Being Molded By God, Pt. 2

Ronald Weinland

September 18, 2021

This is Part 2 of the new series Being Molded By God.

As I mentioned in the intro to Part 1 (I’d like to read that again), “Over the past couple of years I have been becoming more and more in awe of how God molds us as He and His Son work to transform our minds, our very thinking.”

It’s an incredible thing to grasp, to comprehend how God works in our life, and the more we grow the more we’re able to see that, and the more exciting and inspiring that becomes as we see how we’re being worked with, and we see the reality of that, we’re experiencing that. As God continues to give us more understanding of that process as well it’s just a very moving thing because it’s like construction. I love architecture. I love buildings that have been constructed in different ways. You see the uniqueness of difference that’s in that and there is just no end to it, especially in what God is doing and how God is working with us, and to know that’s how He is working in us to mold and fashion something that is being constructed, being created that is so vast, so, so mighty. We have the opportunity toward the beginning in all that, and toward the end of part of it in the sense of 6,000 years and grasping where we have been called, a time we live in that is absolutely incredible. To be called at this time where more understanding, more insight, more knowledge is given to us than people have ever had.

I’m excited for those who live in the Millennium and the Great White Throne because there is going to be so much more that’s clear, that’s more powerful and mighty to work in people’s lives to help transform and change them as they choose, if they do, which so many will. But again, it’s an incredible process to live through, to experience, and to understand. Because understanding it helps us to grasp then what has to be changed. We have to be changed. It’s only by our own choice that we can be, to be able to see the need for that, that we can’t stay the way we are.

Hopefully, no one out there listening is satisfied, is content with where they are right now in their growth. Sometimes I fear that some get into that frame of mind, to think that they are there, that they have achieved, that they have arrived. The reality is we haven’t arrived until we die and then we’re going to be resurrected into God’s Family or we have the opportunity to live on into a new age. But still, we come to a point in time where we die and/or some are changed, whatever point in time that different ones have that opportunity.

But anyway, today we’re going to begin with those verses in Isaiah 65 that I read toward the very end of the last sermon there, Part 1. That was in Isaiah 65. Because it’s really so profound and exciting and inspiring to understand.

Isaiah 65:17—For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered nor come to mind. It’s an awesome thing to think that everything is going to be moving forward, looking forward to more that God is going to do and be a part of that, and to realize all the hardship, all the bad of life that’s behind and all the trials and hardships, and to recognize God’s creating something new and we’re blessed to be such a part of that.

It says, and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered nor come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create. So, we’re to be thankful and excited about what God is creating, and we’re a part of it. That’s excitement and joy in itself, an ability to be thankful, to have joy in that in our lives, of what God is doing, of being a part of the Church, of seeing how God works in our lives, and all that goes with that.

For behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing. Peace. You can rejoice in peace. But in drama? There is nothing but everything that’s bad, frustrating, hurtful, painful, agonizing, on and on it goes, discontent, the list is endless of that that which just adversely affects life. But with God there’s peace and a rejoicing because you can rejoice in the peace. That’s when real rejoicing can be experienced on a higher plane.

We experience that in part at different times in our life within the Church, and especially in what we’re soon to experience. Some won’t hear this sermon until afterwards, but the Feast, it’s a time of being excited to be together with God’s people and away from the things of this world. Just a small taste of what God is leading us to and molding and fashioning within us.

…and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem and joy in My people; and the voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her, nor the voice of crying. There’s a lot of anguish in human life, a lot of hurt, a lot of pain, a lot of suffering, and God’s blessing us to come out of all that, to be delivered from all that.

Now, there is a section of scripture that we’re going to begin with today that’s probably one of the more revealing, thorough, and inspiring areas that covers this entire process of how God is working in our lives. This process of our need to yield to the process because it’s about being molded and fashioned. It’s about God’s creation, but it’s about this molding and fashioning. That’s why I love that example about the potter and that God told Jeremiah to go down and look and to learn from that process as God worked with him to grasp and comprehend what was being said.

He had to do that, went there and God showed him, revealed to him that, you know, how awesome that things can be shown and learned from a process of something very physical, but to realize what God’s doing in our life that is a part of the clay and the response of the clay to the one who’s molding it. Incredible.

So, we’re going to take a look at that, that process even a little more thoroughly here that God gave to Paul to write about in the book of Romans. We’re going to turn over to Romans 7 and begin there. There’s a lot here in this section of Romans, and it’s so meaningful. It’s encouraging. It’s exciting. It’s inspiring because it puts it together here in a very powerful way and we can learn from it and we can ever grow in it as well, even though we may be very familiar with some of the scriptures here. But to put it altogether in the context of what God is doing in our lives, the molding and fashioning, and then our choice to yield to it or not, it’s so meaningful, it truly is.

Romans 7:22—For I delight in the law of God. Well, that should be all of our delight. God’s ways, because God’s law is not just about the 10 Commandments, it’s about breaking those things down very much so, and then it enters into our life, into all kinds of situations and into fellowship, into how we have fellowship and to our thirst and hunger for fellowship and whether we’re responding to the kinds of sermons that have been given of recent time.

Because there are some who still aren’t responding to that very well, and I hope they do. God gives us the opportunity, He cries out to us, and then it’s up to us whether or not we really respond to it and to the depth we do. No excuses. No reasons that keep us from that, but a way to work with it. It’s amazing how the human mind works to deceive itself.

For I delight in the law of God after (according to) the inward man. So, it’s revealing something here that’s deep inside of us. It’s in the mind. It’s that spirit in mankind that God has given to us. Then when impregnated with God’s holy spirit that is the inner man, and we make choices all along the way in that. And so, if we continue to delight in the law, the ways, the path of God, the guidance and direction God gives to us, especially from here, sermons, because that’s how He molds and fashions us. This is how He works with us. This is how He instructs us and guides us and directs us and shows us what we need to focus upon. It should be so clear by now.

But I see another law in my members… So here we go, it’s the clay. How is the clay going to respond to the potter? That’s what it comes down to. I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind. There is that which God gives us to know and to understand which we choose, which we want, which we have come to know. And here is the battle. It was blessed to put this out there in a way that clarifies the process in a powerful way.

“I see this law…” And it is. It’s active. It’s something that just works in it’s own way to take us away from the way, the laws, the purpose of God. “…warring against the law of my mind.” So there is that which we have to address. What a beautiful thing that we’re able to do that. So many people in times past have just given up and don’t do that because they don’t want to hear about it. They don’t want to hear about the fact that they’re not good. People like to think of themselves as being good. Now, we want to do good in God’s way of life and learn to live good towards others and so forth and that’s a different matter. But the good, it comes from God, and that which is able to come through us in a relationship and how we’re able to learn to better live God’s way of life, what a blessing. But the glory and the honor is God’s as He molds and fashions us until we’re there, until we become totally of that mind in sense of absolute unity and oneness with God.

So, it’s a long process, and in the meantime there’s a battle. It’s a war. That’s why this is so important to understand. We have been called into a war. We have been called into a battle. It’s the greatest kind of battle with the greatest meaning on earth. There are physical battles – look at the being in Afghanistan and getting out and all the people and all the things that are going to happen there. All the evil in the world, and man can’t change it. Man can’t govern themselves successfully, and all the politics involved in things and the show about self. It’s not about others. It’s not about really having deep, deep care and concern for every life that’s out there and what they’re doing and then wanting to care for them once they’ve come back and dedicated their lives to such a giving process. Mankind is so deceitful.

So, here is something that has life everlasting in front of it, a war, a battle to accomplish, to achieve that. “Warring against the law of my mind.” So, it’s there. What a blessing to be able to see that.

…and bringing me into the captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. It’s here and that’s what it desires. It works to bring us into captivity. So, the reality is that when God calls us we begin a journey out of spiritual Egypt, and we’re in the wilderness and we stay on that journey for ever how long it is. Ten years, fifteen years, twenty years, forty years, fifty, sixty, ever how long it is in our life that God has given to us. It’s a journey out of captivity, constantly moving forward. Because we’re not there at the promised land yet. It’s a spiritual thing. Holy Jerusalem, Mount Zion, Israel fulfilled, Elohim fulfilled.

O wretched man that I am! Do we see it? Do we believe it? Or do we kind of think that we’re doing pretty good? Now, we might be thankful and grateful for what we’ve been able to accomplish and grow in but there’s always that we know is still there and we have to be alert to, we have to be on guard. Because people can flip and turn away from God—it isn’t hard to do—by wrong choices, because of wanting something so much that’s contrary or different to what God is showing us that we’re to have and think and be in unity with.

“O wretched man that I am!” …or woman. O wretched man or woman. That’s what it’s about. So, do we recognize our carnal nature, that it’s just ugly, it’s really evil, that it’s of a mind that we don’t want? It’s of a mind of a being that we don’t want in our minds. Instead, we want to conquer and overcome it. Because it’s something warring inside of us. We have to enter into war. We have to enter into battle. We have to engage in it if we’re to conquer, overcome. Same word. It means conquering, which is a battle, the word that’s translated as “overcome” so often in scripture.

O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Or as it is too, this body of death? It’s what it is. Why? Because of sin. It’s what it deserves. According to God’s law and God’s way and God’s purpose it’s a body of death, it’s carnal, it’s against God. It’s not subject to the law of God and neither indeed can be. That’s why we’re blessed to receive of God’s holy spirit, so that we have a choice, and we can begin to fight.

I thank God… So, it goes on to say, I thank God—through Joshua the Christ our Lord! So, it’s showing here then how this can be accomplished, this body of death that doesn’t have to be a body of death in the sense of the outcome.

Therefore, with the mind… So again, it’s a matter of personal choice, of one’s own decision, one’s own belief. So, what do we believe? That’s why I marvel sometimes that physical things that happen around us and we don’t think about them, especially within the Church and decisions that are made within the Church, and people don’t recognize and don’t deal with that in a way of reality so often within the Church as being from God, as being something that even if it’s stated, because akin to sitting in Moses’ seat certain decisions and choices are made, and whatever it might be. Wear makeup/don’t wear makeup. It’s not a matter of sin either way but God allows us to go through that process. Maybe even to think that it was at one time or thinking that it is and then a decision is made and then we may or may not like it, which thousands didn’t like either side when it went back and forth, and thousands left over something very physical.

So, very physical but it’s a Church and it’s the government of the Church, it’s the responsibility of the Church. When a decision is made we’re judged by our choices of whether or not we’re going to yield to that process or whether we’re going to hold on to our own stubborn… Today it’s research, “What I believe because I’ve read it, because I’ve heard certain ones that I’m plugged into out here, I listen to on the radio, or I listen to on TV, or I listen to on the internet, and I trust in that.” That’s what you’re doing. So, you trust in that. I choose to trust in God. Many in God’s Church choose to trust in God. So, that’s the choice. Or do we resist it? Get a shot/don’t get a shot. What’s the purpose?

So, what was given to us was on a spiritual plane in the guidance and the direction, but there are those who never could see it and still don’t. They still don’t get it. Don’t get it. Why? Because they’re fighting it. They’re resisting it, this carnal nature. It’s warring in them and they’re not going to accept, they’re not going to give in. Some are going to leave over this before it’s over with or be put out. It won’t be over that; it’ll be over something else. But when God can’t work with anyone any longer, that’s the result. If someone is not pliable, the clay, if you can’t use it, you can’t use it. It’s as simple as that. But so often as human beings we don’t grasp that.

Therefore, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. So, it’s coming to an understanding here these are contrary to each other. I don’t want to yield to self. I don’t want to yield to my own selfishness, to the way “I” see it. Then what’s really irritating and ugly and evil is “I’m righteous. I’m going to hold to my righteousness.” Man, you talk about stinking and seeing the spirit of Satan in that. If we don’t see that we’re right at the brink of not being able to be worked with by God, God’s spirit. Sad.

Romans 8:1. So, it goes on in context here. It’s not a different thought, it’s going on in thought. Mankind put the scriptures and the verses in. So, it’s continuing on, Romans 8:1—Now, therefore, there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Joshua. So, to be in Christ Joshua means that God’s dwelling in us, we haven’t been cut off from the flow of the holy spirit, we’re able to continue in this way of being able to see, of being able to learn, and being able to grow. But when we sin we cut that flow off and we begin to lose that ability so we’re not able to dwell in Christ and in God and in God’s way of life and that which has been shown to us and readily come to repentance when we need. Instead, people begin to justify and uphold their own righteousness. After a while, they’re not repenting, and if they’re not repenting they get cut off from God’s holy spirit and can’t even see things clearly anymore and become more unsound in their thinking, more rattle brain.

Now, therefore, there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Joshua, who do not walk after, or according to as the word is, the flesh. So, either we yield to our own carnality, our own “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” and the “pride of life” is at the top. It’s self and esteeming self and thinking self is right, so much so it rejects what God gives to us and what God says we should be in harmony and unity with within the Body, within the Church. This is God’s way, that when something is given as directive we embrace it, we support it. Because if we don’t what are we holding on to? Our own righteousness. Whatever you want to put it in, that’s it in a nutshell whether you like it or not. It’s your righteousness, which stinks like filthy rags, as we read in Part 1.

For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Joshua has made me free from the law of sin and death. So, there is law at work here. There is that which leads to death, because sin requires death. So, at the Great White Throne there are going to be those as the sand of the sea, so many who have rejected God. Death because of sin, because of not embracing God and holding on to God and wanting God and fighting for God’s way of life. Because you have to fight for it no matter what time period you’re called in, because you have to fight against this. You have to fight against yourself, your own mind, your own thinking that’s selfish. It’s only in that environment that God can create Elohim. What a marvel to know and understand that and to see that process.

“For the law of the spirit of life is in Christ Joshua.” It’s in Christ Joshua! It begins with repentance. He’s our Passover. That life that’s there, that we can partake of once it’s offered us, comes to us through the acknowledgement of our sins and recognizing the battle here and wanting to conquer and overcome and wanting God to mold and fashion us and yielding ourselves to it and continually repenting. It’s in Christ Joshua because of his being our Passover. Then he’s our High Priest as he intercedes for us in the power of the spirit that they want to give more and more to us.

So, “that has made me free from the law of sin and death.” We’re blessed to be able to believe, to know the truth. A part of believing that is to believe that we can repent every time we sin. And as soon as we do, it’s gone, it’s gone, it’s forgotten, it’s blotted out and we’re free. What an awesome thing! And to recognize then how blessed we are to have that in our life.

Anyway, going on. So, we see those laws, those things at work, things about that lead to death and things about that which leads to life that God wants us to have, His Family.

Verse 3—For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh… Now, it’s talking then about the law of God, whether it be the 10 Commandments and the breaking down of it, the reality is we can’t live it as human beings of ourselves. We don’t have the ability to live it.

For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh… Some like this, in the protestant world, “See, you don’t have to keep God’s law anymore because we’re just too weak. God knows our frame and therefore…” It’s like justifying. “He understands we sin, so He just allows us to sin whenever we want,” you know, and it’s like, “blah-blah-blah,” where’s your brain? But they can’t help it. They’re blind. They’re in captivity. They’re so deep in captivity that they’re so blind as we were before we were called. Just can’t see until it’s God’s time.

But what a shame when that happens to someone in God’s Church, becomes blind, begins to become blind, begins to go backward, begins to become antichrist.

For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, in other words, it was because of the human inability to obey the law. We have to have God’s spirit in us to help us to obey. We have to know the truth. God reveals to us the truth and we choose to live by it. We believe it, we believe what God says so we embrace it, and we want that in our life. We want to live that way. We may not understand things sometimes, but we don’t start understanding even more deeply until we’ve obeyed and done what we’re given to do. Then we begin to learn from it, we begin to understand God. God begins to give us understanding then. It’s an amazing process.

It goes on to say, God in sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, in other words, in human life, and for/because of sin condemned sin in the flesh. So, it was necessary, otherwise we would never have the ability to change. And so, condemned sin in the flesh. How? Through forgiveness of it. Incredible. Through believing God and believing he’s our Passover, Christ is our Passover, and believing that when we repent we’re forgiven and God’s able to continue to work with us then because we believe God, and then we embrace the ways of God, and we grow.

…so that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us. We’re not righteous. We know that. We don’t deceive ourselves. We’re not righteous. Now, we can experience it, we can practice it, and we’re blessed to do that as we grow. But the reality is we still have sin so we’re not righteous. What a blessing to know that because we believe God and we keep repenting and we keep moving forward and we want God’s way of life, and we’re willing to enter into the battle, we want to be in the battle, we want to fight, it’s never over.

You get tired of fighting? You can’t just get tired of fighting. You’ve been called to war. It is what it is and so we embrace that. It’s not easy. It wasn’t meant to be easy. But that’s how God can mold us and change us. The more we go through in some of those things the more He can actually give to us and work with us in. Incredible.

And so, “because of sin condemned sin in the flesh so that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us.” That’s because of believing God it’s attributed to us as righteousness. Because we’re not. But because we believe God it’s through that process of belief, of faith.

…so that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. What a blessing to understand we’re able to walk after the spirit and not carnally. The way of the world, we don’t want that. We try to reject that, we want to walk in the spirit, in the things that are true and right of God’s way of life.

…But they who are after the spirit mind the things of the spirit. But to be carnally minded is death. We either mind one or the other, either mind the things that are carnal and physical around us and the pulls in this world and get wrapped up in its drama and what other people say, and we begin to take sides and we begin to think one group or somebody is right in what they’re having to say. Sadly, it exists in the Church. It’s getting less and less. But we will listen to certain things and latch on to it and believe that above that which we believe that God is giving to us in sermons, and we will choose to listen to that, or we’ll choose to listen to things about a certain government and they’re doing “this” and they’re doing “that,” and therefore, we choose this side. You think, the choice is God or the world. It’s as simple as that. God or whatever we want to pick out of the world to agree with. Other people’s opinions and ideas, that if it’s expressed in sermons, and then if we choose something different, well, that’s a choice, but it isn’t listening to God, it isn’t following what God has given us as His spirit to hold on to.

So, to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. So, what a blessing that we can be spiritually minded because we believe what God says, we recognize the process, we recognize there’s a war, we know that we’re engaged in battle, we’re grateful to be able to see that, we know that self has to be conquered. Not someone else. It’s not our duty to conquer someone else, to get them, make them so that they conquer; it’s to conquer self, as a whole, within the Body. This is what we have to conquer, to fight against this.

So, we fight against our carnal human nature because we want God’s way of life, we want to receive what God has for us, to receive what He gives us from Sabbath to Sabbath, Holy Day to Holy Day and not resist it.

Verse 7—Because the carnal mind is enmity against God. I can go through this and it’s so simple. But it’s not. It’s spiritual. The ability to see that which is spiritual in it requires God’s spirit, and so, we can go through something we’re familiar with but there is so much more here, always is, to grow in, to see, to embrace, to be thankful for, to thank God, to thank God for this, to thank God for what He gave to Paul that He’s revealing to us more deeply than ever before in the Church about this process of being molded and fashioned by God.

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So, we know that by knowledge, but do we always know it by practice, by what we live? “The carnal mind is enmity against God.” Do you have a carnal mind? I do. It’s very physical. I’m physical. I know it. I’ve seen through time the things God’s blessed me to be able to address and to conquer and overcome and then to refine as I mature and get older spiritually.

That’s the joy. That’s the excitement. To be able to grow and draw closer and closer to God, to be stirred up more and more by God’s life, by God’s spirit, to recognize that it’s in the battle, fighting against self, fighting against our own nature, and being thankful of that and being patient in that. It doesn’t happen all at once.

“Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” So, I ask the question, do you have a carnal mind? The more we can say “yes” with conviction, “I have a carnal mind, because I know it.” Now, if we don’t know it and we’re going about trying to feel better about ourselves and what we are, then we’re not going to be engaged in the battle like we need to nor be on guard like we need to be, and we’ll be caught off guard and get to a point where we don’t agree with what’s being said from up here. They’ll begin to be resisted because, “That’s a man; it’s just a man. It’s his opinion.” “It’s his ideas.” “It’s what he’s saying.” Okay.

So then, they are who are in the flesh cannot please God. So, if we’re carnally minded we can’t please God. If we’re cutting ourselves off from His spirit we can’t please God. Because what’s pleasing to God is this process. Elohim is being created. Everything was created for the creation of Elohim. Everything was created for the creation of Elohim. Awesome! We’re blessed to be a part of that if we choose and continue to make those choices all through our life.

So again here, So then, they who are of the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the spirit, and King James says, “if so be that” but it’s …in the spirit since indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. So, we’re in the spirit since the spirit of God dwells in us. Now, if it’s not dwelling in us then we’re not. But here it’s showing a contrast whether we’re in the flesh or in the spirit. Now, sometimes people just don’t realize that by sinning, by resisting God, by refusing God, by refusing things that are given even up here and fighting against it and doing our own thing, then we’re cut off from God’s spirit. We get cut off from God’s spirit unless we repent and change of that. The reality is then we can’t please God and we’re walking in the flesh more than we’re walking in and desiring the spirit, praying for God’s holy spirit, repenting in the process, seeing sin and repenting of it.

Now if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he is none of His. What a horrible thing to not be filled with God’s holy spirit. I love the verse that talks about, in Philippians 2:5 where it says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Joshua.” That’s what we want. We want that mind. We want that unity and oneness that comes from God Almighty through His Son to us that we can be of the same mind, be in agreement, in unity, to be in agreement and unity in the Church, not to have different factions pulling in different ways.

“Well, I’m not going to wear a mask!” “Well, I’m going to wear a mask. I’ll never take it off.” “I’m not going to get a shot!” “I’ll never get a shot because…!” I’m sorry. You think, okay, that’s your choice. That’s your choice. It’s a physical thing. So, who do we place our trust? “Well, I place it in never getting a vaccination ever! That’s it!” Okay. Crazy. I mean, where is our trust? Is it in God that He protects us? “Well, He does if we don’t get a vaccination!” Oh, show me the verse. Hmm, interesting. Well, there’s really not, it’s just rebellion. That’s all it is.

Romans 8:10—So, if Christ be in you… See, we’re coming to a point of more cleansing in the Body and some of this is bringing it to the surface. Because as individuals, if they continue in a certain path, continue to cut themselves off from the flow of God’s spirit, they get weaker and weaker and weaker to the point other things begin to enter in because they can’t see the way of God, the law of God, the purpose of God as clearly anymore. It gets foggier and foggier and the reality of yielding more and more to carnal life, to the law of carnality, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, pride of life” begins to mar everything else to where it’s blurry as far as God’s way. It’s not as bright anymore and it gets dimmer and dimmer to a point that you know, finally we’re gone. That’s what happens, people are just gone.

Well, that’s a part of cleansing the Body. I wish it weren’t that way but it’s still happening, still going on. I see that process working in some and I know what’s coming, I know what’s going to happen unless…unless a person can come to repentance. Then God can begin to work with them again.

So, if Christ be in you the body is dead on account of sin — Passover, forgiveness of sin, recognizing sin, acknowledging sin, recognizing rebellion, recognizing antichrist.

But the spirit is life on the account of righteousness. Spirit is life. It gives us a different thinking, a different mind, a desire to unity and oneness, an ability to see clearly, more clearly, the law, the ways, the truth of God and to be in agreement with those things. Because it’s easier to see them, and then we make those choices as we do this, “I want to be in agreement with God, with God’s way, with God’s law, with God’s purpose, with what God is giving us within the Church so that we’re all in unity and agreement and oneness and doing the same thing and moving in the same direction.

So, if the spirit of Him who raised up Joshua from the dead dwells in you, He who raised up Christ from the dead shall also make alive your mortal bodies by His spirit that dwells in you. So, we recognize that. Making us alive now, spiritually, keeping us alive on a spiritual plane, and eventually spirit forever.

Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. Why would we want to? Why do we want to hold on to our research and what’s on the internet? Why do we want to hold on to dumb, stupid, weird conspiracy ideas? The sad thing is sometimes people don’t think they’re conspiracy, they think they’re the truth. It’s what’s really happening. It’s what’s real. It’s like you can get to the point in the environment of God’s Church where you think the Earth is flat. It’s happened! And everything else in between. Horrible!

“Therefore, brethren, we are debtors.” We are indebted to because of the commitment we made at baptism. “Not to the flesh.” Not to live like that. Not to ignore guidance and direction given to us from up here. If we’re doing that, why turn on the TV to listen to a live video on YouTube of a sermon that’s being given? Why? Why attend and be in fellowship in areas where you have the ability to that’s within driving range to do it?

I remember when first called. I thought the only place to go to get baptized was Pasadena, California, living out there in Kansas. So tickled when I found out we can go to services three and a half hours away every Sabbath. What an awesome thing! It’s like, this is grand, this is exciting, this is incredible! Whew. Where is that thinking? Where is that dedication? Where is that excitement?

Well, now if we’re not careful we have TV and we can watch it in the comfort of our home. Now, if you have that and you have to have that because you live so far away from others, it’s understandable. Then if you live a little closer to occasionally be together, well, that’s great. Then other times do the other. There’s a balance in there. Then there is a place in there somewhere, where as a whole it really needs to be every Sabbath. Incredible.

Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live after the flesh, for if you live after the flesh you will die. I think it’s way away from the mind of so many oftentimes within the environment of the Church to think that they could ever come to a point where they’ll die because of their sin. It’s like, that’s too foreign, that can’t happen when we’re called. Because at some point here we’ll be able to get a hold of certain things and if there is something we don’t see then it’ll be the Millennium because we’re going to be able to live there because God will protect us no matter what, which is contrary to what I’ve said which God has given. Or the Great White Throne. And yet there are going to be so many who have been baptized who through time still will reject and have rejected God, rejected Christ, rejected the way God works in our lives to mold and fashion us. Choices. Choices.

For if you live after the flesh you will die; but if you through the spirit do mortify, put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. It’s a war! And what are we fighting? Deeds of the body. Ourselves. Our own thinking as carnal human beings, the selfish aspect of our carnal minds. God lets us see those things. He lets us see those things that just aren’t right, and He helps us then as we repent and ask for help of His holy spirit because there is no other way to battle and to be in that battle. But we have to engage in it.

You know, when Israel went out to war God told them they had to participate. They had to go out and swing whatever it might be. They might have had spears, they might have had swords, I don’t care what it was, but they went out and they engaged in the battle. And in so many of those when they were living right, you know what happened? They didn’t lose any life; they were protected, they were blessed, they were given victory in the battle. But they had to participate. They had to enter into it as though they were doing it themselves; this is life and death.

That’s exactly what we need to see on a spiritual plane. We have to be engaged in the fighting, and if we’re not actively engaged in fighting self, and if we can get to the point where we deceive ourselves and think we are doing pretty good, we’re doing okay, because we’re never okay in this body. It’s a constant battle. We have to be engaged in it. But it’s God who gives us the victory all along the way. But we have to fight it. It works together just like those battles of ancient Israel.

For you have not received the spirit of bondage… So again here, verse 14—For as many as are led by the… again, a choice …by the spirit of God they are the sons of God, For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry out, Abba, Father. What a blessing to be able to cry out to God and to learn He’s a Father, the ultimate of being a Father in a way that we have to cleanse out of that even thinking about physical fathers. He’s so far above and beyond that, but He’s our Father, and to know that He wants that relationship with us.

The spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. So, if we’re walking in the spirit it’s going to be obvious and we’re going to be walking in this way. …and if children, then heirs. What an incredible thing. It’s a matter of inheritance, it’s a matter of being an heir, it’s a matter of recognizing and thankful for what God is leading us to, that there is no room to contain it all. It’s going to be so vast, so mighty. To inherit all things, to be a part of that, you don’t grasp that yet. None of us do. But it’s all out there for all of us and God can give that.

…and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Heirs together with Christ. That in itself is an incredibly awesome statement – joint heirs with Christ in Elohim and in all of Elohim is going to be given, which is everything. I don’t know what that means yet. I don’t grasp that fully. You don’t. We can’t. But it’s so vast, so awesome, so exciting, so inspiring. God’s continuing plan into eons of time. You think millions and millions of years. We can’t think, we can’t grasp such things.

…and joint heirs with Christ, since indeed we suffer with, as it says, with him, the word is in order that we also may be glorified together. So, there’s suffering in this. There is suffering in this life to reject, to fight against self. To fight against our own carnal nature there is a matter of swallowing our own pride. That’s a beautiful thing, to swallow pride. But to hold on to pride? Oh, it’s so ugly. But to swallow it, to go through whatever it might be we think we have to go through in the mind, that’s nothing, that’s just the way it should be, a willingness and a readiness to do that kind of thing. So be it.

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy, says here, to be compared, but not worthy with the glory which shall be revealed in us. That is so far beyond, truly is, of things we can’t fully grasp yet, of the glory of what it means to be in Elohim, to be spirit, to be in the spirit Family of God for all time.

Romans 8:19—For the earnest expectation, the anxious longing, as it is here, in what we have in our lives, of the creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. So, we wait for that, we long for that, we want to see the first of the firstfruits resurrected. We want to see the Kingdom of God established. We want to see the product, the fruit of what happens through the Millennium, of what’s created, the manifestation of far more sons of God then, and then the Great White Throne for all who ever lived and then died.

For the creation was made subject to vanity. We learn that. God shows us Adam and Eve. I remember sitting in class in Bricket Wood and Ambassador College and some of the kinds of question and answers that would sometimes come up in thinking and reflection going all the way back to Adam and Eve and how they were made and what did they have before them and what did they do and why did they do it. We were such an infant stage of understanding at that point in time, so far away from where we are now as far as what God has blessed us to grasp and to recognize.

No concept that they were created to sin, that all human beings are created to sin. Choice? They’re responsible; I’m responsible, we’re all responsible. But to know that just by being created as a physical being you’re going to sin. It’s going to happen all the time because you’re controlled by, you’re in captivity to “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” Incredible. So, we have this battle.

For the creation was made subject to vanity not willingly, but by reason of Him who has subjected the same in hope. So, there is a powerful thing there that we are kind of at a beginning stage of grasping and comprehending even more fully, this matter of this process of why God created it. But that’s why it’s saying here, God created us this way so that we could be saved through this process of hope which is about believing God. If you believe God, you hope, you look to, and you grow in confidence of that, you believe it. You believe it so you live by it. That’s the choice, faith, but there is this concept then of hope which is all about believing God to receive what’s out ahead, to receive what’s distant from us that we don’t have yet by any measure.

Because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. So, God’s plan and purpose to get rid of all the evil, the corruption, He’s going to do it in the spirit world, He’s going to do it in a physical world of human life.

For we know that the whole creation groans and labors together until now. It’s in horrible, incredible labor. The whole world is! It doesn’t know what’s before it. It doesn’t grasp God’s purpose in allowing these things and why nations are the way they are, why the world is experiencing the things that it is right now and getting worse and worse, what man has done to bring these things upon himself, masses of people and the evil that exists there and the pollution of the world and everything that’s around us. It’s just breaking all laws to a point of this earth being broken.

For we know that the whole creation groans and labors in pain together now. We see it. You see it on TV constantly in a way that we never have, and it’s out there: pain, suffering, agony, fighting, contention, disagreement. It’s so rampant. The world is in labor.

And not only it, but we ourselves also. But we’re blessed to know and see the truth. How incredible is that? They don’t understand what’s happening to them. They don’t understand what it is they’re living through right now and on the verge of right now. We know. We see. What an awesome peace and incredible thing that God has given to us.

…who have the firstfruits of the spirit, even we groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. So, we keep with the struggle because we have this hope of what it is we can become and we see change, we experience things that happen in our life, and we want to fight it to the end.

For we were saved through hope, because it has to do with what we believe and then looking out ahead to the excitement of the fulfillment of the things God has blessed us to believe. But hope that is seen is not hope; for if a person already sees, in other words, what they’ve hoped for, why would they continue to hope? That’s what’s being asked. But if we hope for what we cannot see, we do with patience wait for it. So, we learn to be patient in waiting on God.

2012 – didn’t happen. So we wait. We know God’s Church. We see the truth that God has given. He’s blessed us to know and to see so we wait for Him to reveal to us the reasons why, and then in time He helps us to understand, and we learn through the process. Because without going through the process we wouldn’t have learned with the depth of conviction and knowing and thankfulness that we have and what God has been able to mold within us in such a short period of time that’s even more powerful.

I’m excited to live now because I know that we all have places within the temple of God, within the Family of God. We have awesome things that God is giving to us to be in that temple.

Likewise, the spirit also helps our weaknesses. We’re filled with weaknesses, but God’s spirit helps us. It doesn’t mean we still don’t have weaknesses. He helps us in them, to work through them, to fight, to grow.

For we do not know what we are to pray for as we should, in other words, there are times when we go through certain things that the battle is so great we’re just kind of stymied. Sometimes can’t even have words come out at a heightened trial, at a heightened hardship, whatever it is, but He’s given us enough to know we keep fighting and we keep crying out to Him. Then He opens the door and we’re able to burst through more powerfully, we’re able to grow and learn from those experiences. But we go through them and so there are times we don’t know but we know we’re to pray. We know we’re to pray and we strive not to be repetitive, but we want to add to and break down our prayers at different times and to keep focused on different things that we know we need to be focused upon.

…but the spirit itself makes intercession. So, God’s there to help us. He knows what’s going on in our mind, just like to a point, to a part that I can grasp and understand more fully because of the work of the Church, the ministry and being involved in it for so long, to pretty much look at different situations in people’s lives and know what has to transpire and what has to take place or they’re going to continue to move farther away, and to be a little bit more alert to that. Because the desire is that they not, and so to be able to speak and inspired to speak in various things to help them to hopefully turn that tide. But they have to make that choice and receive that themselves and to know exactly where it’s headed, as a whole, most times.

But as I’ve said, I’ve been encouraged in time here in the last couple of two or three years by seeing individuals who are making that change and turn around. That’s what’s so exciting and rewarding, to see it when that happens and a full willingness to accept and be vocal about it and clearly acknowledge the sin. “I was stupid. I didn’t know. I didn’t see. I’m so glad to be able to see and turning that around.” What an awesome response to God.

But that’s not most of my learning and training. But it’s such a joy when that does happen. And you know what, it’s a joy to God. It’s exciting to God when individuals do that and respond in such a manner. Then there are others who just go farther and farther away and get farther out in bushes, farther, more obscure, move out farther into the bushes, moving out there, getting more and more away because they don’t want to be seen. Wow!

But the spirit makes intercession for us with groanings which we cannot express. So, God knows what we’re going through. He knows what’s in our mind when we want His way, when we cry out for help of things that we don’t fully grasp or comprehend what we’re experiencing or why. Then He brings us through it.

Just like, I think of 2012 on, didn’t know what was fully taking place. Groanings there indeed. What do we need to see? What is it that’s taking place? And so piece by piece over several years of time we began to see, began to grow, and awesome how God molds and fashions us.

And that which searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit. It’s God’s spirit. It’s talking about God’s spirit. …which makes intercession, as it says here, “the spirit itself makes intercession with groanings which cannot…” In other words, it’s God’s holy spirit that works with us. He helps us. He works with us. His desire is to bring us into His Family, so that spirit, that power is always there to work with us as we yield ourselves to it, as we want it and desire it.

…because it makes intercession for the saints according to God. In other words, it’s God’s will, it’s according to the will of God indeed, in context as it says here, although those words aren’t in the Greek. That’s basically what it’s talking about. It’s according to God. It’s God’s way. It’s part of God’s purpose and God’s plan, and that’s how His spirit is to work in our lives.

Even we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. So, if our minds are opened up, we see the truth, we know the truth—because that’s the only way we can know it and see it—then we have choices to make all along the journey, all along the way there. As we grow and as we learn to love God more and more in our life, to love His way of life, we know, we can have this confidence because God says so.

All of this is going to work for good because God’s going to use everything that happens around us. We don’t all have the same things happening around us, but we have different experiences in life and it’s through those experiences that God will mold and fashion us. It’s through the trials, it’s through the hardships.

For whom He did foreknow, He also did predetermine to be conformed to the image of His Son. Not “predestinate.” It’s a matter that God has a plan that He’s predetermined, planned out a long time ago, and then He begins to fill in the pieces. We’re at a point in time where certain pieces, the end of the 144,000 is being filled in. We’re at a new part of a Body, a new age of the Church is already starting here as it goes into the Millennium. Awesome, that we are in that in a very powerful way.

“Predetermined to be conformed to the image of His Son.” So that’s been God’s purpose that all who are able to enter into Elohim, there’s this process that we’re conformed to the image of His Son, that mind, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Joshua.”

Moreover, whom He did predetermine, those He also called. In other words, there’s a place and God determines and decides who to fit into those various areas at different times throughout 7,000 years. …those whom He called, and whom He called those He also justified. And whom He justified, those He also glorified. In other words, it’s taking us through an entire process of how we have to come to a point of being justified through belief of the truth, through the forgiveness of sin, our choice, and then we believe God and we’ve lived this way of life then and God gives us the strength and help of His holy spirit to accomplish that and He’s molding and fashioning our minds, transforming our minds during this process. And so, God goes through the entire process here in these words, in this sentence here, of what we go through, and then to be glorified. We receive a part of that glory now, part of God’s spirit that we’re blessed to live His life within us.

You talk about being glorified? The rest of the world and people in the world don’t have that. But we have that, until the time we’re fully glorified in a different body even.

Therefore, what shall we say of these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? We have everything in front of us for success.

Verse 32—He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with him freely give us all things? What an incredible thing, His own Son. He gave him, raised him, nurtured him, molded and fashioned him to become our Passover. Gave him that mind, His mind, and then Christ being of oneness with that all the way fulfilling it, desiring it, doing the work of God, looking to the time to be High Priest, looking to the time to fulfill being Passover. Excruciatingly painful as he went through that knowledge of that time, to know what he was getting ready to experience in a physical body, suffering, pain, beating, and death.

Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It doesn’t matter what the world throws at us, or the spirit world. God is there. He’s on our side. He molds and fashions us. He works in our life, and He will intervene and work with us as and to the degree we need it.

So again, He freely gives us all things. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes, and furthermore has been raised up to even be at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. So, we saw this process of being molded and fashioned, how there is this spirit that works in us that God has given His charge through that power, that power that we don’t grasp how it works, to work in our minds to transform us, to change us, that makes intercession for us. Knows what’s happening in the mind, knows how to work with the mind to mold and fashion, that’s at work changing it. Then Christ himself who intercedes for us and works with us through that power that’s there far beyond our full comprehension and grasp about how all this works. But we’re growing and seeing it more and more.

Who shall separate us from the love (the agape) of Christ? Christ is there, always there faithful, all the time. We’re not. He is. Then we repent of not being faithful at times in our life because we repent of sin. That’s when we’ve been unfaithful.

Tribulation? Distress? It doesn’t matter what hardship we go through in life. It was never designed and meant to be easy, especially for God’s people and especially toward the end here. We’re going to see a lot. We’re going to experience a lot more. It’s not going to be easy, but God is there, Christ is there. We have something on the other side of this that is so much greater in both living into a millennial age as the foundation of the Church or being changed to be a part of the firstfruits.

Who shall separate us from the love, again, of Christ? Tribulation, distress, persecution? We learn the world doesn’t want God. The world doesn’t want us. There are beings out there who loathe and despise us and want us to trip and fall and want to broadcast and do every time they get a chance. Famine? You know, if we go through times of hardship, of making ends meet, is that a reason to lie and to steal from God? Or is it a reason to buckle down and cry out to God more for deliverance and to keep our eyes focused and not let something like this derail us?

Because this is all choices. Are we going to allow something like that to turn us away from, move us away from God? Nakedness? You know, just finances. That’s what this is about. Sometimes these things are just about making ends meet and yet putting first things first in our life and seeing God bless us and work with us in life.

Nakedness, danger or sword? As it is written (verse 36), For Your sake we are killed all the day long. Love, learning God’s love, to know that it requires sacrifice, to yield ourselves even to the process. We’re blessed to grow in then that mind, that love, that thinking that is of God and He blesses us, He molds and fashions and transforms our thinking.

We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Look at what happened to Christ. It had to happen. That life had to be given. It had to be sacrificed in that manner for everyone to be able to come into God’s Family, to become part of Elohim.

For us to become a part of Elohim we have to suffer, we have to go through hardship. “We’re counted as sheep for the slaughter,” yet God intervenes for us. We’re not going to go through what Christ went through, but we go through many different things, and oftentimes, too, it ends in death. That’s what’s happened. Think of all the early apostles, beaten, imprisoned, stoned, and nearly every one of them put to death for what they believed.

Know in all these things we are more than conquerors, overcoming, through Him who loves us. God is with us. What more can we ask? The peace, the comfort. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life… And yet I can’t help but say it again, people worried about a vaccine. …that neither death nor life… What is it we’re going to draw a red line on, say, “I’m not crossing this one”? And the worst that can happen is death. Maybe…? Maybe not right away. What if it came to pass that everyone started dying who had it? Well, you followed what God gave, what was given in the Church. You sought for unity and oneness; you have it made with God. Incredible. If you think it’s different than that, you’ve missed the mark.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, whatever comes. We don’t know what’s fully coming. There’s a lot coming. We know that. …nor height nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love (agape) of God which is in Christ Joshua our Lord. Nothing.

Do we have that hope? Do we have that confidence? Do we believe that? Are we convicted of that? Is this our life? Because, you see, the choice is ours. Only we can choose to be separated from what is ours that God has placed there for us. It says, “This is yours to receive, to inherit. It’s yours!” We think of Esau and what he did. We don’t want to be like that. God has put far more in front of us.

Romans 9:1. First few verses here have been awkwardly translated so I’m going to give it here as it is. I say the truth in Christ, I do not lie. My conscience also bears me witness in the holy spirit. So, in other words, had such confidence to know this is of God’s spirit. He knew his mind and his thinking toward God. It was at one with God and that what was happening in his life to transform, to change him was of God’s spirit. He was attuned to God through the power of the holy spirit. He had that confidence and boldness.

He says, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. So, he’s acknowledging here that he felt so deeply about this. These are about his feelings toward Israel, toward physical Israel.

He says, For I could wish that I were separated from Christ for my brethren. So again, this is very awkwardly translated because they don’t grasp what he’s really saying, they don’t grasp the context here of the spirit of his mind, of the spirit and oneness and unity with God and what he was going through.

And so, there are things we can see around us about different ones and the hurt, the frustration sometimes we have because we want to see different ones receive and yet we know there is no other way, even if it meant our lives. That’s not what it’s about. Because we see a greater purpose that God’s working out and we are in unity with that. That’s what he’s saying here. He’s showing what is right and what is true.

He says, For I could wish that in essence, but he said, in essence, who are Israelites, to whom the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God… In other words, all this that was given to them physically, but yet there is something greater here in all this. He says, recognizes, and realizes God has brought us to a point of something different that’s happening. They were at a point in time where Paul was given to be the apostle to the gentiles, and yet that kinship, that desire he had for physical Israel. But he saw something greater here beyond that. Awesome!

So, it says here, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the promises. So again, the context here were given as a physical nation of people but there is that which is so much greater, which of the fathers/even of the fathers even according to the flesh, Christ came who is over all. God be blessed forever, amen. So, in other words, this is how we receive salvation. It’s not through all that that was given that Israel had on a physical plane and never really did it well or right.

Verse 6. So, it goes on to say, It is not as though the word of God has taken none effect. The word literally means, “to have fallen off,” as in “not having come to pass.” So, did something happen to where God’s purpose isn’t being fulfilled because the Israelites weren’t able to attain and can’t have what He yearns for them to be able to have had? But that’s not the way it works and he’s showing here how it works then.

What he’s giving now, he’s showing here this is what it’s all about. This goes beyond. God has shown the way, the right way, not just a better way, but the only and a beautiful way in which we can be changed. It’s not through the physical system of Israel that they couldn’t attain to and that they couldn’t have, but it’s here.

For they are not all Israel who are Israelites. So, what’s he talking about? Well, we understand that. We understand it goes beyond something on a physical plane. How could you not be Israel, an Israelite if you’re an Israelite. So, that’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying, “all are not Israel who are Israelites.” So, here is the beginning of the Church, here we see the Church growing, gentiles being called and so forth. They’re Israel. It’s the Israel of God. It’s a spiritual thing, not a physical thing.

Neither because they are the seed of Abraham or all his children, but In Isaac shall your seed be called. So, he’s getting to the nitty gritty of something we’ve already covered going through things about tithing, and it makes it very clear here there is a seed. It’s about a seed that God reveals in time here, it’s about the Messiah, the Christ that will be out of the seed. Not even of, in that respect, of the Levitical system, of the Levite, but it’ll be of Judah.

That is, they who are the children of the flesh, in other words, the physical descendants, are not the children of God. So, it’s not about physical Israel. That’s why this thing of thinking physically when people used to think within the Church (because God hadn’t revealed it yet), that this 144,000 and this great multitude, they couldn’t grasp that it was talking about the same thing because it’s distinguished here that there will be 12,000 out of this tribe and 12,000 out of this tribe, and there was this concept that they’re going to literally be 12,000 out of this specific tribe of people.

And you think, yes, but Israel went into Europe and intermingled with a lot of Assyrians and family lines changed and nothing was pure anymore because of all the intermingling that’s taken place through time, so what is that all about? Purity, absolute tribe? Our minds, our thinking, God had to reveal to it it’s spiritual just as much as the name Israel is spiritual. So, we had to learn. God had to bring us to that point to see those things, that that’s the 144,000. It’s not a physical thing, it’s a spiritual one, spiritual with names that have a spiritual purpose.

So, they who are the children of the flesh, in other words, physical descendants, are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. What does that mean? It’s about Christ. It’s about those who can become a part of spiritual Israel in time through receiving Christ, the Passover and then the High Priest.

For this is the word of promise. This is what it was about. Not about physical promises but of spiritual ones. At this time will I come, and Sarah will have a son. And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac. He’s of the tribe of, I believe it’s Benjamin here. May be wrong. But anyway, yes, Benjamin. But anyway, different tribes there and so forth so talking about Israel and being Israelite and so forth but he’s showing something far greater than that. But he’s going back and referring to the forefathers.

For the children not yet being born, not having done good or evil. So, it wasn’t a matter of how well one of them might have lived because neither one of them had done good or evil, but here is something already determined. So that the purpose of God according to election or selection—God chooses— might stand. So, God had a purpose. It was going to be Isaac. And how they were born? Of God. On and on it goes showing it’s God. This is God’s work. God is doing this, not man.

As it says here, the selection might stand, not of works (nor of works). It’s not by what one does in obeying and disobeying. No one can obey the law. He just went through those things earlier. That’s why all this is in context. …but of Him who calls. It’s all accomplished by God. God is the creator. God is going to create Elohim. We are the clay.

Verse 12—It was said to her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I, not hated, but have not loved, in essence is what He’s saying. I’ve explained this in times past. It’s not a matter that God doesn’t love all of His creation, because He does, but He has a different time for people when He’s going to give them His love, give them access to His love.

The world is not receiving the love of God yet. There is coming a time when they will. That means when He can begin to give them grace and mercy and the blessings of a calling, His holy spirit. That’s His love. When He can begin to give that to them it’s at different times for different ones.

What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid! He’s the potter! He determines how all this is going to be accomplished. He and He alone save what He’s given to Christ to have now, they have this, this mind, this thinking, this knowledge, this ability to create that which is spirit, a spirit family.

For He said to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. It’s in His time when He shows the compassion, the mercy, His love.

So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs… So, we can’t determine ourselves how we’re going to do it. It’s a matter of our will and what we decide and we’re going to begin obeying God (because we can’t), or we’re going to come into the truth. People go to different things, different religions. That’s why there are so many different religions in Christianity, traditional Christianity.

…not of him who runs. It doesn’t matter what you think you do on a physical plane of and by yourself and striving to do things that you think are required of God and the physical ability to keep the law, but of God who shows mercy. Because the calling has to be of God and God has to determine when He’s going to begin to show mercy. Because a lot of mercy has to be shown to us because we’re so carnal and so filled in sin that if He’s not merciful to us we just have to be destroyed, killed, put to death. But He’s merciful. He knows what we’re like. He knows what it takes to draw us out of and the choices and decisions before us. His overall desire is when He places that before us is to save us, is to give us opportunity in Elohim. Then we have to make the choices.

That I might show My power through you, and that My name might be declared throughout all the earth. So, God chooses. He chose Moses. He made it clear to Moses He’s the one. It’s revealing God’s greatness. It wasn’t about Moses. Moses was given great opportunity and had a great role to fulfill, and he chose to be part of that, to fulfill what God had called him for. We’re not all called for the same thing. We’re all called to fulfill different things. It’s only by serving God and doing so faithfully and striving to change and conquer self that we can fulfill that. We don’t always know what it is. Moses knew what a lot of his was but so many, we never know exactly what it is we’re going to be plugged into.

Verse 18—Therefore, He has mercy on whom He will, and on whom He will He hardens. What does that mean? Let’s them go their own way because “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life,” that hardens people automatically. Turns them off toward God more and more. They go farther and farther away from God, become more set in their own ways until God begins to draw them out, call them, open their minds to see themselves.

You may ask me, Why does He yet find fault? “Why does God yet find fault?” For who has resisted His will? It’s almost like what we had earlier, “Well, what’s the use? It’s already decided.” No, it’s not. Then we have to make choices.

Why have you made us like this? You might ask why. Well, people that have been worked with through time have wondered about different of these things and much was given to Paul here. Look at what we grasp and comprehend. We have a great peace because of what we’re able to see.

Verse 21—Does not the potter have power over the clay? Here we go again. …that of the same lump to make one vessel to honor, “to be of greater value” is what the Greek word means literally, “to make one of greater value,” at a particular time, in essence, whenever He chooses. …and another, as it says, unto dishonor? What does that mean? Well, it means here that all are to dishonor who don’t want God.

All who don’t have that opportunity are to dishonor. That’s all they have in front of them because they can’t do anything more. But there is a time when God decides to make one of greater value at a certain moment in time. Moses, Abram, Isaac, Jacob, Noah, different periods of time God has chosen to make them to a vessel of honor. Then the Church and then people given that choice and whether or not they hold on to that choice, then the battles really begin, and the process begins of preparing for 144,000. So, another to dishonor.

Verse 22—What if God, willing to show wrath and to make His power known… Now, mankind understands or can respond more to power, to wrath, to that which they see as wrath, but it’s about God’s judgment still. So often I’ve talked about this. It’s the only thing that human beings seem to grasp and comprehend, when God allows something.

He doesn’t make it happen; He allows them to do it. He allows a spirit world to do certain things. He allows ten nations to come together in Europe. He allows different nations to go to war. But He also works with and regulates some of those things within that process to fit within a timeframe, to fit within a certain context of a maximum amount of destruction and no more. Because they’re going to do it anyway. That’s the thing about human beings.

So again here, What if God, willing to show wrath and to make… in other words, to reveal, to let it happen, and to make His power known because of what He does then to intervene, to work with whatever it might be, endures with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath. Because that’s what we are. It’s to death. As human beings, if we don’t repent. And finally, God calls us and we’re able to come to repentance.

…are fitted to (prepared for, made up) for destruction. God has allowed that through time. Different ones, different things happen, Assyrians could come down and conquer, take Israel captive and take them out of their land. On and on it goes through time and through history that God’s allowed certain kinds of destruction to take place as a part of His plan, as a part of what He’s molding and fashioning. So much of that to mold and fashion individuals when they are called.

Look at us. We’re able to learn from these things because of those things of experiences in the past that God has done and molded and fashioned, stories, things that are there that we can learn from on a spiritual plane. That’s why they’re there.

Even that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy. We have opportunity. Once we’re given opportunity to receive of His holy spirit, that life, that excitement that begins to enter into us, the seeing, the knowing the truth. …which He had before prepared unto glory. So, when God calls someone it’s for the purpose of molding and fashioning them, preparing them to receive a greater glory, to be in His Family.

…even for us whom He has called, not of the Jews only, but also for the gentiles. Now, for us we’re very familiar, we understand. But for Paul, that was even more meaningful for him at that time because he was to go to the gentiles. It was the book to the Romans and here he was able to share this about, “Look what God has opened up! Look what God is giving and broadening this of who can become Israel!” It’s far more vast, it’s far greater, and there is such incredible glory in God in what He’s doing and how He’s done it to show His greatness, His glory, how awesome He truly is.

Verse 25—As He said also in Hosea, I will call them My people, who were not My people, and My beloved, which were not beloved. So, through time this was not understood, obviously, even during that time that it was written in a very physical plane in Hosea. But all for a spiritual purpose of that which is to come later, and to think that here those who weren’t loved, because it wasn’t time to give them love. It wasn’t time to call them. Esau He didn’t love. He didn’t give His love, in other words. It’s not that He didn’t love him and all people that are created, but it wasn’t that time for him to receive of His love to change, to grow, to conquer, to be molded and fashioned, to receive mercy, to receive forgiveness of sin, and on and on it goes. That’s when God pours out upon us grace, mercy, forgiveness, favor, help. Because He’s molding and fashioning. That’s His time to do that, that we become a part of a glory. The reason we were created.

I will call them My people who were not My people. So, in his mind the gentiles. And her beloved which was not beloved. Even it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, You are not My people, there they shall be called children of the living God. So, they weren’t physical Israel, they weren’t the people being worked with, but he’s showing something greater. All will have time and opportunity, as a whole, to become the children of the living God, by choice once that’s given to us.

Isaiah also cried concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel may be as the sand of the sea, may be exceedingly vast in time, a remnant shall be saved. Now, to me that’s kind of sobering because it reveals choice in all of this and a willingness to fight and to battle and to conquer self, to yield to this process of creation, of being molded by God, of yielding ourselves as being pliable, not hardening up and wanting our way, insisting on our way, not doing something in unity and oneness for the sake of what God is doing in our lives.

“A remnant shall be saved.” So, when it’s all said and done nothing is owed to us, but there’s going to be a portion, whatever that portion ends up being. May not be as great as sometimes human beings have thought, even as the Church has thought in times past, because it was almost of the concept that everyone is going to have the chance and most everyone is going to be saved. No, they’re not. What happens at the end of the hundred years reveals a vast, vast, vast number who have ultimately rejected God, who will be destroyed and gone forever, never to be resurrected, never life again. Incredible. “A remnant shall be saved.”

For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. So, there’s a lot of things could be said about this, but I think about time, 7,000 years. Seems like a long time to human beings but when it’s all said and done, when you look at the time span that’s existed, that we can’t even begin to comprehend, millions, billions of years if we were able to count years, we can’t comprehend that. Then that into the future no end, forever, forever.

But it says here God’s going to finish work. So, in the span of that time, 7,000 years is a blurb, it’s a wink of an eye in time. But God’s doing so much through that period of time. Incredible.

Verse 29—Even as Isaiah said before: Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed… Always goes back to Christ because here is where it begins. That’s why I love the structure of the Holy Days. Before the Holy Days ever begin there is Passover. It starts there, repentance of sin, a willingness to accept accountability for our own life, for our own choices, and to recognize a battle then of conquering and overcoming our own nature.

…had left us a seed, we would have been like Sodom, and like unto Gomorrah. Totally burned up. But God gives us an opportunity.

What can we say then? Because the gentiles, who did not follow after righteousness, have obtained unto righteousness, even the righteousness which is from out of faith. In other words, there is this thing here that Paul is still revealing, “Look at what you’re being given as gentiles.”

…but Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, has not attained to righteousness. Why not? Well, we understand that. It’s not a physical thing. It’s not a physical obedience, it’s spiritual. So, all the gentiles and all that were ever a part of Israel have to become a part of spiritual Israel to have that experience.

Why not? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. And you can’t be saved in that fashion, as the Old Testament gave.

For they stumbled at the stumbling stone. That’s the problem, and it is with all mankind, that everyone is going to have to deal with this. As it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, because it’s about God, and human nature does not want God and Christ. It requires a great deal of humbling in people’s lives to enter into this process of a willingness to repent of sin. And so, because many won’t, he is the stumbling block. The process of salvation becomes a stumbling block for so many. And sad, sad, sad when that happens in the Church, when some come to a point where they won’t repent from what’s clearly given.

…a stumbling stone and rock of offence. And whoever believes on him shall not be ashamed. What an awesome thing!

Finally, to close here it’d be good to look at one more area of scripture, one more section in Ephesians 2:4. Some of this is again addressed a little more, a little differently here. But again, Ephesians 2:4—Now, God is rich in mercy through His great love (agape). So, we’ve just talked about that. When God begins to give us His love, because He’s calling us, because He chooses that time to begin to mold and fashion us if we so choose and are willing and want that, to change, to be transformed.

Now God is rich in mercy through His great love wherewith He has loved us, even when we were dead in sins He made us alive together with Christ. So, this is how it starts. It starts with our Passover and our ability for the first time to come alive in a spiritual way, in the mind. We begin experiencing and knowing things that have life in it. Because God’s holy spirit is life, it’s alive. That’s what it’s talking about, being able to have that life in us. We’re able to live in God and Christ and we’re blessed that they live and dwell in us.

…has made us alive together with Christ, for through grace you are saved. It’s through this process of God then granting us such opportunity, a calling. Even He has raised us up together and made us sit together, this being placed in that position. It’s about power and might in God’s Family, in God’s Kingdom. …and has made us sit together in heavenly, in Christ Joshua. So, it’s a matter of that which comes from God Almighty that’s been given to Christ that enters into our life and brings us into unity and oneness in God’s Family.

…that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Joshua. So, regardless of the time we are called there comes a time when it’s going to become evident and manifest. First when the firstfruits are resurrected, the Kingdom of God that’s established, and then the different phases of people entering into that family.

For by grace, God’s mercy and God’s love. When He begins to give that to us and grant us to experience that. For by grace you are saved through faith. Believing God. Believing the truth. …and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. It’s not owed to us, it’s a gift. All the way a gift. …not of works, unless anyone should boast. Can’t do it on your own. It’s not by your goodness, by your righteousness, by how hard you work, by how much you work. Yet we work because we believe. There’s a distinction there, mighty indeed.

For we are His workmanship, to be molded and fashioned, His workmanship. What an awesome blessing. …created in (through) Christ Joshua unto good works, a change, that which is really good because it’s from God, of God’s spirit, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them. What a beautiful thing that we can walk in unity and harmony and oneness together in God’s purpose and God’s plan through all that we live through. It’s beautiful.

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