Last Great Day 2022

Ronald Weinland

October 17, 2022

Time does not linger. It passes us by constantly, and sometimes more quickly than we grasp. Therefore, we are to treasure life and live it in a manner that leads to everlasting life, being ever so thankful to God for the life that we have.

Once the Feast of Tabernacles begins it isn’t long until we find ourselves in the last service of the Feast in this on the Last Great Day. I think of the journey, and although that journey from the time of the Apostasy until now may seem long, of a truth, though, it’s gone by rather quickly.

We view time in a unique way - by human life, by how long we’re on this earth. And so, we often speak of the term “three score and ten” or seventy years that’s basically been allotted to mankind through most of the period of the last 4,000 years. We marvel at that, we marvel at how when we come to a point in time when you’re toward the end, like myself at seventy-three, I understand I could have died several times before if it hadn’t been for what God has given in modern technology, unless He’d intervene to stop it in the first place.

But lifespans have been made longer, as a whole, because of the improvements made in life, because of understanding and technology. And so, we live a period of time. But it isn’t until oftentimes we become very ill, sick, close to death, or realize finally in our sixties perhaps, later sixties, seventies, because of the “three score and ten” thing, that we understand life is going to come to an end.

Our life is going to cease. My life is going to cease, which I’ve known for many times now starting back in 2005 when I had to have a triple bypass, and then just a few years ago now a quadruple bypass. So, I understand, as so many who get older understand, our life is almost over.

It’s a fascinating thing to understand God’s plan and why He’s given, really, a relatively short length of time for mankind to live. We have learned much from that over time especially when we look at the beginning of time when people lived 600, 700, 800, 900 years and how corrupt mankind became just because of that.

So, we’re ever learning, ever growing, but time does go by quickly.

It’s hard to grasp now, but one day we’re going to even marvel that the Last Great Day has already arrived. Many are going to marvel at that. Now, not in the same manner that that will be primarily those who are a part of the 144,000 because throughout the Millennium people will be dying, and then at the end of that period of time there will be a great resurrection. Some because of that 1,000 years, some added to God’s Family at that time, and they’re present at the Great White Throne when that begins, when the rest of mankind through time is given a second life, a second physical life.

So, there will be a resurrection then to spirit life into the God Family out of those during the Millennium, and then as well those back to a physical life. This day, this Last Great Day talks about that, focuses on that, a unique perspective of time because it’s a part of God’s plan. The world doesn’t grasp that, but what a matter of peace that it gives us, and understanding it gives us.

Because they don’t have that in the world. They wonder what’s happened to someone once they have died, someone, oftentimes it’s spoken of like an angel or something looking down upon them and they’re watching them in their life and helping them in their life. Yet there is no such thing. But there is that need, as it were, for some kind of a comfort to know what has happened.

How blessed are we that we know and understand? Awesome, what God has given to us.

Again, we’re going to marvel one day, the Last Great Day is here. It won’t be long then and the Last Great Day will be over. Just like the Feast of Tabernacles, we begin a period of time and then all of a sudden we’re on the Last Great Day. Doesn’t last long.

We are blessed to be able to observe an incredible day today. It’s a time that will see God’s complete plan come together in it’s fullness, finally. Even His complete Family, Elohim, will have been created by that time, by the time this day is over. He’s worked a long, long time, planned a long, long time, far, far, far beyond, before anything was ever created, this day and what it means to bring it to it’s completion.

God commands us to now focus on why He has given us this Last Great Day of the Feast season. And this day is big. It’s big! It’s grand in God’s plan for His Family.

Let’s turn over to Isaiah 65 because this is primarily where an insight into this day is really given, a revelation of the final part of God’s plan for mankind that’s revealed in large part, basically, here.

Isaiah 65:17—For behold, I, that’s what God is saying, I create new heavens and a new earth. I remember times back in Worldwide where some felt that something would happen to the heaven’s itself, something would happen to the earth itself at some point. And yet that’s not what it’s talking about. That’s not what’s being made new. It doesn’t mean a literal new earth or a literal new universe or galaxy that we live in. That’s not what it’s talking about. But we, first and foremost, take things physically until we learn and are able to grow spiritually and learn what God is saying and what God’s purpose is.

I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind. The word literally means “into the heart,” “into one’s thinking,” of that which is in the inner most part of our thinking.

I think of human life itself and how we all go through life, and yet there are things we think of that happen in our life, a lot of them in our younger life, and regrets, and things of thinking, wishing certain things, if it just could have been a little bit different, or whatever it might have been. We realize that there are certain things that have happened to us that have given to us dysfunction, dysfunctional thinking in life, because even once someone is older they’re still many times, for lack of a better word, haunted by, bothered by, troubled by things that happened so long, long ago. Incredible, the human mind.

All that that sometimes we carry as baggage and our bag of rocks began when we were very young, and we just kept dragging them. Because it’s a matter of conquering and overcoming certain things that made us the way we are, and so much of that by our own free choice because of our human nature we make wrong choices because of “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” So, that’s just the way we are.

Yet God is saying there’s going to come a time when such things will never come into the mind again. Because they do in human life. It’s an incredible thing. I’ve had so many conversations with people in the Church through time and I myself have conversed with others concerning my life and things that have made me where I am and who I am.

I’m talking about when I was very young, before I ever came into the Church even. Because those things set the mind in thinking a certain way, and yet we find ourselves when we’re called into God’s Church, a need to fight against that, to conquer that. So, God says there’s going to come a time when these things won’t even be in the mind.

But be glad and rejoice. So, it’s going to be different because so much of that is just going to disappear in our thinking because we’re learning then to enjoy the life that’s present to a degree, to a level that’s far greater than what we’re even able to do now in God’s Church, far beyond that, in a better world, when so much of the world then has accepted and turned to a way of life that is from God. That’s going to enrich the world in such an awesome way.

It doesn’t mean it’s going to be perfect because there are going to be many who just don’t want it, who will not choose it. But for those who do it’s going to make it so much better in the world, and a world of greater joy and happiness and fullness when you speak of that which is physical. But it’s even beyond that, and that’s what this day is looking to, that which God is creating that goes way beyond just physical, human life.

But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create. And so, that process begins with us in our calling. We begin to recognize changes, we begin to see things that God is showing us that He wants us to embrace, of that which is looking forward, the hope, a desire for what He says is going to come to pass that is incredible and exciting in itself.

We look forward to those things, a time just in this earth when there’ll be no more wars. Just think, once the Millennium begins, no more wars. They’re going to be put to a stop as soon as Joshua and 144,000 come with him to destroy those who are destroying the earth.

Never again will war and fighting be glamorized. What a horrifying thing that it’s glamorized! In reality it shows the sickness of the human mind and how we think and the necessity of certain things that in order to have peace people have to have war in a carnal world.

So, “Be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create.” Meaning we’re going to experience things that are going to cause joy to a degree, to a level that we’ve never known, that we’ve never seen. Well, we could maybe try to imagine it, but to live it, that’s another thing.

For behold, I create Jerusalem. So again, this matter of peace, Salem, peace, a City of Peace, that which God is creating where people are able to live together in unity and harmony and have a greater care and concern for one another. And yet not able to have it fully even in the Great White Throne during this hundred years that this day pictures but working toward that and becoming stronger and stronger even with physical life. But finally, when it comes to spirit life, it’ll be forever. There will be no carnality. There will be no selfishness in any of God’s Family.

I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. What an awesome thing to think of, to consider, to contemplate, to look forward to, to have hope in.

Verse 19—I will rejoice in Jerusalem. So, there’s not a lot of rejoicing even from God toward His creation at this point because of all the evil, all the pain that has to be associated with that, to see what His creation is doing to one another. It’s got to be painful. But understanding it’s necessary to get to a point where this can become a reality, where what He’s creating finally is created. Because it’s not there yet. But it begins with us. We get to taste of that. We are in the first part of that creation, and it’s a beautiful thing.

“I will rejoice in Jerusalem.” So, even for now what is it saying? He rejoices in His people, in His Church, in the changes that people are making, in those that hold fast, in those that hold up to the name of Israel, to persevere, to fight self and to fight for this way of life.

…and joy in My people. So, God talks about joying that much more. Because the more we turn to His way of life, the more mankind in the Millennium, then the Great White Throne for those who embrace it, but especially for that which finally happens after this day is over, all of Elohim, a joy and a fullness and a richness that will be there.

…and the voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her. So, it’s in the world today. All come to that at some point in time at various levels of time and various instances of things that happen to them, and human life is hard.

Yet in the Millennium it’s going to be made easier, but there are still going to be times of mourning and crying, especially when individuals die, family who is close, because they’re separated. We have to learn; we have to understand what human life is like and its purpose. It’s only meant to be temporary, and what’s beyond, that’s what we long for.

…nor the voice of crying. No more shall there be an infant of a day. Literally, it means, which when I was looking at some of these, it’s amazing how God just gives a little bit more on a constant basis, of His word, of things that we’ve read over and over again for so many times. But literally it’s saying, No more will there be a day of a suckling infant. There’s coming a time when there will be no more birth, in that respect.

Now, as it says here, “No more shall there be an infant of a day,” of a particular time period during this time period as a whole. But yet at the very beginning, at the onset, at a resurrection, there will be the start of that, as it’s going to show here, because it magnifies this a little bit. But it’s making a point here that through this time this isn’t going to be a repetition of things that continues to happen because the reality is there will be no more human life, there will be no more in the sense of reproduction. That will cease. When individuals have been dead and resurrected there will be no more ability to produce life physically.

Or an old man who has not fulfilled his days. So, through this period of time everyone then will have come to a point where they will be able to live a full life without death. Now, that’s mind-boggling, to think that God is going to prevent, He’s going to enforce, to have mankind be given the ability, to whatever happens around them, that they’re able to continue to live until that hundred years is complete, until they have completed a hundred years.

For a child shall die a hundred years old. So, it helps us to understand something here. A child who is resurrected, not born, because that’s what this is referring to, an infant of days, of time there, in that respect, a suckling child who’s born. The resurrection is different because they’re given life, they’re able to be resurrected to a second life, if they’ve lived once, and then God gives them a new body, a new life to start again.

And so, it’s making clear here “an old man that has not fulfilled his days; for a child shall die a hundred years old.” So, making it very clear that those who were young, those who were infants, in that respect, they’re going to live to be a hundred. That’s how long this period of time is. That’s what helps us to understand that was given to Mr. Armstrong, Herbert Armstrong, that this period of time is about a hundred years.

But the sinner being a hundred years old shall be, it says “accursed,” but the word really is more about being removed. It’s about those who continue by the end of that time – and we’re able to understand those things, it’s so clear – that at the end of that time because of what happens that’s revealed in Revelation even more so that we’ll come to, that at the end of that hundred years, that all who have come to that point in time if they continue in sin they’re going to be removed and there will be no more life. It will be a cessation of life, never to have life again.

Even they, so it’s speaking of all as it goes back here in thought now of all these who lived during this period of time, they shall build houses and inhabit; and they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build and another inhabit, which has happened through history and time of people who have invaded and taken lands and various kinds of things that are corrupt and evil, when people take advantage of others and take their lands and so forth, and things that oppress human life to where people aren’t able to stay in a location and continue with it and they’re robbed of it by one means or another, whether it be taxation or excessive interest rates or various other kinds of things people do to people on this earth.

They shall not plant, and another eat. For as the days of a tree, are the days of My people, and Mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. So, people are going to learn productivity, they’re going to learn the joy of being able to build and keep and to have.

I think of the world today and all the squalor and how poor so much of the world is. It’s hard for us in the western world sometimes to grasp such things. The human mind tends to not even want to see those things or to be bothered by those things, but they exist on a very broad scale throughout the earth. Not as much in the western world, and yet it even exists here.

“And Mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.” So, people are going to learn the joy and the beauty of productivity and being able to receive and grow, and the fullness of what that means in life. Whereas today that doesn’t exist on the same plane at all, and hasn’t, especially over a period of 6,000 years.

Verse 23—They shall not labor in vain, nor bear children into trouble. Well, we understand that. They’re not going to bear children into trouble because there’ll be no more people born in the first place. But the point being made here is it’s not going to be that kind of world for those who are resurrected, who are young, and those who do take in children and raise them, rear them, if you will, as their own through adoption, which is going to happen. Because it’s going to be massive, some of that that takes place.

…nor bear children into trouble. For they are the seed of the blessed of the Eternal. Then I think of two. What an incredible thing for all who have ever lived through time to be resurrected into life and who will it be that takes care of those children? There are going to be a lot who will want to take care of those children because there’s a genealogy there that people become familiar with, will be familiar with: “This is your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-whatever it is-grandchild.” Everyone else with all the other “greats” in between there, will want to be able to help them. Maybe there’ll be some of that kind of thing take place, but it’s an awesome thing to contemplate, to think about what it’s going to be like.

Children will not be born into trouble. For they are the seed of the blessed of the Eternal, and their offspring with them. In other words, their offspring. That’s what I just said, “their offspring with them.” So, all the generations of mankind, they’re going to see, they’re going to come to understand and know their genealogies and what happened to people and where they went on the earth and so forth.

Then it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. So, they’re going to have an ability to have a relationship with God, like we do. Because whenever we desire to pray—God knows us inside and out—He knows when we’re going to be brought to a point of a desire to come before Him in prayer even.

This is showing here that He’s going to answer, He’s going to help before they ever even come to that point so often in their life. It’s going to be there in a way that we can’t comprehend right now because of the change that’s going to be taking place. …and while they are yet speaking, and I will hear.

And the wolf and the lamb shall feed together. So, it’s showing even in nature — not for the Millennium as this used to be considered to be a part of what was going to happen on the earth. That’s not the way it’s going to be. Life goes on in the Millennium, but the Great White Throne is different.

So, even certain things change in nature itself, in the animals and what God does with them. So, all that is incredible. All to help ensure the ability of mankind, greater protection and help without direct intervention at certain times, which is going to be given, too, but making it so much better as life on the earth.

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. Now, we ought to know what that means. This is not just talking about things that are physical, especially in this case at the end. This is put in there for a reason.

Because God revealed to us during PKG here not too long ago about the serpent and about what this means, the dust. He’s going to be brought low. It’s like a serpent who is crawling on the ground and the dust is there and gets into and has to eat of that. Which is, for a being to eat dust, it’s talking about mankind that was made temporary and returns to the dust of the earth. We’re made of the elements of the earth, and we return to that.

And Satan, especially when he is brought out of his imprisonment, when he is taken out of that and released into the world again after the hundred years, this is what it’s talking about more so than ever before.

Now, we understand that that’s still something that was happening over the past, up to this point, 6,000 years. He’s not going to see. He’s not going to be around for that thousand years. But before that’s ever happened he's had to eat dust, as it were, because God has shown him what He is doing in Christ alone, in Joshua, what happened there.

Because Satan has always tried to attack and destroy. He’s tried to attack and destroy the Church. All those who at that time become a part of 144,000, he’s going to be aware of that and then he’s going to be put away. What an incredible thing to understand. You talk about eating dust and being brought low, that’s what that’s about.

And so, at the end of the hundred years here he comes again, but now he’s able to see what God has done over 1,100 years, and it’s hard for him to take in. It’s hard for him to deal with.

So, dust shall be the serpents meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, says the Eternal.

So again, quite a bit there just in Isaiah alone once we know of some of the framework, of what the Last Great Day, the hundred years is all about, and add to that then about just that last part of that verse we read about, Satan and the dust of the earth, the serpent, and the dust of the earth. It means so much more. It reveals and helps us to grasp so much more about what God is doing and the timeliness of everything. It makes it more alive in a grander picture, if you will, of what He’s doing.

Revelation 20:1—Then I saw an angel come down from out of the heaven, speaking of the sky, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. Again, all symbolic. So much of this certainly something that’s happening literally, but again, that which is going to take place here showing that he’s going to be chained, if you will, on a spirit plane. Because nothing physical will hold him, and so whatever that is in a spirit world hasn’t been shown to us. We don’t see it. We don’t understand it. It’s going to take place.

Then, it says, he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent which is the Devil and Satan. So, all these names given to him in what it’s saying here. Because this pops up again in an area where it’s been misunderstood in the Church through Philadelphia and Laodicea, of what is actually being said because it all goes back to the same being. It’s kind of like the 144,000, then a great multitude, thinking they were separate. But they weren’t. They were the same. So, we’re going to see that as we go along here.

Then he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years. He’s going to be removed from the presence of mankind. So, he’s going to have that time, but God has given us to understand it’s going to be longer because there’s a period of time, a short period that follows that, and we know what that period is. It won’t be until the end of that period, at some point, and we don’t know where, he’s going to be released again.

…and bound him a thousand years; and cast him into the abyss. We do know that mankind has to have a hundred years because God has said that very clearly. So, a period of time, whatever that is, right in that, at that juncture that mankind is still alive and that being is released and does what he does then for ever how long that takes – which isn’t going to take too long. That’s about all we can give or grasp or know at this time.

…and cast him into the abyss, this place of spirit restraint, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him. So that which is going to take place as far as a restraint, that he should deceive the nations no more. So, he’s not going to have the ability while he is still there, because even though he’s been restrained, which is a unique comparison here if you think about some of that in the last seven of the revivals of the great power of Europe, the European Empire, if you will, or Empires that have been resurrected at different times — often referred to as the Roman Empire, but it’s really about a European Empire over and over again here which had it’s roots in Rome.

It talks about this then that’s going to take place, that he will not be able to deceive the nations when he’s in this place of restraint during the thousand one hundred years, but he was able to do things and influence and have power, but not to the same degree. The only thing he was restrained from, and sealed from doing, was being able to continue on with wars. He was only allowed to be able to be released to do what he does in war in Europe seven times. We’re almost to that seventh time, WWIII.

So, that’s different because he was still able to influence and broadcast and so forth. When this takes place he won’t be able to do any of that with this seal that’s set upon him. Because now he can’t deceive the nations anymore, no contact whatsoever until the thousand years should be fulfilled. And after that he must be let loose a little season. So, whatever that little season is. It doesn’t take say it has to take place immediately at the end of the thousand years. That’s not what that’s about.

So again, people can read things into scripture, but when we are given the complete plan and know what God is doing then it all comes together. It’s a beautiful thing.

Verse 4—Then I saw thrones, and they who sat upon them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the lives of those who had been cut off for the witness of Joshua. So, speaking specifically then about the Church, although it’s happened to others through time, especially when it came time for the Church, because here now Judaism, they’re in the area of Judaism and it clashes with the truth. They hated it so much so, they hated what God was revealing about Joshua alone being the Passover they killed him. We see these things taking place.

Then when the Church began and what happened from that point on, and then that conflicted then with other ideas that came up in the Roman Empire about so called Christianity. People who have been called, especially in the last 2,000 years have been cut off from their normal routines of life. Families cut them off. Businesses, others cut them off from them because they may tolerate, they may even like a certain thing about individuals, but when it comes to Joshua, when it comes to the truth that’s where the line is drawn. They’re cut off in full relationships that might otherwise have been there, but not good because it’s in the world. So, we’re blessed then to have been cut off.

Cut off for the witness of Joshua. What does that mean? Because he’s living in our life. It’s the witness. It’s the testimony that’s in our life. Not because of what we say, not because of what we preach, because people aren’t to be going out and preaching in the first place. Thankfully, we don’t have to go door to door and do things like that. That’s not what’s been given to us, though some think they have that mission. Or to go out into other parts of the world and preach and teach and whatever. God isn’t trying to save the world. What a blessing to understand such things.

The witness is about a testimony of the change that takes place in our life from the time we’re called, that our life, we’re not the same people. That’s why we’re cut off. We’re not the same as we used to be. Sometimes this becomes very difficult in families because, especially in a marriage, because the person that someone married, if one is called, they change, they’re not the same anymore. They start living differently, they have different goals, and that’s hard for people to take, and it can become a very difficult thing. Ends many a marriage, makes many a marriage then difficult to live within.

Yet sometimes some see that, the change, and they welcome it and have a good relationship – in the world, not in the Church, because only one is in the Church, if you understand what I’m saying.

It says here, are cut off for the witness of Joshua and for the word of God. Because what does that mean? Does that mean we have to go out and preach it? Because I’ve known people that think this is what they have to do, and this is what this means. That’s not what it means. The witness is the fact he lives and dwells within us and a transformation takes place and people see it. That’s the witness.

“And for the word of God,” because we’re living by it, we go to the Feast of Tabernacles, we keep the seventh day Sabbath, and so we act upon the word of God and we’re cut off then because of such belief and conviction, because then we’re different.

…and which had not worshiped the beast neither his image, not like the world then, cut off from it, neither had received the mark in their foreheads or in their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. So, that brings us right up to the point of time, 144,000 that it’s talked about earlier in these verses, in the chapters here, and bringing us up to this point when Christ returns with the 144,000. It talks those then will reign with Christ for a thousand years. So, it strikes and speaks very specifically then about the millennial period, that period of time that we’ve just pictured at the Feast of Tabernacles here.

But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. What an incredible thing that Christianity, traditional Christianity does not tackle this. They don’t go there, as they do in so many of these scriptures often and preach about certain things. Because this is foreign to them, this does not fit any of their beliefs at all. And so, just don’t talk about it. It’s like it doesn’t exist. “Revelation what?”

We’re thankful for this. This is incredible. It tells us what’s taking place. “The rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished.” So, the only other ones, if you look at this period of time up to 6,000 years, and all those who are resurrected, only 144,000. “And all the rest of the dead.” Who is that? All mankind, as a whole.

But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. So, it marks a point in time, the beginning of the Last Great Day. This is the first resurrection. Referring back to what it just said, those “who lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.” That’s the first resurrection. The rest of the dead didn’t live again until a second time of a resurrection.

Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. On such the second death has no power. Why? What an awesome thing to understand these scriptures. I mean, sometimes we can take these things for granted if we’re not careful, not receive them with a gratitude, the thankfulness of being able to see it. You see it! How blessed are you that you can see such things, be inspired by such things, knowing full well that the hundreds of thousands, and millions and billions on this earth around us, they don’t see anything like this! But your eyes see!

On such the second death has no power, because they’re spirit. No more able to die because they’re going to live into everlasting life, spirit in form and being. …but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years.

Now, it goes far beyond that but it’s in the human mind, in the human time, keeps us focused on a seven-day plan, as a whole. Seven thousand years; what happens after six thousand years and the next one thousand.

Then we’ve been given to understand in the end of an age about that hundred years, something the early Church did not know until it was given to Herbert Armstrong to grasp and comprehend about the meaning of the Last Great Day. It hadn’t been grasped nor understood about that hundred years.

Things hadn’t even been written about it to this degree until John, much later after all the other disciples were dead, after Paul was dead, after the other eleven had died, and now we’re down to John, the last one living, and God gives more to him. But he still didn’t grasp all these things.

Herbert Armstrong did because that’s when God gave it because it’s at the en of the age, almost at the beginning of the one thousand years. He knew he was living at the end-time, the end of the end-time.

We think, well, he died in 1986, how could he be considered to be the end of the end-time? Well, because of how we see time, as we just talked about at the beginning of the sermon.

Then when the thousand years have expired, come to an end, are fulfilled, is what it means, Satan shall be let loose out of his prison. So, it doesn’t mean immediately, again here. But the thousand years has to take place first. We also know that because of a great resurrection a hundred years has to take place as well, that Satan can’t be there. Mankind has to be protected from that.

Satan shall be let loose out of his prison—we know when—and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog. We’ve gone through this. What an incredible thing to understand that of those resurrected there will be those who have never known, never heard of the truth, never had opportunity to be drawn to it.

Now, many of them, I think of those who will have been resurrected out of the period of Philadelphia when they heard The World Tomorrow program and read The Plain Truth, and you see some of those things, and some of them will have heard it. There’ll be many of those who actually had become co-workers but never had come to the point of being called all into the Church or didn’t take that step themselves by choice.

And so, we have this vast amount of people then through time who have never known the truth. They’re going to be resurrected, but they’re going to be resurrected as well, some, and depending on how they were judged, depending on where they were, who fell asleep spiritually, some who left the Church. How many? The majority. The majority over 2,000 years have left the Church, have gone by the wayside, just couldn’t do it in this world, in this age of mankind. Too many pulls, too many things that they succumbed to, but doesn’t mean that they’re fully lost in that sense of not being able to be worked with.

Now, there are going to be some in there, especially at the end here toward the Apostasy, they don’t have a guarantee that they have to be a part of the first resurrection even. So, another story. But as a whole here Gog and Magog, one group of people who have never known, have always, if they heard of it, like in the Roman Empire there in the beginning, like Paul was when he was Saul, fought against it, but without any knowledge, and then others. So, others who had had a taste in a part of this and had received the impregnation of God’s spirit having an opportunity then to change.

After we go through a full hundred years there are going to be those of Gog, who, and it’s a spiritual thing, those in the world who do not want God’s way of life, and they’re going to be as the sand of the sea, it says. There are going to be those who had been called before, who had opportunity, and if that be Magog (the words can be reversed). But again, one stands for one group, and one stands for the others.

Even with God’s spirit and given opportunity to be reawakened as many of us had been…as we all were after the Apostasy who were a part of that period of time, had to be awakened spiritually on a spiritual plane, and God reviving us once again. All those through time who will be a vast number, candidly, who have had opportunity for the Church and left, they’re going to have opportunity for it. But even there, after all that, there are going to be those who still reject again, because that’s their mindset. They don’t want. They want something else. And so, they’ll be a part; Gog and Magog, incredible.

It shows in that respect here, to gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. So vast in number. Now, the numbers that will have been part of the Church at one time before and over a period of 2,000 years, and some through the Millennium, candidly, because that’ll include some of them, there will be those situations where they’re given a second life. They won’t be as large, in that respect, that you can say “as the sand of the sea” but it’s going to be a lot of people, a lot of people. Well, I’m not going to go there.

Verse 9—So, they went out on the breadth of the earth and encompassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city. So, the timing of this is at the very end. The timing of this is at a point in time when the entire Family is about to be resurrected, that’s going to be resurrected into Elohim, takes place. There is going to be a time here when Satan then goes after, a desire and a perverted mind, whether he believes he’s able to or not, we don’t know, and those who follow him, whether they think they’re going to be able to do this?

When a mind is so perverted like that that people, I’ve seen this, we’ve seen this throughout Philadelphia, throughout Laodicea, after Laodicea once God was starting to work with a group that would become known as PKG in that first 3½ years. It’s amazing how deceitful. Even those who were able to come back and be a part of PKG and what happens to the mind, what people can believe if they choose to do something different than what God has given to them. They can go back to things that they didn’t believe before. It’s insanity.

But some minds are set to that, will be set to that by the end of the hundred years, and this is what takes place. They all come together because they hate God’s way of life, they don’t choose it, they don’t want it, and so, this is what God does. They’re all gathered together.

I think of things that have happened at different instances in the Church throughout the period of time that I’ve known it in Philadelphia and Laodicea, and during PKG, that certain things sometimes will happen to bring to the surface the dross. Then it can be dealt with. That’s happened over and over again in PKG. Sometimes it’s individually here and there in different areas, but sometimes it’s a group of individuals, like happened in Toledo, like happened in Cincinnati, like happened in other areas.

Some will come together and cling together onto something, like what happened in New Zealand. On and on it goes and different ones come together then and decide they’re going to do something different.

This here, though, is far, far beyond that but it’s the same kind of thing. It’s all brought to a point where all the dross is made clear. This time it’s going to be destroyed. That’s what it’s talking about.

And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured (consumed) them. And the devil… So, the timing of here is not just for a physical world that’s been given opportunity, who have rejected God and Joshua the Christ and His Family, but it’s also a spirit world that rejected God a long, long time ago, are all going to be dealt with at the same time. Judgment. Final judgment. Once and for all for all time. Incredible.

And the devil who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone wherein… I’m going to read the proper translation of this because this is the one I was referring to earlier, that sometimes things have been read, like the 144,000 and the great multitude as being different groups, and they’re not. This here in times past people have only been able to come to a point where they think physically about the false prophet and the beast, and they want to make it like something that’s separate.

Especially this false prophet, it’s always been thought to be a pope. It’s not about the pope! Pope’s never known the truth. No pope has ever known the truth. And yet that was in the mind of the Church through Philadelphia and Laodicea, as a whole, and even partially into PKG some still having that concept of mind. And so, it takes time to remove some of those things and for the truth to be there.

Some people have had to battle. “Well, how could this be?” Especially if you read other scriptures here in Revelation that talk about some of this. And so, it’s like these are different, this is like, where the beast and then the pope, the beast being the physical leader of the ten nations or whatever it might be.

That’s not what it’s about. It’s about one being, Satan, the devil, and on and on it goes, the different names he’s had. So, it says, And the devil, who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone. He’s destroyed, whatever that means, ever how God does that. He created something on a spirit plane that He can destroy. He can change it. Because He sustains it. He gives something life. He can take all life away. Something we haven’t acknowledged in times past or were not able to acknowledge because we didn’t grasp the truth of that, now we do.

…wherein this beast, this false prophet… It’s about Satan. He is a beast, in this regard. He is a false prophet. How do you say it? He is above all the others in the sense of being false. He is the false prophet. …shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. Satan has seen different parts of this at different times as more has been given to the Church through time. He’s been tormented by, especially when God has revealed to the Church he’s going to be destroyed.

Where was that truth in times past? Was it ever known? Did he know it? Was it taught? Was it given in any other period of time? Ephesus, Thyatira, Pergamos, all the rest that if you look through time there? No, it was given at the end here in PKG. Since that time, he’s tormented by what he’s told. He’s tormented by the fact of what God says mankind can become, and he’s fought against it ever since. And so, it’s just been magnified more and more as time goes on.

At the end of the Great White Throne, whatever period of time he has, tormented most then because everything God has ever said and given to the Church and what he was able to see and hear has taken place now. We’re at the end of 6,000, 7,000 now, 7,100 years and this takes place.

So again, all these who have rejected God, they’re going to be put to death, they’re going to die. Their second physical life is going to come to an end.

And the devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where this beast, this false prophet shall be tormented day and night. Not in the fire. It’s just he’ll be tormented by what he knows God says because everything God’s ever said he’s seen it come to pass.

Then I saw a great white throne and He who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them.

Revelation 20:12—I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened. So again here, something here that, again, wasn’t that well understood back in the period of Philadelphia and the like, and the period on.

“I saw the dead small and great.” So, it’s all of mankind, those who were known because of certain things they had accomplished, certain leaders, whatever it might be, people of great wealth and power. It’s just saying all people, in their time period those who weren’t looked upon for anything that was there, they live their lives in quiet and so forth, or tried to, and those who were great. It doesn’t matter, the small and the great, they’re all the same.

“I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened.” So again here, talking about a period of time that’s going to take place, talking about what we’re picturing on this Last Great Day. “The books were opened.” We tend to think of, okay, books are being opened. That’s not what it’s talking about. It’s about their minds. They were opened up. What has been written through time in scripture about 6,000 years, these things are going to be opened up and they’re going to be able to see it. Just like when we are called our minds are opened up to the books. We see things that are on a spirit plane because God gives us of His spirit.

Then another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. So, these things are symbolic in nature. It’s not something that’s a physical book and all of a sudden here are these names written or that these books are being opened up and that people are able to read them.

…which is of life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books. Absolutely. Because what is it? It’s God’s word. The Bible that we’re blessed to have, it judges us. It’s the word of God. And so, we’re judged by those things, as to what we choose and what we reject. We’re held accountable then. It’s very simple.

A book of life is simply about those who choose what they read in the books, to live by that when their minds are opened up to it. Whether everlasting life results, that’s up to us by our choices. That’s what it’s talking about “according to their works,” what we choose, our own choices.

So, the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and the grave delivered up the dead who were in it. And they were judged, every one according to their works. That’s God’s way. We’re all judged according to what we do once we see the truth, what we choose, what we reject, what we embrace, what we fight for, what we persevere for. We’re judged by those things.

Death and the grave were cast into the lake of fire. So, what began in part starting at the beginning of that hundred years, they’re judged for that period of time as those who are judged throughout the Millennium, as we have all been judged once we’re called. We’re judged according to the things that are written in the books that our minds have been opened up to. We can see them, we know them, and we’re judged.

Whether names are written in a “book of life” or with God, it’s symbolic of those things because God has all those things. But something we can grasp and relate to as human beings is a book that’s opened up and names can be written there. It’s of life and those who come through this and live by what’s in the books that’s opened up to them to understand, they’ll be a part of that, of everlasting life.

Death and the grave were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. So again, Christianity, traditional Christianity doesn’t address this, because to have a second death means you have to have two physical lives. This is against everything they believe because, “When people die they go to heaven or hell and there is no physical life ever again.” So, these things here are worse than Greek to them.

This is the second death. So, whoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire. So, it brings us through this entire period of time, especially through that last hundred years, showing what takes place in human life to everyone. If it’s rejected then there is a second death. If it’s received then there is that opportunity and blessing of having everlasting life in the God Family.

So, whoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire. This is it. This is the end. This is the time Satan himself and the demonic world is destroyed, never to exist again.

What an incredible picture we have of the Last Great Day. Infants who died after being born, those who died at some point shortly afterwards because of various complications, some who died by various accidents or evil, some killed by soldiers as they were babies. I think of those that Herod sent down to destroy and kill in the area of Bethlehem because of his perverted mind. They were all killed up to two years plus, in there and on down, children. All these children through time, 6,000 years who are resurrected, who died, and all others.

What an incredible thing to understand, to know. We all know of people. We all know situations, if we are of any age whatsoever, of people who have died in family, different situations we’re aware of, and we see the sorrow and the pain and the suffering of human life and death. What an incredible thing God has given us to understand this period of a hundred years and what’s to take place and what’s at the end of it. It’s an awesome thing, it truly is, that we grasp and understand life and death, and a second life and a second death.

Revelation 21; the story finally concludes here, in that respect. Revelation 21:1 it says, Then I saw new heaven and a new earth. So, new in the sense of being renewed, if you will, the word in Greek meaning “fresh,” the word “new” here. So again here, the earth is still here but there is that which is being created on it that’s new and fresh, refreshed in an awesome way with God’s way.

For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no more sea. So, we come to a point of time of this mass of humanity, because when it talks about this this is what it’s referring to. It’s not a matter of how we sometimes took it in times past, of all of a sudden all the oceans are gone, there’s no more seas. It’s not about that. It’s prophetic.

Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. So, coming down out of the sky. This is what he was able to picture and see that we grasp and comprehend, of what God is going to do on a spirit plane, if you will, in spirit life, of those who are resurrected.

…coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. So, even the 144,000 are pictured in this manner. So, anyone who becomes a part of Elohim is pictured as going through this process. It’s like baptism, everyone has to be baptized, in the sense of the last 2,000 years, hands laid upon them as far as the Church is concerned. The first 4,000 years, that first wave loaf, God worked with in a different manner. Then we have the thousand years.

All these things that are accumulated through time that God has done and at different resurrections everyone is pictured in the same manner on a spiritual plane, as it says here, “as a bride adorned for her husband.”

And I heard a voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them and be their God. What an incredible thing to understand something else that God has given to us, that there comes a time that God is going to dwell in us forever and we’re going to dwell in God forever

We’re not going to be carnal anymore. We’re going to have different bodies. We’re going to have spirit life, everlasting life, and yet it’s at a oneness and unity of God accomplished through the power of God’s spirit that binds us together without jealousies, envy, lust, anger, any of the things that are a product of “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” We will be spirit and without the carnal things of life.

So this is an awesome day being spoken of here, the Last Great Day, because of what it produces by the end of it.

Verse 4—So God will wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain. So, the only way this is accomplished is no longer being physical, no longer having physical bodies. Finally, Elohim accomplished.

For the former things have passed away. Then He (God) who sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new or have made all things new. And when you talk about a creation that’s been ongoing, finally Elohim accomplished, it’s all been made new, what it was intended to be from the beginning before anything was ever created.

He said to me, Write, for these words are true and faithful. In other words they’re all true, it comes from God, He’s going to bring it to pass. What He creates, He creates; it comes to pass. “And faithful.” God is faithful in everything He does. He will do it. You can live by that faith then in return.

Then He said to me, It is done (accomplished). After billions and billions—we don’t know how long—of years in time. I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. I give unto those who thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. From forevermore.

Verse 7—He who overcomes, “conquers,” as the word means. Conquers, first of all, first and foremost self, our carnal human nature that is evil by itself because it’s selfish. Fights and conquers that. Because when it’s all over with, when it’s come to the end, death as a whole, and it’s done and one has persevered all the way to the end, they’ve conquered with God’s spirit, with God’s favor and will be in His Family.

He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. Now, it uses these terms in the sense of that which is physical but understanding it is all spiritual. Because there is neither male nor female in God’s Kingdom. We’re god in the God Family.

But the fearful, who just couldn’t conquer and overcome certain things, so often having to do with fearing of not being accepted by others in the world around them and giving into then others, succumbing to various things and pressures because of distortion of thinking.

…the unbelieving, who just because they want something different will not embrace it. Maybe for a period of time they will, but not in the sense of conquering and overcoming.

…the unbelieving, those who detest or are detestable, those who detest God’s way of life or are detestable. Kind of means the same thing, candidly.

…and the murderers, in thinking, in other words. It doesn’t have to be done even physically; it can be done spiritually. But there’s that mindset and it starts in the mind, in the thinking of the mind and how far the mind goes.

…the adulterous. Rampant! It’s the greatest of carnality of the human mind.

…the sorcerers, other gods before God. Practicing other things rather than listening and embracing what God says. Still holding on to certain things of “my way,” “the way I want it done.”

…and idolators, and all liars. They’re all lumped together, candidly. It’s all the same spirit. It’s not God’s spirit. “And all liars.”

For all who practice various levels of this are living lies, have lies that they must conquer, be fighting in other words and seeking to overcome.

…shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Again, showing what happens at the end.

So, it’s all about becoming a part of God’s Family. It’s all about the various phases of it. And after the thousand years? What an incredible plan! 7,000 years of time for human reproduction and growth in populations, and God working with people. Then that final period of one hundred years, of those who are given a second life, opportunity to live on.

Now, we don’t fully know what happens to that specific group at the end of the one thousand years, but just by what God has revealed through time those who are still living who haven’t accepted yet God’s way, whether they be twenty years-old, which is very young, obviously, but easier to understand, thirty years-old, forty years-old during the end of the Millennium, fifty years-old, sixty, seventy, that undoubtedly in many cases there are going to be those because at that time there’s going to be a great resurrection of those who are going to enter into God’s Family.

But there are going to be others who are going to be given one hundred years just as much as anybody else that’s been resurrected, to continue on with a guarantee of life that you have this time now. “You didn’t choose it, you didn’t embrace it, here is your time.”

So, we have a lot of things to deal with through time that are going to come upon us in time. Eventually, after one thousand years, it’ll be here before long, then the hundred years. It won’t be all that long and finally, God’s Family fully established. What an awesome thing. All having to do with the end of the Last Great Day.

And what an incredible thing to have a piece of mind, to know and understand that everyone who’s ever died, they’re going to have life again. We don’t have to be concerned that they’re somewhere being tortured or that maybe they’re up there and watching down over us because we know that’s a bunch of gobbeldy gook.

We know that they’re dead until they’re resurrected, and then they’re given life. We’re going to have opportunity, one way or the other so see, to be with, to be around, to enjoy that life in relationship again, but now in a new world with the truth, with everyone having access to it, a far better, a far richer world indeed.

Verse 9—Then one of the angels who had the Seven Vials filled with the Seven Last Plagues came and spoke to me, saying… This is where God began to reveal not too long ago now that that Seventh Trumpet lasts longer than just before Christ returns. It goes on until the very end of the hundred years. The majority of what’s being spoken of the Third Woe is here, final judgment. Incredible to understand and know such things.

…the Seven Last Plagues came and spoke to me, saying, Come, and I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and a high mountain and showed me the great city, holy Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God, and having the glory of God. So again, the completion at the end of that period of time and finally, this is what comes from it all. We know what happens then when all human life no longer exists. God cleans the earth, in that respect, from all evil, even from Satan and the demonic world.

Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. Also, she had a great high wall with twelve gates, and twelve angels at the gates, and the names written on them which are the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. Those who persevered brought into the various names as far as organization is concerned, as far as structure is concerned, of something we know very little about but knowing there is a structure in God’s government, in God’s Family and how He organizes everything and names that will continue on.

Not about literal, physical people. That’s not what it’s about. It’s not about the physical tribes themselves and they are the ones being spoken of here. It’s about all who are brought into the Israel of God on a spiritual plane. What a blessing to know those things, to understand such things.

Verse 22—So, I saw no temple in it, for the LORD God Almighty and the Lamb are it’s temple. That which we can dwell in. They dwell in us.

The city had no need of the sun, or of the moon to shine in it. This is about a spiritual Family, not about physical buildings. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it and the Lamb is it’s light. It’s beautiful how it’s all summed up.

Even the nations of those who are saved shall walk in it’s light, be a part of it, live in it, dwell in it. It’s about God’s spirit, it’s about life. It’s about all of us being at one forever with God.

And the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it.

So again, what a beautiful day to be able to observe. And though the service doesn’t change much, like Passover, because we’re commanded to focus on it, we’re commanded to think about it. This very much what we covered last year and the year before, and the year before. These are the things we talk about. These are the things we focus upon.

Every time God just gives a little bit clearer picture, a little bit more understanding, a little bit more to be thankful for, to be grateful for, to know what we see, what we understand, to embrace it with all of our being, to fight for it, to conquer and overcome that we’re able to be a part of that Family when it’s all said and done, whatever our time is and whenever these things take place.

So, we’re given different places in time to be able to become a part of an incredible family, God’s Family.

Well, over the past few years now, basically have changed some of the format of the Last Great Day in the sense that we used to have two services, and now we’ve combined it, basically, into one. We focus on the meaning of this day because we’re commanded to. Every one of us is commanded to focus on this day, first of all, within the ministry to talk about it, to preach about it, that it be given, that it’s explained. For us then to enter into that as well, that we want to focus upon it because that’s our life, it’s our mind, it’s what God gives to us.

And so, we do so, and we’re encouraged by it year by year by year, the awesomeness of what God is creating. Because that’s what it talks about over and over again, in that respect, on the Last Great Day, about what He creates. The closer we get then to that very last day of the Last Great Day it’s all about what God has been creating forever. Truly, forever, in times past.

And so on this eighth day we have the first portion of the sermon zeroing in on that. I’m going to continue on now in talking about some other things here that is then about us. We’re getting ready to go back out into this world, because we’re not here yet, we’re not at the beginning of the Feast of Tabernacles yet, we’re not at the beginning of Joshua having returned, though we, every year obviously, without explanation, we draw closer to it.

But we know by what’s happening in the world around us and by the things we’ve experienced in the Church, especially beginning in 2008, we’re ever so close. And though, again, that may seem like a long period of time, it really isn’t. But to us it is because we want it now.

But we learn through this. I’ve learned much, in some cases sometimes a little more than I was prepared for. But we learn much and we continue to persevere. That’s what Israel is all about.

And so, we’re going to continue on with the last portion of this sermon, a shorter portion.

But I think about some of the things as I was working with some of this and seeing here that we get to this point of a time of kind of an admonition for the Church as we go back out in this world. Because every year there are some things we have to focus upon, we need to focus upon.

So, since last years Feast, just think about that, the fifth book has been published. Primarily, for us in the Church. But again, finally the one book The Fall of the United States. We’re living in a particular frame of time here, of something that we’re getting very close to, of something that has been prophetic since Philadelphia, since Herbert Armstrong was given much to see in some of this. Now we’re almost there.

We look at a nation, especially if you live there, if you’re a part of living in the United States, and you see what’s happening. You see minds of people, that the sanity, the soundness of mind, there are things that are upside down, “calling good evil and evil good.” We live at that time. It’s a painful time, in that respect, to watch something so great be taken down.

The great distinction in all that is that we grasp that it was all given by God. But the world can’t, and that nation can’t. Not truly. And so, we see a deterioration that’s speeding up, and other nations seeing it. And because of that, it creates a vacuum that will eventually bring about the fall here. It’s not far away; very, very close. We have to be ready. We have to be prepared. And so, that’s what so much of this is about, going back out and a willingness to fight.

And so, I think about over the last year, the past year. Thunders that have grown exceptionally loud. But the world, as a whole, they hear it, maybe, “What’s that sound?” “It’s Thunder.” “Did you hear that?” And you know what, in a little bit it’s forgotten unless there is some other Thunder, unless it just keeps rumbling, closer and closer together and becomes louder and louder. We’re going to come to that point in time too.

But that’s what’s happening in the world. But over a period of time that’s stretched out and so it’s much more difficult for the human mind to keep focused and to keep sobered because there’s time involved. We don’t function so well with time. Our minds wander into something else and wanting something else, and having something else, and ignoring certain things. And so, we reject the Thunder very quickly.

I think of Ukraine itself and Russia. It didn’t take long. What an incredible thing. In the beginning there, there were people who were afraid. There were relatives of people in the Church who were concerned, “Is this it?” And so, we know it’s a Thunder and it’s a very powerful one because it’s brought other Thunder to the forefront, more Thunder that’s continually been on the news since then about a WWIII.

I think back when I was in prison and looking at news at that time. Very rarely was the subject, something like that brought up. Even then afterwards, after being out for 3+ years, 4 years, not much at all. But now in the last year, especially since this has happened, and even before that it was starting to rumble more, China especially and things that were going on. But after that war broke out constant barrage “WWIII,” “nuclear weapons,” “It’s coming.” Handwriting is on the wall.

But the human mind is such a contrary thing because it doesn’t want to believe that, though it may be shaken for a little while. Just like Thunder, it’s like it’s shaking you, and then it’s gone and so you’re able to go back to your own routines and ignore it. It’s easier to ignore. What a pathetic thing about the human mind.

So, we live through it, we experience it, we grow through it for a purpose and a reason. The world is going to be brought to a point where this just becomes deafening.

So again, incredible what happens. The talk of hypersonic missiles and how the United States doesn’t have any, and every time they try one it fails. Just tell the world we can’t catch up with you. “You can do it any time you want and we’re pretty much helpless.” That’s the message, and that’s the truth and the reality.

And so, they see a weakness. Not a good thing for a nation to have such incredible weakness at a time like this. Because at some point it will be addressed. They don’t want strength, and so if they feel that strength may follow a lot of things can happen. We live in a volatile time and it’s going to happen.

So, we individually need to be more on guard than ever before. I was thinking before I started this pre-recorded sermon about this process of being on guard. My life has been that way since I’ve been in the Church. I loved that about Herbert Armstrong, that he sent out letters, wrote things in The Plain Truth and other magazine concerning The World Tomorrow.

But he had a sense of urgency. It didn’t matter when it was. Ever since I came into the Church in 1969 he always had a sense of urgency. That helped us to be more on guard, to be more watchful, to receive of that sense of urgency ourselves.

I think of the time we live in now and knowing where we are, and we’ve already experienced now the Apostasy. That sense of urgency has quadrupled more if we see it, if we’re doing it. Now we see this sabre-rattling taking place in the world and the talk of a WWIII, and if we see the nations the way they are and are truthful about it, we’re there. We’re on top of it.

But no matter how much is said, be on guard, be alert, sometimes that, a phase, as it were, of a Laodicean spirit can creep in, even now, because we have so much. That’s what was dangerous about the period of Laodicea. We had so much, that if we’re not careful we can succumb to that kind of mindset and let down. Every year people leave. Every year people are disfellowshipped. Every year.

So, we have to ask the question in that respect, because we are to be spiritually alert. It’s up to us to do that. We’ve had sermons leading up to this period of time about the need and about fasting and the various things we need to be doing before God because we need God and we need to be alert, we need to be on guard, we need to be able to see the things that are happening in the world around us because so much of it is on a spiritual plane to see it.

The world can’t because they’re physically oriented. We have God’s spirit and so that power, that spirit should help us to be focused and alert and on guard ourselves and recognizing the need and where we are, and not to give up, not to let down, but to fight more, to be Israel in name. Not just in physical name but in what we live, to persevere.

And so again, we must be spiritually alert and watchful in our own spiritual lives concerning a true and more zealous relationship with God. That’s always to be built upon and made stronger. You can always do that.

Are we on guard? Do we grasp that we have lived through what we have lived through just over the past year alone? How clearly do we hear and see, if you will, but to hear on a spiritual plane the Thunders? That’s something we have to see spiritually.

We do not know, but we had better be stirred and planning ahead on the potential for this following year being it. That’s what you have to do. You can’t just keep putting it off. If it doesn’t happen now we know we have a period of time of about 3 more years beyond 2023. But we also understand some important timing involved with 2023 with Pentecost. If it’s not that period of time we know it’s going to have to be a Pentecost, but what happens is going to start taking place before Pentecost.

And so, really, it’s expedient for us to be on guard and alert more and more every year, all year long. It’s easy for people to tire and to weary, even for those who have been around for a long time. That’s probably one of the most painful things for me to see part of, is the letting down.

Again, we don’t know the exact time, but we know enough to be on guard, to be alert more than ever before.

So, what of the First Thunder? Just going to ask that in this particular phase of this sermon. It’s about the terror of war. Need I say more? Ukraine, Russia, China, all the flexing of muscles militarily in the world taking place right now. Talk of the use of hypersonic missiles, and on and on it goes, of a nuclear world war.

And although there’s been a little more quite concerning the Second Thunder regarding earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, they’ll come back. They’ll be there louder than ever before because these things are accumulative, it’s just certain focus is greater than the other at specific times here. But when we’re on top of it it’s going to happen very powerfully so.

Then the Third Thunder that concerns the growing destructiveness of weather and ever-increasing destruction from flooding, drought, and so forth. So, there’s this combination where things are at an extreme, both sides, back and forth, too. I think of this past summer and incredible heat that’s engulfed certain parts of the world at a time when it’s going to cause the greatest destruction that leads into other Thunders.

Famine. What a horrible thing that’s taking place on the earth right now, and it’s almost as if the world is really pushing that back and isn’t addressing it, it doesn’t even want to. It does it in part. Ukraine with massive amounts of grains and all the rambling back and forth about not letting the grain be exported to other areas, that Russia’s holding back. That’s just the tip of the iceberg because a lot has been destroyed as well.

So, over the past year there’s been an endless rumbling from the Fourth Thunder that concerns global economic upheaval that sometimes boggles my mind, how people talk today in news and so forth about the economy of the world. It’s so much worse than 2008 it’s not even funny. Even though they make some of the comparisons it’s like they’re going to work through this, and this can’t happen. And yet we have some of the craziest of things going on right now in the economy of the world.

Do we hear it? Do we see it? Do we realize this can’t be sustained? And when it all comes together it’s just leading up to an incredible catastrophe and collapse.

And if people are not careful they may not be hearing the Fifth Thunder in the way that they should be. Sometimes we just don’t want to hear, or we hear certain things, and we don’t really get it. This is Thunder! That’s what that is. Did you hear? It’s Thunder!

This one can often lead people to become somewhat numb to the realities of death that have been engulfing the earth more and more. We can become numb to it. I marvel at this. Sometimes I’m really dumbfounded by it, how much the world is numb to it. And if you’re not careful, so are you. But it’s Thunder, powerful, being fulfilled, getting louder and louder all the time.

I think over the past year the death from coronavirus worldwide. Now, the numbers in this people can say, well, it’s a lot less and some can say it’s a whole lot more because a lot of nations don’t even report, and the some that do report they don’t really report the truth, and others inflate it. So, six and a half million people, just from a virus alone. Incredible. Over a million reported to have died in the United States. Now, we know that number is higher, I mean, reported as higher when it involves other kinds of death as well, and they just lump it in there and they get more money. But anyway, sick, perverted world. But still, the numbers are incredible and it’s like people just, ho-hum, go on with life.

Suicide. Over 45,000 in the United States alone.

Homicides. 25,000. Crime is so rampant, and killing, it’s gone crazy out there. Death. Death. Death. Death. It’s almost as though we wink or close our ears to hearing it, the Thunder.

Drug overdose deaths in the United States have topped 100,000 per year. I heard a family the other day who had a son, and they gave the example of, this is like, and really, it was beyond that in that respect, but it’s almost like, truthfully, two 737’s crashing every day. In the United States alone.

Now, if that really were happening would anybody be flying? What would people do if there were that many crashing every day? Two jets every day filled with people, 150, 160 every day, two jets making it 300, 350 people everyday for a whole year. Do you think the world wouldn’t sit up and take notice? But 100,000 people every year from drugs. It’s insane. Not enough being done where a whole lot more could be done, a lot more. Sick. This world is really sick.

Poor nutrition and hunger are responsible for over three million children dying in a year. Three million children. Anybody talk about it? Did anybody bring it up in the forefront, that there is greater need to help the world in poverty and famine and things that are taking place? Might be three million children but include that with the total number and the total number around nine million every year from malnutrition, from problems with starvation and the like.

And that rate over this year now is accelerating because of things that are happening in the world and weather, and Ukraine, different things that are happening in the production of food and the ability and the waste and the transport of it. Can’t even get it from one place to another without ships backing up. And you think, what an insane world we live in!

Thunder! Thunder. Thunder. Thunder. Thunder all around us. And if we’re not careful we’ll become numb to it ourselves.

Then jumping ahead, look at what we’ve experienced concerning the Seventh Thunder. It’s about the accelerated revelation of God to mankind. Now, the one before that, it’s coming, it will be there, but there are certain things that are reserved for certain moments in time.

So again, this is about the accelerated revelation of God to mankind. Though the world doesn’t see it yet, what has been given in the Church, what has been given to us in a greater soundness and maturity than ever before exists to where when the time is there it’s ready, it’s prepared. But as a whole, the world doesn’t want it and isn’t receiving it.

But again, I think of that fifth book and the power that’s contained in it. I hope we see that. A lot of time has led to that one being done, accumulation and a greater balance and soundness of things that God has revealed through the time from the first to the time of this one that makes this one so powerful. Truly is!

So, the focus of this Feast, of removing the oppression that’s been heavy handed in this world for so long. What an incredible thing to know where we are in time. It’s a powerful Thunder, but the world is blind to it. But we should be able to see it and hear it. It’s beautiful. It’s awesome.

The removing of oppression in itself, a greater revelation of God to mankind— because that’s what this is about as well—and restoring again some of the most needed truth ever to this world. Because it’s been the cause. That oppression has been the cause of so much pain and suffering for so long on this earth for all periods of time.

When that is set right and begins to be done properly in a right way with right understanding, this world will change dramatically just because of that alone. Families, life, community.

So, every year for a long time now God has had me zero in on a great truth concerning the time from one Feast of Tabernacles to the next. On the Last Great Day it was asked (I think of last year): Will you be in God’s Church by this time next year? Some aren’t. Every year. Every year there are those who have been giving up; little by little letting down, little by little turning away, little by little, of those who are no longer with us.

It's painful to watch, painful to experience.

This year I’m going to mention this in a different context, as we may very well be just that close to the very end of this current age. We have to think this way. There is no option. And so this question, not how many but in this case perhaps better said: Will you be here in God’s Church when Christ returns? Are you set for that? Are you convicted of that?

I’ll be candid, I have been since 1969. I’ve been blessed with that. I’m thankful of that. It’s a gift of God. But it all depends on the mindset. How real, how absolute is it in your own mind that that’s it? What we said at baptism, that’s it.

Going to conclude with the exact same scriptures as we did last year. Kind of marvel at this because this is what God wants to be said. This is what we’re to think about. This is what we’re to focus upon again this year at the end of this Last Great Day Feast Day, Holy Day.

Hebrews 10:35—Therefore, do not cast away (throw away) your confidence, which has great reward, if you continue to fight and persevere, in other words. For you have need of endurance, patient endurance. At what point did people give up? At what point of those whom we’ve known since PKG, have people given up, not continued to fight and persevere?

So, you have need of endurance… And the word is “patient endurance.” You have to be patient about it. It’s about God’s time. So that after you have done the will of God… You don’t set a time limit on that. “Well, it didn’t happen in 2012,” so people set a time limit on it. Well, we didn’t see it. We didn’t know it. God let us believe that for that period of time, for things to be learned, for things to come, be made manifest within the Church itself – that we weren’t all ready. That there had to be others that had to be worked with to fulfill the 144,000. Because some gave up their crown. My fault? Their fault. But God let us experience it for a purpose and a reason. Incredible.

So again, patient endurance so that after you have done the will of God you may receive the promise. We know what that promise is.

Verse 37—For yet a little while… It’s only a little while. Time goes by quickly. …he who is coming will come and will no longer delay. In other words, there is no more time to wait. That’s it. There comes that point in time it will happen.

Now, the just shall live by faith, but if any draw back… What an incredible thing to know, to understand, if anyone draws back, my, as it says here, but if any draw back, my life, in other words, “in my life,” in my life, I will have no pleasure in them. In my living in what I do.

But we are not of those who draw back to perdition. Because that’s what happens. If you draw back, if you let down—that word “perdition” means “to destruction; to waste”—what’s the purpose of it all? What was what the purpose of it all at any point in time?

But of those who believe to the saving of life. That’s up to us. God gives us the ability to believe, and we have to make choices, constantly, to patiently endure.

So again, what an incredible thing to understand, a word that God has magnified for me, for us in the Church, Israel. That if we want it, we have to fight for it. We must persevere! Let’s persevere and fight for the way of life that God has placed before us, and be ever so thankful, and to learn to truly love and care for one another more and more.