The World is Plunging into Chaos, Pt. 4

Ronald Weinland

December 31, 2022

Today is Part 4 of this series The World is Plunging into Chaos. Again, a reminder that this kind of has a subtitle to it, which is a reminder here about asking the question, How Prepared Am I?

So, I fear sometimes we can get a little, I don’t know, numb hearing news that’s going on in the world. You can actually be watching it every day, listening to it every day, but you can still get to a point where it’s like this is kind of a norm and the impact of what’s really taking place doesn’t hit us in the manner that it really should.

Yes, things are going on, things are happening, but to be able to compare some of these things and remember what it was like a year ago or two years ago is a little harder for the human mind, the carnal mind, the human mind which is carnal though we be begotten of God’s spirit, and we have to fight against those things. That’s why I’m going through this, as a reminder that we have to keep on guard. We have to watch to be alert and remind ourselves not only of things that God gives to us in sermons and the like and grow in those things and guard what He’s given to us, but also to understand the times we live in, to recognize the kind of world we live in, and not let it become the norm. Because it’s far from that. It’s a sick, sick world and it’s getting worse quite rapidly here.

So, it’s about ourselves and asking the question, how prepared am I? Are you ready for what’s coming? Because in some ways we are, we can be mentally, other ways we really can’t be because we’ve never experienced anything like it. That’s going to be enough in itself. To be prepared for that moment is another matter.

We’re going to pick up where we left off in Revelation 11. Hopefully, we’re beginning to understand and see the flow of this chapter, of why it’s written in the manner that it is. Mankind inserted the chapters anyway in the scriptures, and the verses and so forth, for being able to turn to to find things more easily.

Nevertheless, it is a subject matter that is set apart. Sometimes that’s not always the case. But again here, there is a flow going through Revelation here. There is a flow in this particular chapter here, and it keeps going back to what is being discussed in the beginning and it’s about what God is doing with the Church. It’s about measuring the temple.

It’s something that’s more unique to us now than ever before because of where we are in time. The Church hasn’t had to focus on things like this in the same manner in times past though some of these things were observed that we’re talking about when we talk about disfellowshipment, when we talk about the Body being cleansed. But it was a much different process, and candidly, much, much slower, especially within the ministry.

We tended to practice too much so sometimes because of friendships that people had within the ministry and with evangelists or regional pastors and whatever at that particular time, that certain individuals weren’t dealt with in the manner quickly and swiftly as they should have been. Because when it comes to a point in time that a minister should be actually disfellowshipped for what they’ve done, rather than being transferred to another area, that’s pretty sick. Yet those practices took place.

This period of time has been unique in the sense that God is having us focus upon these things in a greater way with the purpose of learning and understanding why these things are so important to the Church, why it’s so important to spiritual growth, why it’s so important that we separate ourselves and strive to be a Body that is purified and cleansed and seeking to be cleansed individually and collectively, because when that’s not taking place it always hurts the Body – “a little leaven leavens the whole lump.” That’s the danger.

That’s happened in Church area after Church area after Church area from the time of Philadelphia on, where Churches, just like leavening, because it came through primarily the ministry, if certain things came through the ministry and went out in the congregation they followed suit. Because a minister that stays in an area, has a reputation in an area maybe for four or five, six years, develops a friendship and a relationship with people in the congregation, and then begins to slowly but surely inject, interject something that isn’t in scripture in the sense of what is even being taught in the Church. Those things can spread, especially if it has to do with rebellion, being justified in doing something different than what headquarters is saying, and that begins to be spread in the congregation as to why that’s not good.

It’s just like what Satan did. It’s exactly what Lucifer did with the angelic realm, start grumbling and complaining about certain things, a little bit here and a little bit here, and then people begin to talk about it amongst themselves, which the angelic realm did, and after a while, you have an absolute nightmare of rebellion taking place and people leaving the Church en masse, churches, entire churches.

So, a lot of this is to learn from this process of why we are focusing on some of these things in the sense of understanding why God wants us to understand what He’s doing because He’s making it very clear the Church is going to be cleansed before His Son returns. Obviously, the 144,000, those who are needed, in that respect, to complete it, they, obviously, must be fully trained, fully worked with, fully prepared so that they can be sealed.

And so, all these things are a part of the mix. Revelation 11 reveals something that the Church, if we’d understood, would have been better off practicing it in a very strong way from the very beginning. Now, I have no doubts that Paul, as an example, didn’t address these things very sternly so because he didn’t take much in the sense of rebellion. He dealt with it quickly and swiftly, and that’s a good example. He warned the Church, and he gave names.

That was something where a little bit of protestantism had crept in. Well, it’s just the fact that it was there. Because the reality is even though the Church started after Sardis, began as Philadelphia, it was coming out of the world. But not just out of the world, it was coming out of a protestant world primarily. To understand that then there is that mentality of thinking about God, about a relationship with God, about how you do things in your life, and it takes time to weed that stuff out.

It took time through Philadelphia to get rid of some of those things. It took quite a bit of time, just to put it bluntly, and in that process then people were coming into the Church as well with that kind of thinking, and en masse, in large numbers. That has an effect on others within the Church.

So, we are learning a lot through a process of time, especially at this end-time. It’s talking about the measuring of the temple. It’s talking about things that need to be done within the temple for it to be cleansed.

Revelation 11:7—And whenever they have finished their witness… In other words, it’s completed. Well, it’s completed when Satan is allowed to do what he’s going to do. It’s completed when the time is up.

It’s completed when, finally, it’s time for Joshua the Christ to return as King of kings. He’s not King of kings yet. Those other kings, it’s not about kings of the earth. It’s about those who are going to be made kings. He’s the King of all kings on earth in God’s government. That’s what it’s about.

Sometimes we can begin to think, well, this is about the world and so forth. No, it’s about God’s government. It’s about what God is doing. He will be the King of kings at that time because there are going to be those who are resurrected as kings and priests, and how that takes place, some will have functions. We don’t even know that fully.

But the structure of things, of what we’ve been given in times past, which seemed to fit in a scenario that fits scripture is that there will be those who have areas of rulership in the sense of rule as kings, those who are priests because that’s always needed.

Now, Christ is unique in the sense that he is the King of kings, and he is High Priest. We have this mixture in one person, if you will, one individual, whereas there are others in various forms of whether it be that which has to do with God’s way of life, the truth being taught, and things of that matter, others having to do with government. Because this world needs to be governed properly.

So anyway, we don’t know how that’s going to fit into place but it’s going to come together at that particular time.

These two individuals, again, nothing of the thinking we had in times past. That’s why I love the present truth because we have had things that we’ve carried with us and trying to understand. God lets us do various things, just like He did Herbert Armstrong, and because He didn’t give everything all at once, so a little bit of truth at a time, a little bit more to the degree He wanted us to have what we had.

I think of those in the first 4,000 years who didn’t have any of that as a whole. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, even Moses. You go on down the line, they didn’t have things that people in the Church had at the beginning of the Church. They didn’t understand… That knowledge wasn’t there. They didn’t understand Old Testament scriptures on a spiritual plane. They didn’t have to. They were judged according to what they had – about a relationship with God and how they thought toward God in that process, how they lived their lives then in a very physical world that was all around them.

They weren’t able to go to Sabbath services week after week in the way that we do in the same manner and having the kind of meaning it does for us. There were things they did on the Sabbath. There were things that were read to them—but not like we do—in the sense of Moses and on.

So, we’re very unique in that respect as far as the Church in the last 2,000 years and how God’s worked with us. Even much more so in the end-time, Philadelphia on.

And so, this example of a witness is something that’s been done for a long time. People who live God’s way of life, they are witness of God’s way of life because they’re living it. They’re witness of the life of God dwelling in them.

Abraham, Moses, I don’t care who you look at, David, they couldn’t do the things they did except God’s spirit dwelt in them. He had a purpose for them. He was working with them, their calling being different than ours, in that sense, because God worked with them individually. But they did what they did, and they were witness of that truth, because no one can live this way of life, no one can understand things of God except that God’s spirit is there. Awesome to understand that.

So, this is the pinnacle after 6,000 years—that’s where we are—of things that God has given to mankind to know and to understand about Him, about His plan, about His purpose. Much of that plan was never even understood by the disciples, the first apostles that went out, by Paul.

They didn’t understand all these things that Herbert Armstrong understood and comprehended about 7,100 years. Those things God revealed to Him. When he began to observe the Holy Days, him and his wife alone for seven years, God began to help him to understand the greater meaning of why those things exist, what they are. You can’t find all those things in the Old Testament, in that respect, and understand them except that God show you what they are. Just like the Last Great Day and how Herbert Armstrong came to understand what it meant, the hundred years, and those verses that are there.

Anyway, so all through time here there have been witnesses of God’s way of life. But this period of time is unique because of how God purposed it, planned it, designed it, and is carrying it out, and carrying it out in PKG. Because that’s our function, that’s our job, preparing for God’s Kingdom in a way that hasn’t been done before because it wasn’t coming before in the same way that it is now. It’s almost here.

And whenever they have finished their witness the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit… So, it doesn’t give timing in all this because there is a period he comes out. We know the primary period when he begins to take great power to himself because God lets him do this again. One last time is that great revival, the seventh here, and his influence over Europe all for the purpose of great nuclear war. And so, he’s let out earlier, but he does this later on.

So, it’s just referring to him, this beast that ascends out of this bottomless pit… In other words, this place of restraint. That’s all it is. …shall make war against them and shall conquer them. This being has had influence in the world for 6,000 years nearly but hasn’t always had the power to accomplish the kinds of things that God has allowed him to at various stages.

It doesn’t mean he’s not attacking the Church or people in the Church, because he strives to no matter what, but this is a specific function that he’s going to be doing.

I think of the time that Herbert Armstrong referred to when the State of California tried to take over the Church. He alluded to, his belief, that this was the time that Satan, in that regard, was restrained on the earth. “Fell from heaven” – how the scriptures speak of it. I tend to believe the very same thing. That’s exactly what it was.

We go through various things that take place here and this is what it’s talking about. So, it says, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit, the place of restraint, shall make war against them, and shall conquer them and kill them. In time that’s what’s going to take place, but it says here this is when their job is done. That’s when your job is done.

“Your job is over 3½ days before,” basically, is all it’s talking about. It’s talking about a work that was being done up to that point in time, and for 3½ days, and then later on it’s going to talk about what takes place.

But in the meantime, it starts talking about some other things again. And those who have fallen in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where our Lord was nailed to a pole. So again, it’s making the point here that it’s not about a physical city. But it’s easy to take it that way because that’s the way we are as human beings. Things we’ve had within the Church, we haven’t known all these things, so we hold on to various things about 3½ years, and what takes place for 3½ years, and we try to lump it together in one neat little package and it doesn’t work that way. There are many different stages within a whole entire plan, just as we’ve had several stages of 7 years or 3½ years if you want to cut that in half because each one has its own meaning and purpose of things God works out. Awesome. God is very systematic, very clear about what He does and how He does it.

Those who have fallen in the Church over time, whatever time (it doesn’t matter when it was), but at this end time, at this particular period of time, there is something unique to what has happened to God’s Church since the Apostasy. It’s talking about those who have fallen in the way, in the truth—that’s what it’s about—of Jerusalem, of spiritual Jerusalem. Not a physical Jerusalem.

And so, who are they? Well, at first, candidly, it’s all who fell at the time of the Apostasy. Since that time who fell and went by the wayside, the various things they did then in groups that tried to get together there for the first 3½ years, decisions and choices that were being made, groups being formed and brought together trying to hold on to something that they felt was the same as the past.

So, it’s talking about this spiritual struggle, and very few have come through it. Candidly, there is only a remnant. The rest have fallen. That’s the category they’re in, Revelation 11.

It says, Those who have fallen in the street of the great city, and also looking of the peoples, and tribes, nations… Now, more so, very specifically, it’s about those who have been separated from this Body who were awakened, who were able to come back.

It’s also, then, those who have been added to it since that time, and especially beginning around the period of 2004, 2005, and on, different ones that came in who didn’t have a past in Worldwide. But as a whole here, the starting of it, and the beginning of it, and the establishment of PKG was with those who were a part of Worldwide.

Those who had the opportunity to be awakened, those who had opportunity to begin to learn what had happened to them, received truths from God, and then to have fallen. That’s why that’s such an atrocious thing that took place in their lives because of their bad choices. There is far greater judgment upon them than most others who have ever been around God’s Church.

And also looking of the peoples and tribes, tongues, and nations. Now, this is a very poor way of expressing something because they have no idea what it’s talking about. It’s like there are things you’ve got to physically see, and what are you looking at? That’s not what it’s talking about here. And candidly, it’s something given by God’s spirit anyway. All these things are.

All the truths we have are things that are given by God’s spirit in time that come together. Just like what we’re going through here. Is it talking about all peoples on the earth? It’s talking about the Church. It’s talking about the fallen in the Church “who are of…” Where did they come out of? WCG as a whole. That’s where it came from, the Worldwide Church of God. It was all over the world. That’s why it was called the Worldwide Church of God.

That’s why that name took over the one before, The Radio Church of God, because it reflected what God was doing because now it was going into all the world in different languages and raising up Churches in different countries. Awesome what took place during that period of Philadelphia, what God did.

It goes on to say here, shall see those fallen. Is that word the same? I love this when you understand what it’s saying because you have to know who the same is then. Who is it talking about? “Shall see those fallen.” Well, it’s about verse 10 later on, those two prophets, who had a falling, if you will. That’s how it’s expressed. There are different fallings here being spoken of.

…shall see those fallen three-and-a-half days, or, in other words, 3½ years, referring in that respect to those 42 months earlier. We’ll come back to that later. …and shall not let, again, the same fallen be set (placed) into remembrance or memory. All it’s saying is here is they didn’t care. They don’t care! It’s not in their memory after everything that’s happened to them. Look at 2012. They’re not a part… Because they look upon one another, some of them do at least, as a whole within these scattered groups, that somehow God is working with the different groups. They’re all a part of the scattering and somehow God’s going to bring this all together again at the end.

That’s what some think. “Even though you’re in different organizations,” whatever that might be, “they’re okay. But that PKG is not. Look at it. Don’t have to even think about that one, you know, you don’t need it in your memory. You don’t need to worry about anything they have to say or anything else, you know. They have gone over the edge. Just look at what they’re teaching.”

I mean, really, you start going through the truths and you look at it from their perspective they think you’re stark raving mad. Well, maybe not you, but me, they’re convicted of that. Seriously! They are convicted of that. I can understand that. You can understand that. If you can’t see something you can’t see it.

That’s all it’s talking about here. It goes on to say, Even these who dwell upon the earth shall be glad over them, over the same, those two and what they represent. It’s about the Church! We’re all witness because of what we’re living of Christ living in us. That’s, to me, some of the most beautiful scriptures sometimes when it talks about that, that that’s what we’re to be witness of in our life. It should be obvious that Christ dwells in us. Awesome!

And so, they rejoice. In other words, they’re happy about it. …and send (give) offerings to another. So, you look at individuals who have been put out and that’s what they do. Whatever the choice and justification they have in their mind for why they did the things they did, because disfellowshipment is only a formality of something they’ve already done to themselves. They’ve already disfellowshipped themselves. They’ve already separated themselves from God’s spirit not dwelling in them, and whatever the Church says then at that point, saying, making it, in a sense official, “Yes, you are disfellowshipped,” but they did that long before spiritually before God.

When people do that, if it wasn’t a matter of stealing tithes in the first place and offerings from God, then they would give their offerings to someone else. That’s what it’s about. That’s what it’s talking about here. It’s not about all of a sudden we think of Christmas and “Oh, those two were killed in the streets of Jerusalem and everybody is sending gifts.” You think about what the world is going to be like in those last 3½ days, what are they going to use? UPS? FedEx? Who is delivering packages in the end of a world war, a nuclear war?

You know sometimes it’s like why can’t we think things through? Well, we don’t think about it because it’s not time because God’s not showing the entire story yet. He’s giving us more to help us to understand, no, that’s not what it ever was about.

…they shall send or give offering to another because of these two who tormented those who dwell upon the earth. It’s not about tormenting anybody in the earth. We tend to think it’s the whole world. Those are the concepts we’ve had in times past because why? We could only see it, as a whole, on a physical plane. It’s no different, in that respect, of Christ talking to the disciples.

I love John 14. There are things they couldn’t understand. Until God gives it to you, you can’t understand. Or the woman at the well. It doesn’t matter; there are things you can’t understand. Not even in God’s Church. You can’t see it unless God gives it to you. No different from them except that we have the begettal of God’s spirit and we’re in a process of being transformed. But you still can’t see things that God gives anew at a time when He gives them except that He reveal it to you and help you to understand it spiritually.

So again, first and foremost about those who have been a part of the Church, but it’s also then reflective of the entire scattering that took place and what happened within the entirety of the Church. Because the reality is all have fallen.

They don’t believe what you believe, not a single group, because that’s how God works, through one Body, one organism, if you will, spiritually. Us, His Church, His people. It’s not a lot of different groups because that’s no different than what the protestants think. They think, “Well, that church, yeah, they think differently, they have different beliefs than us, but God is working with us all in a unique way and we’re all going to end up in heaven.” It’s not far from that in a way of thinking as human beings.

Anyway, I’m going to go through these verses in a more direct present truth fashion as far as the translation is concerned to hopefully help us to understand it a little more deeply, what it’s talking about. Remember always here, in the beginning here it’s about the measuring of the temple. It’s what’s happening at the end-time. It’s at a period of time when we’re approaching this period when this beast is going to ascend out of the bottomless pit and do what he does. That’s primarily regarding then the Fifth Trumpet on.

Now, that doesn’t mean he’s not involved in other things, because he is, but that’s when he’s given his greatest power to pull that one off and to turn minds of Europeans and to bring them together in a fashion that they’re going to do the unimaginable.

Verse 7—And whenever they, speaking of those two witnesses, have completed their witness (it’s finished), the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them and shall conquer them and kill them. Just a fact.

And those who have fallen in the street of the great city, again, just went through that, making it very clear here it’s speaking of spiritual Jerusalem and those who have fallen within spiritual Jerusalem, not literal Jerusalem, since the Apostasy. Because that’s the timing of all these verses as we’re going to see in a moment.

Verse 9—Of those who have been looking, in other words, since the time of the Apostasy, those who have been experiencing, if you will, those who have been viewing or seeing the events that have transpired since the Apostasy on. Because it’s been a long time now. 1994. Incredible. Astounding in many respects because it doesn’t seem that long in many regards, but it’s been a long while for those who have gone through that entire period.

…are of the people, tribes, tongues, and nations, in other words, formerly of Worldwide Church of God, see the same fallen in those three-and-a-half days, speaking again of those two witnesses. There is this period of time that it’s referring to over and over again that’s unique. There is not just one 3½ year period here or that 3½ days at the end because there are things prophetically that can have to do with 3½ years, 42 months, whatever. There is that which is just literally 3½ days, period.

So, picking it up here, and shall not let the same fallen to be put in remembrance. In other words, again here, people don’t care about us. We’re not big. We’re not large. We have no impact on the world. We have no impact on the scattered Churches out there whatsoever. They don’t care to listen to anything about you or what you believe.

In other words, you’re easily discarded in the mind. It’s where we are. It’s where we came to by 2012. Before that, there were some differences. There were individuals who weren’t all that sure in many cases, of some of the scattered.

So, in other words, it’s just a matter of having dismissed God’s way, the truth, the source of light, that which comes to them because they don’t know it, they don’t understand how it works. They don’t understand how it worked in Philadelphia. They don’t comprehend how God worked in the Church in Philadelphia, how God gave the truth in Philadelphia. If they had they would have tried to latch on to those things immediately after the Apostasy. Instead, got to a point where people were ready to start teaching their own thing and refer to Mr. Armstrong as a good teacher. Insane, what took place.

So again, all this refers back to verse 2—Then the court, which is outside the temple, expel, in other words, send away, separate it, and do not measure it, for it’s given unto the gentiles.

So, it’s just a matter of a distinction that God has given to His Church to make it clear this is not a part of God’s Church. This Body, this Church, PKG is. That’s been going out for a long time now. It’s one of the truths, that God is only working through one organization, in that respect. That’s the only way God works.

…for it’s given unto the nonbelievers, in essence. And the holy city shall they tread underfoot, again, forty-two months. Well, again here, when was that primary moment in time? It’s not that individuals have not disliked or disagreed with, because they have from the very beginning of things being written in the first 3½ years. It’s the point being that there is that which sets their mind to a point where they’re easily able to dismiss everything else in their thinking about this, about the truth, about the other truths that have been given since Herbert Armstrong. Well, sadly, they don’t even accept all those.

But anyway, it’s a matter of revealing something to God’s Church this is the distinction. There is one Body He’s working with. Small as it is, He’s working with it. This is where it’s being finished. Awesome to understand what you’re a part of and how important that is to God if you’re able to embrace that with more of your being. Because the more you embrace that and the more you understand it the stronger you will be spiritually, truly.

That primary time should be very obvious when it began. 2012. Three and a half more years which went on into the time of imprisonment as well. I used to think, well, maybe that’s just applying to that period of time. But no, this mentality, this thinking started in 2012, Pentecost. Carried on for 3½ years. That’s God’s measurement.

Verse 10— Even these, nonbelievers who have fallen… Remember here, it doesn’t say all of them. Sometimes even there we have to be careful what we’re reading. Even these who dwell upon the earth shall be glad over them.

So again here, it’s not saying every one of them. So, we have to be careful how we think sometimes and how we read things into scripture if we’re not careful. Beforehand when some of this was taken, it was taken like this “has tormented the whole world.” That’s a lot of power. God does not intend we have that kind of power, not at all. That is not His purpose. I’m glad of that, truly, truly glad of that. Christ is the one. When he comes with 144,000, that’s what the whole world is to see. And they will, for those who remain.

“And they shall rejoice,” so I’ve gone through that, “tormented those who dwell upon the earth.” Again, it’s not about the whole earth. It’s only speaking in the context of those who have fallen. That’s the context of chapter 11, those who are being measured, those who have fallen, those who are not a part of the Body of Christ, the Church of God — PKG.

Now we come to a place that marks a very unique moment in time, a moment where truth has to begin being addressed one way or the other by all who have fallen. That’s what it’s building up to. That’s what God is going to bring His Church to, the Church that’s fallen as well.

That’s an awesome thing to understand, what He’s preparing because there are those who lived during the period of Philadelphia who did strive to live what was right and do what was right and had a relationship with God that was powerful as yours is, in that respect, as far as knowing God. Maybe not knowing the same or as much, in that respect. That’s not what that’s about. But striving to live faithfully to what they were given.

Then during Laodicea they became lukewarm. But everybody did during Laodicea. By the time it was over with everybody had become lukewarm, myself included. We all had. We all began to fall asleep spiritually. God will not accept that kind of spirit and mind. Yet that’s the environment we were in. That’s an environment, in that respect, without an apostle, and with all the truth that we had, that began to creep into the Church, into the minds of all of God’s people. We lived it. We experienced it.

That’s in the context then of much of what is given here. As I’ve said here, we come to this point in time where truth has to begin to be addressed by everyone one way or the other, of all who have fallen. And so, what is this moment in time, because it’s unique. It’d be good to ask then, what, to what event is this next verse referring?

Verse 11—Then, after three-and-a-half days the spirit of life from God entered into them. That shouldn’t be a hard one. See, we used to look at that physically in the sense of what happens in the physical streets of Jerusalem, but thankfully it doesn’t have to happen there. It’s not about something like that. It’s not about two people who had incredible power to do incredible things that people were going to witness. It’s not about that whatsoever.

It says, “the spirit of life from God entered into them.” Well, when you’re dead for 3½ days and God’s spirit enters into you and you hear a voice, and you rise at that particular moment in time, we pretty much know when that is. At least, we better.

And the spirit of life from God entered into them and they stood upon their feet. Then great fear fell upon those who saw them. So, what is it talking about? Well, we ought to understand this. We know that there are going to be things that the world sees, people in the scattered Church see, more than most, in that respect, of understanding what’s taking place. Because when Christ returns and when a great resurrection takes place that’s going to be a massive thing that’s going to be seen around the world by people in different places.

It doesn’t mean every person has to see it. It’s not talking about that. But they’re going to know it; and within a scattered Church, God says they’re going to know of it. I don’t know how, by what means, but it’s going to take place. So, they become aware of this.

It says, They stood upon their feet and great fear fell upon those who saw them. These who came to learn what the actual event that was taking place was all about. Then hearing a great voice, speaking of the two witnesses, and experience this, a great voice from heaven saying to them, Come up here. Then they ascended up into the heaven in a cloud, and their enemies saw them. That doesn’t mean they saw them then and there in every case but there are things they’re going to understand, they know.

It's like that thing of looking, again, that we read earlier. They’re going to have experienced and seen something or know of something, have knowledge of something where they see it in their minds. They know what’s taking place.

By this time everyone who has been scattered, everyone who’s tried to reorganize – now I’m not speaking necessarily of those who chose to go back to a protestant world and who keep Christmas and Easter and so forth, because they have been cut off to the extreme, okay – but all the others who have gone off on their own, done things because they can’t deal with things of God, period, with any group. No religion in their life as a whole. Then all those who are scattered in all the different groups.

By this time what is it that those individuals, and probably some of the others too who were a part a long time ago (but they’re not going to be counted in this), that are identified as fallen with the Church, have had to acknowledge and come to see for themselves? Or even to have been tormented by, if you will, for a period of time?

They’ve been experiencing it for ever how long it is. Hopefully, it’s not a long time. But when they see this country go through what it’s going to go through, when they see Europe do what they were taught a long time ago it was going to do, you think that isn’t going to cause some torment? When you have in your mind of things you think about the Seven Seals, when you have in your mind something so different about the Seven Trumpets, and they have to deal with something that’s already happening but they’re not being taught, haven’t been taught, haven’t been prepared in any fashion or form for what is true and for what they’re experiencing. It’s what it’s zeroing in on here.

So, they’ll see the ten nations have fulfilled their role as the Fifth Trumpet by this time. That’s already done. They’ll have seen China and Russia do what they’re going to do in a greater scale, more massively than ever before when it says a third of all population on the earth is going to be destroyed just because of what they do at that time. Not counting that which happens before but just in that Sixth Trumpet. So, they’ll have seen these things, and this affects their thinking, of things they have to begin to acknowledge, that they’ve been wrong.

That’s the hardest thing for a human being to do, especially one who has been associated with God’s church for a long period of time like that and gone through what they think is still God’s Church. That’s very hard. It takes something pretty tough, pretty great to break that, to bring a person to humility. But they’re going to go through a period of time that’s bringing them to humility finally.

Revelation 11:13—Then the same hour or at that moment in time is what it’s literally referring to and how it should be translated, candidly. But we can use that expression in that regard as well, “at that same moment in time.” In other words, when absolute proximity then of what took place here with the resurrection there, that 3½ days and then they’re resurrected.

It says, there was a great, now it says “earthquake” but again, we know that word to mean shaking, whatever took place. A shaking is going to take place. Doesn’t mean it has to be specifically an earthquake that does this by any measure or form, but it’s shaking, it’s going to shake the people of a scattered Church in a way that they have never been shaken before.

…and a tenth part of the city... Physical Jerusalem? No, no, no, no, no. It’s that same fallen city, the fallen portion spoken of earlier, primarily those in the scattered groups and primarily those who just haven’t had anything to do with religion at all.

It says, a great shaking took place and a tenth part of the city fell. And in the earthquake, seven thousand people were killed. So, in this shaking, whatever it is, whatever is done, whatever God does (because God’s going to do it) down to the exact number. He planned this a long, long time ago, numbers, timing, things that we can’t even begin to comprehend, following a blueprint. If you’ve ever seen blueprints of a huge building or different projects that come together and you realize how important every detail is on there, His is detailed. That makes mankind look pretty puny.

“Seven thousand were killed.” Not in Jerusalem, the city, but of the fallen. So, within all these groups around the world, there are going to be 7,000 people who die at that time, at that moment in time as Christ is preparing to return.

…then the remnant, those remaining here is what it means, is what it’s saying in the Greek, those remaining were fearful. So, if you’re in different groups there and you know of different ones who are dying and things that have taken place in their life and you see this as one fell swoop, it’s going to shake you up.

And if seven thousand die and they’re ten percent, what does that leave? It’s not talking about the city of Jerusalem, again, it’s talking about the scattered group. It means there are 63,000 with whom God is going to give an opportunity to be alive and see some things take place. Then they have choices to make. But for most who have been scattered, as a whole, there is going to be a great opportunity there to truly repent and change.

Now, there are others among the 7,000 that are not going to be given that opportunity because they have already been judged or are in the process of being judged, “You’re not going to be there. You’re not going to come into the Millennium.” I would say that includes most everyone in the ministry because of their betrayals, because of the things they’ve done since, and sometimes knowing—not sometimes—there are those things they have conscientiously determined to teach and do that are contrary to what was true and what they’d believed before. That’s a strong judgment when given this responsibility to teach people, to have an opportunity to give them truth; when you had the opportunity, and you didn’t do it there’s a great condemnation there in a very powerful way. They deserve it, that judgment, truly.

It’s like individuals a long time ago in whether it’d been Philadelphia or whatever and they committed certain sins as ministers, they should not only have not been transferred, but they should also have been disfellowshipped, period. That didn’t take place. The Church suffered mightily because of that.

Then the remnant of those remaining, as it talks about here, gave glory to the God of heaven. So, it doesn’t say every individual of that remnant or immediately they did it. But as a whole, there are those who are going to give glory to God at that moment in time because their minds are opened up to everything they did. They’re going to know Christ is returning. They’re going to see things they have been taught about in times past happening right before them. And fearful, finally, because God takes care of 7,000 of them and they know about many of them. Not all of them. They don’t know it all. They won’t know it until later on, until they are told, “7,000 of you died.” They’ll know who they were.

So, you want to talk about timing? The Second Woe is past. Absolutely. When that great resurrection takes place it’s over with. Joshua the Christ and 144,000 are returning and immediately begin to destroy those who are destroying the earth” that day, immediately. They don’t mess around.

Those who resist on the earth, the governments and peoples that continue to want to wage war, they’re going to be killed by this great army of God. Awesome, what’s going to take place. They’re going to have the power to do it. They’ll willingly do it with great desire because they know God’s purpose and God’s plan. They are of the same mind with God in a way that they’ve never experienced before in their lives. No carnal nature ever again. Awesome!

The Second Woe is past. Behold, the Third Woe comes quickly. That’s what it’s about, the Third Woe. We know that it begins at this point when Christ is returning when there is judgment – it’s about judgment, the Third Woe is about judgment. Then it’ll be fulfilled at the end of the Hundred Years in its completion. I find this so inspiring when you see things that God gives to you. 1,100 years to accomplish the Seventh Trumpet.

Absolutely beautiful as far as a plan, a diagram, a blueprint of something, and it’s all there. When God lets you see the blueprint and understanding even more so why it’s there in the manner that it is and why it's being accomplished in this way and why these things apply to that, it’s awesome. The more you can see what God is doing and why and how, but why, the more you understand of God and judgment of God and why He does the things He does in the way that He does, they’re always beautiful, glorious, awesome, beyond words.

Judgment. Judgment is a beautiful thing. God’s judgment is, when it’s executed, because it’s always done in love, love for those who choose God’s way of life. And those who don’t, it’s judgment. If people don’t want it or they have spit upon it over and over again they deserve what they receive. No one deserves life eternal or everlasting life if you will. No one deserves that. To to be blessed with that, to be blessed to be in God’s Family, Elohim, what an incredible thing.

But some have done things that aren’t deserving of that because they’ve made choices and scarred their minds to a degree, whether they be given opportunity in the Great White Throne that’s in God’s hands. Because some of them aren’t even going to be given opportunity then. They’ve gone too far.

That’s why I hate this age we’re living in right now because it’s just like the time of Noah when it talks about the minds of people. People lived for so long their minds became so demented, so distorted, as a whole, that it was better at that moment in time to destroy, to have judgment, to end it all, and to not let mankind live that long because of the kind of mind that it produces.

Again, some would say, “Well, why did He let them live that long then?” They had choices to make. Do you think anyone has ever chosen God? No one ever has except they’ve been drawn by God. Only if they’re drawn by God. Then that’s a choice as well. All the rest deserve nothing except a physical life. That’s all there is for them.

I think of those minds and what God says, and I think about what God has revealed about Lucifer, what took place in his mind the first moment he sinned. He destroyed his thinking because that was spirit. His mind could never be the same again because it’s composed solely of spirit. And by that choice, he destroyed his mind, his thinking.

Mankind can come to that point as well, that we come to a point in time if we choose things that are wrong and evil in the world and choose to live that people can come to a point in time where they so corrupt, the mind becomes so corrupted, it’ll never choose God no matter what kind of conditions are around them because their mind would always want something different of their perverted experiences of the past because of the choices they made then. Awesome, to understand that.

You’re very blessed to understand what takes place in the human mind with God’s spirit because of the right choices you make, because of what you want of God’s way of life, to be ever so grateful that you were called out of the cesspool of life. Because it’s a cesspool. Don’t know if that’s the right word for it, but I just think of one of those great big churning things with all those things floating in it, trying to purify the water, save the water.

It’s very clear here about the timing. It’s at the very end, just at the point of time of the Seventh Trumpet here: “The Second Woe is past.” The Trumpet is being blown; Christ is coming back as King of kings. Awesome.

Verse 15—Then the seventh angel sounded and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world have become of our LORD and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever! Awesome! So, His government is established. The Kingdom of God is established on the earth. Awesome. Beautiful.

So again, the reality is that we have not known everything. God’s Church never has known everything, and we still do not know everything though we know much more than we did just a few years ago. We know far, far more than we did in the time of the early disciples. We have been blessed because of the time we live in and what God has given to us. Awesome!

So, we still don’t know everything though we get closer and closer. That’s why I love the term “the present truth.” Because that’s where we are. Right now, today, there are things we understand about the two witnesses, and hopefully, in a deeper way than we did even two Sabbaths ago. It clarifies a lot of things in God’s plan and when things are going to happen and why and so forth. It’s still very much about God’s Church. That’s the most important thing to God. That’s His greatest work, what He’s doing in the Church.

There are those who have had part in it in times past. There are those who have part in it now. But they still have the impregnation of God’s spirit. Just because you’re asleep doesn’t mean you’re not God’s. You are more God’s than anybody else on earth. They’re all God’s. They all belong to God. They’re all God’s people, God’s Family in the sense of children in a carnal, physical earth.

But within a scattered Body of people who are asleep, well, they have a moment in time where they can be awakened. I was blessed to be awakened early on. Some of you were blessed to be awakened early on. Others at some point since that time. How blessed are we? And yet these have an opportunity to be awakened in a very powerful way by an incredible shaking. The greatest shaking before that was the Apostasy but it wasn’t enough to wake everyone up. It wasn’t God’s time. Now it becomes God’s time. Others judged before that and so forth as to where they are and where they were even still in their lives. Awesome and beautiful.

Always desired a time to see those that “we have walked to God’s house side by side, and counsel blended sweet” be able to have their minds opened up and awakened—the past is the past—and embrace them. Awesome! Everything is forgotten. Everything that has been done, because there’s been a lot done that’s been pretty bad, things said, things done, things in families, and so forth, and it’s like at that point, who cares now? Your mind is open, we are the same mind. When you’re of the same mind it’s a beautiful thing when it comes from God in His Family.

So, looking forward to that. I’ve been looking forward to it for a long time and thought at different times that that was going to take place a long time ago. But it didn’t. There might have been a time when some of that was being offered in part, but it wasn’t meant to be.

We have an outline of events, always have had since Philadelphia on especially, and pieces of the puzzle. That’s why I loved Herbert Armstrong’s example of a puzzle and the pieces you put in, you get those outside edges on their first, as a whole. Maybe you do parts of the picture in the middle there and you think certain things belong in a certain area, and then you get to it and you realize… Anyway, they’re making them more and more difficult all the time.

What an awesome thing to understand that’s what it’s like. Sometimes you find out that no, it doesn’t belong over there, it belongs clear over here. That’s kind of the way it is because we don’t see it all. But to see pieces of a puzzle that others have no comprehension of even one piece is an awesome thing. How blessed are we?

We recognize that we’ve been given more than any other time in human history, even now, but we have not always been given where it all fits or how. Just like this example here of two witnesses. What an incredible thing that one of the last things we have here is to go through this. And what’s next? Amazing.

So again here, the admonition of what we covered in the very beginning, we can’t make the mistakes of the past in our lives. We have to make choices all the way through here. Because I made comment that there are those who continue to leave. Sometimes it just boggles my mind.

How could this happen? How could one make decisions and choices for something else in the world, for whatever it is, for a moment in time of pleasure in a carnal way? Because that’s what generally it is, whether it be of the finances or sex or whatever it is that people make choices about in life, that takes away everything else, cuts you off from God. It’s mind-boggling what human beings can do. But that’s why we have to be on guard, keep close to God. That’s why those sermons keep coming at us as they do.

We have to follow what it says like in here in Revelation 3 when it’s spoken of the Churches, because we look at Sardis, we look at Laodicea and Philadelphia and the things that were said. Because what God told all three of them applies to everyone, as all seven Church eras. There’s a spirit there of things we want to be on guard against and things we want to do, we want to live.

So again here, Revelation 3:2—Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain. Well, we’re blessed to have a lot. Not in a time when some things are going by the wayside. But on the contrary, where God just keeps giving more and more. We need to have the gratitude, the thankfulness, the appreciation to God that we are given such things. That’s why we’re reminded of some of these things from time to time.

Because you know what, during Laodicea people weren’t being reminded of eighteen truths let alone twenty-one. If you were all the way up to the Apostasy I doubt if you ever heard much of anything about twenty-one truths or sermons on them. And you know what happens when you don’t? Laodicea. That’s what happens.

Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die. Well, thankfully, it’s different than the time of Sardis and the things that happened back then. …for I have not found your works perfect before God. Therefore, remember how you have received and heard. That’s the important thing, “Remember how you’ve received and heard.” There’s a way that God works. That should be so simple to us. But look what happened in Laodicea. It was lost. As a whole, very few, very few held on to the way they learned the truth and through whom they learned it.

It says, hold fast and repent. I love this expression here too because to hold fast to God’s truth means you have to repent. We have to repent on a continuing basis in our lives because there is sin in our lives as human beings. “Lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” are always with us as long as we’re in this human body. That’s to be refined as we grow and we conquer more and more, but it doesn’t matter how far you go. There is always going to be something in this mind that God is going to reveal to you that needs to be changed, that is to be changed, that you can work upon, that you need to work upon, that you need to repent of. Beautiful.

It’s just a way of life. To hold fast, that’s our choice. To repent, that’s our choice. Actually, it’s good to even pray about those things, that God help us to be able to see the things of which we need to repent.

Therefore, remember how you have received and heard. It seems so simple, doesn’t it? But it wasn’t even remembered well during Philadelphia and that’s just right after Sardis. Think, a little thick up here sometimes. Should have read these verses a little more often.

Hold fast and repent. Therefore, if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I come upon you. So, the point being is human beings, things can happen, and the mind begins to drift, and you begin to move away from what is true, you begin to do your own thing, your own choices and justify, and on and on it goes. Then before you know it judgment has come upon you, and you don’t even know it. That’s what this is talking about.

It's not talking about his actual return or anything like that. It’s like it’s going to be taken away from you, but you don’t know when because God’s very merciful and He gives us a lot of time. I’ve seen this over and over again in the Church, where God gives individuals a lot of time to address certain things in their life. Exceedingly patient and merciful.

Then to Philadelphia. Well, let’s go ahead and read this in Revelation 3:10—Because you have kept, you watch over or guard My word, it’s not the word “of my patience.” That’s not even how that’s translated. That’s not translated properly. It literally says Because you have kept my word. Well, where does that come from? Well, it comes from God. It’s the truth that God gives to us. That’s what He teaches us Sabbath after Sabbath, Holy Day to Holy Day.

…with patient endurance. You have to fight against this carnal life and carnal mind and the weaknesses to be able to have this kind of attitude. You watch over, you guard, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the world, to try those who dwell upon the earth. Well, that was something unique to that period of time and certainly to God’s apostle at that time, that he didn’t have to see these things come to pass. He didn’t have to see the Apostasy and what happened to the Church during Laodicea. I’m so thankful for that. After all that he did during that point in time what a horrifying thing to have to experience something like that. God blessed him. He didn’t have to experience it.

Others of us did because we were just starting. We had a lot more to learn, a lot more to have molded and fashioned within us because we were being molded and fashioned for something else.

Which reminds me of the next series that I’m getting excited about. That’ll start next Sabbath.

So again, we should know what to hold fast and guard and watch over with patient endurance. Remembering how we received truths, again, like Herbert Armstrong gave over and over again.

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about this this past week and every once in a while different things come out to me. I can’t go through them all. If you think about just Philadelphia alone and I’m reminded of the things God gave through Herbert Armstrong and I’m reminded of those haughty, haughty, arrogant ministers who only saw him as a teacher who taught some good things. That so irritates me to the core of my being I really can’t even express it to you. Because if I expressed it to you you probably wouldn’t want to hear it in the way that I’d express it, with all of what I feel inside.

Because that is such an incredible sickness of sick, sick minds to do something like that and to miss this. They wouldn’t have known diddly squat. They wouldn’t have known about the Sabbaths. God called them.

You think, well other people keep the Sabbath. Yes. But not in the spirit. When you come into God’s Church and you begin to learn about the Sabbath day and why you keep the seventh day and how your mind is to be and how you’re to think toward God and what the purpose of the Sabbath is all about and all the things that it pictures for 7,000 years, on and on it goes, they wouldn’t have known those things.

You can’t figure things out on your own! They’d have been out there doing whatever! Like I knew one man that grew Christmas trees. That’s what his family did. He finally left the Church and went back to Christmas trees from what I heard. That’s what happens. Yeah. Sick world. Minister. He was no minister.

So anyway, examples like this over and over again that have happened to us in times past. So, I think of those haughty and misguided attitudes.

They wouldn’t have known about the eras of the Church. And you know, it came to a point in time in Laodicea where ministers, they didn’t believe in eras anymore. They were actually saying, “They weren’t eras of particular time periods.” If you really address that one and really address what happened in them, you might have to address the fact that you’re actually in Laodicea. So, no eras, we’re not going to be teaching that one there.

What a blessing if they had, to know and understand what was taking place, what they were going through at that time.

They wouldn’t have known about the purpose for their existence. What an incredible thing that we know why we exist. You think about people in the world, they don’t know why they exist, as a whole. To have a concept that somehow they go to someplace. In all religions, as a whole, even in the world, they think they have this place that they’re going to go to in time after death. They’re going to be something different after death that’s better than what they are now.

Because this mind is made that way, that there has to be more, that there is something more. But if you don’t know the truth you don’t know what it is, so you come up with these different ideas of religion and so forth and going up to heaven and “Oh, Joe is up there. He’s looking down on us.” It’s like, “They’re an angel now and they watch over us. They’re here. You can’t see them but they’re here because they’re taking care of you.” And you think, “If you’re taking care, you’re doing a poor job.” You think that would throw that out the window right away.

So, they wouldn’t have known that it’s for the potential of becoming a part of God’s Family, to become Elohim. What an incredible thing to know.

They wouldn’t have understood the things about Lucifer and his rebellion and what took place on the earth. Those ministers who felt so good about things they knew and understood and would teach every Sabbath and every Holy Day that they would get up and teach what they thought was important, they left these things because they thought they knew something better to teach God’s people at Holy Days.

Was it last week, I don’t remember when it was, we were talking about this one minister. After the Apostasy he gets up on the Last Great Day – I don’t even want to tell you what he went into. I don’t want to go there. Nothing about the Last Great Day. People walking out. The minister that got up after him, shame on him. He didn’t correct everything he said. Sick! He really blasphemed Christ in every imaginable way in things he had to say because he said he was basically tempted in all things in his mind, evil things, really evil and contrary to scripture. That’s the bottom line.

Think, slap him silly. You know, if I had it to do over again I think I’d just go up on the stage, I’d grab him by his tie, because at that time we all wore ties, and I’d say, “Follow me. You don’t belong up here and you should never get up in front of God’s people ever again.” I don’t care what all the different ones out there, the evangelists, different ones would say about it. I mean, that’s what I’d do now, but I didn’t have the ability back then. Shame on me.

Or the holy spirit coming into us only begets us. What an incredible thing to understand, and they rise up with their haughtiness and they carry that, they talk about it, but where did they get it? Through Herbert Armstrong. “He was more than a great teacher, you fool. Don’t you understand that everything you have, everything you know came through him? You’re an absolute idiot without that. I mean, you really are an idiot because you’ve rejected it. That’s even worse. That proves you’re an idiot!”

That God is not a trinity. What an incredible thing to come to understand. To come out of that which happened in 325 AD where that gobbledygook of three spiritual musketeers came out in this big church. It’s been with mankind ever since in what’s called Christianity today. They don’t understand, no, Christ hasn’t eternally existed. And the holy spirit. Everybody read King James, as a whole way back then, and if you read something else it might be going off trail because the King James is the best Bible… Anyway, I’m sorry. But it was like it says, “Holy Ghost.” Oh, it’s the ghost; it’s the holy ghost. These words are translated for a reason this way, so that people can’t know the truth, “Because it’s a being.” No, he’s not a being. It's God’s power. Where did that come from, that knowledge? Through Herbert Armstrong, the truth, God’s spirit.

That there is a spirit essence in human minds? What an incredible thing to understand that we’re different than the animal kingdom and other things of creation, that things are like a program. You know, we understand these things better today because when Herbert Armstrong spoke of these things we didn’t have the computer systems like we have today and programs to comprehend. Here to be able to understand this essence then that has a spirit in it that God gives to every living thing, but it’s not the holy spirit and it’s a spirit that’s different. They’re programmed. But it’s not something physical.

You know, a goose. I love to hear geese flying over. You hear them in the distance, and I start looking because I love their formations. I don’t know, there’s just something elegant and majestic about geese making the noise they do, communicating with each other, and flying through the air as they do. They just do it with such ease.

You see a duck then, later on, come along and you know, he’s going a hundred miles an hour, but geese just make it look so simple. That wingspan and carrying that body. Watch a duck and the difference between a duck and a goose. It’s different watching them fly. It’s almost comical like that because a duck is flapping mightily. Not as much as a hummingbird but it flaps a lot.

So, incredible that they have this mind, that it’s just in them, it’s programmed. It’s like a computer program. It’s the best we can understand it. It’s programmed into them and they’re all the same, you know. They can’t give it to something else. They start, they go on a migration at certain times, and they know when to do it, and all these things that take place.

There are some migrations of birds and butterflies. I love the one about the Monarch. It comes out of Canada, and it takes four generations to complete its trip. They die off and they keep going. They keep going to this place in Mexico. If I’m not mistaken, I think it takes three generations to get there and they die off in between. But they keep going to the same place. Then you see these pictures of these trees that are just nothing but butterflies on the bark. You can’t see anything except butterflies, the color of monarchs.

Then they come back the next generation, go all the way and start all over again. It’s in them as little as they are. God did that. They don’t figure it out. Can you imagine evolution? I love The Far Side. How he could have written about some of these things in the thinking process that could go on with some of these butterflies and how they’re trying to figure this out, how to get down to Mexico. For some reason we’ve got to all make it back the fourth time. This just all evolved over time because they figured it all out how to do it.

You think, people are so stupid. People that call themselves intellectuals. You think, how could anybody be so dumb?

But human beings have a capacity to think and reason and remember and create and do things in an incredible way. God has given us that mind, that ability to do that. What we do with our minds then is our choice, how we live life.

What an incredible thing to realize then there’s a time that God can impregnate His holy spirit with that spirit essence that’s in the mind. It’s not something physical, it’s a spirit essence. You can’t measure it. There is no way you can put this probe up here and “Yep, he’s got that spirit essence. He’s still with us.” Anyway, sorry. But to think it can be begotten of God by God’s holy spirit and then the mind can actually begin to be changed to something different?

Because that’s the only way human beings can change their thinking. Otherwise, it’s just always going to be selfishness. We can actually begin to change that. Awesome!

But none of those ministers would have known that had it not come through Herbert Armstrong. Yet they believed so much of those things that were there, as a whole, the majority of it. I could go on and on.

Then I think about this period of time, PKG, and why sometimes we’re encouraged to remember how you heard it, to remember what you heard, to remember how God works. Because these are things of conviction that teach us and give us a confidence this is God’s Church, the truth is there. And where does it come from? It comes from God. But it comes to us in a specific way. That’s where the light comes to us. That’s how it works. What a beautiful thing.

That’s why I love the candle there, as it talks about, the light that’s there, the oil, because you don’t have access to it except in that manner. Isn’t that an amazing thing? Those people that discarded that, they went off on their own and they were cut off from the oil because they wouldn’t hold on to what God had given through His apostle, Herbert Armstrong. Awesome to understand those things.

Well, I could go on, but I’ll stop there. Just to remember those things, to hold on to what you have. To realize the power that’s there. Because it’s our strength. The truth is our strength, it really is, mixed with God’s spirit. That’s why we pray about those things. That’s why we try to refresh our minds in those things. That’s why we hear about them from time to time in sermons and so forth, and that references are made. So that we don’t forget. We understand those things in a deeper way than ever before in God’s Church and should account that as an awesome blessing that God has given to us.

I’ve debated whether or not to go through some more news. I don’t know whether to do that because some of this can be boring to some and it can be monotonous to some, and I kept you really late the last time I did this. But it needs to be impressed upon our minds, “Look where we are!” And I’m just covering a few of the things that are out there.

But I think it’s expedient for us to look at some of these things, to realize just how close we are so we’re sobered even more so to keep striving to draw closer to God, to keep striving to live by the things that God is giving to us, to keep striving and crying out for God to help us to see the things we need to repent of, as I mentioned earlier, and then to repent and be thankful for what He gives to us, to see one another in the Body as of the Body, Family. Because that’s been something that’s lacked in times past, and we still are growing in it. But we need to grow all the time in that and do better and better.

So, I’ll go ten minutes or so. Some of you get this, some of this all on a regular basis, but this is amazing to me. This is right at two weeks of news. I’m not going through everything. I don’t even know how to express this about how astounding it is the kind of news that’s out there week after week after week right now compared to a year ago or two years ago when you’d rarely find anything. You might wait several months to hear something and now it’s constant.

Every day there is something out there of conversation about nuclear weapons and threat of nuclear war. And that’s not even counting all the other things that are going on in the world if you want to talk about Thunders and so forth. Those are the things we should be hearing and to understand.

It’s like I’m wanting to work on getting a Feast site in Europe and I think it may not be necessary. But I still have to do it. But I question whether we’re really going to need it or not. We have known and believed that things could happen at any time. Ever since I’ve been in the Church we’re always preparing and looking ahead. Generally, things are farther down. But now because of these things here, this is rocking us hard, if we understand it. These things here are powerful, what we’re going through and have gone through.

So, just to finish off Part 4 with news as I have in the others, I’m going to go ahead.

“Russian military releases propaganda pop song fantasizing about its nukes wiping out NATO and the US.”[1] Now, you think what a crazy world we live in. So, they have this distributed throughout their military. Is there something behind the pop song? Well, why would they do it?

Anyway, “The Russian military released a pop song Saturday fantasizing about wiping out NATO and the US with its nuclear weapons. The song and music video celebrates the Sarmat ICBM, affectionately referred to as ‘Sarmatushka’ in the title.” You’re celebrating and you’re singing a song about this great nuclear weapon you have now that’s greater than nuclear weapons you’ve had in the past?

“It is the latest in a series of increasingly overt celebrations of its weapons of mass destruction, which have increased in salience as Russia struggles with its land invasion of Ukraine. The music video for the song was published by…for its propaganda. It features footage of the Sarmat and what appear to be uniformed Russian soldiers. The fearsome missile can carry large nuclear warheads and has been dubbed the ‘Son of Satan’ for its destructive power.”

I’m not even going to go ahead and read the rest of it. But you think, what a mindset. There are things happening right now that sound more like Germany than ever before, things that are going on, threats that are going on to other countries now, “You do this…” and “We’re getting ready to invade next ‘this’ country or ‘that’ country.” It’s like, there was a person who did that a long time ago too, and he did it.

Anyway, another one here: “Russian ally deploys new weapons.”[2] “The US State Department responded to Putin’s visit to Minsk by accusing Belarus of “ceding its independence” to Russia. Belarus is aiding and abetting Russia in the ‘brutal war’ in Ukraine, State Department spokesman…” Anyway, this stuff going on with Belarus, another story in itself. But you know, if you’re watching some of these things they mean something to you because they’re ratcheting it up on a constant basis.

Another article here. I’ll just toss this one in, not about war: “Everything Is Fine... Until It Isn't.”[3] This has to do with the economy. I think I read part of that to you recently anyway, about what’s being said and what the FED is doing. But they keep referring back to 2008. Amazing, over and over and over again. Think that wasn’t an important year? Incredible.

So, I’ll just read one comment. “…you can expect a financial crisis that will make 2008 look like good times.” That’s what this one economist is saying.

Anyway, another one here: “Europe gripped by worst-ever bird flu outbreak: EU.”[4] France 24, October the 20-21. I don’t know if any of you have heard some of those things in the United States. People probably don’t know how many millions have already been killed here in the United States when you talk about poultry and so forth because it hasn’t gone away. They just don’t talk about it as much. But Europe has taken an incredible swipe this past year.

This article says, “Between October 2021 and September 2022, around 2,500 outbreaks of bird flu were detected on farms in 37 European countries, the European Food Safety Authority, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the EU said. In that time ‘some 50 million birds were slaughtered’ on affected farms, the EFSA reported. The toll did not include preventive culls of chickens, ducks, and turkeys that were carried out alongside the outbreaks…”

Anyway, in other words, there’s a whole lot more than that that are being killed because they have to get rid of others as well to seek to prevent it, and some of those by their own choice.

Anyway, “Russia is,” again here, says, “is training Belarusian pilots to fly combat jets with ‘special warhead’ capabilities Belarusian state-controlled media announced during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the country on Monday, his first in three years.”[5]

Here is another one: “…Sarmat ballistic missiles to be put on combat duty in near future, says Putin.”[6] “Putin announced that Russia’s terrifying new ‘Sarmat’ strategic missile system, which successfully passed flight tests back in November, will be put on combat duty in the near future. Speaking at a meeting of the Russian Defense Ministry board, Putin said: ‘This year the level of modern weaponry in the strategic nuclear forces exceeded 91 per cent. The rearmament of the Strategic Missile Forces regiments with the modern Avangard hypersonic warhead missile system is continuing.’”

Like it wasn’t enough just to have one, they want to have the fastest as well. They have them. We’re just getting to the point now where we’ve had a—at least I’ve heard of one—successful hypersonic missile. And you think, they’ve had it for quite a while. So has China.

“Russia, China threat ‘alarming’: Foreign policy expert.”[7] What they had to say here, I’ll go through this. This is Mary Kissel. She’s a former senior advisor to the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. She said, “‘Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, is an expansionist power with a massive nuclear capability that has invaded its neighbors over a series of years and is using some very loose rhetoric about using those nuclear weapons. This is an important fight,’” speaking of what’s going on in Ukraine. “‘And meanwhile, communist China is showing, just by sheer numbers of its military development, what its aggressive intentions are.’” So, there are some people out there, they know exactly what they’re doing. They know what China is doing. They acknowledge it. They know what Russia is doing and what end it’s going in, what it’s going to end in.

It goes on to say, “‘So I think when we talk about Zelenskyy's trip, it's very important to put it in that broader context, because this isn't just a fight between the Ukrainians in the Russians. I think it's much more significant than that.’ Bolstering Kissel's claim that the Russia-Ukraine war is a unilateral conflict, Japan announced an increase in its defense budget as a response to China and Russia commencing live fire joint naval exercises.”

So, if you’ve been watching the news, Japan is getting more and more concerned. They’re changing their policies that they’ve had since WWII about arming themselves and why they’re doing it.

“Japan's decision to double their defense spending is an attempt to establish ‘aggressive footing’ before China takes a page out of Putin's playbook.” {US not taking China threat seriously enough, expert warns: 'We've been very naïve'.[8]}

“‘Japan has had decades of essentially pacifist policies in place. They've stepped back and said, we're going to not just double defense spending, we're going to buy Tomahawk missiles, we're going to buy jet fighters. We are going essentially on a very aggressive footing because we look over the water and we see what communist China is doing.’” You know, things don’t die. Because, just WWII and what happened there, the hatred between the two countries. It’s just things are a little flip-flopped right now in a sense, but it’s still a horrible sentiment between the two.

“‘And it's not just these joint exercises with Russia… you can just go down the list,’ Kissel continued. ‘It's very clear just by looking at the numbers what communist China's intent is. And frankly, we should be just as alarmed as the Japanese are,’ Kissel concluded.” So, it’s like we’re really not that alarmed. We’re playing games.

Here is an article I’m not going to read, just the headline here. “Entire Battalion Of German Puma Tanks Fail To Pass Latest Drill In Embarrassing Blow To Its Military Capabilities.”[9] So, they’ve gone from Panzer to Puma. Anyway. They try to use names. I’m trying to make a little bit of a joke there and it didn’t go over very well. Puma is the cat, the sleek, fast, and these tanks haven’t proven to be that. So, the point being is here, what do you do if you’re a country and you know your military stinks? What do you do when you realize you really don’t have a whole lot, to fight against a great power if they do decide to come knocking on your door with greater power? You ought to know what they’ll turn to. It’ll be weapons they already have in the form of NATO.

So, they play these games back and forth and they know where they stand and their weaknesses.

Another one here: “US Leading Economic Indicators Plunge Most ‘Since Lehman.’”[10]

Another one: “For the first time in public: Putin called the invasion of Ukraine ‘war.’”[11] He kept away from that for a long time, not calling it a war. Now he’s calling it a war in public.

Another one here: “Russia may launch attack on Moldova in early 2023, says country's security chief.”[12] Now, you think, do you think he’s just going to say something like this without knowing that Medvedev and Putin are in full agreement with him in what he’s saying and why they’re saying it. There are a lot of things done in propaganda and reasons for it, but sometimes there are some stuff behind this, too, not just threats but things they could do. I’m not even going to read the rest of the article.

Another article here: “US-Russia Relations In ‘Ice Age’ & Risk Of Direct Clash ‘High’: Kremlin.”[13] “Russia's ambassador to the United States issued a statement Friday assessing the state of Moscow-Washington relations as having entered an ‘ice age’ - according to state-owned TASS. Ambassador Anatoly Antonov said that currently the risk of a direct clash between the US and Russia remains ‘high’ - after the foreign ministry on Thursday again charged that the Biden administration is fueling a ‘proxy war’ in Ukraine.”

Now, they know this is what’s going on. Anybody that can’t admit that isn’t too bright. It’s like we’re really at war, but they’re fighting it; they’re doing it there on their soil, but nevertheless, we’re the ones behind it and in many cases pushing it… as well as NATO.

Another article: “Former NATO commander urges long-range weapons for Ukraine.”[14] Now, you know if other countries are doing some of these things and responding to something you did in a stupid way in the first place, which he really wasn’t stupid because he knows what he’s doing. He knows why he invaded Ukraine. He knows what he’s doing. They’re testing out things, doing things. People don’t mean anything to him. The numbers of military, it doesn’t mean a whole lot. It really doesn’t. It’s about other things and for him, it’s getting back the USSR, okay, and how he plans on doing it.

If you think there is not a plan behind this, of everything they’re trying to do? “Former NATO commander urges long-range weapons for Ukraine.” More and more we keep stepping it up. We have forbidden certain things to be used and then we keep stepping it up. NATO nations are stepping it up, but NATO nations as a whole don’t do a lot of that stuff without “It’s okay.” They have this talk back and forth, but they keep ratcheting it up.

How long do you think it’s going to take before something big happens because of what they’re doing? How much are they going to take? How many missiles? What about striking deeper into Russia? How deep do you think Russia is going to allow because that’s what’s taking place right now.

I’m not going to go through the articles here about the CIA and different ones that they’re coming out with now and working with some other spy agencies and so forth in Europe to do some of that attacks that are taking place in Russia. So, they’ve had bombings in malls and petrochemical plants, oil depots, all kinds of places that are taking place. They’re calling it terrorism. Yeah, well, for them I’m sure it is terrorism.

But they keep poking the bear. What a perfect picture. You’ve got a bear over here and you’re just poking it with a stick. You bring on three buddies and they’re poking him with a stick and getting closer to the eyes. How long do you think he’s going to take it? It’s not going to take long. He’s going to strike back. You’re not going to look so good when he gets through with you for poking at a bear.

Article after article after article in two weeks’ time. Two years ago, maybe one of these a month.

So, if that doesn’t do something to us in realizing the intensity of times of where we are? We’ve always known this was coming. We always have known a third world war is going to take place. We always knew it was going to be ugly. And just pray to God that it be quick, that it be over with rapidly when it begins. Because if it does and if it weren’t? You know? That’s why nuclear war is different. Because we’ve never really experienced nuclear war on this earth. But when they start flying who is going to be the first one to stop or let up?

When you’re talking about wiping out tens of thousands of people in cities, hundreds of thousands, is anyone going to take that lying down, or are they going to retaliate in like manner and maybe even more? When that starts it doesn’t have to last for a long time. It really doesn’t, thank God. Thank God it doesn’t have to last for 3½ years like we used to think.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.co.za/russian-army-helps-produce-song-nukes-wiping-out-nato-us-2022-12

[2] https://www.rt.com/russia/568556-lukashenko-putin-iskander-s400/

[3] https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/everything-fine-until-it-isnt

[4] https://www.news24.com/fin24/international/europe-gripped-by-worst-ever-bird-flu-outbreak-eu-20221221

[5] https://www.zerohedge.com/military/russia-training-belarusian-combat-pilots-ukraine-fears-new-assault

[6] https://euroweeklynews.com/2022/12/21/intercontinental-ballistic-missiles-sarmat-combat-duty-putin/

[7] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-china-threat-alarming-foreign-policy-expert/ar-AA15xj7Q

[8] https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/us-taking-china-threat-seriously-enough-expert-warns-naive

[9] https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/entire-battalion-german-puma-tanks-fail-pass-latest-drill-embarrassing-blow-its

[10] https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/us-leading-economic-indicators-plunge-most-lehman

[11] https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/22/europe/putin-uses-word-war-fighting-ukraine-russia-intl-hnk/index.html

[12] https://news.yahoo.com/russia-may-launch-attack-moldova-232000093.html

[13] https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-russia-relations-ice-age-risk-direct-clash-high-kremlin

[14] https://www.rt.com/russia/568817-nato-commander-ukraine-strikes/