cannot be different than what it is because they think the way they do. That can’t be helped until God begins to draw them.

So, we’re to become different. We have certain things whereby we’re judged according to how we live it. God has given this to us, did give it to the Church in the beginning there as to what needed to be done because this is the way you have to live in the world and deal in the world and society, and it’s healthier, to a point.

We have to learn those things in the Church, and we have to learn how to do these things on a spiritual plane. And so, there is order.

The big thing that’s changed in recent time is God is showing the most important aspect of this is spiritual, and so if there is an ordination, because it’s a matter of spiritual order, it’s not a matter of a physical one just because men are strong, you know, and overbearing, can be overbearing as far as that which is physical, because the reality is it’s been misused.

So again, it’s talking here about a process. We understand then in the Church, in God’s Church there is an order of things. If a woman is ordained then the husband is to learn to yield and submit to that order as far as what is spiritual.

Now, sometimes in the Church we have a hard enough time yielding and submitting to in a proper way, in a respectful way, toward the ministry that God has established. No one is perfect. We’re all far from it as human beings. But there is an order of things and if individuals are striving to live by that they’re going to benefit from it in a positive light. If you’re striving to live by God’s way, then people are going to benefit from that in a positive light, and if not, then God’s going to take care of that as well as He has through Laodicea and all the things that took place with the Apostasy.

So again, I’m not going to spend time on that. I’ve already gone through those things in times past. All changing because of a freedom that God has given to women. We’re finally at that point in time, going into the Millennium. It’s already being established in the Church, and that’s the way it’s going to be in the Millennium, a change. Awesome to understand how we’re going to learn to judge on a spiritual plane even more so in our lives. Beautiful.

For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church. What is to be learned from that? That which is spiritual. That you follow it the way God says it is and gives at any moment in time, and if more is revealed we move forward according to what is revealed in progressive revelation that God gives at any moment in time.

So again, For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church, and he is the Savior of the Body. There’s so much more to the lesson, isn’t there?

Therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so the wives unto their own husbands in everything. That’s the way it’s been. But how is it done by the husband in this case?

There is an order of things as far as a decision that has to be made in a family unit. There can’t be division and two thinking two different things. So, if something has to be decided that’s for the benefit and the welfare of the family it should be considered in the realm of what is God’s will and what is God’s purpose and how am I to do this God’s way, and what is the best in the situation here including God in the picture of it all? How should it be done? How can it be done? Then when it’s decided then that’s what we do. But all decisions in life in the Church haven’t always happened that way.

Husbands, love your wives… Powerful! Be subject unto whatever God has given you to be subject to and how the order of things should exist. And husbands, if you’re doing it right, this is what you’re going to be doing.

…love your wives, even as, “as,” that big word, as Christ loved the Church. So, if you really have the mind of sacrifice what is your attitude going to be toward your wife? So, if it’s done God’s way and people are yielding to that process, their desire first and foremost is going to be toward the wife…toward the wife very powerfully, meaningfully so.

But it hasn’t always been that way in God’s Church. A lot of decisions in times past have been made selfishly. “I need a new truck.” Oh, to go back and forth from work because you use it at work? “No, I don’t use it for work. But I need a new truck. I need a boat, too.” “I need a boat.” “Want to get some hunting equipment.” And what about the wife? I tell you I’ve seen these things over and over and over again, abuse, misuse, selfishness. You think I’m exaggerating? That might seem like the bigger things that might happen in life but if you take it down to the smaller everyday things of life there’s a thinking that’s taking place.

…even as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it. A sacrificing love. That’s what it’s about. Willing to sacrifice our desires, what we might want for the sake of others, especially the wife. What a beautiful thing when it’s done that way.

When things are done that way in God’s Church there are no problems, there is no divisiveness. Well, I don’t want to make a sermon out of it on husbands and wives.

…that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water. Again, this being led to water. This is another part of water that it’s talking about. …by the word. The importance of all this is to understand when God’s word is involved, when we look to God and what He says, and we recognize this is a matter of needing His holy spirit in order to live it, to do it, you cry out to God. It’s about God’s holy spirit still, washing of water by the word. Because it’s about living right and repenting of your wrong.

Because husbands and wives have things to repent of throughout their marriage. That’s the truth. Because two people who live together have to learn to live together in peace as one, in harmony with God’s will. The reality is there are going to be times of difference. There are going to be times of disagreement in life about certain things. You have to learn to deal with those things God’s way. It’s a part of life.

It isn’t a utopia, because we’re selfish. Can we not admit that as human beings? There are going to be those things. The more you work at it you know what? The more rewarding it is, the more meaningful it is, the more beautiful it is. There is not a more beautiful relationship in life than that lived God’s way.

…that he might present to himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle. So, what is all this about? Repenting of sin, changing, doing things God’s way, seeking to do God’s will. None of us do it perfectly. We all have to repent. But you have to work at it, you have to fight at it. You have to persevere. Relationships don’t just happen. They don’t just happen because you say “I do.” After a time, you have to do a lot more. You have to make it work. You learn in that process. The love become stronger doing it God’s way.

…not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. That is our goal. That should be our desire. That should be our focus in life, to do things according to God’s will, His way, being filled with the spirit. All these things stated beforehand, as we’ve gone through these verses here about what God wants us to have through the power of His holy spirit and brings it down to the most basic part of life – marriage. Because that’s how life continues on. People get married, children, they get married, children, life goes on. It gets greater, bigger. It’s God’s purpose. But to do it God’s way, that’s powerful and unique. What a blessing.

Verse 32 goes on to say, This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. That’s what’s to be learned from all this. Because it pictures then that which is a thinking and a mind, if we can grasp the mind of God that’s in Christ and their desire for us, and Christ’s desire for us, that everything is done for our good, everything according to God’s will, according to God’s way.

If we learn to live our lives like that, as an example here that’s brought out, in marriage, then we can begin to get more of the big picture and understand God then even a little bit better and grow in our understanding about Christ and of God and what they’re doing and offering us.

It’s a powerful thing, brethren, and it’s a spiritual thing. That’s why he says, “This is a great mystery.” Meaning you cannot understand it on a physical plane. People in the world don’t get this on a physical plane. But on a spiritual one you can grow in it, come to understand it more deeply and have great meaning to you in your being.

Well, gone far enough; going to stop there today. There is so much to learn in these days, Passover, Unleavened Bread. Passover, again just reiterating it, what it means to persevere. You understand with all of your being that it begins with our Passover and that you have to persevere in that.

And what does that mean? Repent, repent, repent of sin continually, constantly before God. Because this is where it is. Our prayers consist of that. They have to. That we have to acknowledge what we are before God and ask God for help to change. Because you know what? Every one of our minds needs to be changed.

That’s the blessing of life, that we can have this changed to come into unity and oneness with God. It always begins and continues on through our Passover, our High Priest and soon coming King, Joshua the Christ.