The Awesome Creation of Mankind, Pt. 2

Ronald Weinland

September 26, 2021

Feast of Tabernacles Sermon

We’re continuing today with Part 2 of the Feast series entitled The Awesome Creation of Mankind.

It’s an incredible thing that we can grasp and understand various things of how God is working with us, His plan and purpose, and how we can actually begin to think differently than our normal carnal selfish human nature, and to understand that God’s mind, God’s righteousness can’t just be placed into a mind. It just can’t be given to anyone. It doesn’t work that way. There was one, and for the purpose of one, for the uniqueness of one and what he was going to accomplish and do to be High Priest, to be, obviously, exceedingly close to God, born of human flesh, that the Word, the mind of God was placed into him, and he grew through experiences and so forth, and then was baptized later on. A very unique life indeed to become our Passover.

But all mankind cannot be worked with in that manner. It isn’t God’s purpose. And that in itself would be a sermon or several sermons to understand some of those things. But there can only be one Messiah, one Christ, one Passover, one Son of God in that respect, in that regard as far as being born from God and being born of human flesh of a woman.

Everyone else, it’s a matter of a variety, it’s a matter of a uniqueness, it’s a matter of a choice, it’s a matter of a battle that this is what we want, and we fight for it for all of our being, because we have made a choice through experiences we do not want this nature. We don’t want what we see in this world with all the suffering in it. We want a different mind, and we see that mind, that thinking revealed to us through the law, God’s law, God’s word, God’s plan and purpose, the truths that God gives to us.

And because of those things and our love of those things we love God. Because that’s God. That’s how God reveals Himself to us. His word, His truth, His way of life. And I think of those things that happened around the Apostasy, in 2 Thessalonians 2 it says basically they were able to be deceived, people were able to be deceived to the extent they were because they didn’t have that love, that didn’t have a love towards God’s word and God’s way of life, God’s mind. And so, they were able to be deceived very powerfully so.

So, the model for human life was to be formed with a carnal mind, to be carnally minded. And being godly minded cannot be created in a spirit composed body let alone a physical body. It can’t be done. It just can’t be done. Incredible to understand that. That mind of God cannot be created in a spirit composed body.

And so, the greatest in the spirit world that can be created, that was created was the angelic realm. But they weren’t given access to God’s holy spirit. It wasn’t God’s purpose to dwell in them, to live in them. It doesn’t work that way. To be in Elohim for what God is creating we had to be born of human flesh.

Incredible to learn those things, to understand those things, of things the world can’t even begin to comprehend. And we only see it slightly; we don’t see it in depth. But we begin to, and we begin to appreciate it and be in awe of what God is doing and of our life and of our journey and of the choices that people are going to have that we have before us. So it’s incredible to know these things.

Let’s turn over to Romans 12. There is no more perfect way than the exact way in which God has created mankind for a person to be able to be given the potential, the choice to develop the very mind, the very thinking of God Almighty. Awesome.

So, we’re going to begin here by turning to these verses here that directly reflect what God is doing when it comes to that change that has to take place in our mind. Now, we know so many of these things. We know the scriptures. But we have much more to learn and it’s a growing process spiritually depending on where we are and what we’re able to glean. Because we don’t all glean the same things out of everything.

It depends on where we are in what we’re able to comprehend and see. It has to do with our relationship with God and the power of His spirit that’s working within us. So, we see these at various levels and at various growth within our life within the Body. That’s an awesome thing to understand because it helps us to understand we have so much more to learn always, always, always, always. We never have it all.

Like what happened during Laodicea – rich and increased with goods, a haughtiness about what we thought we knew as a body, as a Church.

Romans 12:1—I implore you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. We resist that as human beings. Can’t even take a Covid shot to be a living sacrifice. Fight and resist what God gives from His apostle. It’s incredible and we need to see it for what it is, to understand that kind of resistance. It’s not about me, it’s about God Almighty and how God leads and guides and works with us. It truly is.

And Covid may be around not just for the world, but primarily for us, primarily for God’s Church to benefit from that. Because God uses various things to bring things to the surface because we’re the most important thing to God right now, the creation of Elohim within us, the 144,000 to be made complete. And so, we’re going through and have been for some time – and I marvel at this because I’ve never seen these things in the Church before. It hasn’t happened to where there is an acceleration, there has been since 2008 and on, an acceleration of how God works with us, of how we’re able to grow and change, and to be able to be a part of that.

And so much of that because God already knew where different ones were headed, where they were going. It was already planned and purposed to allow certain ones to do what they did, just as it was with the Apostasy and everything else that’s ever happened in God’s Church. God allows things to exist sometimes within the environs of the Church so we can learn from it “That isn’t right.” “What you said isn’t right.” “What that person said wasn’t right.” Then what are you going to do about it. “What that person said is very divisive, it’s wrong,” and if they start spreading this around to others that’s even worse.

So, what do we do about it? It’s up to us. Because we’re all a part of this – responsibility, dedication to God, a willingness to stand up for God, to stand up for God’s way of life, to fight for God’s way of life. It’s not about “Don’t want to lose a friend. I don’t want to make them upset. We’ve been friends for so long.” What’s more important? That they be able to see themselves if that potential exists in any fashion or form, because so often they’ve gone too far already.

I implore you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. So, that’s a willingness to give of ourselves continually. Where do you put a limit on that of giving to God’s people especially? Where do we put a limit on that, of what we’re willing to do for God?

…holy. Mean’s we’re responsible for setting something aside for holy use and purpose. God has given us His spirit to use wisely for this purpose, for this cause, for our lives, for the lives of others, to grow, to change, to yield to this process to become part of Elohim.

…acceptable to God. Because there are things, as we’re going to read about later, that just aren’t acceptable to God. We don’t get by with disobedience, continuing disobedience, continually snubbing of God. We may have weaknesses, we may stumble, we may go, fall back to certain things from time to time and repent again, but to continue on in certain things and not be involved with repentance and why Christ died? And to understand that’s for our benefit and we have to use it day in and day out, our Passover, to be forgiven of sin.

…acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. It’s a reasonable service. We have responsibilities. It’s our reasonable service. We have responsibilities in our actions and what we say, and it’s just reasonable before God.

And do not be conformed to this world. Don’t let this world dictate how you think. And yet, that’s happening in the Church to this day. Still going on. Still happening. And some are to varying degrees in some of this. But when you take in the world and that dictates how you think, when it opposes how we’re being led, just destroys our ability to grow and be transformed and to change.

This word “conformed” comes from the Greek word meaning “together with” or “in association with.” Then this word itself carries the thought of “assuming a certain form but in association with or together with those in the world.”

So, that’s why I’ve talked about politics in the way I have. Because sometimes people don’t realize they get caught up in the world and they get caught up with what world leaders say, and it’s like one is right and one is wrong and we start taking sides, who is right and who is wrong and what’s better and what isn’t. And we’re not in that!

We’re not of that world. We’re not to get wrapped up in those things and to take sides and begin thinking like some others might. We’re to think like this. We’re to think like what God has given to us through the power of His spirit to be at one with Him and to want His government. To loathe everything about every phase of government on this earth because it’s all evil. It hurts human beings! It’s caused so much hurt through time. 6,000 years of pain and suffering because people get into power, and they misuse it, and they abuse it.

And so, sometimes it’s almost hard to bear to watch what—just like with Covid, to see what’s taking place. One political party will say one thing, and just because they’ve said that (I don’t care what it is), the other has to say the opposite. They have to oppose it. And if somebody beats someone to a good idea, that just really hurts, this really smarts, because now we’ve got to destroy that thinking because others might be attracted to them and their thinking!

And sometimes in God’s Church people get attracted to their thinking. That’s appalling. It’s truly appalling that we would begin to take sides with different ones.

Same thing with news stations and so forth. You’ve got to have the ability to know their prejudices and to understand where they’re coming from, to try to dissect things that are coming out. And that’s a hard job but it’s a responsibility we have so that we’re not taking sides there either. We’re analyzing, we’re waiting to see, we’re striving to grasp and comprehend the best we can in the light of what God’s revealed. Awesome.

And do not be conformed to this world, whatever it might be, taking sides with it, to look like it. Still have within the Church people who make decisions according to government in the world and not government in the Church. Sorry! What’s wrong? Why do we do that as human beings, especially where we are on a spiritual plane and so close to everything taking place and the final sealing completed. And are we hindering some of that sometimes by our actions?

I couldn’t help but think today, what a horrible thing still if there are some who have gone through the Apostasy who won’t be in the first resurrection, maybe in the Great White Throne though. Because I think that exists. Do you think you have it made just because you went through the Apostasy? You don’t. Think it’s owed to you just because you went through the Apostasy? No, it’s not. Not at all. Not one iota is owed to us.

We owe God. It’s our reasonable service to be a living sacrifice, to give up our ways. Not only to give them up but to fight to get rid of them, to get them out of our system, to fight against what is in the world and coming at us in the world. And not just be content but be filled with the peace, the fullness of what God feeds us and gives to us, the spiritual diet He gives to us.

Don’t be conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. It’s an ongoing process. Always, always, always an ongoing process. So, in what I had to say there about maybe someone going through the Apostasy, losing their crown for the 144,000, but maybe a possibility of being resurrected later on in the Great White Throne? I believe that with all my being.

…that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So, sometimes if we’re not careful we begin to rest on our laurels, butt’s spiritually, and think we’re there. Don’t see the need to continue to grow because pretty much have it all, have all the new truth that we have, but don’t see self. This has got to change and keep changing and keep changing and keep changing and keep being corrected because it’s the only way to grow. And if we cease growing, what are we? Are we pliable in God’s hands? Are we the clay that is pliable in God’s hands?

“…by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” What does that mean, “prove it?” There have been some misconceptions of this in times past. It’s like people could get out their Bible and say, “Well, I’m going to prove it to myself because I can understand these scriptures and I can put them together and I’m going to go through these scriptures and I’m going to prove everything that’s being said.” Bull, bull, bull, bull, bull, bull! It does not work that way.

The proving that God is talking about is putting it to the test in your life. Do it! Live it! Prove it to yourself! God has already shown you what is right, what we need, what we must have, we just have to go through the experience so that it becomes a part of this, our mind. It’s precious. And so, that’s what proving it is.

It’s like going back a couple hundred years, three hundred years, whatever, and you don’t have tractors, you don’t have combines, you don’t have all these implements out there working the fields, you have to follow behind an animal. And you have this thing in the ground and it’s ripping up the earth (a plow), and you’re tilling the earth so that you can plant. And you get some news ones, some younger ones, and the examples are in scripture, you want to prove them, how good they are. Someone who gets something like that?

I don’t care if it’s even a farmer today. They buy a brand-new tractor – has this in it, has that in it – can’t wait to get out there and use it to see what it’s able to accomplish because now the technology is growing so fast. And the cost, too; I don’t know how they survive. But it’s exciting to them.

It was exciting to me the first time, well, I drove a combine that had an 18’ header, 16, most of them. I guess the one I had was 16. And going down through a wheat field cutting wheat, but then many years later to get on one that was 40’ and to see how fast it was going through a field at incredibly high speeds was mindboggling to me. It was exciting. Because you have to understand that even the production of wheat, which is less quality now because all the genetics and garbage they do to it now, but huge yields in areas that… Anyway.

But all this has to come through to the middle and go up through the combine, and there’s this device in the middle that threshes everything that comes through it. It separates and knocks out the wheat so it can go into a bin and all the straw is able to continue on out the back. And my experience has been when you’re going too fast, even with the 16’ header, going down through the field, and if it starts coming in too fast it plugs up.

And that is a hideous job to get down there, turn off the machine, take off this plate that covers where it comes in at and pull this stuff out. Because it is jam packed! And then to have machines now that go many times faster, take much more up through to the center, you think that isn’t exciting to a farmer to prove a machine like that when they first get it? Absolutely!

Well, it should be exciting to us when we hear God’s word and see something we haven’t grasped before and see a way to draw closer to God and cry out to God for help. And then He says, “And prove it. Prove it to yourself. Test it.” Test what it means to pray daily to God Almighty and to cry out for His holy spirit, and to ask Him to help you to understand how much you really need it so that you will want to do this more. You may have to work in the beginning to start the process, but then you get to that point you know you need this. You have to have it. Day by day you have to have God’s help to strive to live what is right. Go out there on your own, you’re on your own all right, and it’s going to be worse for you.

So, these are the things being talked about here. Don’t be conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove… Because it’s in the changing of the mind. It’s by the learning of things from God that we’re able to put into practice and prove to ourselves “This is good. This is right. I don’t want what’s out there. I want more of what God offers. I want that mind. I want that thinking. I love the truth.”

2 Thessalonians? They lost the love of the truth. And sometimes it happens. People think, “I love the truth. I like…”

…that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Beautiful that we’re able to do that on a spiritual plane as we grow.

So again, going back to what was said earlier in the series, in the first part here yesterday. We are created with minds that by design would be the kind of thinking of Satan. Mindboggling to understand that. Mindboggling that we were created as human beings to have thinking like Satan. “Lust of the flesh…” He didn’t have any flesh, but he lusted. “Lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” Destroyed him up here.

But to think and understand? You tell someone in the world that, “You have the mind of Satan.” Not going to go over well. Someone hear me, if they want to crack that one inch, somebody out there, they heard something like that? “These people, they are dangerous. They are whacky. To say we have the mind of Satan?” That’s what we are as human beings.

Selfishness is the mind of Satan. Now, not to the extreme and the power that he has by any measure, we understand that. But that’s what we are. Pride itself, the pride of life that we have, that’s his thinking. It’s not God’s. It’s not of God. It’s Satan’s.

And to think that God made us this way? Awesome! So that we can make a choice in time, in His time between that thinking and God’s thinking.

So, that mind, one that would always make choices that were at enmity with God. Because that’s what selfishness, “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” it’s always at enmity with God, against God. And most who have ever been called into God’s Church in the last 2,000 years have turned back to this direction against God.

Some today are in the process of turning against God. Some right now during this Feast of Tabernacles, because of some of the things I’ve said, have some very important decisions to make because it’s going to smack them up the side of the head in some cases and they’re going to have to decide “What is my choice? What is my choice? What am I going to do? Be at enmity with God, against God?”

People can’t think that way. Instead they tend to justify why they’re going to do what they do, leave, oppose, contradict, fight against God’s Church.

We’re not through this yet. We are not through this until we’re through it. Battles. Battles always there.

Isaiah 14. It’s good to see this mind and think about it – and to marvel God made us this way. And as I said, the first time I saw myself and realized what I was like, that I had that kind of a mind, that I loved myself, that I was steeped in selfishness, I was sick by it. Truly, one of the worst days of my life I was so down. Because I didn’t understand God’s plan at that point. I didn’t understand what this was all about. I didn’t understand how human beings were like this.

Isaiah 14:12—How have you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! And so, we hear this year by year by year as we hear things about Passover. Every year it’s God’s purpose we hear it. He wants us to focus upon it. He wants us to remember it because there are always things to build upon. Truly.

How have you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! He was to be that light bringer. How you have been cut down to the ground, you who have weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. Now, his actions revealed this. It isn’t something he had to say. And people who have been in the environs of God’s Church have done these kinds of things. They don’t understand it. They don’t see it. They don’t say these words because they wouldn’t believe it, but this is what they do.

“You have said in your heart.” Either our heart loves God, desires God, wants God’s way of life, is that heart like David’s… “For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the starts of God.” Any time someone raises something up against God, idolatry of any kind, sin of any kind, this is what they’re doing. “I can do this.” The one who became the man of sin, that’s what he did in a more powerful way.

I will ascend into heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars (angels) of God. It’s this thing of pride and wanting to get ahead and doing various things sometimes that we do as human beings to be recognized or whatever, or to have pre-eminence over someone else.

I will also sit upon the mount of the congregation on the sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High. Human nature. That’s what human nature is like. This nature, that’s just what it is.

Ezekiel 28. Again, just a reminder this is that spirit mind that chose to go against God. But human beings are made like this, to have that kind of thinking to oppose God, where God is not even in the picture. We just decide what we want to do and how we want to… We decide what’s right and wrong in everything. And there’s a balance in those things, there’s a soundness of mind in those things, but within the framework of the will of God. What is God’s will? How is God working in “my” life, our lives?

Ezekiel 28:15—You were perfect in your ways from the day that you were created, until iniquity was found in you. Well, we know we have never been perfect. We know God is, Christ is, but we’re not, and that’s good. But that’s what our goal is, is to become perfected in every way, to enter into Elohim.

By the multitude of your mercies you have filled the midst of you with violence, and you have sinned. That’s what happens. Sin creates violence, violence toward others. Because God’s law is about relationships, relationships, how we’re able to function together, to work together as human beings, especially within the Body of Christ, and on and on it goes.

Therefore, I will cast you as profane out of the mountain of God; and I will destroy you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Pretty straightforward language. And so, there are times that it’s good for us to have straight language, things straightly spoken to us so that hopefully we can grasp and get the point of what’s being said, and to be shaken so that if we’re getting close to the edge hopefully something will shake us and help us to take the step back and start going back to the center of the road. So often that just doesn’t happen.

And so, in a similar fashion some of these kinds of things take place within the Church, of a process whereby people begin to be lifted up with pride and begin to decide for themselves in the sense of something different from what is being taught in God’s Church, deciding for themselves something different than what is being said, or holding on to something that is different for them, this pet belief, this pet idea. And so often just on a physical thing.

Why hold on to something…walking in the grass, hugging a tree, having to take shelter from chemtrails going across the sky, because there they go again? Where you’re going to be inside all the time? In your little shelter? And on and on it goes, the stupidity of human beings. Absolute stupidity against God, against what God is showing and offering?

…and I will destroy you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Your heart was lifted up. That happens. That’s what takes place. When anyone makes a choice, a decision against what God is giving us as a way of life, of how to live, and sometimes just as a matter of how we function as a body, as I mentioned make-up or no make-up.

I mean, I marvel at that. That’s such a physical thing but at one time Herbert Armstrong had to decide one direction, then went back in a different direction. And this, after he died, then there were several changes made. And then there were individuals out here in different scattered groups—had a conversation yesterday with someone here—that there were different groups out here, because different ministers went out and they had certain pet things that they were going to do no matter what. And one of the most important things I remember with one of them was make-up.

One time he was sitting in our living room floor… living room. (He should have been on the floor.) But he was in our living room, and we were meeting with him. And I truly thought—this was after the Apostasy—and I truly thought by some of the things he was saying that maybe he is starting to understand what happened to the Church, that we were scattered, that the temple, and so forth, and understanding that we were Laodicea. But oh, no, he would never acknowledge that one.

But I thought if there was a bit of a change here because he wanted to talk about how are you reaching people? It’s kind of like picking your brain a little bit, and what is it you’re doing? (Telling the truth. Passover is Passover; it’s on the 14th.) But anyway, one of the most important things that finally came up with, he brought up was about make-up. It was like, “Well,” something to the effect (and I’m paraphrasing this), “Well, at least Laura doesn’t wear make-up.” And she corrected him, “Yes, I do. It’s light but, you know, you maybe don’t see it.” And his wife said, “See! I told you she did!” So, this was something they’d already talked about before they ever came to visit us because this was a big thing to them.

Anyway, I shouldn’t have gone that direction, but it’s pride. People get lifted up with pride. He had problems going way, way back because he talked about in Worldwide and after the Apostasy, all these churches he raised up. You think, “You didn’t raise up anything. If anything was raised up, and as the Church of God, God raised it up. You serve. But you take the credit, the honor?” That’s the mind that we’re talking about here that becomes blind and lifted up with pride and sees self as important.

And the reality is we’re only important to the degree that God lives in our life and leads and guides and directs us and works with us. We’re important because we’re in the Church of God and because He’s changing us and helping us to change. We’re important in that respect because this is God’s focus and God’s desire and we’ve been given incredible blessings.

I wish everyone could understand what I just said, but everyone doesn’t in the Church of God today yet. They’re spiritual things. Sometimes we become so weak we don’t see it.

Over to Deuteronomy 30.

So, with him his heart was lifted up, became, as it talks about here, “because of his beauty,” how he saw himself. He was awesome in his creation as a spirit being. And so, oftentimes even within God’s Church we have God’s spirit and then maybe we’ve been in a long time and maybe we went through the Apostasy, and if we’re not careful we can get lifted up by that. Wrong thing to get lifted up by.

So, as God’s people, as God’s Church we’ve been blessed to come to much deeper understanding of this process, of what it is, of how we’ve been created and why and what God is doing with us. What an awesome thing, the opportunities before us.

Deuteronomy 30:15—See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. Isn’t that amazing that it all boils down to something so simple. You’d think that’d be an easy choice to make but it’s everything else in between, life, how you choose to live it, what it is you want to keep, what it is that’s important to you. What’s important to the Church? What’s important to God? What is God’s will in all matters? Sometimes we don’t hear what God’s will is.

“See, I have set before you today life and good.” Everything from God. Life that goes on forever. Good, always good, nothing bad in it, nothing hurtful. Beautiful. “Death and evil” There’s the choice. Who wants to choose the death? Well, too often people want to choose—they don’t call it evil—“I just don’t agree.” Okay.

…in that I command you today to love the Eternal your God. It’s the bottom line. Are we growing in that? Are we able to say that, “Father, I love You. I love Your way of life. I love the truth You’ve given to us because it reveals You. It’s beautiful. The law, it’s beautiful.”

…to love the Eternal your God, to walk in His ways. It’s so easy for us in the Church sometimes to deceive ourselves, to look at maybe the ten commandments and because they’re not being broken on a physical sense in our thinking, but not understanding the spirit of all of them together, of all that it means, especially number one. And of things that we sometimes raise up that are of our own thinking, of our own ideas, of whatever that might be that is so important to us, that others understand what we see, what we understand. God will work with us. He’ll lead and guide and direct us and show us what’s important in our life.

…to walk in His ways, to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments. So, that should be our heart and our desire to grow in that, even in judgment, to learn how to judge and not to judge. We should never judge one another in the sense of condemning. That’s what judgment usually…people, it’s how it’s used so often. That’s how we think. There’s other judging of things.

But this is one that God, we have to be very, very careful in looking at one another and beginning to determine things about a person that we may think we have the right to do. And the reality is each one of us belongs to God, and if an individual has been forgiven of their sins, who are we to hold something against them? Because judgment requires you to hold something against someone else. Who are we? Where do we get off? Such audacity, such thinking? Where is the love, God’s love? Because God wants us to have His love toward one another.

We’re a family and we should be able to see each other in that light. Now, in saying that I should throw something else in there. It’s difficult sometimes to grasp and comprehend not all who are in attendance, not all who come into fellowship are of the family, because they’ve been cut off from God’s spirit. Still out there. Now, if God is being patient with them, giving them some time to hear and to listen to certain things then they have the opportunity to repent. And as soon as they do…

So, sometimes it’s difficult in some of this and we have to judge some of those things. But what is the major judgment we make? We want them to succeed. We want them to come through whatever it is that’s pulling back at them. Just as I’m talking to different ones at this Feast of Tabernacles and have given some specific examples here in throughout this Feast, these are things that must change.

God’s Church isn’t going to change. God isn’t going to change in this. We have the choice to change and to change our course, and to change our attitude, and to change our speech, and to change our thinking. We have that choice as individuals.

But as a whole, our attitude and heart should be to love one another, mightily so. We want to be able to love each other.

…to walk in His ways, to keep His commandments, His statutes, His judgments, that you may live and multiply; your life be multiplied. Things in your life, the truth be multiplied, your understanding be multiplied, God’s spirit be multiplied in your thinking and your mind, that transformation be multiplied in your mind, what is truly important be multiplied in us.

…and the Eternal your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. So, we’re going in a certain direction. So, talk to them in a physical plane but we understand these and are being given this instruction on a spiritual one, entering into Elohim, our desire for Elohim. Not just a physical territory, not just a physical land, but a place, God’s Family.

…and the Eternal your God will bless you in the land, in the place which we’re fighting for, working for and desire to be. But if your heart turns away… What a horrible thing to go through everything we’ve gone through as a Church, to go through some of the hardships, the trials, the experiences, the things that people have experienced, the Apostasy, the things that have taken place through 2008, 2012, 2013, 2019 up to now, and to throw it away? To go through all these things and our hearts turn away, begin to turn away from God?

“But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear…” This is exactly what I’m talking about, because I fear there are some who aren’t going to listen. It’s a choice. It’s not just physical hearing, it’s what I’m hearing up here in the spirit, in the mind that’s important, because that requires a change in course, it requires repentance.

But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear and are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them… You know, sometimes we look at things like that and say, “I wouldn’t think about serving another god. I’m not going to go back to the protestant world. I’m not going to do what the apostasy, what some of those out there are doing. I’m not going to go to certain scattered groups out here because they don’t even understand the things that have been revealed, the truth, so I’m not going to do any of that. But this Covid thing, that’s something else.” It’s a physical thing.

Who cares? It’s a physical thing. And if God gives us guidance and direction we’re tested as to what are we listening to, what do we think? Is it possible… “Is it possible, maybe that he’s been given something to give to us?” Like Facebook, a warning, don’t get on it, it’s not healthy, it’s not good. It can hurt family. It can hurt people. Long, long time ago. This is much more than that. But we want to stand our ground. For God? For God’s Church? For what God gives to us? Even over a physical thing.

Because, you see, the physical things reflect what’s up here. We live in a physical world. How do we respond to them? Do we have guidance and direction through a very muddied, murky world? If you rely on yourself and your own thoughts and your own judgment in those things, you’re going to be shipwrecked. You’re going to go off course. You’re going to get bogged down. And some are so bogged down already I don’t know if they’re going to be able to come out of it.

You would think that this would all be over, that we’d be so unified, so at one right now that it would make your head spin with excitement and joy, rejoicing in the fact that we are one. But we’re not one yet. Why? Because we have that nature that God created in us as human beings, selfish human nature, “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” how important “I” am. Give me a break! It still exists. It will until Christ’s coming. And sadly, it will even happen after. But what’s important to us is between now and the time of his coming.

So simple: I’ve set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore, choose life that both you and your descendants may live, that you may love the Eternal your God, that you may obey His voice and that you may cling to Him. Just like Jacob. He didn’t let go. He wasn’t going to let go. He persevered. He fought. He clung to.

For He is your life and the length of your days. We need Him everyday of our life to get through this transformation, this change that has to take place in our minds. And not to think we have it made at any point in time. Some think, evidently think they have it made, that they’re okay. And no, you’re not okay. I don’t care how long you’ve been in God’s Church. I don’t care! That doesn’t matter! The length of time, nothing is owed because you were in longer than others or most of the majority of the Church. It carries no weight!

Someone who’s been in a fraction of the time maybe some have been in the Church can have that crown. Should shake a person up! And if we have to go through more because of something like that, because within the Body even still, so be it. Someone else being given that opportunity for the crown but it’s going to take some time. It’s going to take more time to prepare, to get someone to that point where God says, “Now I know you,” because, okay, so be it. Fasten your seatbelt.

It’s like Johnny says, being on that front row. I don’t really like that expression in one way because I like to be up high in the bleachers, get away from the front row, I’m too close to this.

…that you may love the Eternal your God, obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days, and that you may dwell in the land, in the place which the Eternal swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It wasn’t just a physical inheritance. What was promised was a spiritual one for Israel that wasn’t even existing when he talked to Abraham, Isaac, and then the name came later, obviously, Jacob.

So, to choose life we have to be able to see evil, to see the way of selfishness, what it produces. What does it produce? Huge lists that just keep going and going. Pain, heartache, jealousy, envy. Those things are so sick. When human life gets caught up in something of jealousy or envy toward someone else about someone else, envious of them, what do you want? What is it that you want? What is it that’s owed to you?

Ego. Things that are repulsive when people get caught up in how great they are. We’ve experienced that in a pretty great way back across the ocean there. Don’t need to say a whole lot more about that. You should understand.

Self-righteousness. It’s ugly. It really is. Self-righteousness is so ugly. Fighting, drama, all these pretty much fit into drama, but okay, grief, hardship, failed and at times treacherous relationships caused by cheating, lying, unfaithfulness. Then there are the experiences of desertion, oppression. A lot of us have a lot of scars. I have scars going back into my teen years.

Because there are things that are molded and fashioned in you as children, scars as a child. A lot of us have things that have happened to us because we live in a carnal world, we live in a selfish world, we live in a world that doesn’t have the love of God in it. So, we all bear different things. But to be able to conquer and overcome those things and to go on and those things are behind, that’s life. It’s life. What we have, what’s ahead of us, that’s what we hold on to. Because all that that’s behind us God’s healing in His way, in His plan and His purpose.

I’ve known of incredible suffering in dealing with people through time here in the Church, well before the Apostasy things that were coming out that people have suffered and have to live through. And to me some of the worst oppression has been on women. That’s why I’m so thankful that God has revealed to us things about women, what started with Adam and Eve, and that those things are going to be removed and are in the process of being removed as far as God’s Church is concerned.

And then differences in races and oppression and hardship and ugliness of how people treat each other. If you really see it it just makes you sick down inside, of how human beings could be that way toward one another. People’s minds so far out there in some cases of how they’ve treated each other in time.

I think of some of these in castles and places where they have dungeons and things that a great church, a big church did to people to get them to recant, like it was all justified because “This is of God” and, you know, to a human being, and watch them suffer and suffer more. And “Pull that thing farther and stretch that body out and… Oh, a leg came off!” You think, how demented is that mind? How can such a mind ever, ever, ever be worked with? What’s in their thinking? I think there is much we have yet to learn in things like that.

Experiences of desertion, oppression, mistreatment, snobbery, adultery, theft, being taken advantage of, lied about, or have done the lying, maligned or gossiped about, or have done the gossiping and the maligning of others, putting them in a bad light. We should never put others in a bad light; only in a good one. Murders, killing, war. Man, man is sick, mankind.

But God’s healing us and giving us an opportunity and giving the world opportunity in time to be healed if they so want it, if they so choose it.

Killing, war, depression, poverty, famine. I saw a thing on TV the other day here, a documentary type thing. Some of it was kind of even hard to watch. People living by dumps where trash is brought in and dumped and one of the great things that some of the little kids were talking about that was exciting was when they went through the food, of finding food that a restaurant has thrown out. And living there in that environment, around that stench, around that disease type of infested environment, and you think to think that mankind is in such a place, in such a position?

And only God can take care of all this stuff and turn it all around. We can’t. Human beings, we’ve proven we can’t deal with this, nor do we even care to as a society, as nations. People don’t win elections on that, sadly. Isn’t that sick?

Disease, grief, great sorrow, death, death of loved ones. All these things we experience that are hard. Wasn’t meant to be easy. And that’s God’s plan. 6,000 years was not meant to be easy. It was meant to be hard. It was designed to have the ability to have much suffering. Because the most incredible thing is to understand that there is no other way that Elohim can be created but to have such experiences, to grasp to the core of our being what the nature of Satan is like and what it produces, and to hate it, to loathe it, to want something different. Because we can’t do it now. Mankind has never been able to do it.

But we’re almost there to where we can begin to turn the tide to address it all. What a beautiful thing. Even in a physical world, that then it’s still not complete because there are still going to be levels of suffering because human beings are imperfect and have “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” And so, there’s going to be hurt and pain and suffering to certain levels. There’s going to be crying. There’s going to be weeping during the Millennium and the Great White Throne.

It is not a utopia! But what a blessing to have God’s government and God’s family that will never allow another war. Will there be famine? Yes. Yes, yes, yes, there will be some famine. Do we understand why? God says why, “Because you won’t come up to the Feast of Tabernacles you’re going to find out what it’s like to suffer. You don’t want God, you’re not going to receive His help and His blessings, His intervention in your life. Then if you still won’t come up to the Feast of Tabernacles you’re going to have disease, you’re going to have things come through your people or wherever you are. Then if you won’t, I will destroy you.”

God’s going to destroy some people during the Millennium. He’s going to bring them to death. Think of what Israel did when they were coming out of the promised land. Carnal, carnal, carnal. That’s what we are. We wouldn’t have been any different. I used to think when I was first called, think “Went through the Red Sea and right away they’re complaining? What? How could anyone do that?” Then I realized, yeah, we’d all do that, every one of us. It’s because we’re carnal. We want water. We want this. We want that. We’re sick and tired of this stuff that we have.

Can you? I can’t imagine. Even with what they had in Egypt it looked better to them than this stuff you have to go out and pick, scurry for. You have to work for it. God didn’t just fill up their containers, they had to go out and work to get the stuff that was called manna. Forty years! And we complain because we can’t get certain things on a menu. I can’t imagine having a diet… The most famous thing were the cookbooks they made, “1100 Ways to Cook Manna.” (Anyway, I’m sorry, that was bad.)

But what an incredible thing! “We had the flesh pots. We had meat. We had ‘this.’ We had something different from time to time.” And they didn’t think about all the suffering, everything they went through during that period. It was what they wanted down here, “(Slurp), I miss that.”

You have to laugh at human nature, and sometimes even within the environment of God’s Church, of how we think and what we do. And we’re not able to see, we’re not able to weigh what’s really important because of such insane thinking.

So, God desires to offer us these things, the blessings, the life, Elohim, and to free us from all this human suffering that is all that mankind has ever known. And the more we see all that and what we’ve experienced and what others experience, and the world is experiencing, we long for a different world, a new world. That should just burn deep, deep, deep inside of us. It really should.

So, this choice that God places before us isn’t an easy one. We have to go through a lot. It’s not easy for human nature to fight what we fight. You have to be in a battle all the time. This. This. This. I see people and I have seen it through time in the Church, in the ministry, different ones who just don’t battle anymore. They think they’ve arrived. By their actions you think they’ve already arrived on a spiritual plane and don’t have anything else to change. Sad.

Going back to where we were at the end of the last sermon, Romans 8:7—Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed, or nor indeed can be. So, then those who are in the flesh cannot please God. And sadly, that happens within the Church. God’s spirit begins to be quenched. God’s spirit begins to be cut off. And that’s not pleasing to God because an incredible sacrifice was given for us to be able to be forgiven of our sin, and then to be impregnated with God’s spirit, begotten of God’s spirit. And then we start that walk after receiving that into our life. And then to begin making choices against what God has sacrificed to give? It’s mindboggling.

So, then those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. Too often we can get in this frame of mind of thinking that He’s in us, He’s in us all the time. Without prayer? How does that work? With disagreement with the Church? How does that work? That God dwells in us? That we can continue to have certain sin in our life and be in the Church? It doesn’t work that way; we get cut off.

Now, if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he is not His. That’s what happens. So, fellowship in the Church is an awesome thing. But sometimes there is that within the environment of the Church that isn’t all fellowship within the Church.

And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin. So, the old man, the old woman, whatever, when we’re baptized it goes into this watery grave, and that’s where it’s supposed to stay. And sometimes you just have to make sure you’re still out there at the water putting your, when the head comes up out of the water. To yourself, putting your head back under the water. “Stay dead!” through forgiveness of sin because you repent, because you want God’s way of life, you want to live God’s way of life and you’re fighting that fight, you’re persevering.

…but the spirit is life because of righteousness. So again, how? Because we believe God and we continue to follow God in the way He leads, guides, and directs us, and whatever truth He gives to us we embrace it, and whatever sermons He gives to us we embrace them, we strive to comprehend, understand what He’s feeding us and seek to grow in spirit.

Verse 11—But if the spirit of Him (God Almighty) who raised up Joshua from the dead dwells in you, He who raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies, in other words, make your mortal bodies alive.

Now, that’s not just a future thing, that’s now, it’s a process. And it leads to what is even greater, to a greater fulfillment then later on. But what an incredible thing to understand, that scriptures talk about when the spirit is in us we have life, there is a life we have the world doesn’t have on a spiritual plane, that we’re able to receive what God gives to us, we’re able to hear what God gives to us.

I can’t help but go back to that Incredible Human Potential and different ones who couldn’t hear. But the vast majority of the Church heard what Herbert Armstrong as God’s apostle was saying about the spirit essence in the mind. But others couldn’t hear that. Why? Because of sin in their life, because they’d been cut off from God, ministers who’ve been cut off from God. We don’t know how long but they’d been cut off from God. That’s what reveals when someone can’t hear in here, can’t see. That manifests it and brings it to light, something is wrong with their hearing. They definitely aren’t a minister anymore, and definitely not in the Church anymore. And others who are believing the same thing definitely aren’t in the Church anymore.

So, we have this life within us. What an incredible thing. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. But if we’re not careful we get all wrapped up in the flesh literally. “I know how to take care of this, and it’s not going to be through that. Not going to do it! I’m standing my ground. Not going to do it.” (Kind of imitating someone there. Supposed to be a Texas accent. I know, it’s terrible.) What an incredible thing to think that such a stand could be made because we don’t get it.

“Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh.” If this is what we get hung up on and how we paper and take care of it and it becomes a god to us, like a god to us… Because that’s what we do. “All these things we can do and some of these things we can do, I can get out of this flower. And I can mash it up because you can make something in it that gives an energy.” It’s not just a matter of something… Now, there are things in plants and different things out here I use. There are different things that we can… Because they’re elements, they’re chemicals, and there’s certain things in nature that are helpful.

But there’s a balance in those things. Because too often in God’s Church people go too far in different directions, some who don’t care at all what they put in here, you know, no control, no care of this temple of God and what happens to us and what we are. And then there are others that go so far that, “I love this temple and I’m going to take care of it. And I’m going to do this to ‘that’ and I’m going to do ‘that,’ and you ought to take these things too because they’re so good for you and they do ‘this’ and they do ‘that’ and especially the stuff that comes out of flowers, because there’s just energy in it that will come into your body.” Like walking on the grass and hugging the tree, it’s like there’s something out there that we don’t comprehend.

Kind of like this… What are those blue things? Avatars? And what was that great big tree? Eywa? That was the name of the tree? What was the show? That was the name of the show? Well, wouldn’t you know it. You think, what an incredible thing, all these…like these little lights and things and hangs down in the tree and it’s like you could get under there and you’re really dead and all of a sudden there’s life coming into you because… “So just think, if we have a measure of that in this life…”

And to be in God’s Church?! Where in the world? Where is this balance in our life? And that’s what we have to work for, isn’t it, soundness of mind, balance, and to understand, wow, so much to learn.

So, “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.” So again here, sometimes we don’t know how to put this in practical terms and what it really means in our... “Therefore, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.” And what do we do as human beings? We live after the flesh. We love to because that’s what we are. We pamper it, we take care of it, we want to nurture it. And there’s nothing wrong with that within balance, soundness of mind.

Going on in verse 13—For if you live after/according to the flesh you will die. If that’s what is important to us above what God gives to us, whatever it might be, “You can wear this, you can’t wear that.” Physical things. I’m amazed at how many people have resisted the Church, have resisted the truth because they didn’t want to get a haircut. Okay, fellow, how long are you going to… “Well, if I put it in a bun and it’s all in a bun surely that’s okay.” No, it’s a shame for a man to have long hair. There are people who have resisted in the Church who wouldn’t make the change. Something simple! “We are debtors to the flesh, not to live after the flesh.” Hmm. Maybe that applies?

We can either hear spiritually or we don’t. And so, we don’t grasp and comprehend there are certain things we do. We’ve had people in this past year drug out of God’s Church or in the process of being led out of God’s Church because of this, because they’re too concerned about the flesh more than they are the spirit, with an unsoundness and a lack of balance of mind. Something else becomes more important than God as a daily focus. What a horrible thing.

“Chemtrails!!” I’m sorry, we should be able to laugh at the insanity of such things, truly.

“For if we live according to the flesh,” if you do, “you will die.” So, if we do that’s where it leads, if that’s what’s important to us, if we want to preserve this no matter what. There comes a point where you say, no, no more.

But if by/through the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. And so again, what’s the deeper thing? How you think. The pride, the lust, put those things to death.

For as many as are led by the spirit of God… And how does that happen in our life? “Well, I pray. I’m led by God’s spirit.” Not if you resist what God gives to you Sabbath by Sabbath, Holy Day to Holy Day. Because I’ve had a lot of resistance this past year. I’ve had a lot of resistance over the past several months. But it’s not about me. But I’ve had to experience it. And it hurts because I want to see people grow, I want to see people deal with things in a sound and a balanced way, in unity and oneness of spirit rather than resisting and fighting. Because then I see that which is spiritual in them that God is manifesting and it’s like, “Oh…” If I have to deal with it, I have to deal with it. Hope there’s repentance that will take place.

And so, I have to look to God and ask God for help and guidance and direction of when or if and so forth to deal with certain things, and how to. And then you know what? God gives it all the time; He just gives it in His time.

It’s just like when I first knew the Sabbath day and I knew what it was. I could see it. I can’t tell you, it’s just that’s what it is. The truths that we’ve had that God has given to us, it comes to that point, just like the Sabbath, I know it. And it’s not about… Again, it’s not about me, it’s about us as a body, as a Church, as being in unity and oneness with God Almighty and grasping and comprehend how God feeds us and nurtures us and leads us. That’s a spiritual matter. And we’re so far along we should be able to see such a thing.

But I see faces right now and I see their resistance and I see their words and I think, “Please, please, please in this Feast repent and get your life together and do what you’re supposed to be doing. Ask God for help.” And then all the rest of us can learn from this to become more balanced, to become more sound, to be on guard against anything that would ever cause us to have a mind, a thinking of resistance toward what God is giving to us, to have…

Like the other day when I was talking about this, thinking how much proof do we have to have of how God’s working in our life? Double the number of truths that are listed, in that respect. Are there more? Yes. Were there more during Herbert Armstrong? Yes. But those are the ones that are of incredible importance of what God has revealed, that He has blessed us to have, to list. But still that resistance sometimes because we look on a physical and a carnal way.

For if we live after the flesh, it says, if you live after the flesh, you will die. But if you through the spirit do put to death the deeds of the flesh you will live. Repentance. For as many are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God. And if we’re not being led by the spirit of God we are not the sons of God, we’re cut off in that growth.

And we can be aborted. Do you realize that there are going to be numbers, very likely exceedingly high numbers of individuals who started the process of being begotten of God’s holy spirit, receiving the impregnation of God’s holy spirit (like a baby in a womb), and never, ever, ever born? What a horrifying thought and a horrifying reality.

God has made that the possibility of human life because of choices. And so that example is there. He is not going to try… He’s tried. He’s worked with everyone who is ever called. Every person who’s ever called who received… He loves us incredibly to impregnate us with His holy spirit, to forgive us of all sin, to give us His truth and promises of things. And then for us because of our choices to become aborted in the sense of miscarriage, is maybe the better term, to be a miscarriage by our own choosing, never having spirit life. Just as some in life who never really had it, but were growing in the womb, were never born to breathe, never had life.

For as many are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption. To grasp, to comprehend what God has called us to, an inheritance, an adoption to be His children, to have this life living within us growing, being transformed, changing the thinking so that we can be a part of His family forever and forever and forever, of things we can’t even begin to comprehend. How great is it? And we want to hold on to something physical that’s wrong, that’s not healthy, that’s good, that opposes God? Such a contradiction.

The spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. What a beautiful thing pictured in the Feast of Tabernacles, joint heirs with Christ, the 144,000, some that are alive now that are going to have that change take place and a part of this. Wow. And then after the end of the Millennium, more that are going to be able to receive that.

…if indeed we suffer, says with him, but it’s to understand we have to have a willingness to go through suffering. Because it’s hard to change. It’s hard to address sin in our life. It’s hard to acknowledge and admit things that are wrong, to be able to say, “I’m sorry.” To be able to cry out to God and say, “Father, forgive me again” …and again…and again. But you keep doing it because it’s like wrestling as Jacob did and holding on, persevering, and you don’t give up, you don’t quit because in that is your life and the means whereby God has given us so that we can be freed of sin through something so basic and simple as repentance because we want something different, we don’t want to be this way, like we read yesterday.

…that we also may be glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy… [Jab! “Ouch.”] “Oh, ho ho, I’m sick from taking this. I’m hurting all over. My body just aches. And if I hadn’t of taken it… I told you this was going to be bad!” Maybe turning into a zombie. I’m sorry but…? So. So, you’re in unity and oneness with God’s Church and you turned into a zombie. If that really did happen as soon as your mind was not in control you’ve been judged. You died. You’re dead. Don’t worry, you’re in God’s hands. You fought to the end. You obeyed. You were in unity and oneness.

I hope you understand what I’m saying, everyone. You think that’s cruel? What are you saying? So I get sick and get a heart attack. What if that happened and they said it’s absolutely, 100% because you got that stupid shot? “He’s killing people in the Church.” Do we, can we not grasp this as a people, as a Church, that God can have something, use something that’s physical to teach us that which is spiritual? Because there have been some who look at this and say, “I’m trusting in God for not doing it.” “I have faith in God and I’m trusting in God the way I’m doing it,” is what they’re saying. It doesn’t work that way. Faith in God is by what God gives to us to live by. Sad. Sad. Sad.

Going on here: For I reckon the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation… What creation? Us. Those who have gone before who are going to be a part of God’s Family, the Kingdom of God at Christ’s return and those who have opportunity for that to happen as well later on. Because it’s a creating process.

For the earnest expectation of the creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. What an incredible thing to grasp and understand as God’s people, that everything that God has planned and purposed, 6,000 years, is waiting. Everything in God’s creation, in that respect, is moaning and groaning. Everything that man has done to hurt this earth, all the suffering that’s there, it needs, and it will have ability to receive because of God’s intervention what this is all about. It has to have to survive. It has to have to change the course so that all life isn’t just even wiped out over all the earth, for this to happen. This has to happen. We need it.

For the earnest expectation of the creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creation was made subject to vanity. What an incredible thing to understand, “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life,” self, self, self. …not willingly, but by reason of Him (God Almighty) who subjected it in hope. There is so much to learn in this process. I don’t even have time to go into this fully, to explain the things about hope and how important this is. Because it is so incredible, this process of just having this mindset of hoping in something that God promises us, so we wait on it, we hope for it, that God uses to change this, to have something grow in here, His mind, His being through that process is so incredible.

…because the creation itself will also be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty (the freedom) of the children of God. God’s great purpose. The Feast of Tabernacles. The Last Great Day. And we’re there at that point in time for that next 1,100 years, God’s Family.

For we know that the whole creation groans and labors together in pain until now. I just talked about that. The world is suffering more than it ever has because man has hurt it more than he’s ever been able to because of technology and all that’s out there. It’s sick and the earth is sick. The world is sick. We’re killing ourselves. We’re killing the world. And this is the only answer. It’s the only answer.

For we know that the whole creation groans and labors together in pain until now. And not only that, but we have the firstfruits of the spirit. And this is speaking then of those in the first resurrection, but there are those who are going to continue on here as well, who will continue on in the Millennium and another great, incredible resurrection.

…even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption. Amen to that. It’s like, longer? Okay. Okay. Keep plodding. Keep fighting. Jacob kept holding on. Hips out of joint, keep holding on. It hurts like mad, but I want to keep holding on. Desire it so much. And that’s good because that works too to change this.

…even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting the adoption, the redemption (payment for our release) of our body. For we were saved in hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one hope for that which he already sees? So, it’s an incredible part of the process of the transformation that’s taking place, something that works in us because it’s in us. We hope for it. We long for it. Shows how much we want God, God’s intervention. We see the evil. It’s our choice.

We have seen the evil and we’ve rejected it. And because of that we groan inside, as it talked about Lot vexing his righteous soul because of things he saw in his communication and what was happening to family and neighbors and the evil that was all around him. And we see that today on a scale that is so much greater than that and we ache inside. And that’s a good thing because we want this so much, we want this so much, meaning, again, we’re in unity with God, we agree with God.

But if we hope for what we do not see, then we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. Not everyone does. Sometimes people give up on the wrestling; they let go, they don’t cling to it, they don’t hold fast to it.

Verse 26—Likewise the spirit also helps in our weaknesses. We need God everyday. For we do not know what we should pray for as we need/should. At times we go through certain things and it’s like, “I don’t even know what to say.” There are times I’ve basically told God that, “I don’t know where to start. What can I say?” God knows. He knows everything that’s up here. He knows what I’m going through. He knows what we’re thinking. He knows what we’re struggling with, and He continues to lead, guide, direct, and work with us. Awesome. It’s a struggle.

But the spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings, as in oneself. Again, it’s a beautiful thing because it reflects something, we agree with God. We’re hurting, not because of something physical in physical life and physical pain, it’s because of something internally in the mind and sometimes it hurts in here because of what we see in the world and what’s taking place in the world, and we want something so much because we agree with God, we know this is right and we want it! It’s a beautiful thing. It’s spiritual for us.

…with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now, He who searches the hearts… Who? God Almighty through the power of His holy spirit, knows the mind of the spirit, because it makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

Now, we know that all things… Beautiful, beautiful section of scripture all the way through here. It’s just filled with so much. We know that all things work together for good to those who love God. Who love what He gives to us, who love and desire what we’re given Sabbath by Sabbath, Holy Day to Holy Day, and grasp and comprehend how God feeds us. It’s a simple thing, very simple.

Now, we know that all things work together for good to those who love God. And those who don’t, don’t love the law, don’t love the truth, don’t love the things that are given have major problem. So, if we’re blessed to have this, we love God, we love His way of life, awesome, and everything will work together for good.

Meaning, it doesn’t matter what you go through, no matter what hardship it is, no matter how difficult it is, no matter what the struggle is God will use those things to be a blessing to us. That’s a profound thing to understand. You go through fire. You go through hardship. You go through things that just wrench at you inside at times and they’re so… How do you deal with it? And then God blesses us because of the thinking that takes place in the mind because we keep looking to God and we cry out to God, and He can work with that.

And so, whatever the trial, whatever the hardship, I don’t care what it is, God will work with the trials you go through that are unique to where you live and what you’re doing and so forth, and mold and fashion things in you that can be molded and fashioned in absolutely no other way. But He uses those because He’s going to make certain that everything works to the good. What an awesome thing!

That’s why I’ve oftentimes said I don’t care what hardships. I look at all the hardships of life and the sufferings of life, sufferings within the ministry in the Church, stabbing in the back, things that just hurt deep, deep, deep. And I think, as horrible as they all are I wouldn’t give any of them up because they made me who I am in a relationship with God. He makes us who we are in a relationship with Him because we keep fighting, because we go through that kind of suffering, the hurt, the suffering, the betrayal, whatever it might be, because we see something greater, and we hold on to it with all of our being. It’s a beautiful thing, it truly is.

All things work together to good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. And all of us have been called who have the impregnation of God’s spirit. And yet within that the painful thing, again, to go through which hurts.

And you can’t give this to anyone. You can’t give this to anyone. You might try to reason, you might try to say something, you might do your part in going to your brother alone or going to the ministry because you hurt for your brother. But the reality is each one of us have to make the choice what are we going to do? What are they going to do?

…to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. So, this is an awesome thing to understand, this miracle that can take place to be conformed to the image of His Son, like Him, of His mind, that we might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Moreover whom He predestined, them He also called. In other words, God’s had a plan through time and different ones, and He fits us into that plan. That’s what it means. It’s not each individual is predestined to have existed and Ron’s going to be born on May 30, 1949. None of that garbage. We come into life – predestined. God gave life to human beings to live for so long and then it’s over. It’s part of His plan. It’s just about His plan. And then He calls different ones at different times to fit into that plan. The 144,000 all planned out, predetermined before… That’s what it means, “predetermined.” And so there are going to be those who fit into those places. There are those who have given up their crowns—horrible—but others who are blessed to receive it.

I rejoice in them because they persevere, because they want this and they fight for this, and they’ve gone through a lot within the Church and still go forward. A lot of mockery, a lot of things that have taken place. And that’s one thing that really encourages me, of seeing the Body that still exists to this day. Because I know it’s of God’s spirit, God’s calling. Awesome!

Moreover whom He predestined, them He also called, and whom He called, them He also justified. It’s God that does all this. He calls, He justifies, He gives us the means to be justified. And whom He justified, them He also glorified. What a beautiful thing. Looking forward to that. Looking forward to being out of this big pile of… You know what I’m talking about. Hope there aren’t some out there saying, “Yeah, you really are!” No! Yep, I am.

Verse 31—Then what shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? Sometimes we can get drug down and weighted down. You just cry out to God. He’s the one who lifts us up. That’s where the comfort is. That’s where the peace is.

He who did not spare His own Son. Beautiful example: had a purpose to suffer. Had a purpose to be whipped to where flesh was ripped off his body, off his face even to where people couldn’t even recognize him. And then to have those spikes driven through his hands and his feet, put up on a pole. All God’s purpose, and Christ wanting to do it…and not. Because it’s hard to suffer in human life. Are we excited about the trials we generally start going through and say, “Oh boy! I love this! I love that I’m going to be away for three years. I just love it! This feels so good!” Bull. But it’s a part of the process, isn’t it? Whatever we go through, whatever we suffer, incredible, God uses it.

So, He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall He not with him also freely give us all things? Beautiful. We are meant to have to suffer. There is no other way for Elohim to be created.

So, if we look in retrospect, especially in looking back (generally at the moment it’s harder to do), but looking back we can see awesome, awesome what God is doing, awesome what God did in God’s hands. In God’s hands. Where else would you want to be? If you turn into a zombie, you’re in God’s hands. (I’m sorry.)

Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Have to be so careful within the Body that we don’t do something like this to accuse, to look down upon to any of God’s people.

Who is it who condemns (judges against)? It is Christ who died, and furthermore has also risen, who even is at the right hand of God and makes intercession for us.

So, verse 35—Who shall separate us from the agape of God? …of Christ, as it says here. But it’s God’s love that comes through Christ to us. Shall tribulation, distress, we go through so much, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword? As it is written, For Your sake we are killed all the day long. We’re meant to suffer. We have to go through this. We have… To kill this is a lot of suffering. To keep this dead is a lot of suffering. The old self is going to go through a lot of suffering. It just goes with the territory. But what a great battle; what an awesome thing! To have our eyes on the hope, that which God places before us.

…we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. It’s just the way it’s supposed to be. The world doesn’t love you. People don’t love you for what you believe. You’re like sleep for the slaughter, just as soon you weren’t around.

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors, far beyond overcoming, awesome, through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life… If death happens thank God, glorify God. It’s for a purpose. Whenever He allows it in any of our lives it’s for a purpose for that moment in time. That’s how much we’re in God’s hands.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love/the agape of God which is in Christ Joshua our Lord. Says a lot there yet there are people who continue to be separated from this, who choose something different than this, some height, some depth that’s too much, “Can’t do that,” “I believe ‘this,’ I’ve done the research on the internet. I wish you would too so you could see what I see.” I’ve been told this.

I do not rely on the internet at all in that respect. Do I receive information? Yes. I rely on God Almighty to put in here what I need when I need it. Then I act upon it. That’s my life. It’s just the way it is.

Would that we could all be at one. And that’s our goal. You have to fight for it. You have to persevere.

So indeed, how awesome is God’s creation of mankind that we are made this way, that we have to go through these kinds of battles, the good and the bad of life. But we look to the good, we look to God and know that it comes from Him, and the blessing in time to be in God’s Family, to everlasting life. Awesome!