The Fulfilling of Passover, Pt. 3

Ronald Weinland

March 26, 2022

Today we are continuing in the series entitled The Fulfilling of Passover, with this being Part 3. Again, we’ve been focusing upon how God has been working to create Elohim and how that plan has everything to do with this process of what this chapter is entitled, The Complete Fulfilling of Passover.

So, we’ve been going back through the story flow of the patriarchs, if you will, starting with Abraham and how God has been building upon this matter of sacrifices and offerings. And again, you have to be in awe of how they knew so little in one respect, as far as God’s plan and purpose, but God began in a process of building and constructing with them basics, basic things. Not telling, not giving them a whole lot, but the examples being there and lessons then for those when God did give more, especially, primarily, the Church, that there would be more meaning about those things, what they’re about and so forth. And so, we’re digging a little deeper into that.

To me, we should be in awe of how much we have compared to others who have gone before us, especially the patriarchs, different ones through time, prophets and so forth with whom God has worked. The reality is they didn’t have a lot. They had enough to be worked with by God, to be judged by God, to be molded and fashioned by God for things they’re going to be doing in the future.

That brings up another matter. Sometimes people don’t realize. We tend to think that our lives are normal, average, maybe even a little less than average, a little mundane as far as the world is concerned. Who are we? But the reality is wherever we are, whatever we do, God works within that environment to mold and fashion things within us that are awesome.

We just don’t fully grasp that. We don’t fully see what He’s doing. It’s about the mind. It’s about the thinking. God knows where we are, and He can put us into other things with great power and spirit life and so forth later on after He’s worked with this.

To me, that’s a dumbfounding thing to understand what we have now, how much more. I mean, we’re just touching, we’re just barely scratching the surface of things that God has planned for us. But when you look back through time it puts things in a different perspective of how much did Abraham know, Isaac, Jacob? They didn’t know a lot about God’s plan. I think, we have been given so much we ought to be in awe of that, truly, and so thankful to God for what we have, for the truth that we’re able to see and grasp and comprehend.

Anyway, to me that story just rings over and over and over again as we go through some of this story here.

So, last Sabbath we ended the story about the twins, Jacob and Esau, and then how Esau threw away his birthright. We can read that story and see it very physically, especially in the beginning, but there is so much more to the story, and what God uses the story to help us to grasp and comprehend about what He did.

We can look upon that and think, “He threw all that away for a bowl of soup. He didn’t treasure. He didn’t believe God, whatever it was, to the point of grasping what God had said to his father. This was a birthright, and he didn’t get it, he didn’t see it. God wasn’t working with him in that regard anyway. God was working to do something else. That’s why the one twin was different. Anyway, we’ll go back through this, because God makes the choices of whom He calls, and sometimes it’s done in the womb, things that we can’t grasp and comprehend of what He’s molding and fashioning and why He does things in the timing and the way He does.

So we read this story, we went through the story of how Esau then threw away his birthright. We’re going to look at those last few verses again in Genesis 25. Genesis 25:31 it says, But Jacob said, Sell me this day your birthright. Then Esau said, Behold, I am going to die; and so what profit is the birthright to me? He just had an attitude, and it wasn’t good.

It goes on to say, So Jacob said, Give your oath to me this day. And he gave his oath to him, so he sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and stew and lentils; and he did eat and drink and rose up and went his way. Thus Esau… So, this is wrapping up the story. It’s showing Esau’s fault here in what he was doing. It says, [he] despised the birthright. That’s basically summing up the story. This is what God is showing, “Thus Esau despised,” he showed contempt, if you will, or treating as worthless, “his birthright.” That’s exactly what he did.

The point being driven home over and over again here is there are so many who have been called into the Church of God in the last 2,000 years who haven’t been in awe of the inheritance that we all have in front of us, the calling that God has given to us. I think of some of those things often when we think of our history and what we’ve gone through and all the people we have known and choices they made, and that’s just the way it's been in the Church for 2,000 years. Some periods have seen that happen in worse manners than what we’ve seen in the end-time here, when you think about what happened because of the Apostasy.

But again, people didn’t cherish, didn’t really believe to the point they should have, what God was telling them. So, it’s our response to God of what He shows to us. That’s why we’ve gone through some of the series we have leading up to this point, the thankfulness, the gratitude we have for everything that God has placed before us. It’s either genuine and real and living or we’re at some point working on it trying to change so that we do become more grateful and thankful, and to God especially first and foremost. But the reality is we have to learn that; we have to be taught that, and we have to learn it.

Let’s go over to Hebrews 12 because then God uses examples that are very physical, very simple, like the matter of Esau, to teach great things. None of this happened by accident. The matter of the soup wasn’t an accident. God worked with the environment of these two individuals to bring them to this moment in time.

So often ,even within the Church in times past, because it’s a maturing process of learning about God and how God works in our lives, the tendency has been to read stories and think that God is acting upon or reacting to how people have done various things. If it has to do with things that God is establishing a pattern, is establishing something that is to be learned from later on, God has been leading that or manufacturing that, building that (whatever you want to say), those events, working with individuals to bring them to those moments in time in order to have some of these things set there so that we can learn from them, so that we can grow from that later on with much greater understanding.

They’re not just things that God’s reacting to. “Well, ‘so and so’ made this choice and did that.” He works with them to bring them to those moments in time. That’s an awesome thing.

Just like He did the Apostasy. It wasn’t an accident. It was prophesied to take place because God had a purpose in it of what it was to teach, of what we’re to learn from it. We’ve had all kinds of sermons about that, what it all meant. God gave prophetic things. Christ gave a whole lot about it in Matthew 24, at different places, about the Apostasy. We didn’t know. We didn’t grasp it.

Then later on it happened. God worked with that. The individual who did what he did wasn’t there by accident. He was there at a timing that God had. God has vessels to honor and to dishonor. Now, that was his mind and that was his character, but God worked with that individual to do what he was going to do.

God knew what he was like. He didn’t make him become the way he was. We need to understand that. There are all kinds of people in this world, and there are people who can come into the environment of God’s Church and because of their thinking and because of their mind they can have other interests and other motives of things that they do when they’re there that aren’t good. That’s the kind of person the man of sin, the son of perdition was. God created, if you will, circumstances around him that, knowing what his choices would be.

He had the choices to make. God doesn’t force anyone to make choices, but God can mold and fashion the circumstances around our lives. Then it’s up to us to make the choices for right or for wrong. What are our choices going to be when those things happen? Yes, God can make the circumstances around us, but He doesn’t force us to make bad choices. Because of people’s personalities and because of their thinking is why we make bad choices in life.

God gives us the opportunity of making right choices. All the people who have ever left God’s Church through time, it was their choice. God didn’t make them become the individuals who would be of the many, “Many are called, few are chosen.” Many have left God’s Church. Many made the wrong choice. God didn’t make anyone make those choices. They had an opportunity. What they did with that opportunity was up to them.

But God knew what would happen through time just because of people being drawn in in circumstances of what we’re like in life. That’s what He had to work with. Because the Church learns from that as well. We’re molded and fashioned and we can grow through that kind of environment. Matter of fact, we need that environment to learn. We need to learn about betrayal, what betrayal is like, what is the purpose of it.

On and on it goes of different thigs that are learned from experiencing various things. It helps especially learning how to judge. We see somebody do a certain thing, say a certain thing, act a certain way, and we have to make judgments. A lot of those judgments require we do something about it so we’re tried in those things as to what we’re going to do and how we’re going to handle things and whether we can judge things being in unity with God.

That’s why Christ made the comments he did on Passover night. We’re in the world. We’re not taken out of the world. We’re not taken some place to be kept away from others, we’re immersed in it because this is where we learn.

It’s like young people going to school. That’s the environment they’re going to learn and begin to learn and understand about human nature, by interaction with other people. We learn this then as we come into God’s Church, and in our jobs and so forth. We learn what human nature is like, and it’s not a pleasant thing, especially when people come at you because of what you believe, because they don’t agree with it.

Very few have ever known the truth, and human nature by itself without God’s help fights against the truth, because they’re fighting against God. That’s an incredible thing to understand. They can’t help it.

Hebrews 12:13—So make straight paths for your feet. Well, that’s a charge to all of us. That’s what we all have to do. We’re to strive to make our way straight, to follow. That means to be right in line and striving to be right with God. Like Johnny’s example sometimes that a lot of our life is kind of like going down the road and we’re careening from one ditch to the other. The only time we’re right on the right path is when we cross the middle line. Then we’re in the middle of the road going straight. Anyway, something like that.

But it’s very true to life because we’re striving to learn what is the balance. We find ourselves going through various circumstances where we’re tried, and we make mistakes along the way. That’s in the ditch. We get bogged down in the mud, whatever it might be, and then we strive to get back up, to make straight paths to live in.

So it says, So make straight paths for your feet, so that which is lame is not turned away. So, the translation of some of this is a little awkward but it’s giving the example here like a sacrifice. We have to sacrifice our lives and so we’re not to offer—they weren’t to offer, the Israelites—that which was lame to God. We’re not to offer up to God what is lame in the sense of not whole and complete and so this example is given.

So, it’s saying, “Make straight paths for your feet so that that which is lame is not turned away,” so that we’re not turned away because we’re not changing, not growing, but rather be healed. Our whole life, we learn, is one of being healed. The greatest healing of all is in the mind. God calls us to heal us, to heal the mind, our thinking, to help us to become right.

That’s why I love the examples in Isaiah when it gives those examples about healing us. Because it’s nothing about physical healing, it’s all about the mind, the thinking. Because until human beings, until mankind is able to be called by God and receive the impregnation of God’s spirit and God begins to work more directly then with us with His holy spirit (because that’s when it begins to take place then), we have that impregnation of God’s spirit and then we need a continual flow of that life blood in us, God, spirit.

It's like the baby in the womb. Has to be, the umbilical cord has to be opened up fully. It can’t begin to be choked off. That’s the way our lives are. We’re in the womb. We’re not yet born spiritually, of spirit, we’re in the womb.

That’s why I love that example Herbert Armstrong gave. God gave him that to see and understand, to teach us, to understand the process of what God was doing. We’re not yet born. One day we will be born into God’s kingdom. We’re not there yet. We’re begotten. We’re in the womb. Awesome!

Our minds are being healed. The world is unsound. Our lives before we were called were unsound. We were fully selfish because human nature is just selfish. It’s just a fact, human nature without God, we were created to be selfish. We’re to learn from that, too. Because God is showing us we have a choice when He calls us – Satan’s way or His way. Satan’s way is the way of selfishness.

We were created physically, selfish from birth. Right away if things aren’t going right, we don’t feel good, things are soggy down below, we’re not happy, we’re hungry, we want fed, we want fed right now, we let it out and we let it be known. Then we really get expertise in selfishness as we grow. We have to be able to laugh at that because that’s the way we are, our nature.

Pursue peace with everyone. That’s a part of being healed. We have to learn how to have peace. We have to learn how to make peace. We have to learn to be peacemakers. So we learn that within the environment of the Church. That’s the greatest place we’re to learn, in that respect, and we begin to learn it in family and so forth and what it requires to do that, because it requires a different thinking. You can’t be selfish to be a peacemaker. You have to give that up. You have to do it in a humble spirit.

Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness. In other words, how we live toward them. That means God’s way of life. There is a way to talk to people, to treat people, to think about people, and so forth. We find that we have to grow in that to do it right.

Looking carefully so that none fall short of the grace of God. Beautiful! The grace of God, what is that? Well, only those whom God calls receives the grace of God, His love. Because God isn’t giving that love, Christ made that very clear, it’s not being given to the world yet. There is coming a time when God will begin to give His love to the world. He loves the world, He loves His creation, but until He begins to work with us to become a part of Elohim He’s not giving us of that love, He’s not giving us of His spirit, He’s not giving us of the truth, which leads us into the things we need to change. We’re all on our own.

The world is on it’s own. Those that have different ideas and different beliefs, they’re on their own. God is not involved in that. It’s not their time yet. Because God only purposed to call 144,000, basically, up to the end-time here. Some others at the very end here who will be the foundation of the Church on into the Millennium, which is a different thing. But what an incredible thing. So, it hasn’t been God’s purpose.

That’s why I think, if people just understood the truth they can deal with things of death and life in far better ways because you know about the Great White Throne. We have hope, we understand that. Yes, there is pain involved in that when we have friendships that part, whatever it might be, but we’re able to deal with those things with the truth.

The world, they hope in certain things, but they just don’t have it. What a horrible thing, that emptiness that’s there because God isn’t filling it yet.

Looking carefully so that none fall short of the grace of God. Meaning God wants to love us because He’s called us. He wants to give us of His love which means giving us forgiveness, giving us mercy, giving us patience. That’s all giving on God’s part. That’s what grace is all about, it’s all that God gives to us. But then He wants us to begin to change. We’re not to be on the selfish end here receiving God’s love, receiving patience, receiving mercy; we’re to learn to live that toward others.

That’s one of the most beautiful things about grace. God lets us know that it’s to work in us and through us as well. That means we learn to be patient with others, we seek to have peace toward others in dealing with them in the right way, a right mind. We learn we want to be forgiving to others. We learn a lot about that, that we have no right to hold something against anyone in the first place. Only God has that.

God wants to give us grace. He wants to give us more and more – patience, mercy, forgiveness, on and on it goes – and we should want to have that toward others.

So that no root of bitterness springing up cause trouble. Because without peace, without God’s spirit, without the mind, the thinking, the healing that God gives us what do we have? There is going to be bitterness in life, and one of the words that I use a lot recently of recent time has been this thing of drama. Because it’s the opposite of peace; there’s just a lot of drama, and that causes unhappiness, and it causes bitterness between people where people don’t get along, where they’re not at peace with one another.

So that no root of bitterness springing up cause trouble and by this many become defiled. We’ve lived through that, especially those who lived through the Apostasy. You talk about horrifying things that took place and the turning against others that took place, it was nasty. It got horrible.

…so that there be no fornicator (spiritually), it says, “or profane person.” It’s not the right translation. It’s a Greek word that means “permitted to trample upon.” “Permitted to trample upon.” In other words, “no fornicator, spiritually, or one who tramples upon” what God has given, basically, is the context of what we’re going through. And how many have done that? Tens of thousands. Tens of thousands just in our time. Tens of thousands through the Apostasy trampled upon what God gave to the Church, turned their backs on it.

Every time I think about this I can’t help but think about Herbert Armstrong and about all the ministers who had opportunity to go to Ambassador College, go out and serve in areas, in Church areas, and finally through time because of the way it was—because this is what led to the Apostasy—they had independence. There wasn’t anybody watching over them, telling them, no, that isn’t the right thinking, that isn’t what you should be saying on the Sabbath. There was no one going through and listening to all those sermons to see what they were saying, so that it went off course just a little bit that someone would pick it up and catch it.

Because we weren’t even recorded, as a whole, and when they did start recording nobody is going to sit around listening to them the whole time. The regional pastors who had all these pastors under them, they didn’t have the ability to go through and listen to what every minister was saying out there. But this is what happened in time, you give freedom to different people in time, it doesn’t take a lot of time, what happens?

The exact same thing that happened in the angelic realm. Given enough time with the kind of mind they were given, never knowing anything that was against God, they just in the beginning they believed God and they were fulfilled by what God gave them to be part of in the creation and everything else.

But given enough time, especially when they learned, when Satan—well, Lucifer at that time—one of the archangels, when he learned that God was going to create something greater than him he lost it. He lost it, basically. He was jealous. He was envious of what God was going to create, that it was going to be greater than he was, and he didn’t want that. He deceived a third of the angels to follow him. Mind-boggling!

So we learn the same things through the Church, lessons, given enough time you have a ministry the way it was established, it’s going to happen. What happens? People get ideas about different things in scripture, and they think they see something that they weren’t taught at Ambassador College, that Herbert Armstrong didn’t give to them, and they start teaching it.

Some get a hold of this thing, well, this they did learn from an evangelist who was teaching classes. But Herbert Armstrong didn’t know he was teaching the wrong thing in classes. But even there at headquarters within the teaching of future ministers some began to go off course. Dr. Hoeh started going off course and started teaching about a 14/15 Passover. A lot of the young people in college, they didn’t know any better.

Here is somebody they looked up to because he was always held up and esteemed as someone who was highly intellectual and being intellectual can destroy someone in God’s Church because it doesn’t come from your mind. It doesn’t come from our own abilities, which he began to rely upon instead of listening to the one whom God gave to be his teacher, Herbert Armstrong. And he lost that, such basic lessons.

The reason I repeat these things so often and we go through some of these things is because they need to be so deeply embedded in our minds that we need to see these things and grasp God’s government and how God’s spirit works in our life. Because so may have never seen those things and they’ve gone off course. God is giving us the opportunity to learn them in ways that have never been learned before in God’s Church, to the extent that they’re being learned.

So what is your place in God’s Kingdom? It has a lot to do with what you’re learning. It has a lot to do with what God has been molding and fashioning in your mind since the Apostasy. It truly is. That’s why He’s giving us more. And so, somewhere in the future we’re going to have incredible opportunity because of that, in a unique way. I won’t go any farther with that, but it’s absolute, it’s what’s taking place. Because there are different parts of the temple, and you have an awesome opportunity in part of that temple.

So again, I want to read this, so that there is no fornicator (spiritually) or one who tramples upon what, in essence here, this is the Greek word here, what it means, one who tramples upon like Esau. That’s what he did. He trampled upon the inheritance. He trampled upon what God said is before you. …who for one portion of food sold his birthright.

We can look at that and think, “What an idiot! How dumb was that?!” And yet I’ve known personally several hundred ministers who did the same thing, let alone many, many more within God’s Church who did exactly the same thing, except worse, far, far worse. We need to understand that. He did something that was very much on a physical plane with something physical, a bowl of soup here. He didn’t have the impregnation of God’s spirit. He didn’t have the ability that people have had in God’s Church of being able to see things because God’s spirit is dwelling in their mind.

Everyone who has ever been in God’s Church, who have been impregnated with God’s spirit, has had the ability. It’s on a spiritual plane. Esau’s was on a very physical plane, but he still didn’t have respect toward what God had placed before him. He didn’t desire it. There are things he didn’t believe about God. He didn’t want it. That’s what it was. Jacob was different.

So, we have to be different spiritually than anyone else that we’ve ever seen who’s sold their inheritance. Because what God is offering you is an inheritance. Do you know what it is? To inherit all things along with Joshua the Christ. It’s exactly what it says in scripture. That’s what God is offering, and we can’t grasp what that means. We can’t grasp how that works but it’s very real. To grasp the matter of Elohim by itself, to be spirit in the Family of God is incredible, truly is.

Verse 17—For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing… You know, later on when it came time toward the end where he began to realize there is that out here, he wanted to receive it. He was the firstborn, and Jacob is there pulling on his heel. It’s an incredible story.

You think that was just accident or God had some part to do with that, with a baby before it was even fully born, reaches out with it’s hand to grasp it’s brother’s heel. I mean, that’s mind-boggling but it says reams, it truly does. And “supplanter.” It’s like, just happened to be the name that he was given, or did God inspire the name to be given, put it into the mind of the parents, “This is his name, supplanter.” “Oh,” mother said, “well, he reached out with his heel; he's supplanter.” No. Yes, in one respect, because God put that in her mind because there is great purpose in the meaning that’s going to come out as we go along here and it’s the story that God is creating. Awesome!

We have so underestimated as human beings the power, the might, the creativity, the power of God Almighty.

It says, when he wanted to inherit the blessing he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance. God inspired this, Paul to write this. Because just by reading the story back there in Genesis you don’t know this for certain. But God let Paul know when he wrote this what to write because this is what happened way back then.

God gave Paul to write what had happened here, “For he found no place for repentance.” And that’s the problem, he wasn’t going to change. His attitude, his mind toward God wasn’t changing. He just wanted carnally, physically, like so many people do when family members die, they get into battles over what’s left.

I mean, it can get really, really, really, and probably more often than not, gets ugly because people want their part. It’s horrible, really, human nature. This was Esau. When it finally came time, it’s getting closer to the time of his dad’s going to die and we’re going to read that story. It’s awesome! It really is awesome to see what happened.

But Esau hadn’t changed one iota. Lessons to be learned from that. We are to repent. We are to see error in our life. We’re to understand the value. That’s a part of fulfilling Passover. It’s a part of this entire story. To receive the inheritance you have to be involved very much so in your life with this matter of repentance.

Because we have to change. We can’t stay the way we are. We have to fight against this carnal human nature. We have to cry out to God for help to be of his mind, to be in unity and oneness with Him and help us to see the things where we’re in error, where we’re not walking right, where we’re thinking wrong.

Then we go through those things and God helps us to see them and we begin to see how ugly it is because you have to see how ugly something is before you really change with conviction certain things. You have to see how evil evil is. You have to see how ugly ugliness is. You have to loathe it and hate it.

That’s a part of coming into agreement with God because God shows us the things we should loathe and hate and detest, the mind, the way, the thinking of Satan. And if we have any of that we need to learn to hate it and loathe it, and that helps us to come into unity and agreement with God Almighty. It’s beautiful.

For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and whirlwinds, a tempest. It’s like sometimes what happens with fire, it gets so hot that the circulation of wind begins to look like a pillar, you know, like a whirlwind, a tornado. This is what the mountain was, Mount Sinai when they came up to it and God is speaking. This is what they saw. It was a fearful thing, as it talks about here.

…and the sound and the trumpet and the voice of the words, so that those who heard begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. I love this because it’s not a matter that it was such a fearful sight, which it was, but it was what was being said that gave them the greatest problem. “This is how you’re to live. Don’t do ‘this.’ Don’t do ‘that.’ Do ‘this,’ keep the Sabbath day,” on and on it goes, God giving the law. They didn’t like what was said.

That’s what it’s saying here. For they could not endure what was commanded. It’s like one big church out there from the very beginning, one commandment they just got rid of. So, when you read through it nine and ten are basically the same. “Don’t covet,” and then later on it’s, “Don’t covet something else.” They had to piece it altogether somehow.

Then the big one that people really have trouble with as far as the world is concerned is the Sabbath. So they have to come up with these arguments and so forth that somehow God changed the Sabbath day and that’s when Christ then was resurrected, on Sunday, so God was showing that now it’s no longer the seventh-day Sabbath, now you’re supposed to observe that day, Sunday. They don’t know the history of why Sunday was chosen and the history of mankind and false religions and so forth and what that church was doing.

That’s why I love what is written from one of the popes, that basically the only authority that anyone has in Christianity that Sunday is a sabbath day, is because of the authority of the pope having said so. It’s written in their encyclopedia, and that’s true.

Now, the protestant world doesn’t like that, and they don’t acknowledge that and so they have to come up with ideas of why it was changed. The reality is when you really learn about three days and three nights and you come to understand that Christ was not resurrected Sunday morning, he was resurrected right before sundown on the Sabbath day, it puts a whole different light on things. That’s when he was resurrected. That was the end of three days and three nights.

I don’t want to go into that. You know the story. But it’s amazing the carnal human mind. There are laws that they didn’t like. The Israelites didn’t like what they were being told. They couldn’t endure it, what was commanded.

Even if a beast so much as touched the mountain, it was to be stoned or shot with an arrow. So that was part of the command there not to touch it or this is what you’re to do to them. So terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I was exceedingly fearful and trembled.

Can you imagine seeing something like that that you’d never seen in your life? It was one thing when they saw the sea open up, and because Pharoah’s behind it’s not as hard to get kind of motivated and want to go through. It’s either stay back there, “Oh no, this looks pretty good. This looks pretty good. Let’s get across the other side.” Anyway, human nature.

Verse 22—But you have come to Mount Zion, beautiful, because it’s about God’s government, it’s about God Almighty and His presence. You have come to Mount Zion and the city of the living God. It’s what God’s creating. Awesome! …the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and Church of the firstborn who are registered (recorded) in heaven.

So again, something that man doesn’t grasp and comprehend if they were to read. The world don’t grasp this when they read this. What do you mean “It’s recorded in heaven? Aren’t they all up there in heaven? Why do they have to be recorded in heaven if they’re there?” “Well, they’re recorded and they’re up there.” No, that’s not what it means at all.

It means that when you die and you’re one of the 144,000 it’s like a recording, it’s recorded, God has it, it’s His spirit and it’s with Him and He’s going to put it back into those bodies that He gives them when He gives them life again, spirit life, when they’re no longer going to be physical human beings. Mind-boggling! That same mind.

And so, it’s not just that they’re recorded, their very essence, what, who they are is recorded. It’s like a recording. You know there are things we really couldn’t grasp to the depth we do, like we do today, because of computers and things that are stored. You think about God and what He’s done that’s so far beyond that it makes us look pretty puny. And we are.

…registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Joshua the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling. So, I’m sorry but I really get, again, peeved off when I start thinking about some of the beliefs. But they can’t help it. The world can’t help what they don’t understand, and they’ve believed that big church for so long and everybody has adopted the same basic beliefs through time.

So, we come down to see something like this and it talks about this new covenant, new testament. So people get all excited about “It’s the new covenant! That old one was done away with because that old law was done away with because it was harsh and God.” They don’t say this but, “God was kind of cruel and now we have His Son who is filled with love, and things are different now and you’re not required to keep the commandments anymore. They’ve been done away.” What do you mean? It’s okay to go out and kill somebody? It’s okay to steal? I can take your car out back there, your brand-new car you just got? “No, no, no, those are good laws.” You get down to the Sabbath, “No, that was done away with.” Amazing!

So what is the new covenant? We should know that just like that. It’s about Christ, the fact that we can be forgiven of sin. In the old covenant you couldn’t be forgiven of sin. Sacrifices didn’t take away sin. The bulls and the goats, the blood, as it says here in Hebrews, that didn’t take away sin. Only the blood of Christ did.

He died for us, so he’s our Passover. The reason we keep Passover every year, because we’re told to, to remember that and that covenant we made with God through Christ. And on and on it goes.

It goes on to say here, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks of better things than Abel. What’s that all about? Well, Abel was the first example we looked at who offered up offering to God and it was received by God. But it wasn’t about taking away sin, it was about a relationship with God on a physical plane that God had given to that point in time. His brother, his wasn’t received, and so better things than what was seen by Abel because it’s not about a physical sacrifice, it’s about a spiritual one. Starting with Christ, and then every one of us because we have to do the same thing, learn to sacrifice self first and foremost, what we want, our ways, our selfishness. We have to get rid of it. We have to sacrifice that, be willing to.

So that’s what the “blood of sprinkling that speaks of better things than Abel.” What he offered, which was the beginning of all offerings, the first to do it, in this regard, and it’s about Christ, not about physical sacrifices.

See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more so if we turn away from Him from heaven. So, that’s basically about listening to God and what God has to say. And our lives, we seek to live by what He says, be in agreement with Him, make our paths straight as it said in the very beginning of that.

…whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, Yet once more I will not only shake the earth, but also heaven. That means basically everything. There comes a point in time when everything is shaken, even the spirit realm, even those begotten of God’s spirit.

So, there is going to be that within the angelic realm as time goes along because there’s coming a point in time here for nearly 1,100 years when there are going to be a whole bunch of them who are not even going to have ability to be around human beings anymore. They’re going to be separated. Then that’s all said and done then there is going to come a greater shaking at the end in the sense of they’re going to be destroyed, and so it is with mankind because mankind comes to an end after 7,100 years. There’ll be no more human beings ever, ever, ever again, only God’s Family. Those who aren’t a part of Elohim, they’re gone, never to come back in life again. It’s a simple thing.

So, this is a part of the story here. So that was shaken, yes, but there’s a lot more shaking coming. We went through a massive shaking because of the Apostasy because it’s a part of God molding and fashioning the Church. So it’s happened in the Church in a very powerful way and it’s going to happen more and more toward the end. So, there is more to come.

Now this, Yet once more, indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken. And see, that’s a good thing. The things that need to be shaken; it determines something. …as of things that are made, that are physical, in order that the things which cannot be shaken will remain. It’s spirit, spiritual. Because when it’s all said and done, even within God’s Church, what remains are those, spiritual, who have a continuing relationship with God, who have repented, who are going through this process of fulfilling the matter of Passover. Because it’s still being fulfilled in life. We have to have the Passover in our life so we can repent until we’re there.

And so, it’s giving an example here of things that will be shaken. We’ve had a lot of shaking within the Church. That’s why I love when it gives the example of earthquakes in Matthew 24 it was always thought that this is only about physical things in the world. No, no, no, it’s not about physical earthquakes, it’s about spiritual things that have shaken God’s people and shaken God’s Church from time to time. Because it’s through that that what is true will remain, and what isn’t is gone. It’s happened in local church areas, it happens continually, it will happen up until the time of Christ’s coming that there will be shaking at different time. It’s less and less now than what it ever has been, but there have been shakings at time throughout history. And whenever there is one in someone’s life or whatever, if it’s not right, it’s shaken out in that respect. That’s what this is about.

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom, the Kingdom of God. We’re inheriting. That’s about an inheritance. …which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. So, awesome what it says here. Again, it’s about what God has placed before us that we are to inherit – to be in Elohim is an inheritance in time of something that God wants to give to us.

So again, in light of what we have covered about Esau and his attitude toward the inheritance that would have been his — but it wasn’t meant to be if you understand God and how God was working. It was meant to be Jacob’s. But the point being Esau had the opportunity first. There have been many in God’s Church who have had the opportunity and made their own choices. God didn’t make them make those wrong choices. God didn’t make the man of sin do what he did. His mind was geared toward that, and God allowed it to happen.

So in light of these things it is good to see how God has used this to teach us that which has far greater meaning here about the fulfilling of Passover in our lives and how we’re to live our lives.

Ephesians 1, notice here. Ephesians 1, it goes into this even more so through Ephesians.

Ephesians 1:3 it says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Joshua the Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings. Awesome! “All spiritual blessings.” Sometimes it’s hard for us to grasp just how awesomely spiritually blessed we are. …in or through as it is, or within heaven, as it’s talking about in/through Christ. Christ has continued to work for 2,000 years with the Church. He’s the head of the Church. He’s the head of the Body. God has given that to him so that all that comes from God the Father is given through Christ to give to us. Awesome. According as He has chosen in/through, as it is the word, him before the foundation of the world. The world here is “cosmos”; the world, the universe, if you will, how the word “cosmos” is used in the Greek.

So again, God chose this. Again, beautiful scriptures. The Church hasn’t known these things to this depth in times past, to the same degree of what it’s talking about here about God. There are things that God reserved to give us greater understanding later on as Christ’s time was coming closer. And so, here it’s talking about something that God planned and prepared before anything was ever created. Christ was to be the foundation. Christ was to be the stone upon which everything else would be built.

…according as He has chosen us in him. God had planned for mankind, but how to save us, how to change us, how to create Elohim in us through Christ, through the Passover. These are beautiful scriptures.

…that we should be holy. That’s what God intended before anything was ever created, because we have to change in order to come into His Family and receive what He has for us.

…and without blame before Him. We have to change in order that this happens. And yet we understand we’re not totally without blame. We have faults. We’ll always have faults as long as we’re in this physical body, but we can be without blame, how? Through our Passover. It’s because we believe in this and practice it that God attributes that to us for righteousness. Not because we are. We grow in that.

…having, not the word “predestined.” There is one organization out there in the world, protestant, that talks about predestination. No, that leaves mankind without choice. When we talk about these things and God’s involvement in molding and fashioning things around us, He doesn’t make anyone make wrong choices. He doesn’t make anyone make right choices. He wants to give help so we can make the right choices, His spirit, because that’s what it takes. But we have to want that too. That’s why we have to have prayer life and fasting because we want that help because we know we don’t have it in ourselves to change.

Having predetermined for us to be of the adoption of children by Joshua the Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to be in His Family according to His will, His purpose, why He created us. …to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He has made us accepted, or “acceptable” if you will (able to receive grace is what it’s about), in the Beloved, through the Beloved, through Christ.

In whom, through whom we have redemption through his blood. Not animals, but of Christ our Passover, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. It’s a part of grace to forgive us. He gave us Christ so we could be forgiven. Wherein He has abounded toward, and I love this word because it means “to go above and beyond,” in essence, “to go over and above,” toward us in all wisdom and insight, having made known to us…

So this insight, what He’s made known to us. How? Through the power of His holy spirit. Again, what an incredible thing that no one can grasp the truth without God’s help. You have to have God’s spirit, and when people begin to cut off the flow of that spirit what happens? They lose it. They go off on different tangents and different ideas and beliefs. That’s just been the history of the Church. Even after you’re called and received the impregnation of God’s spirit you can go off course because it’s without God.

…having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself.

Verse 10—That in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one… What a beautiful thing, we’re to become at one with God. It’s that unity, that oneness that we have to have, that mind, that being within us. All different. We’re all different, different experiences, different things of life, but unique in different individuals, but of the same mind of a way of life.

…might gather together in one all things in/through Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth—even in him. So, he’s up there, he’s going to come here, that process we go through and understand what it means. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance.

So we can read about the inheritance in the Old Testament but it’s all about this inheritance. That’s what these things are teaching, that He told Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He started working in a very physical manner to teach those things so that we could come to grasp in time the spirit of it and why those things were laid there, those foundations, if you will, to be built upon. Because that helps us to understand, it helps us to learn.

In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predetermined according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will. He didn’t go ask someone else. He didn’t rely upon anyone else. He didn’t create the angels and ask them how to do it. Everything is according to His purpose and His will—awesome—the Great Almighty God.

…that we should be to the praise of His glory who first trusted (placed their hope) in Christ. In whom you also, after that you heard the word of truth. So everyone that’s been called through time starting back then, and all the way up through, Paul is talking to the Hebrews here, and then it’s for everyone who has ever become a part of the Church “in whom you also trusted after that you heard the word of truth.”

Isn’t that amazing how that happens? We start hearing something and God is giving us the opportunity to make choices then. He lets us hear about the seventh-day Sabbath, the Holy Days, and it’s like this light begins to work in the mind. This light goes on. It’s like now we have choices to make. Before we didn’t have any choices to make.

The world can’t make those choices because they can’t yet see those things. We understand their blindness. We understand why they have followed one great church, as far as numbers are concerned in the world, and what happened in time because of nature, human nature. But the truth is a different matter. God’s Church is a different matter.

…in whom you also trusted after that you heard the word of truth. Trusting in it is believing it. Because what happens? You start making decisions. “Not going to be working… If I want to do this I’m not going to be working on the Sabbath anymore. Got to go tell the boss, going to have to make a stand. He may not be happy because he relies on me being there on the Sabbath.” So everybody has to experience that, as a whole, when they’re called into God’s Church. Holy Days, Feast of Tabernacles. “Should take the kids out of school. Have to go tell the teachers, have to tell the community; family is going to know. Not going to be able to hide this one.”

Sometimes we try to share it with others, help them to see, which was my big mistake in the beginning. Tried to tell the whole family. Not just a little bit. I tried to give them the whole truckload at one time. Man, did I find out that doesn’t work. So you learn through that process, and you finally learn that the only reason you see it is because God had to give it to you. I had the choices. They didn’t.

So again here, in whom also, after that you believed, you were sealed with the holy spirit of promise. What a beautiful thing when we make the right choices that lead up to that point. We’re baptized, we determine we want to be forgiven of sin, we go down in that watery grave, and we’re to walk in newness of life, as it said, and then we have the hands laid upon us as the apostles gave example of, and the impregnation of God’s spirit then in our minds. That’s the begettal of God’s spirit in our life.

“And you are sealed with a holy…” So it’s a sealing that begins, a type of sealing until we are sealed. Because even within that, you know what? You can make wrong choices and leave and lose it. Far more have gone through that process than those who have fought and remain with it and wrestled with themselves and with God in things that we have to change in life.

And it’s not easy! I can see the Church, not just here but people’s lives and what they’ve gone through as they’ve come into PKG and the battles that so many have gone through. And what do we battle first and foremost? Self. It’s a battle. We’ve just got a battle on our hands, and we just keep fighting together and we learn, have this respect and love toward each other because we’re all in this together. We all have to go through the same things. We all have to fight against self. It’s not a picnic. We go through trials and hardships. We’re unique.

…which is the earnest of our inheritance. “The holy spirit of promise which is the earnest.” It’s a word that means like a payment for security, the down payment. That’s what the word literally means in the Greek language. That’s what the word “earnest” is. So, it’s like God has given us this amount and we begin to see things, we begin to learn things, but now we have to make choices until the end, and we have to fight for it until the end. Only we can make that choice that we’re going to fight this until the end.

And so that’s what this is about, “Which is the earnest of our inheritance.” It’s just a part of it. So, what’s our inheritance? Elohim. This is just a small spattering. We begin to see things, we hear things that we have never known before and we think, God’s word is awesome, the plan of God is awesome. We go through the Holy Days, and we think, “This is incredible!” He just continues to lead us.

He continues to build upon things, and we learn more and more, and we think, how can you even give words to describe this sometimes, how incredible it is we just keep growing. We may hear certain things, but every time there is something new. That’s why I go back and think about the example of Herbert Armstrong when he talked about the two trees. There are people who got tired of hearing that because he repeated it. But every time he kept building something new, something different upon it to try to get across what was being shown to him.

But some cut him off in the mind. “Here go the two trees again. I’m getting tired.” After a while they’re literally, some literally fell asleep. That’s what happens. “Talk about those two trees again. Here we go.” And you talk about an attitude. I mean, right there that’s not respecting, desiring what God has offered. It’s not grasping what God is offering. It’s not searching for, we’re not trying to hear on the edge of our seat, “What is there here to learn? This is God’s apostle.” Every time there was something to learn and build upon.

Yet we can get to where we think, “I’ve heard that.” That’s saying, “I already know that. I don’t need to listen again.” That’s what happened to the evangelists as a whole, at headquarters, the majority. They already knew it. They don’t need to come to bible studies anymore when God’s apostle is up there teaching, because they already had it. “Wherever he’s going to go, whatever scriptures he’s going through, I already know all that. I’m going to stay at home. And I could listen to him if I wanted to, but we’ve got some other things. What’s on TV tonight?”

That’s the human mind. That’s what people did. Mind-boggling!

But it’s about an inheritance, and so even in that we’re seeing in a stronger light than ever before in that regard what God has placed before us to relate these things to what the patriarchs went through. But it’s all about an inheritance. In our attitude toward God, our attitude toward what God is offering us and whether we want it with all of our being, whether we’re willing to fight for it with all of our being.

Because they were, and that’s how they were judged! Physical things that happened with them, but they made choices and decisions about what God had placed before them and they wanted it. Even though they could only see it in part as there’s going to become many nations and kings in their lineage. But they believed what God said. It wasn’t what they were going to have themselves yet, but they believe that for their lineage.

That’s why they passed along and believed what God said when they passed along the inheritance and blessed them, because he believed what God said, each one of them did, as they passed it on to their sons after them. It’s that inheritance and believing what God said about going to become great, a multitude of nations and kings are going to come out of your loins. It’s like, “I’m going to fight for that for what comes later.”

But some people really don’t care what comes later. Well, let’s see, where is the deficit now? I guess the grandchildren are going to pay for that one. We’ve been paying for that before and now it’s just getting worse and worse and worse, and trillions and trillions. And how do you deal with trillions? Pass it along.

Verse 15, let’s go ahead there. Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Joshua and love, and this word is agape, meaning it’s from God, it’s God’s love. Because we as human beings, no one has agape in them unless God is in them, unless God’s spirit is in them. It’s the only way to experience agape. It’s the only way to let it live through us towards others. That’s a part of grace, how we treat and think towards others. It’s about God’s love, and so if God’s spirit is working through us towards others it’s God’s love working towards others.

Because that’s a beautiful thing. If someone is striving to be a peacemaker and striving to be forgiving, thank God that it’s working. We all want to be treated that way by others. But the world can’t do that in genuine spirit on a consistent basis because it isn’t there. They have to do it on a physical level, on a physical plane.

Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Joshua, and love unto all the saints… We have to ask ourselves, what is our love toward all the saints? And “the saints…?” Look how that church destroyed that one. They made it a bad word in the sense of how they’ve used it. Saint so-and-so. Saint so-and-so. A saint for everyday. A saint, saint, saint, saint. What did they do? They weren’t even in God’s Church, when you know the truth.

So anyway, the word “saint” is about people in God’s Church. It’s about people who have God’s spirit. That’s all it means. That’s what it’s about. It’s that which is sanctified, that which is holy, set apart for holy use and purpose. God did that when He called us, and He gave us the impregnation of His holy spirit. That’s what the word means. “Unto all the saints,” everyone who’s called into the Church who has God’s spirit.

…cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, so that the God of our Lord Joshua the Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. God has to give that and then we can grow in that. Beautiful!

…the eyes of your understanding being enlightened. The way it’s stated is beautiful because the reality is this doesn’t just happen one time in our lives, it’s ongoing. “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened.” It’s like it’s getting brighter and brighter, the light. The more we grow, the more we see.

Think of all the things, the truths that God has given us since the Apostasy. That’s your eyes being enlightened, of God’s greater purpose and plan, of what we went through, why we went through it, and now pushing us forward and looking to the future. We had to understand what took place first, and then He showed us why and how and so forth, and we learn from that. Then forward looking, preparing for the Kingdom of God. Awesome! It’s almost here.

…the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, you know what is the hope of His calling. So we can know it, “the hope of His calling.” It’s a hope we have because we don’t have it yet. It explains this, Paul explains this too, about the hope, because if you hope for something you already have it doesn’t make any sense. So you’re hoping for that which you don’t already have. So we have a hope. God’s given us a living hope that’s alive.

…the hope of His calling, of what it’s all about and His purpose, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. So that’s what He’s placed before everyone when they’ve come into the Church, giving them that down payment, that portion, that security, that what you’re experiencing is small, but it leads to what is great when you’re in spirit, when you are a spirit being in the God Family. It’s about this inheritance. That’s what God has placed before all of us on a spiritual plane.

Verse 19—and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power. God’s the one who has to do it. We have to yield ourselves to Him, to His power, to His spirit. We want that help so we can change.

…which He worked to do in Christ when He raised him from the dead. So, it’s a matter then of Christ’s purpose is Passover, and then being resurrected and becoming our High Priest and the Church beginning. Awesome!

…when He raised him from the dead and set him at His own right hand in the heaven, those things of heaven, far above all principality and power and might and dominion. In other words, it’s the pinnacle of what God is creating. Christ is the pinnacle of that, and we are to inherit it with Christ. That’s what it’s about.

…that every name that is named, not only in this world but also in that which is to come. And has put all things under his feet, under Christ, and under ours as well once we’re there. We’re not there yet, but that’s the inheritance.

…all things under his feet and give to him to be head over all things to the Church, which is the body, the fullness of Him that fills all in all.

Let’s go back to Hebrews now. So again, “all things under his feet.” That’s why I love how it even says it in Hebrews and other places. When we come to understand what that means, “all things under his feet,” under Christ’s feet; that’s what God has given to Christ now as a High Priest. Then He builds upon that in an awesome, in a powerful way.

Hebrews 1:1—God, who at different times and in many manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by His Son. It’s saying, “in the last days.” Well, how can you say the last days? Well, because it’s past 4,000 years. The rest of it is toward the last days. There are only three thousand more to go, two thousand before he actually returns to the earth. So that’s the terminology that’s being used here in the context of time.

…has in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, a Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things. He’s already inherited it. …by whom also He made the ages. “Aión” in the Greek. It’s what it’s about. Everything is established upon him. The ages to come, everlasting life.

Who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, so speaking about what was given to Christ, and it’s about God being at the pinnacle, the height of it all. God has done this by His power and given all this to Christ.

…when he had by himself, speaking of Christ, purged our sins, in other words, became our Passover, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high, being made so much better than the angels. The angels were spirit beings, but they weren’t in Elohim. Christ was the first to enter into Elohim. He’s referred to as the first of the firstfruits in scripture for that reason. The first of human life. But his Father being God, nevertheless the first of human life, the first to enter the Kingdom.

…being made so much better than the angels as he has by inheritance. It’s God’s purpose from the beginning, to inherit all things. That’s not given to the angelic realm; it’s given to the God realm, to Elohim. …as he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. Elohim. That’s the name he’s received.

Hebrews 9:11—But Christ being come a High Priest of good things to come… So, I think of those things about Melchizedek that God gave us to understand and how God worked with people in the beginning and how He manifested Himself to Abraham, to work with him in a unique way. Then Christ came to fulfill what that was picturing, what that was all about, of what God was going to do with mankind to help bring mankind into that inheritance.

But Christ being come a High Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands. So, it’s not about a physical tabernacle that the Israelites had when they had the tents and so forth that was the tabernacle and they put it all together, or finally when they built it there, when Solomon did the building of it there in Jerusalem. It’s not about a physical tabernacle, a physical temple.

It says here, “a more perfect tabernacle not made with hands,” meaning it’s spiritual. It’s made by God.

…that is to say, not of this building. Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, speaking of Christ, he entered in once into the Holy Place to fulfill it all. It’s a continuing process. That’s why we have the title for this particular series. He became our Passover. He fulfilled that. But it’s not the fullness of Passover yet. That’s why we have to observe it every year, to be reminded of what he went through so we can grasp our part in it, that it’s about the Passover we have to have working in our life everyday, to be able to be forgiven of sin until we’re complete.

Then when we’re complete, and those who are going to be in that first resurrection, those who are a part of that, when that’s done then obviously the inheritance is there. But there are others to come through time yet and through the Great White Throne that are going to have this same inheritance, to inherit all things along with this, with everyone else that’s a part of Elohim. This is an awesome story!

Not by the blood of bulls and goats, but with his own blood he entered once into the Holy Place having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh… What a beautiful thing when people are going to begin to learn and understand God didn’t come along and do away with the Old Testament and the commandments. He did away with the priesthood. He did away with the Levitical system. He did away with offering of physical sacrifices and so forth that didn’t mean anything except for what they pictured for the future.

But Christ became that future because he fulfilled all of that, and then what was in the Church from then on. Awesome!

…having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctified to the purifying of the flesh… That means only on a physical plane with Israel, with the Israelites, not a spiritual one with God to be forgiven. That didn’t happen.

Verse 14—How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal’s spirit offered himself without spot to God, never sinned in his life in order to be our Passover. Without spot to God. That’s what that means. …purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? So, in other words, in him, through him is the ability to do this, the only way.

For this cause he is the mediator of the new covenant, that by means of death (his), for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, those who are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

So what God began to tell Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, they didn’t know it was eternal. They didn’t grasp those things. They didn’t grasp the greater picture of what God was going to do in time through a Passover, through a High Priest. They weren’t given any of that, to grasp that. They had knowledge of, they had, different ones were given knowledge that mankind needed a Messiah, a Christ, in essence, but to understand how it fit in, they didn’t know that. It wasn’t given.

So again, it’s about an eternal inheritance. So when we see an inheritance every time we go through this story in the Old Testament, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, in through there, Joseph and those things that are there, it’s an awesome, it’s an incredible, it’s a beautiful story about an inheritance that they didn’t grasp on a spiritual plane, but we can.

That’s why I’ve asked in the Old Testament story that we not jump ahead. Because it’s wise to listen as we go, to build upon the story as we go. You’ll receive more that way.

Let’s pick up the beginning of the flow again back in Genesis 27:1 here. So, we’re going to go back through this story here. The next thing that follows the story flow after Esau trampled upon this matter of the inheritance that God was promising that was following down through Abraham and Isaac, is again how God worked through Isaac to begin working then with Jacob. That’s one generation after another.

Again, this complete story takes more to build upon as we go through it, and it really becomes kind of a long story. I wasn’t going to go through the long story but we’re going to go through it because there is so much there, there really is, and helps to drive this home to us so that we can see it even more clearly.

So it takes a little longer to piece all this together, and I’ll try to point some of the things that come along as we get there, but how God worked with them is… I don’t have the words to describe it. It’s incredible. It’s just dumbfounding. When you really see that through what God was doing over a span of time it becomes more beautiful, more awesome.

So we come to, again, where the inheritance is brought back into the story flow. It states that Esau was forty years old when he began to take wives of the Hittites in that particular region. This made Isaac, if you know the timing of things here, when Esau and Jacob, obviously of the same age, were forty years old at this point that we’re looking at here, Isaac was then, made Isaac right at a hundred years old. So, it goes on to tell the story flow here that Rebecca was sixty years old.

Earlier on here if we read the story here, if you go through some of the story flow here, and it was right after this time that Esau began to take wives, when she was of this particular age, when you get down to where Isaac was and his age. It was here in Genesis 27 then we want to pick up the story flow. It was right after this period of time that Esau began to take wives, him being around the age of forty. So was, obviously, Jacob. Both of them the same age. So, forty years after the period of time for Rebecca, showing what their age was, Isaac as well.

Genesis 27:1—Now it came to pass, when Isaac was old and his eyes were so dim that he could not see, that he called Esau his older son and said to him, My son. And he answered him, Here I am. So, what an incredible thing here. Here he is right at a hundred years old. He begins to think about his age, he begins to think about the fact that he’s going to die. He doesn’t know exactly how long he’s going to live and so there are certain things he wants to do. This is part of the story flow here when we come into this point, right when Isaac is right at that age and the boys then are right at forty.

It says here that He went on to say, My Son, and he answered, Here I am. Then he said, Behold, I am old. I do not know the day of my death. Yet he lived another eighty years. Hundred years old, lived another eighty years. Awesome! But here he was, his eyesight and so forth getting dim. He wasn’t able to see. This part of the story becomes important here as we go along.

Now therefore, take you weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out in the field and hunt game for me. He’s saying here at a hundred years, right at a hundred years old, he says, “I don’t know the time of my death,” and yet he lived to be right at a hundred and eighty.

Now therefore, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out in the field and hunt game for me.

Verse 4—Then make for me the favorite meal which I love. So, it translates this in different ways, but this is what it’s about. It’s about this special meal of something that Isaac loved. He’s sending Esau out to hunt because he wants this meal because he’s going to do something after this meal.

He says, Make my favorite meal, which I love, and bring to me that I may eat, that is my life, this is my life, in essence, because I want to bless you while I’m still alive. So that’s what he’s telling him. “I want to bless you before I die so bring me this, my favorite meal, and then I’m going to bless you.” That’s what he’s telling him, Esau.

So, he loved game. That’s what the word is about, it’s about wild game. This is a word that’s translated in different places. Some things say venison but it’s any horned animal, basically, rams or whatever it might be, or a deer. But basically, Esau was a hunter, and he would go out and hunt these things and this was Isaac’s favorite meal whenever he had these. So that’s what he was telling him, “Go out and make my favorite meal and then I’m going to bless you because I don’t know how much longer I’m going to live.” In other words, he’s going to pass along a blessing to Esau.

Now, Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to Esau his son. And Esau had gone to the land to hunt game and bring it back. Then Rebekah spoke to Jacob her son, saying, Indeed I heard your father speak to Esau your brother, saying… Now, he had already sold his birthright, but Isaac loved Esau and he’s still of this mindset, he’s going to pass inheritance on along to his son, his oldest son.

This is Rebecca’s saying to her son, to Jacob, that “I overheard this, so this is what I want you to do.” I overheard your father saying, Bring me game, make my favorite meal for me, that I may eat of it and bless you in the presence of the Eternal before my death. Now therefore, my son, obey what I say according to what I command you. So, Rebecca is telling her son Jacob, “Do what I’m going to tell you now.”

Now, go out in the flock and bring me from there two good kids of the goats, and I will make that favorite meal. So, she knew what he liked. She’s going to make the meal from the goats. I’ll make that favorite meal for your father, that which he loves. Then you shall take it to your father so that he may eat and then bless you before his death. So, there’s going to be a little deception in here. “You’re going to go in there and do this to get the blessing and I’m going to give you the food to take in as though you’re Esau, and he’s going to bless you then.” A little conniving, a little deceitful, but God allowed it. We’ll learn from it.

Now, Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Look, Esau, my brother, is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man. “He came out hairy, he’s still hairy.” If my father feels me, and sees that I am deceiving him… So, that’s basically how he would know because he can’t see and his sight is gone, “And he feels me, and he feels that I’m not hairy, he’s going to know.” …and sees that I am deceiving him, I shall bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing. He’s going to be upset.

But his mother said to him, Let your curse be on me. She was taking this on herself. She said, Let your curse be on me, my son; obey what I say, and go, get them for me. So he went and got them and brought them to his mother, and his mother made this favorite meal which his father loved.

Then Rebekah took of the choice clothes of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son. And she put the skins of the kids of the goats there, wrapped them around the arms, put the skin of the goats on his hands, on the back of his hands and then on his arms so that if he felt him this would feel that it’s Esau, and she put this on Jacob.

Then he went to his father and said, My father. And he said, Here I am. Because she gave him the food to take in and so forth.

So we come to verse 19—and Jacob answered his father, Esau, your firstborn. So, he lied. Deceitful. He was being deceitful of what he had to say. I have done just as you told me; arise.

Now, sometimes I think we can read through stories like this and say, “Well, how could God have been working with them?” Well, the story goes on with his life later on as God began to work with him. There was a purpose in these things happening in this particular way to teach various things here of what “the supplanter” was to fulfill and why he had that name that God gave to him, and what we’re to learn from that, the characteristics that he had.

Not from the fact that he was deceitful and did what his mother said. That was a good thing, in that respect, but anyway. We tend to think that people should be like people in the Church. It wasn’t that way. They were being worked with in a very physical plane. Later on he began to work with him more so, gave them more, and they responded accordingly, and God judged them accordingly.

But Isaac said to his son, How is it that you have found it so quickly? Because she did this quickly. He’s out hunting. He’s going to come back. He’s going to start cooking, Esau is, and he’s going to bring this in here, we have to get this done now, so “Son, go out and get this kid for me right now, this goat,” and she got it all prepared. Isaac is asking his son, “How did you find this so quickly?”

And he replied, Because the Eternal God brought it to me. Getting in just a little bit deeper. But again, God can look at qualities and characteristics of certain things and work with them and change them, and certain characteristics will remain. A determination, the matter of wrestling with God, the characteristics he had later on when God began to work with him that God was using.

There are certain characteristics that Herbert Armstrong had when God finally brought him into the Church and began to give him the things that He did. You read some of the things in the Autobiography and you realize the kind of work that he had to do, the kind of person he had to be.

You can’t just make those things happen in a person if they don’t have certain characteristics in themselves. So before ever called there are certain characteristics, and God knows what those characteristics are that He wants to mold and fashion and build upon. They have to be there to build upon them and God can do that by the power of His holy spirit. This is a part of that kind of story, to learn from that as well.

So the deceitful part He can work with. He can change that. He can reveal to him various things and He does. This story becomes quite incredible as you go along, what he had to go through to learn these lessons. God drove it home and helped him to understand and learn what it’s like to be deceitful. This is a part of the story here.

He says, Come near me. Isaac said to Jacob, Please come near me that I may feel you, my son, Esau. He’s not really a hundred percent convinced here it seems. He’s a little hesitant. So, he did. It says, So Jacob went near to Isaac his father, and he felt him and said, The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. So, to what point here his father felt the way he did, or what was fully in his mind, we don’t know, but he was suspicious because something didn’t seem totally kosher.

Verse 23—He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy as his brother Esau’s hands, so he blessed him. So, he went ahead and went for it because seemed to be in place.

So he said, Son Esau? And he said, basically, I am. Then he said, Bring it near to me, the food, in essence, and I will eat of my son’s game, then as I live, because in essence, it’s like a phrase saying, “As I’m living.” “I’m still alive, I’m still living,” and that’s what his concern was, “I’m going to bless you.” …and I will bless you.

Then he brought it near to him, and he did eat; and he brought him wine, and he drank. Then his father Isaac said to him, Come near now and kiss me, my son. So he came near and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his clothing and blessed him. So there still had to be that in his mind, something that was happening there. But anyway.

And he said, See, the smell of my son is in the smell of the land which the Eternal has blessed. So, he was a hunter, he went out in the land, so his clothes smelled like that, whatever that all means. But anyway, he went out and he had animals and so forth, and that probably was some of the smell there and so he could smell this.

Therefore God give you of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine. Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brethren and let your mother’s children bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you and blessed be those who bless you!

Now it happened, as soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, and Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from the hunting. You know that was a happy occasion.

Well, I wanted to get us that far because the story as you just continue through it, it really is a marvel the things that God, the conditions of things that God, things that God moved Rebecca to do. She loved her son. That’s something she grew in through time. God nurtured that. Isaac’s relationship was different. It was toward Esau.

And so, in the story here God has brought all these together as a matter to learn from. As we build upon it in what follows here, it’s really incredible how God molds and fashions even the narrative of things that are going to be built upon to teach later on that we’re going through in this series.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did because it’s awesome all the way through.