True Fellowship?

Ronald Weinland

July 3, 2021

Last Sabbath was going to be the conclusion of the series we’ve been focusing on over the past month, and as far as the title goes that series is over. But we’re going to continue on in the same subject, just a different title, a little bit different focus as we continue on here. This should be just one part, but sometimes I never know depending on what I get into here. But again, it’s going to continue on now with the same type of focus except with a little bit different focus but the same kind of subject matter here.

So, this is going to revolve around a question that I’m going to ask today, and that is “Am I in true fellowship with God’s Church?” So again, having to do with true fellowship, what it is, the dangers to it and now this follow-up here, in that respect.

I’m just titling this as well, True Fellowship? because that’s a lot easier to write out, a lot easier to put on the website. But it is a question, “Am I in true fellowship with God’s Church?”

Again, it’s good to ask ourselves questions of this nature at times and what is being given, to measure ourselves against what God shows us, what He reveals to us. And candidly, that’s a practice we have all the time in our life – understanding our nature, what we’re like, and what we have to be on guard against – and again, so that we can grow speedily, so that we can grow well as far as the transformation that God does in working with our minds and our thinking.

It’s an awesome process, it’s a lifelong process, but we live in a time where it’s been a speeded-up process as well. I marvel at that now that we know more, looking back to 2008 and on, that process that different ones have been going through.

I’ll just pause a little bit and mention that I can’t help but be struck by some of the sermons we’ve been going through in times past here, and especially in this series as well, some of the response from different people who have had to address some of the issues mentioned at different times more squarely head on, and I am very grateful, I’m excited about the kinds of responses because it’s been exceedingly positive, a desire to change, a desire to correct certain things that just weren’t seen. That’s the way our lives should always be.

That’s kind of unique because that really hasn’t been my experience within the Church in times past in decades gone by. Many people when they come up to some of these things in their life, various trials, various hardships, changes like in 2008, there are those who can’t do it, who won’t do it, who won’t humble themselves, and that’s our life. We have to humble ourselves before God on a continuing basis. Whatever He shows to us that should be our spirit, our desire, because without humility He can’t teach us, He can’t work with us. Because that means what? Pride is in the way. We’re holding on to something that God wants us to see and to address.

So again, I’m very excited about that, very inspired by that, and thankful to those who are doing that because it’s happening in different places in the world that I’ve had feedback on.

Anyway, this past week I’d already moved on from the series that I believed we had concluded last Sabbath, and in writing the book, as I mentioned earlier in the announcements there, sermons must take precedent. So once a sermon or sermons is fully ready to be given then I can focus on the book, so that’s what I’ve been doing, striving to do. On Sunday, as I was going through this process, I finished Part 1 of a new sermon series concerning the subject that I’ve been working on and off with for some time here, I guess a couple of months now. But then shortly after Sabbath and up through Sunday I began getting a variety of feedback from the sermon given last Sabbath, so that sermon took a backseat.

So, at least I have a series coming up that I’ve already worked on. I’m always thankful for that. So, right away I started working on this particular sermon having a focus on this subject matter here to continue on and hopefully give even more balance to the subject. We’ll see as we go through here some of the things that still need to be addressed.

Again, as I said here earlier most of the feedback was really encouraging as some were sharing with others how they had gone through different stages with all this that we’ve been discussing in the series but had come to see some things in their life that became clarified. That was part of the thing that they brought out. It just helped to clarify certain things, and you go through certain trials in life sometimes and we have to focus on something that we weren’t really ready to do. Again, it’s an awesome process sometimes, this spiritual process of growth and what we have to go through.

The clarification has helped to encourage and strengthen the reasons that several were seeing the importance of unity, they were seeing the things that needed to change, the importance for unity and why they wanted and desired fellowship in a very meaningful way because of what we’ve experienced with Covid over the past year.

Basically, that’s what the series was focusing on anyway, is we’ve gone through a lot, and being separated from one another, having to stay home, not being able to have fellowship with others and trying to get it started even again over the past couple of months, it’s been a hard process, but an exciting one for brethren too because we have to push through it. That’s what God has been showing us, we need to push through this now and make sure that we’re doing that because it’s a very powerful tool, it’s a very needful tool in God’s Church. We’ve been learning that. That’s been something that we are becoming more convicted of, if you will, which is always a very positive thing when God helps us to become more convicted of those things He’s given to us. Because then we can see scriptures in a new light or in a better light, and that’s a matter of growth again.

I want to back up here just a little bit because all comments haven’t been that way. But the majority have been. That part is what I have to look upon or look at and take encouragement from as well of what God is doing, because it’s a matter of what God is doing in the Church and how people are responding to that, and yet others who still aren’t listening very well and aren’t sobered by some of the things we’ve touched upon. That’s a very dangerous place to be. It’s not a good place to be.

So anyway, I’m going to go back here a little bit from what we looked at in Part 1. That’s Ephesians 4, and that was covered in Part 1 of the series we’ve just completed about Dangers To True Fellowship. Just by going through this I know we’re very familiar with scriptures like this, we’ve just went through them in Part 1, and we’re going to go through part of it again here. Yet I’ve been through this time and time and time in God’s Church, but they’re very powerful and they’re very encouraging, and there are always those things within the frame of a particular subject that we see things that we couldn’t see before. We see application or how they’re to live in our lives in a more meaningful and powerful way, and that’s always good.

Ephesians 4. This is where we began. We’re going to start there again today and then we’re going to look at some of the intro, what was said. Because just by going through that and then coming back to it now, there is a lot there.

Ephesians 4:1—I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy, in other words, in a worthy manner, striving to be pleasing before God, striving to respond properly to what God has given us. Because it’s talking about a calling here, worthy of the calling wherewith you were called or with which you are called. So again, other translations have some different words there, but this is what the Greek words are. It’s “calling.” It’s about a calling. Of all people we understand that.

That’s something else, just had a thought about that. You think, what an incredible thing, up to the Apostasy, the time that took place, even that was being lost in the Church, that God is the one who calls us, He’s the one who draws us, and that without that we can’t even begin to see the truth. He’s the one that opens up our minds so that we can begin to see and grasp things that we otherwise couldn’t. Because you can’t just go out and talk to people in the world and they grasp what you’re saying. Too often when we’re first called, we try to do that and realize this doesn’t work so well because God has to open the mind and give us the ability to see.

As it says here, there is a way we do this, exactly what I said just a moment ago, with all humility. We can’t be on this walk, we can’t be in this race, we can’t be in this way of life unless we strive to humble ourselves before God.

To fight against pride is what it’s about because that’s always in the way, it’s always there in our life – pride – our way of doing it, our way of seeing it, the way “I” think, the way “I” think somebody else should be doing something, judging them then accordingly by how “I” think, because “I” really have it right. That’s kind of how we think. We all have opinions.

That’s why on TV today I hate it, I loathe it. News is not news hardly anymore. It’s hard to find news of actual things that are happening in the world. It’s commentary. It’s what people think. And you know what? I really don’t care. I really don’t care what they think because most of the time we understand their thinking is all screwed up. They’re not sound. They’re not of a sound mind. They don’t know God’s way of life. They don’t know what to base it upon that’s true and meaningful and lasting.

So, all this talk that goes on is always about someone else, a judgment of someone else, against someone else and why someone else is wrong and basically, why I am right or why we are right. Madness! Absolute madness.

So again here, with all humility and gentleness and patience. The King James says, “longsuffering.” So, there is a patience, a longsuffering. We learn that in God’s Church. Change doesn’t happen overnight. The battle doesn’t end overnight. Once we start it, you have to battle all your life. You have to battle your nature all your life. You have to be continually reminded, we have to, of what we’re like, that we have a selfish nature, by design.

You know, in writing some of that in this last chapter here, it just… No, it was a sermon. It’s a Feast sermon! I’m getting these a little mixed up here. But anyway, it’s coming! Awesome, how God works with us. We’re ever learning that and growing in that more and more.

…bearing with… I love this word because it’s “forbearing.” The word has to do with “tolerance” or “tolerate,” but not in the way we use it in English, as a whole, because we tend to look at that sometimes as in a negative way, of tolerating someone else, and that carries a negative connotation meaning we’re putting up with something and that’s not what it’s about. It has to do with seeing the differences and embracing them, embracing them. That’s what this is about, “bearing with.” Most of the time if we’re having a difficulty, you know where the difficulty is? Up here in our own thinking. It’s not with them. It’s not with someone else. It’s with us. We’re the ones that need to change.

There is something in our thinking then, perhaps a prejudice, something else that’s in the way that prevents us from appreciating the difference. Thank God we’re not all the same! Thank God we don’t all see things the same way. Within that there is incredible freedom as long as it is striving to live God’s way of life. Because there are many ways to apply things in our life, to do things in our life. Think we would get that picture. Takes a lifetime to grow in that process.

…forbearing with one another in agape. God’s love. Godly love. And human beings? No one has it because it comes from God. We’re able to share in it. God gives us of that thinking, of that mind. It’s His mind. It’s His thinking. We grow in that as our minds are transformed, as it talks about in Romans. Awesome process. We begin to experience things about God’s love and that helps us within a fellowship, and this is where we get to apply it. More than any place else we get to apply it in our own fellowship toward one another and learning to appreciate and value one another, to see God working in one another.

I had an email this morning that I was moved by that helped me to see a person in a light that I hadn’t seen them fully in. There are some things when you read you see the mind of God because God has to work with us to help us to see certain things and to put things in a certain way. It reveals whether or not we see what God is doing. Sometimes our writing can reflect that very clearly so. Because to be able to express something, especially in writing, will oftentimes reveal thinking. When you see that, and you see that it is in unity with God, you know where it came from. It came from God. It came from growth. It came from development. It came from God’s spirit. Those things are exciting, and to see that in one another is exciting. Unity is a beautiful thing, it really is. Awesome!

…endeavoring… Meaning, “giving diligence.” These things don’t just happen. You have to pour yourself into it. Fasting does not come natural. You have to work against your own carnal nature to drive yourself to do things that you know you need. I know I need God. I know I need His spirit in my life. Prayer! Those things aren’t just natural in our life, not the right kind of prayer. We can get into habit of prayer like the world does and they go through this routine and habit and after a while it becomes so boring, they just spin a wheel! Up in the mountains. You know what I’m talking about, those big prayer wheels and they spin them. All different kinds of prayers that people have. I guess they get tired of talking… I don’t know. Anyway, weird, weird things sometimes. But it’s not a natural thing to pray to God about different things in life.

…endeavoring to keep… This word, again, “giving diligence to keep something,” having to do with “to watch,” “to be on guard,” to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, “the unity of the spirit.” There is nothing more beautiful in God’s Church than unity and oneness.

So, when I give a sermon on a subject and talk about a certain thing that I’ve had to make a decision on for God’s Church in the sense of being able to have unity and oneness on a subject so that we’re not divisive and not spreading things around and not getting on the internet and finding out “what I believe is right and true,” and sending it to someone else, and even sending it to the ministry, “because they don’t know these things so if I give it to them then they will see what I see, and then we’ll get what I want.” That’s what’s being said.

So, I don’t need that. Now, once in a while if it’s news… and so I’m not talking about that. But sometimes there is this thing where people want to share with others then what they’re finding out because there’s a certain way they already believe. So, immediately after giving last Sabbath’s sermon, immediately stuff being sent, even being sent to ministers to prove their point of why they don’t want to do a certain thing, to prove something that they think they see that is totally divisive.

Because as soon as you start doing something like that that’s against what has just been given, you’re being divisive. I don’t know why we can’t see something like that. It’s a small thing! It’s like I’ve mentioned about make-up in times past. Many, many years ago, back in the 80’s, there are some people who got riled up over some of those things because of the way society was at that time, and so forth, even more riled up. And you think, of something so small, physical in life that people could get so worked up in it. Mind-boggling. Yet that’s human nature.

Then if God’s apostle gets up and says a certain thing a certain way and then he gets up and reverses some of that at another time, you know what we do? This is something I’ve been moved by as well here recently, in seeing a number of people make comment about “what is bound on earth is bound in heaven.” To me, if you remember that and that’s in your mind, that says a lot. Because it reveals you understand something about God’s government in a way that’s really important, and to know how God’s spirit works.

Anyway, those things in themselves should show us that, okay, it’s a physical thing. I don’t understand the scripture, it’s not really even, some of this (talking about make-up), and so, those are decisions sometimes that have to be made for the welfare and the sake of the Church for unity. And how did that go? Thousands of people left the Church over it, thousands! Thousands of people left God’s Church, the calling that God had given to them to the truth, to understand the Sabbath and the Holy Days, and all the things that have been given through Herbert Armstrong, and went where? They forgot how they learned it. They forgot some very basic things. Where do you go? Where is God’s Church other than this? Because there is only one Church. And so, you have to scratch your head a little bit, and think, what on earth are you doing? And so, even within that people would take sides, and all the arguments that went on.

But here, here is something I had to make a decision on for the sake of the welfare of the Feast of Tabernacles and all of God’s people coming together at the Feast and striving to do it in the best way we can out of love toward one another, out of concern and care and protection of God’s own Church. Somebody has to make that decision.

So, to say something opposite against something that has been given, that’s not a small thing. I hope we understand that, because if we send things out, do things that are opposite of what’s being stated that’s division, that’s spiritual division. It can be a very physical thing, but if we try to get others to take sides with us because we’re right and he’s wrong, they’re wrong, what else is that?

God’s Church can’t have division. Unity, what does it say here? “Endeavor.” You have to work hard at it because first of all, you’re fighting your own nature. We have to look at ourselves and see, “Am I in unity with what God is giving to me? Do I recognize, do I grasp God giving me what I have?”

“To keep.” To be on guard, to keep, to guard, to protect what we’re given, to work hard at it.

“The unity.” Whatever it is. And what is that unity about? It’s about truth. It’s about a way of life. It’s about how we live our lives in the Church. That’s how we have unity. Because we all see things, in that respect, prayerfully, through the power of God’s spirit, to see the things that are on a spiritual plane, why things are done the way they are. Sometimes we can learn from that if we don’t understand it. “Why would that decision be made?” There are things to be learned from that if you go through that process.

“In the bond.” In other words, that which binds together. We are to be bound together in God’s Church, mightily so. You can’t be bound together with others of other beliefs, and so forth. That doesn’t work. But we can be bound together in the same belief, the same mind, the same spirit, the truth of God. What a beautiful thing.

“The bond of peace.” Because where there isn’t peace, there’s division. There’s division. Somebody is butting heads out here with what is being given. Their head is the only head that’s going to get hurt.

So again, I’ll be real candid with you, even division is grounds for not being a part of fellowship in God’s Church. God says division is as the sin of witchcraft. That’s pretty strong. That’s what division is like. It’s that bad.

It’s hard sometimes for the human mind to comprehend that. So, all we do is hit a button, send something across to someone else in God’s Church because we don’t have to see them face to face, we can do it through an email, and we can shoot that stuff out there, what we believe, what we want someone else to see, what we’re trying to save them from, of why they should not get a jab, a shot.

I don’t get it. I don’t get it. This is more than a physical decision made for God’s Church. Make-up was more than a physical decision about smearing something on us making us look better. And it does! It can—don’t misunderstand me—depending on how we use it.

Verse 4. So, the context continues from the previous verses and still, in essence, talking about keeping the unity of the spirit and a bond of peace. Verse 4—One body, one spirit… That’s what unity is! Anything else, divisiveness hurts. Divisiveness in families hurts. When people aren’t working together for the same purpose and the same cause, what are they working for? They’re pulling away. They’re hurting the body.

Spiritually, it’s the same thing as far as God’s way of life and God’s Church. He wants us to understand and recognize the incredible value, the importance of being at one with Him, with His way of life, with His thinking, with His judgment.

…just as you are called in one hope of your calling. So again, you’re called into one hope which has to do with one truth. You can’t have different truths because then it wouldn’t be truth, if they’re not the same.

That’s why you think of the confusion in the world of religion. What’s true? If one doesn’t agree with another what’s wrong with that? Why isn’t there just one? Because anything else, it’s not the same. Was Christ divided? Is God divided? Scriptures that talk about that, Paul talks about that and showing that it’s not the way it works.

….one Lord, one faith, meaning you believe the same thing. Because faith is a matter of living by what you’ve been given to receive, and if you choose that and see that and know that and it’s becoming a part of your life then you’re going to live according to it. Whatever it is you believe, your life is going to be based on that and you’re going to live according to that. That’s what faith is and faith is a powerful thing because God counts that to us for righteousness. Righteousness.

We’re not righteous. We have to repent of sin on a regular basis, day in and day out in our lives of our selfishness, of things we’ve said wrong or whatever it might be, things you’ve done wrong, whatever it might be, small as they might be. And through that process we grow, we grow closer to God. But we’re able to repent. And because we believe that process of repentance and that we can be able to use, have that in our life, the blood of Christ, the sacrifice of Christ that we know we’re forgiven as soon as we say, “Forgive me, Holy Father” and you mention what it is, and it’s gone. You have that blessing in your life through baptism. It’s incredible.

…one baptism, one, one God and Father of all, who is above all, through all, and in you all. So, beautiful scriptures in what’s being spoken of here.

We need to add here what was quoted next concerning what God gave to His Church as it says, He gave some apostles, and then the ministry. So again here. We read through those verses.

Then verse 13, until… So, God has given those within the environment of the Church government, order, a way we’re taught, a way we’re able to learn, until we all come to the unity of the faith. That’s why we went through this series and talking about those things that are dangerous to fellowship, true fellowship. Because it has to do with the truth, not just some numbered truths, not just to certain major truths that God has given to His Church, not just to things concerning the Sabbath, tithing, the Holy Days and so forth, truth we live by, but other things in our life, other things, many other things, things that are sometimes very physical so we’re in unity in it.

…until we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect (mature) man/woman, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Incredible that we can grow and continue to grow until finally, God, in essence, says on a spiritual plane, “Now I know you” and we become sealed, in essence. God knows that whatever is put before us, He knows the kind of decisions and choices we’re going to make in life so that at whatever point a person may die, they’re going to be in a resurrection to spirit life. Awesome!

…that we should no longer be like children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every… it’s not “doctrine” in the sense of how we think doctrine. That’s a poor translation. It’s a word in the Greek for instruction.

So, today there is no end of instruction out there – knowledge, instruction, how to live life, what you should do, what you shouldn’t do, everything you want to look at. A person generally will tend to research and go into that which they agree with anyway. That’s an incredible thing about the human mind. It doesn’t generally research and wanting to know, “Okay, I want to look at this side. I want to look at this side. And then I’m going to strive…” But that’s what we should strive to do. And yet, as a whole, we don’t tend to, as human beings, do that. We tend to lean in one direction or another, to the more conservative, to the more liberal, or something else. That’s just the way the human mind works.

That isn’t right, so we have to learn how to judge. God wants us to go through these experiences so we can learn how to judge. It’s one of the greatest things we have to learn, how to judge, how to think. Because judgment has to do with thinking toward others, how we think toward others. We judge all the time, but how we judge is exceedingly important to God, truly is.

So again here, so we’re not carried about with every wind of instruction. It doesn’t matter what it might be. It could be something like what we’ve been going through in this series. Because it kind of brought a lot of this to the surface, hadn’t it? Covid. Incredible!  People have a lot of strong feelings about what has taken place and what’s still going on and all the stuff that’s being thrown out there. Because there are tons of things. Just like truck load after truck load and so it’s like, stop the trucks from dumping this all on me. Because all the things about vaccines or masks and some of the ideas that are floating around. Some of them, sometimes, are so far out it just blows your mind!

But anyway, God will through the power of His spirit help His people to find, to achieve, to strive for a balance, a sound approach to whatever it is in life that we need to address at any moment in time. It’s always been that way in God’s Church. Always been that way. But it’s something we have to learn, it’s something we have to go through to see our unity, to see how we’re working on it, to see how much we’re really looking inside at our own selves and how we think and why we think the way we do. Because these are hard things. These are not easy. It takes God’s spirit to see the mind. God says He’s the one who searches the hearts, the minds. He knows what’s inside of us, we don’t. But we learn as we grow. We learn how we think.

But there are things that are so deep in it sometimes you just have to cry out to God to help you understand them so that they’re revealed to you so you can deal better with whatever it is you’re battling. A lot of times what we’re battling is something in our own mind. It’s not something out there; it’s how we think about it.

This past series concerning true fellowship, again, began with the subject that we first focused upon, this here thing of Covid. I think how this is still going on within the Church. We’ve had a second person die of Covid, another one who is right at the doorstep, in that respect. Is able to be back home now, but the breathing still…? You know, there are things that sometimes some of these things attack in the body that they’re very hard, very difficult.

I want to read part of the intro here. I wanted to go through that first before I continue on here. I was going to read something else, but I want to go through Part 1 on the intro because it has everything to do with some of the things we’re looking at now.

“We have been living through a difficult year when it comes to being able to have healthy fellowship with others in God’s Church. This matter of Covid-19 has taken a toll on the Church.”

That was said in Part 1. It has! Some has been good. Some has been bad.

“The virus has not been the cause of the toll but how it has stimulated or ignited wrong responses to it is the danger.”

It has in God’s Church.

“Although some of what will be covered in this series has been mentioned at different times and in different ways, today we’re going to focus more squarely on the subject because there are dangers that have surfaced which reflect weaknesses that exist within the lives of too many within the Church.”

That’s why it had to be addressed. Because certain things in thinking, really going back to division, divisiveness. Because when we get to a state where something physical can cause debate that isn’t amongst God’s people, sadly, too often those kinds of things have to be addressed because it deals with the spiritual matter, relationships, the Church, fellowship.

That’s why it has that title to it, True Fellowship. Because that’s on a spiritual plane. True fellowship is first and foremost with God and His Son, Joshua the Christ. Then if our minds and thinking are right there in our relationship and we’re praying about this relationship and what we need to strive to do better and we see things we can improve upon, it’s a beautiful thing.

But if we get caught in things of communicating with one another or across the country in email or various things and suddenly some are beginning to butt heads in different subjects a different air begins to emerge. People begin to take sides. Certain ones who have a certain belief, perhaps about a mask or not a mask. I am so sick of that! I don’t care what you do with your masks, never have, but we have to make choices and decision and we strive to work with government in whatever country we live in.

I feel sorry for them over there in Australia. When they lock down, they lock down. Still! To live through some of that, it’s hard to do. Those things can be very burdensome, and they can cause a lot of problems and a lot of stress.

Anyway, we’re very blessed in this country right now because of where we are, in a sense. But I hope we’re sick of some of these kinds of arguments in the world. What’s bad is when those have creeped into the Church. It’s not the place for it. This is not the place for people being on different sides.

How can we be at one, how can we be God’s Church if we have different thinking going on about different physical matters? It’s hard enough sometimes to be in unity and oneness on a spiritual plane on spiritual matters. 2008. That’s just a small part. So, you address something on a spiritual plane.

Even on a physical plane they’re small things in life but they affect the way we think and our relationships with one another. Wish we could see that so clearly, but we have to go through these kinds of examples in our life so that we can see them.

“Although some of what will be covered in this series has been mentioned at different times and in different ways, today we’re going to focus more squarely on the subject because there are dangers that have surfaced which reflect weaknesses that exist within the lives of too many within the Church. The kind of varied situations that have created different battles, different adjustments and/or trials as a result of this Covid virus have either worked to strengthen some or to weaken some.”

That’s what’s happened over the past several months. We can respond to it and grow from it spiritually as we can with all physical things around us that we interact with in life or they can begin to affect us in a negative way, to hurt us because we’re not dealing with it properly.

Going on: “We need to look at some of these matters so that we can become a stronger knit people in the Body of Christ.”

So, very physical things can reflect sometimes what’s really inside, what’s in the mind, where we are on a spiritual plane. Because really, physical things shouldn’t be a problem. They shouldn’t be an obstacle. We should be able to work through those quickly. Yet we’re very physically oriented.

“So, it’s really quite incredible how physical things can be used so powerfully within God’s Church.”

God uses these things so often to reveal what needs to be seen spiritually. Hence, make-up. Thousands, I’m telling you thousands of people left God’s Church over something so puny, so insignificant in the scheme of things in life compared to what God was giving of the spirit, of His mind, of His way of life, of the truth, of hope. What was the physical thing that some would leave over? So it revealed where people really were. Hate to see them go, but it’s better for the Body. It really was. God used it as a process of cleansing the Body.

Hair. Very physical. Yet at different times in people’s lives sometimes that has come up. That’s has been my experience depending on styles and so forth, of things that happen. I solved that! (Just kidding!) But God addresses something as simple as that in scripture. People in the world don’t want to hear that. But it’s addressed for men and women. Because sometimes, because of styles, because of the world, those things can begin to creep in and begin to cause division within the Body, within the Church even. So we have and we learn things about moderation at any given time. At any moment in time, we’re to live in moderation and not to extremes.

Doctors. It’s a very physical thing. Choices people have had to make over time, and there have been great battles in that and great divisiveness within God’s Church because of that, there really has. I’ve seen some horrifying things over time that have really hurt people on a spiritual plane because of something so physical. How can that be compared to things that are spiritual? But they affect the thinking.

Doctors, taking medicine versus natural, nature, whatever all that might mean sometimes. So, you know, we have to make decisions when they come along. Now, I’m not a fan of having to take a lot of medicine or any kind of medications but there is one that I know if I don’t take, I’m going to be dead sooner than later because I already have a history of it. Cholesterol clogs up my arteries something fierce, so I’ve had to have seven by-passes over all. Not a lot of people have had seven by-passes. So, they’ve kept it going. So, I have a choice to get the cholesterol down to where it’s negligible. We all know we’re going to die, but for my case it’s, “You’re going to die!” And that’s life. But I’m not in a hurry, but then on the other hand, if it happens, I’m at peace. So, we understand that.

So anyway, but people go through these things sometimes. It’s like flu shots. People can take them or not take them, that’s their choice. Now I don’t like them. Now, if it had affected the Church in some way, in a way like this Covid thing has, that might be a different matter. But as a whole, I’ve got my own reasons and I’m not going to tell you what those are. But that’s my reasons and it has nothing to do with the Church. That’s where I tried to handle the Covid thing for a time, but it came to a point where I couldn’t do it that way anymore, I had to make a decision for the Church.

So, this thing about herbs or whatever, a holistic approach. There was a time, and it still may exist, I don’t know, but rather than going to a doctor you know what people used to do and they’d be okay in their own mind? Go to a chiropractor. Now, I love my chiropractor. Well, I don’t “love” him, but anyway, he’s awesome. Because I’ve gone through different chiropractors in times past and if you get a good chiropractor if you’ve got a problem and he knows how to do it, boy, you can just go in and you’re out just like that because they know what they’re doing. They can tell immediately just by feeling. And you think, what an incredible gift to have, because I’ve been to some who can’t feel anything and so you go out and you think you’re worse off than when you went in. But the one we have now, awesome!

But I hope you understand what I’m saying by there has been that in times past in the Church—I hope it’s not there now—where you can’t go to a doctor, but you could go to a chiropractor, and especially one who might be in these other things. Because that’s been kind of the history of some things in time past. Some will get into holistic medicines or different kinds of things that people can take, and so some like to do that in the Church. There has been division because of it.

I’m not even going to go into it. I don’t want to waste time on it. But anyway, I’m just giving some examples of physical things that can sometimes come out to show imbalances.

Now, I want to read some things, that have been sweeping through the Church as well in different areas, just to give some balance. Something that’s called “Flower Essence.” I want to read this here first of all from an institution named Endeavour that I found on the internet, called the College of Natural Health.[1]

“The use of flower essences have gained world-wide recognition due to their contribution to holistic health and emotional healing. However, these subtle medicines can become somewhat ‘watered-down’ as they are difficult to study on a biochemical level…” The reason is because you can’t measure it. “…due to the limitations of science and research.” So, science and research is limited. That ought to tell you something right there. “Although this shouldn’t mean we ignore the thousands of years they have been used traditionally to heal physical and mental imbalances.” With flower essence. That’s what they’re talking about.

“Unlike essential oils or herbal extracts that contain the physical substances extracted from plants, there is no physical part of the flower left in a flower essence. Instead they work on similar principles to Homeopathy, in which the life-force and vibrational signature of the plant is imprinted within a water-based matrix. This is achieved through sun-steeping the flowers in water for a period of time. The water is then collected, strained and potentized through dilution methods.”

“The impact of flower essences…” It’s this thought that it has some kind of, well, the closest thing I can come to is Avatar and the plants and the tree, anybody who might have seen that, and the power that was there. That somehow that this is a vibrational healing thing that is able to come out of flowers through this process you can extract through water and other things, whatever that is—better to be steeped in the sun, it sounds like—and to get these vibrations out of it that you can’t measure, that can’t be measured by science because it’s not physical. That’s why they can’t measure any of it because it’s not physical. Nothing can be measured as to what it is. So, these vibrations or these life forces as they are… Anyway.

“The impact of flower essences is not derived from bio-chemical intervention within the physiology, which is why they are challenging to study…” I’m sorry, but I’m having a hard time just not laughing as I’m reading. “…from a scientific perspective.” Yeah, because there’s nothing in science about it. When you can’t measure it, until you can, it’s best to leave some things alone in the world. It’s like these forces of things that we addressed one other time. Tesla. Some of the ideas he went into when he finally went to India, I think, and worked under some kind of a guru. AAnyway, same sort of thing, these essences, these vibrations, these things that can heal people, help you emotionally or even physically with different kinds of illnesses and stuff.

“Unlike pharmaceuticals or even some herbal medicines, which can suppress symptoms, flower essences work by the principle of resonance within the subtle human energy field, which impacts one’s physical and emotional health. In other words, flower essences are based on vibrational energetics, rather than biochemical, and stimulate the body’s natural capacity to bring itself back to homeostasis.” All language that you should flee from. I’m serious! You should flee from that kind of language. “All plants carry vibrational energy patterns, and it is said that flowers are the pinnacle of this energy.”

No more in God’s Church! No more. That’s not something that God has given for us to be able to use in the manner that some things can be out of foods and so forth that can be measured scientifically, that the body can take in. We have difficulties sometimes in our bodies as to what we can take in and what we can’t take in. People are different. There is a balance in everything. But in this, there’s not a matter of any balance whatsoever because it’s not right. It’s been done for thousands of years. Some of the practices of those things and how they’ve done it and what they’ve done, well, so often it’s not based on anything except other kinds of religious practices which people should flee from.

Here is one from the Flower Essence Society: [2]“Note that some entries address the negative state of mind, some the transformed state that is the goal, and some include both polarities. It is important that we become familiar with the bipolar nature of flower essences: both the state of imbalance and the positive or transformative potential.”

I can see the sixties and the flower children. That’s all I can say. I’m sorry, but that’s what it…. Anyway, I have a hard time reading some of this.

“In selecting appropriate essences we may start with the positive goal, and then uncover the emotional or mental pattern that blocks this purpose. Alternatively, we may start with the client's pattern of imbalance or suffering, and then determine the positive quality that needs to be developed. Therefore…” So, there’s this positive thing, these vibrations are what helps you to become balanced. Very much like what this Tesla thing was all about. That comes from a spirit world. It comes from a wrong spirit world.

“Therefore, the category listings are a mixture of both positive and negative indications for the essences… Study also the related categories cross-referenced in the listings you check…” So, this is telling you how to do some of this. “You may find other appropriate essences, or new perspectives on essences you are considering. Be aware of the various kinds of categories: emotional and mental states (Anger, Clarity), situations (Emergency, Study), conditions (Alcoholism, Eating Disorders),” things you can have this essence and it’ll take care of or help these things, “…themes (Materialism, Personal Relationships) …” So, you’ve got to decide what is their hang-up, where are their emotions coming from, why are they feeling this way about certain things or why do they have this kind of weakness in their life, and the effort is to try to cure it, to heal it.

“…practices (Massage, Meditation), populations (Animals, Children), or stages of life (Adolescence, Aging).” So basically, you catch everyone. We’re all in this. Anyway. “Browsing the listings on the main page can assist you in locating appropriate categories.” So anyway, that’s enough said. But because it’s been out there in different areas, need to pull the plug on it.

Another thing that’s been around a little bit, which if I do ever hear of this will be immediate grounds for no longer having fellowship in God’s Church. I don’t like to be this way. I don’t like to have to do those things, but this stuff is demonic, absolutely demonic. I’ve had to deal with it in times past, a demonic world. They’re out there, and if it works itself into the fellowship of God’s Church the sooner that we can see it, the sooner it’s gone, the better off we are as God’s people. Because they have power to deceive.

This is called Reiki. [3]“Reiki is a form of alternative therapy commonly referred to as energy healing. It emerged in Japan in the late 1800’s and is said to involve the transfer of universal energy from the practitioner’s palms to their patient.”

Now, as God’s minister or ministers we have laying on of hands that God has given in scripture to talk about, and putting the oil on the forehead, for anointings, for healing because we’re looking to God for intervention in our life and there is no power in the person who does it. There is no power in their hands because they lay hands upon an individual, because God gives us that is the form to follow because it’s obeying Him in how it’s done. So, the individual doesn’t have any power whatsoever. But God does because we’re obeying God and looking to God to intervene.

Going on: “Energy healing has been used for centuries in various forms. Advocates say it works with the energy fields around the body.” I wonder how those are measured.

Now, we all have electrolytes or whatever and different things in our system and we have a certain level of juice, the nerve systems and things that run through there. Candidly, I’ve gotten old enough now that I can tell when I’m missing electrolytes. It happens in life sometimes. Call it what you will, but anyway I have to make sure that I have enough in my system because I can tell by my physical condition when I’m low on them. So, there are all kinds of things in life that can affect health, and that’s one of them, and it is a factor to be dealt with. But I don’t want to go any farther.

Anyway, [4]“What to expect in a…” This is another section that I looked up here, “in a Reiki session?” “In some ways, there is no typical Reiki session-no set protocol or length of time. Reiki can be administered by anyone who has training, which could be a professional practitioner, a healthcare provider, a friend or family member, or even you yourself if you have been trained in Reiki.” From what I’ve read on this, you don’t have to have too much training.

“Moreover, there is no typical setting: a quiet place is preferable, but Reiki can be done anywhere, no matter what else is happening either around or directly to the recipient. Moments of touch from a Reiki-trained practitioner can bring comfort in an acute or emergency situation, such as the onset of the flu, or after an injury or surgery.”

Shame, shame, shame to go that far away from the trunk of the tree, from what God has given to us. I would think a person would be scared to death to think they could lay hands upon anyone, to copy something that God has given to be done in a right way through what He has established within His ministry. For anyone in God’s Church to think they have that power, you don’t have it. And if you think you do, you don’t belong here. You don’t belong in the midst of this fellowship. So, either it stops immediately…

Because I remember one situation up in Pennsylvania. You remember that? Yeah. Been passed down through family line so one mother had this and so her daughter had it and she grew up having it, and had this ability, this “power” to lay hands upon people. Could even have warmth in the hands and they would get hot or whatever, or whatever it is, or so the story goes, and could heal people of various things.

Do you know that God speaks of things that there is a demonic world that has power and can actually affect the human body if you give yourself over to it? It’s like anything in a demonic world. That’s why it’s so important we always have control of our minds. That’s why individuals shouldn’t go, in a matter of drugs or alcohol, too far or whatever to where if you don’t have control of your mind—it’s the most precious thing God has given you—and literally, in that state of mind a demonic world can begin to influence you. I’ve seen these things. They’re not good things. They’re not pleasant things to be around.

They’re nothing to be afraid of but there are demons in the world. We don’t know how many. There could be hundreds of millions. We don’t know how many are out there. Christ spoke of a legion, 72,000. He spoke of other things. You remember the case where the ones were rebuked and they went into a herd of swine? They went over a cliff and jumped over the edge? You remember that story? Think, this is some weird stuff. Don’t want to mess around with that. But it’s happened in life. Things happen in life. Again, nothing to be afraid of but they’re real things that happen.

That’s why the thing about speaking in tongues is such a horrible thing for people to come out of in the world. Because I’ve run across lots of them, people who speak in tongues and people who roll around on the floor and they’re wanting to get the spirit. They have these things and you know what? They get it. But it doesn’t come from God. It comes from a spirit world, and they do lose control. They’re not in control.

You know, God doesn’t try to control anyone by His spirit. He doesn’t take over the body. But a spirit world tries to if it can.

So, one of the stupidest things we ever had to do at Ambassador College, which whoever sent us out, some evangelists teaching some of the classes, but sent out students to different church organizations by threes. So, you had this responsibility of taking “Comparative Religion,” to go out to some place, to be assigned, to pick a church area or a church you were going to go to, obviously, on a Sunday because that’s when they observe it. One would have to give a report on the beliefs and doctrines of the church, one had to give a write up about the service itself, and there was something else, a third point that they brought out there that had to be in there. Thankfully, I’ve forgotten. Anyway, naturally, the team I was with we got into a place that when we got in there we were ready to get out.

I’m sorry, and I know I’ve told the story before, and you probably don’t want to hear it again. You’ve heard of Jerry Clower? If you have, you’re old. But it’s comedian in the southern part of the U.S., in bible belt type of thing, and he had a reputation here of going around, the kind of jokes they would have. Anyway, they’d have these that were put on radio and different things.

Anyway, one of these was one time Jerry and his friend, I can’t think of the name, they were at this church, and they started passing out snakes from the front of the room, or the door, the door area. The two friends there, they saw the snakes being handed around. Because there’s that practice where some think that poisonous snakes, you have the spirit and God, if you don’t get bit. Anyway, these snakes are being passed around and they’re coming closer and closer, and he says to his friend, basically, “Where’s the door? I’m not going to do this,” basically, is what it came down to. He says, “I’ve looked and there isn’t any here,” and he says to his friend, “Well, where do you reckon they want one?”

Anyway, I’ve always enjoyed that one. That’s kind of how we felt down there in Big Sandy at Ambassador College when we went to this church. As soon as they got in there, they had this little side room that we’d already passed, and this woman is in there screaming and wailing and saying things in gibberish. It was unnerving just to be in that environment. Because I’ve known of those things, but to ever experience it, I’d never experienced it. Then during the service here there are different ones. I think we did leave early. If we had any sense at all I know we did.

But anyway, they don’t understand but they think they have the spirit. They’ve been reared and trained into believing this is a practice that reveals God’s spirit in their life and that God is in their life if they start feeling it.  But they don’t understand they want this so much and it’s so wrong, what they’re seeking to have, that they actually do have experiences. They are some of the most difficult in some ways to have dealt with in times past, in my experience, because to convince them this isn’t of God is a very difficult thing to do. Because they felt things in their body. They have experienced things in their body, in what they have said. To tell them this isn’t of God is a very difficult thing sometimes for the human mind to accept because they believe this is a religious experience.

So, what I’m saying is, is that something like what I’ve just read here about some of these ideas that individuals have power from themselves? God Almighty has the power to do what He will in those kinds of things in life when it comes to healing, to helping us, to intervening in our lives as we pray about them. Then we learn from the process when He does and when He doesn’t, and many other things in life we learn as we go through and experience this. I’ve seen all kinds of things in God’s Church, where God’s intervened and then chosen not to intervene. Because sometimes there are things we learn by Him not immediately intervening. Sometime people have had to wait a while. Because there are all kinds of things that God molds and fashions within us that we need to learn.

But to have a “religious” experience it’s wise that we understand there is a spirit world. Nothing to be feared because when you know the truth sometimes people get fearful of some of those kinds of things. Nothing to fear whatsoever. They hate to be around God. They hate to be around God’s spirit. They hate to be around God’s people, as a whole. Sometimes they may try to deceive. Sometimes they may try to work their way into various situations in life, but again, God will reveal those in the proper time and get rid of it in its proper time. But we learn through this. We learn through experiencing all kinds of things in life.

So, there are things that are real, and we should stay away from them. And so, when God’s minister gets up and tells you flee from this as fast as you can, run away from it as fast as you can, because if you give yourself into it and you begin to think that you have power that comes through you, that can be given from your body to someone else, you have already given yourself over. In many ways already you’re starting the process of giving yourself over to a spirit world, to wrong thinking.

God will not dwell in that. He will not dwell in that. So, that’s why I mention a practice like that, anyone doing that, can’t be in God’s Church. Because they’re not anyway. So, if somebody started doing that, they need to repent of it, ask God for mercy, and ask God for help of His holy spirit to get their minds cleansed quickly and protected from that spirit world’s influence.

It’s too bad we have to deal with those kinds of things in life. That’s why in writing the book here, in writing about the Millennium, thinking about Satan being put away and a seal set upon him this time. Because he’s been allowed out different times, different wars, WWII, WWI, and all the way back in time as we understand, especially in the revivals in Europe. Then to know that that being and the demonic world are going to be put into a place of restraint for a thousand one hundred years, and then let out for a little while. We understand that process and we know it’s coming and why.

But to know they’re not going to be around again ever, not throughout the Millennium, what an awesome thing! Because they have caused so much heartache, pain, and suffering in this world. They’ve hurt so many people through time. They’ve influenced so many leaders in the world to do heinous and evil things. That’s where most wars come from, as a whole, because of their influence and being stirred up by them. Sad.

God desires that we have unity in all things and some of this goes back to some things we need to look at here in 1 John 2. So, the way we live our lives in relationships toward one another, toward God and Christ, and toward His ministry, reveals much about what is true and not true in us and in our fellowship. We can’t be divisive. I don’t know how plain, much plainer I can be about something like that. To promote something, to push something that is opposite of what is being told. Do it someplace else, but you can’t do it here. God won’t allow it.

1 John 2:15—Love not the world neither the things in the world. Sometimes it’s so hard for us to grasp sometimes as human beings what this means. Because it entails so much. It’s the way, the system, the process of things that come out of the world. Today there is so much that comes out of the world. It comes through the internet. It’s out there full blown. All this divisiveness, they’re having a heyday. They love it. They love human beings to be divisive toward one another. They love it when human beings hate one another, loathe one another, can’t be at peace with one another. That’s their mind. They just relish that kind of environment. They hate human beings with a passion. What an incredible thing to understand why God left Satan on this earth. It’s an awesome thing to understand that.

“Love not the world, neither the things in the world.” So, to take sides with something. Now, sometimes we have to address things in the world. And for us to take sides with various things in the world that come at us, why we believe we should or shouldn’t wear a mask; some people get very worked up about that, just over a mask. It’s not natural. I can tell you that. But we also have a responsibility to strive to cooperate with a community or whatever. In other words, I’m not going to get in an airport and not wear it and try to get on the plane and not wear it, because I know what’s going to happen. Because they’re going to enforce their rules. So, I can do that. I can wear a mask that long. I don’t like doing it, but I’ll do it.

But I’m not going to get all hot and bothered by what people are saying out here. They find a few cases of individuals who have lung problems and hurt and suffering that it’s causing in human life and then get all worked up about it and try to tell everybody else you shouldn’t wear them at all because these are things that are happening out there. Anyway, I hope you understand what I’m saying. The same thing is true about a shot or not a shot or what kind of shot or whatever.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in them. For all that is in the world… So, sometimes God helps us to understand things of the world that we shouldn’t have in our thinking and we have to find balance. What is the soundness of mind? How do we judge? How do we deal with that matter at any moment in time? Well, God will show us. He always has.

For all that’s in the world—the lust… This has to do with desires that are about self. Sometimes we just don’t grasp that we have a certain desire that something be a certain way, even in God’s Church, and if it doesn’t go that way, “Because I believe a certain thing, that I have studied into and I’ve read and I’ve seen these reports and I’ve seen what’s happened to certain people in their lives because I’ve seen it on YouTube and I’m convinced of that, and then I want to share this with everybody else, of why they need to be careful, to go against what God has,” well, “what a minister has said.” Everybody has to decide whether God’s in it or not. That says a lot, doesn’t it?

All that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but of the world. Even the world passes away, and the lust thereof. In time, it’s not going to be there anymore. What an incredible thing! But while it’s here and where it is we need to know. It’s in every one of us. That’s our makeup, “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” Pride that gets in the way of what God reveals to us and shows us how to live life. We resist those things. “The carnal mind,” as God says, “is enmity against God. It’s not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be,” of and by itself. Then it goes on to tell how we can be. Only by God’s spirit, only by God’s help and His holy spirit helping us to see and deal with those things can we have soundness of mind.

Even the world passes away, and the lust thereof, but he who does the will of God abides (dwells, continues, remains), and in His spirit, because that’s how we get there, forever. So, that’s God’s desire, is that we continue to dwell in Christ and in the Father, that they continue, obviously, to dwell in us because we’re repenting of sin, because we want to have unity and oneness with God. Through that process then in time what an awesome thing that God revealed the Church not to long ago, that God’s temple, God’s dwelling place, will be in His Family forever. That He’s going to dwell in, as He does in us, but on a continuing basis, never having the spirit quenched because of sin. Because we through sin can begin to cut off the flow of God’s spirit into our life or be totally cut off from it. But what an awesome thing when we’re going to have it forever, God’s holy spirit.

The angelic realm doesn’t have it. It was never meant they had God’s holy spirit. They didn’t have the holy spirit. They were spirit beings, but they didn’t have the holy spirit. That’s reserved for God’s Family. It’s designed for God’s Family. It can only be given to God’s Family. Awesome, to understand that and to know why.

Even the world passes away, and the lusts thereof, but one who does the will of God abides (continues) forever. Little children, it is the last time, and as you have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists, whereby we know it is the last time. So, they all looked for Christ’s return. Ever since he left, they were always looking for His coming back and establishing the Kingdom of God. As time went along God began to reveal to Paul and to John that this wasn’t going to happen right away. And so, certain things were said by Paul to know that there was going to be the one who would stand up in time, there would be an apostasy and a great falling away of God’s people.

But then God gave to John to understand this thing about what antichrist is, that there’s going to be an antichrist that is going to be above them all, in that respect, the man of sin, the son of perdition, but through the time in the Church there have been many antichrists.

That’s been a hard thing to deal with because we come to understand that the vast majority of people who have ever been called into God’s Church over the past 2,000 years have left, have left for various reasons, where they didn’t agree with things that were being taught, where something else came along their life, perhaps. So often it’s a matter of money or sex. Because people begin to rob from God. Or a matter of something sexual in nature that is forbidden, that God says you can’t do, and so they want to do it so much so that, you know, how important is God and God’s way of life? So, they throw it away. Horrible. But that’s the human mind.

But to think that after we’ve given the most awesome thing, the potential to become a part of God’s Family for all time when we’re just going to live in this life a short time. But it’s hard for us to deal with that because seventy, eighty years—see, I’m pushing it—isn’t very long. It isn’t that long in the scheme of things and when you’re up there at that point you realize, man, where did it go? It’s going by fast. You know you don’t have much time left, regardless. That’s life…death that follows, and then a resurrection.

But to grasp all time? We can’t grasp that no more than we can grasp the vastness of the universe that’s out there that mankind keeps trying to see and to discover new things or whatever it might be. It’s a drop in the bucket what they grasp right now. It’s just a little piddly drop in the bucket.

Wasn’t it Hubble now they’ve lost control of, or they don’t have a connection to it now, or something happened with it so there are problems with that now? (And the Chinese are building things, passing us up.) Anyway.

They went out from us. AntiChrist. It’s about people in God’s Church. This is not talking to the world. They’ve never known God. They’ve never been called to the truth. This is speaking to people who have known the truth, who have been baptized, who have opportunity and have had the blood of Christ in their life, in the respect of his sacrifice, to be able to be forgiven of sin, and started that process, to be impregnated with God’s holy spirit. And then to turn against God? What words can be used to express such a horrifying thing? But it’s happened so much.

It’s one of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced in life because I’ve known of hundreds, I believe into the thousands of people, who have left God’s Church since the time I’ve been in it. Talk about having to persevere. That’s what you have to do. You have to be so deeply convicted and fight and never give up.

That’s why I love that series we just went through, to fight and never give up. The name “Israel,” to fight, to persevere, what it means. That’s why we have the name. Because to succeed, to become a part of the Kingdom of God, the Family of God you have to persevere. There is no time you can let up and quit. You can’t let down. You’ve got to be on guard. You’ve got to keep fighting. It’s just a way of life, and it’s a short amount of time, it really is.

I think of when I was baptized in 1969. I look back and I think, this has gone by quickly, it really has. Been blessed with incredible experiences over time, things that could be learned in no other way, in hardships and difficulties of life. That’s what we go through. That’s how God molds and fashions us and shows us what is right. That’s why we grab a hold of that. Because we want that. We don’t want self.

They went out from us because they were not all of us. What a horrible thing to come to a point in time where someone begins to turn against – in other words, what antichrist means, they’re not repenting anymore of some sin or sins in their life. Because then that will multiply. One sin will lead to another. Cheating on God? Lying? Stealing from? That’s a series that’s coming.

Anyway, blows my mind that a human being would cheat, steal from God when we know what we know. And yet these things have happened over time, through time. To not grasp what God is offering us?

So, in time a person becomes weaker and weaker, and this becomes true then, They went out from us because they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued (remained, abided, that word) with us. That’s why we have a fellowship. That’s why it’s so powerful. That’s why it’s so needful. It’s what we have.

It hurts me when I see it get whittled down because people make certain kinds of decisions. So, we had the Apostasy. Right away sixty some thousand off, out. Then within everything else that was left, that other third scattered all over the place around the world. Slowly but surely this took place. God giving opportunity to those who were able to come through and have to address various things in life. Why did it happen? How could this happen? What is the reason for it? Because we were Laodicean. Because what came to pass, the man of sin, the son of perdition, a great falling away – you can’t get any greater than what happened to us. Horrible.

But they went out that they might be made manifest, that they were not all of us. So, as hard as it is we learn through this. We learn. It’s a horrible thing to go through some of these things to learn what we need to see. God wants us to see a lot of things in the world around us and to recognize not to have that which is protestant thinking, false hope that somehow we can save anyone else, as the world has this concept sometimes that you have to proselyte. When you do it with the truth you don’t get very far, do you?

You’re going to proselyte about the Sabbath, the Holy Days, and it doesn’t work. Why? Because God has to call them. They can’t begin to see what you see until God calls them. And so, He has the plan of doing that. Some of it is in the Great White Throne and some of it is going to be after this horrific war that comes. Finally, the world is going to start listening when they know there’s an army here that they can’t defeat. 144,000 and one, powerful. Power that mankind has never experienced anything like.

But you have an unction, means “an anointing,” is what the word is, which is of God’s spirit, from the Holy One, from God Almighty. What an awesome thing the Great God of the universe, the one who created everything that’s there, of things that we can’t even begin to grasp nor comprehend, time that’s going to go on, everlasting life. We can’t comprehend those things. We don’t have the minds, the ability to.

…and you know all things. In other words, of the truth; whatever you have at any moment in time you know them because God has given it to you. He’s given to you what you need to know at any moment in time, the present truth. That’s been varied from the beginning of Abel on up, the first one.

I have not written unto you because you do not know the truth. Now, see, that’s what it’s about. You know the truth. …but because you know it, and no lie is of the truth. So, sometimes we have to address things that are not of the truth and it’s not always about a specific doctrine. It has to do with the truth of God’s way of life, of how God works. It has to do with the truth, as we just have mentioned here a moment ago, that some things are of a demonic world. That’s the truth.

What I’d mentioned of someone thinking that they have some kind of power, some kind of aura around their body. Pray that God rebuke those things and get rid of those things. That’s your hope and to repent of ever having conceived of, thinking that you might have the power to put your hands on somebody to give them emotional relief of some sort in the sense of how they think or whatever or a physical healing of some sort. Nobody has that power.

Who is a liar but anyone who denies Joshua the Christ? What an incredible thing. I mean, we know these verses. “Anyone who denies Joshua the Christ.” So, it’s a spiritual thing. It’s about a spiritual relationship. It’s not yielding to the process of repentance, of looking to God, of being thankful we have a Passover and a High Priest to intercede for us before God.

They are antichrist who deny the Father and the Son. So, the only way you do that is by sin. You deny God by sin. You deny the Father and the Son to dwell in you. Christ died so that they could live in us, so that through the power of the holy spirit they could dwell in us, to give our minds ability to see and know the truth, to give us help to be able to deal with things in the world and learn how to judge matters within the world and see and be in agreement with those things that come from God, to become spiritually stronger and be transformed in our thinking.

Verse 23—Whoever denies the Son, the same does not have the Father. Then the rest of the verse isn’t even there. It’s been added. But let that, therefore, abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If you continue in what you have heard from the beginning and it shall remain in you, you also shall continue in the Son and in the Father.

So, we understand what this is all about. John was given so much in the sense of God revealing to him this mind of how to love and care for one another and the sacrifice and how we’re to think toward one another, a sacrificing kind of love. That’s the kind of love that God gives us, that He has given us from the beginning. He gave us the truth in the beginning and the holy spirit from the beginning and we’re to imbibe in that truth that He gives to us.

Verse 26—These things I have written unto you concerning those who seduce you, “cause you to wander,” that word that we talked about, “cause you to wander.” So, I have to address some things sometimes when there’s division and you can wander away from the truth if you’re not careful by something very small physically.

But the anointing… It would blow my mind to think someone in God’s Church would ask another person in God’s Church who isn’t a minster to lay their hands on them. I tell you if that doesn’t…? If it doesn’t scare someone to go against God that way, to have something that is a counterfeit of that, to not recognize a demonic mind in that, a demonic world, a demonic being in there somewhere that’s influencing that thinking – would scare the you-know-what out of me. Bring on the Charmin’.

Verse 27—But the anointing which you have received of Him abides in you, and you need not that anyone teach you. That’s what this is about. People have used that scripture in God’s Church to say, “I don’t need a minister to teach me. I can study things in the Bible. I know the truth. I can study it. I’m supposed to study it. I’m supposed to prove all things.” Every one of those verses is misused in that context. Every one of them. But people went out of God’s Church believing that kind of stupidity.

…but the same anointing teaches you all things, and is truth, and is no lie. So again here, you don’t have any need that someone else come along and teach you something different. That’s what the context is. God will teach us what we need to know. He gives us what we must see. He gives us truth as we need it. He helps us to grow. He prepares the Church to receive the messages He gives. Awesome! That He works in our lives so that as a whole there are going to be certain ones who are going to tune in more at that particular moment because they have gone through certain things that, man, this is what I needed. It’s just like, this is exciting. Whereas someone else it may be another sermon coming. But we’re all being prepared and worked with in that way over time.

You take a look at a year from one Feast to another and that’s how God works with the Church, and He gives us those things. That’s why I ask God, and out of fear, that I do not want to give anything out of here of my own, like we were told to do at different times in some of the ministerial meetings we had (like I’ve said), but that it come from God. This is God’s Church. Christ is the head of the Body. They’re the only ones that can lead, guide and direct, and give what we need when we need it. And so, we have to look to them for that.

That’s why I have mentioned there are times I’ve been at a Red Sea because I don’t know what to give. I cry out to God for help, and it’s good for me in that relationship with God that I be able to do that and see that and know that, and then God can just give it to me. It’s that reminder and that excitement and that enjoyment to realize, I mean, it is exciting, it really is, when God just gives you what it is.

It’s like the Feast. We’re going to go through some things we know, we’ve gone through various scriptures before, but in a context, God’s giving us a little different. But I know it’s from God. That excites me because I know it’s from God and I realize as I go through that I get more excited about it because I see this context. Yet we’re familiar with a lot of scriptures, just like 1 John, but man, they should stir us up because we know this is what we need, this is what God is giving us at this time. Anyway, it’s powerful, brethren, it really is.

So, now little children, abide in Him. His desire is that we dwell in Him. That means that we’re not denying Him in our life. We’re not holding on to some pet idea. Even about not getting a shot. Sometimes that’s just a pet idea that’s petty, petty, petty. Some, some moral reason we think we have, some maybe physical conviction we have. But for God’s people we won’t do it? I don’t get that! To be in fellowship with God’s people? I don’t get that! What’s going on up here? Do we not see through that on a spiritual plane?

I’m just telling you that’s what God is telling us. Either we believe that, or we don’t. And if we don’t, I don’t know why we’re here. I’ll just speak it plainly. We’re getting into a period of time here… I feel it very strongly right now we are headed into an area of time here that’s going to become very difficult.

And God is working with us, as it were, one final time to cleanse the Body. There is just a little bit more to go. I hope there is just a little bit more to go as far as the cleansing of the Body because I hate to see it continually get whittled down. It pains me. And yet that’s been the history of God’s Church. You have to persevere. You have to be convicted. You have to fight for this and you have to cry out to God for this, “I want Your truth! I want to see this through, whatever that means, whatever I have to go through.” Because He knows what’s best for us. Our life is in His hands. What a beautiful place to be. There is great peace in that.

1 John 4:6—We are of God. Anyone who knows God hears us. Who do you think it’s talking about? Anyone who is not of God does not hear us. It sums it all up. You can read through the whole book of John; this is pretty powerful what it’s saying. Those who teach “you don’t have any need that anyone teach you,” He’s already explained this. So, who is teaching? He is. The ministry, whatever form that God is using at any moment in time. Much different during Philadelphia than what it is now.

“Anyone who is not of God does not hear us.” So, when I hear things that aren’t in unity and oneness, I know it’s not being heard. I can’t give this to anyone. Everyone has to make their own choices and decisions. God doesn’t force anything upon us. We’re free. We have the freedom of choice. But to think that a vast majority of the people through time, “many are called,” and many have been called in the past 2,000 years, “few have been chosen.”

Hereby we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. One’s in error if they send things out to others that are opposite of what they’ve just been told in the Church. What can I say?

So, questions about Covid, the jab, the shot, and the Feast, I want to go through a little bit more here one more time just to clarify some things.

To protect the Church – that’s my responsibility as much as I can as a pastor over God’s Church under Christ – to protect the Church and in keeping with the spirit not to tarnish God’s Feast, as in a quarantine that could happen… I’ll tell you, some of these things happening overseas right now, it’s still very volatile. Things are going on in Australia. Basically, have told Wayne that he’s just got to have to deal with that by what he sees, by what he knows, and could be at moment’s notice they have to switch and change plans. That’s a horrible state to be in.

Great Britain is the same way right now. I don’t think the continent is allowing them to come in at all, right? They’re not allowing Great Britain. The U.S. can, but from what I understand Great Britain is not being allowed in right now because of this Delta thing. Then all the hype about Delta! Hear the word “Delta” and people get all twitterpated about it right now and government, some people in government love these kinds of things, sadly, because power, power, exercise various power, political things that take place. And so, hype that goes on sometimes and scares that go on.

You don’t have to be that way as God’s people. We’ll deal with things as they come along, address them as they come along.

I feel sorry for those in Great Britain because some are trying to make reservations. I heard this past week some had to make some reservations at a different place so you can get refund, because the place we were at, basically, you don’t get a refund, you can put it into the following year. But this helps if at the last minute you can’t go. So, they can get a refund by staying off site there in the sense of where most are staying there on the continent.

So, it’s hard for those of you in Great Britain, and I’m sorry. Those of you up in the northern part of Ireland. Anyway, the EU I don’t think… I don’t know what it’s like over there in the southern part. I get them mixed up. I’m sorry. I apologize to the Irish.

But anyway, travel right now is a very difficult thing sometimes with this Covid thing going on and this Indian Delta strain, whatever it might be, and it’s supposed to be easy to catch but it’s not causing the kind of hype and problems some are saying that it has been.

So again here, I have to make some choices and decisions here. Anyone who is an adult, 21 and up, to be at the Feast of Tabernacles needs to have a jab. I have to make a decision. I don’t know what else to do. So, it’s not been easy. So, teenagers, it’s not being required whatsoever. If people do that, that’s their choices and whatever. I do not like the idea of children getting it, but everyone has to make their own choices. But I don’t like that idea whatsoever, period. I’m just, I’m sorry, there are some things there that they haven’t dealt with.

So, if anyone has had Covid, that doesn’t count for a vaccine, sorry. There is too much out there, too many things going on, too many variables of things going on. Some of them potentially being the fact that it wasn’t Covid. Because some of those tests haven’t been too good. But anyway, that’s another story and another argument and all kinds of things that people get into and all twitterpated about.

So again here, anyone who has had it, you have to have it, the shot, in order to go to the Feast of Tabernacles and be in fellowship with God’s people. Someone asked, “Am I going to be disfellowshipped for not getting the shot?” No, you’re not going to get disfellowshipped for not getting the shot. If you’re laying hands on somebody you will be.

Anyone who has severe allergies, has other severe health issues, cancer, heart problems, and on and on it goes, the things that people might have out there, are not required to get the vaccine. You know, that’s a medical thing between you and a doctor and we’re not making that kind of decision for the Feast of Tabernacles. But then you’re not to attend the Feast either. I have to make a decision on that and that’s the only one I can make because it’s the only thing that’s really fair.

I understand there are concerns of people that have severe allergies, and you have to deal with those accordingly to what your experience is and what your body is. Everybody is different in some of those things and what a recommendation might be from a doctor.

So, one last section here, 1 John 3. That should have answered, I think, every facet. Does anyone have a question that doesn’t fit into that category? Okay. I think I’ve covered all bases.

So, these matters we’ve been covering in this series are about fellowship. What a blessing we have to have people of the same mind who have the same goals, the same desires, the same beliefs, and have a desire toward one another to love each other more. Because I’ve seen that growing in the Body and people expressing that even more. That’s a good thing because I know that’s something that God is offering in the Church right now even more so.

So, what an incredible thing to have a family like that where people have a genuine desire and care for one another, to value one another more, to allow for the differences, to recognize that’s good. God works with all of us. It’s an awesome process.

1 John 3:16—Hereby perceive, and it isn’t “perceive we the love of God.” That’s not the right translation of this at all. The actual translation is: Hereby we can perceive love (agape), because he laid down his life for us. It’s about perceiving, understanding what God’s love is like. It’s a sacrificing kind of love.

Human nature has selfish love. That’s why I love the example Herbert Armstrong used to give, of the best love that he in his mind could picture that a human being has, is a mother’s love for a child, her own child. There is a powerful bond there. That was his example of the best kind of genuine love that a human being can have and express. But that’s not God’s love, and he explained that. Because that same person doesn’t have the same love toward all other children. It’s just not in us. But that’s human love, and human love is selfish. It can be a beautiful and a wonderful thing to be lived, and it is when lived right before God, but the far greater love is God’s because it’s love towards others, everyone.

…because he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. And so, when we’re challenged on that, when it actually comes to our door, as it were, and knocks on our door, it’s like now it’s real! What does that really mean? It’s easy to say, “Yes, I’d lay down my life.” “Yes, I’ll do whatever it requires, God … whatever it takes.” Until we’re actually there sometimes. But can’t get a shot. That defies this. It’s against this. It’s the opposite of what’s being said here. Not wanting to lay down our life for the sake of fellowship.

So what if the stinking thing in the arm kills me! I’m willing to do it. And I’m willing to do it! I’m not scared of it. I wasn’t afraid of it. I don’t care about all the hype out there. My life is in God’s hands. I don’t have anything to fear. If it’s my time to die, I’m going to die. It’s like the one who just died of Covid complications. She made a choice, which I respect mightily when people come to that point in their life, didn’t want any artificial life to keep her going. As soon as it was removed was about an hour, two hours and she was dead. I have no problems with that choice.

I told my wife when I was told I had Covid, do not hook me up. If it comes to that point, I’m going to go. I’m not going to live that kind of life. So, if death is on the door, that’s in God’s hands, but I’m not going to live that kind of life. Anyway, everybody has to make their own choices in those things.

But I think of a scripture like this, and I think, what an incredible thing. You know, we have it pretty easy. In God’s Church we really have it pretty easy. You know, the Church throughout time hasn’t. The history of God’s Church, of what people went through, the numbers of people who were killed because of what they believed, the hatred that was in the Jewish world and the Jewish leadership, and then in the Roman world toward God’s Church, the Catholic Church that’s hated God’s Church and sought to kill God’s people, anyone that would keep the Sabbath, anyone that would keep the Passover day. Because they instituted Easter in 325 A.D. and they basically said anyone who keeps the other, “Kill them. Kill them! You have the authority of God to kill them.”

So, people went out, and they were killed. But it wasn’t from God—it was from somebody else, but it wasn’t God—to kill God’s people. Because you know what? They kept the Passover; they kept the seventh-day Sabbath and they didn’t quit. A lot of them died for what they believed.

We don’t live in that kind of world today. We live in a (hate to even use the word), but we live in a civilized world, so we’re told. It isn’t civilized by God’s definition. It isn’t civilized by the truth of God’s government. But we understand what they mean by a civilized world. The best that man can do. We are very blessed. This is the best that man’s been able to do through time, it really is, but it’s far, far, far, far, far different than the Millennium.

Just like what I’ve been writing in this chapter. I love it, the way the Millennium is going to be. Such a contrast, such a difference from what the world is today. We’ve been exceedingly blessed in this nation because God gave it to us. It was part of a promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, a promise. It got so minute that it was very specifically said it would become the greatest nation the world has ever known, the most powerful world, the wealthiest nation the world has ever known. And we still can’t rule ourselves God’s way, the right way.

Hereby we perceive agape (God’s love), because he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

I have to quit on that verse because it’s so powerful. It says so much. I know there are those out there that need to think about this verse. “Well, I might get sick.” So? You’re not willing to go through some suffering for others? You might get the chills. Die? Well, is your life in God’s hands?

Sorry to put it that bluntly, but that’s what it’s all about right now, it really is. So, with that I hope we can lay Covid to rest.

[1] https://www.endeavour.edu.au/about-us/blog/flower-essence-therapy-what-how-and-why/

[2] http://flowersociety.org/Repertory-on-line.htm

[3] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/308772

[4] https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/what-can-i-expect-typical-reiki-session