Exercising God’s Love, Pt. 7

Ronald Weinland

May 27, 2023

Okay, this is going to be Part 7 of the current series Exercising God’s Love, and you haven’t had Part 6 I’m quite certain, obviously, so some of you are juggling sermons here because of our travel and so forth. You’ll be able to go back and listen to Part 6 next Sabbath.

I’m going to go back and review a little bit of what we covered in the UK. Some of you in the UK, obviously, you’ll be right along with all this so that’s good. This won’t be in your notes for those of you from The Netherlands because I’m backing up into Part 6 a little bit.

We’re going to go back and just pick up a few things here about God’s love and what we’ve been covering. The book of 1 John that we’ve gone through has been quite strong in what it had to say. We’re going to be going into Jude in a little bit, which is much stronger in the sense of what God has to say and what He tells us concerning this period of time we’re in right now. Because most of all that’s written in these areas toward the end are about this period of time.

It’s always been for all of God’s people. The eras of God’s Church have been for all of God’s people throughout time. Some were very specific for the times they were in, but they apply to everyone. But everything as a whole applies more and more to the end in what we’re going through now.

I want to go back right now and pick up a few things that were covered in the UK last Sabbath in Part 6, in Ephesians 4. The context of this is about God’s love. But it’s not in the world. It’s not about exercising God’s love to the world because the world can’t receive it. It’s about us. It’s about fellowship. It’s about our ability amongst ourselves to exercise God’s love.

Now, we’re to exercise love in the world and be kind and gentle and so forth, and patient, and the things that we’re not really good at. But we need to do that too in the world. But this is in the context of the Church. All these things are. I think that is a better way of expressing some of this than in times past because God is giving us more understanding that this is where He wants it applied.

He wants His love applied, lived, and exercised in His Church, one toward another. This is part of what Ephesians is going through. So, when you hear Part 6, keep that well in mind.

Ephesians 4:29 as an example here, where we were at the end last Sabbath. Let no corrupt (bad, as it is), communications proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the purpose of — it says “edifying,” but it means building, like in construction, building up. This is about us. This is about the Church. And so, we should understand that we shouldn’t be speaking badly and poorly and in wrong ways in the world, but all the more so in God’s Church. That’s what this is about.

…to the use of edifying. We can’t build up the world. They’re not called yet – in the sense of what it’s talking about here. It’s about our effect upon one another.

It goes on to say …that it may give grace, that which comes from God, from Christ into our lives. If we’re crying out for it, if we’re seeking to be closer to God, and especially how we think about one another, how we treat one another, how we talk about one another.

…that it may give grace unto any listening. Even do not grieve the holy spirit of God. It’s a grieving thing; in the sense of what it’s saying here it’s a frustrating thing for God, if you will, if we don’t strive to be at one with Him, with His Son, with His way of life, to live His way of life.

It’s a frustrating thing when individuals go astray, when they go off on different tangents, when they begin to do wrong things toward one another within the Church. That’s a thing that frustrates, in a sense, God’s spirit, grieves God’s spirit. Because God wants to give us His holy spirit all the time. He wants us to be filled with that life, and if we’re not yielding our self to it it grieves the whole purpose, it frustrates the whole purpose of why Christ died. He died so we could be forgiven of sin, so that we could have a fellowship within the Church, the Body of Christ. That’s what these things are about, the Body of Christ.

Even do not grieve the holy spirit by which you were sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor… We shouldn’t have that toward the world, either, but this is about God’s Church! We should not have these things toward one another. When they happen they’re really disgusting. They’re despicable, if you will, as far as God’s way of life, that anyone in God’s Church would treat another individual in God’s Church in a poor way, in a way that expresses anger towards someone.

Where do we get off at any point in time ever having anger toward one another? I mentioned last Sabbath this almost happens every Feast of Tabernacles. If it happens at the Feast of Tabernacles you know it’s happening at other times in various areas. These things shouldn’t take place. That’s why we’re covering some of this, so we can look at ourselves more deeply. God is giving us an opportunity to realize, to understand, to see that there is a higher standard in His Church when we’re begotten with His holy spirit. He’s refining us in that more now than ever.

Why? He’s getting ready for His Son to return. Getting us in shape, if you will, in way that, candidly, never has happened to this level, to this degree in God’s Church ever because of where we are, because of the timing we live in.

So again, when you look at it in this context, “let no bitterness,” we shouldn’t have any bitterness toward anyone in God’s Church. If anyone has bitterness in God’s Church, do you know what that means? It means you’ve got some repenting to do quickly because something is wrong with you. If I have bitterness toward someone it’s my fault, it’s my problem no matter what they have done to me or said to me. It’s me. It’s my mind that has to change if I’m going to be right with God.

Because I have to think right toward His children. We all belong to God. We don’t have the right to judge, in that respect, one another, looking down upon one another, being bitter toward someone else in God’s Church. That’s why I mentioned every Feast of Tabernacles there is something that happens where people don’t get along. It’s a good thing to learn. Put a bunch of people together in closer quarters and sometimes it’s easier for an abrasion to take place and clashes to begin to happen. Shouldn’t happen in God’s Church.

So, no bitterness, no wrath, no anger, clamor, evil speaking. We shouldn’t be speaking evil of one another, badly about one another, putting each other down and talking to others about someone else and just making people look bad. We ought to get rid of that kind of thing.

…and evil speaking be put away from you with all evil, and be kind to one another, to one another in the Body of Christ, in the Church of God.

…tender-hearted, forgiving one another – being of a forgiving attitude and mind toward one another. That’s the way we should always be. Look at what we’ve been forgiven of. We’re to learn from that. We’re to be the same way toward one another, being of a forgiving nature, a desire to forgive, a desire to give the benefit of the doubt and give time to individuals. We haven’t overcome and conquered overnight, and we’re not finished, because we’ve all had problems.

Each one of us, we have to look in our own mirror and see what we need to change, not what others need to change. Isn’t that funny about human nature? It’s easy to see where we think others need to change. Something is wrong with them. But it’s so hard to see it in ourselves and it’s even harder then to admit it, even when God shows us something’s wrong. Then it’s harder to actually admit that “Something is wrong with me, and I need to repent, and I need to change.”

“Forgiving one another.” Look what it says. …even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you. Now, if we grasp what that is saying, that ought to cut us to the core and make us realize absolutely, thank God that we can see that.

Ephesians 5:1—Therefore, be followers of God as dear children. That means to be, want to be God-like, to be like God.

…and walk in agape. That’s God! That’s the being of God. Everything about what God does is of His spirit, but it’s that mind of agape, love, a kind of love that mankind doesn’t have and cannot work up and can’t have except that God gives us of His holy spirit and we can begin to exercise it. God wants us to exercise His spirit, His love. And how do you do that? By the very things it’s talking about here. By things we know we shouldn’t do and by learning the things we should do toward each other, to do it God’s way.

And if we try to strive to do that and cry to God for help and His spirit in order to do those things, especially if we’re having a difficulty with someone, we know the difficulty is with us. It’s not them, it’s us, and “I need to change.” That’s what we have to see.

God’s being very straightforward with us and very powerful with us right now to help us to see these things in a level, in a way that we haven’t really seen them to this before. I hope you can see that as we go through all this.

…and walk in agape as Christ has also loved us. It says it over and over. I was kind of amazed going through all this how many times it brings this up, what Christ said on Passover night. “A new commandment I give to you, that you’re to love one another as I have loved you.” Then over and over again, just like here, it’s bringing it up here how he loved us. He was willing to give his life – to give of self totally in this case.

That’s the mindset God wants us to have. That’s what it takes, a sacrificing kind of love. You have to sacrifice self and our own feelings because our feelings we protect, “Oooh, I’ve been hurt. Somebody said something bad to me.” We need to grow up in God’s Church – when those things happen. That’s what that means. We just need to see ourselves and realize how foolish some things sound and seem. When we do those things they’re really childish spiritually, on a spiritual plane, and we have to strive to go beyond that and ask God for help.

Because you can’t do it by yourself. That’s why we go to God and ask for His help to do it. So we can live right toward one another. Because treating any of God’s children in a bad way is a horrifying, sick sin. It really is. Because if we don’t see that and grasp that we’re missing the mark on a spiritual plane that God wants us to see and to achieve to.

…therefore, be followers of God as dear children. As children, we’re all children of God, and walk in agape as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. It’s really a beautiful scripture. Because if we do that that’s what we’re doing, offering.

That’s why I love the way it says it on the Holy Days when we go through and read Leviticus 23 and it commands, commanded them “to offer up an offering in fire before God.” In respect, what it’s talking about here, “a sweet-smelling sacrifice.” But that was all physical.

But what it is looking to is this, that we’re willing to do this, we’re willing to go through the fire to change, to become something different. We want that. We want to be transformed. We want this mind to be different than just selfish. Because that’s what we are as human beings, selfish, “Lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life” – self, self, self, self, self. That’s where drama comes from. That’s where anger comes from. That’s where resentment comes from. That’s where jealousy comes from. That’s where everything that’s wrong comes from.

Let’s go to Jude. Now we’re caught up to your notes as far as The Netherlands here. We’re going to go through the book of Jude. I’d mentioned this. I don’t remember if it was last Sabbath or the Sabbath before, one of these parts I’d mentioned that we’re going to go back here to the book of Jude then later on, and this is that later on.

Jude :1. Not many are really familiar with the book of Jude. His name is a derivative from the name of Judah. He was one of the twelve apostles, the brother of James, and half-brother of Joshua. Isn’t that awesome? You think, what an incredible thing that he had two half-brothers in that respect who became apostles. To me, that’s awesome. Jude was one of them.

He’s also referred to as Thaddaeus in scripture. Obviously, and then as Judas, like in John 14 where it asks a question of Christ and is referred to as “Judas, not Iscariot,” if you remember the scripture there, “not Iscariot.” So, it’s referring to this Judah.”

Okay, Jude :1—Jude, a servant of Joshua the Christ, the brother of James. Now, they didn’t put out there “and the half-brother of Joshua.” No purpose in that. It says already he’s a servant of Joshua the Christ, the Messiah. That’s what’s important, the spiritual.

…the brother of James. To those who are sanctified by God the Father. Everyone who’s ever come into God’s Church has been sanctified, set apart for holy use and purpose. That’s what God does when He begins to call us. That’s what happens when we’re able to be baptized. We are set apart. When God begins to dwell in us, when His spirit begets us, set apart for holy use and purpose until we’re able to grow and one day be born into Elohim, the God Family.

…and preserved in Joshua the Christ. Almost skipped that. …and preserved in Joshua the Christ. Because his life must be in us, we must be in him, hence, we must be in the Father and the Father in us. That’s how God’s spirit works. It works through Christ to the Church, to the ministry, to the Church, and we’re blessed and fed that way constantly Sabbath by Sabbath, Holy Day to Holy Day.

Mercy to you. How merciful God is to us, we should be able to see that. This is something we’re to grasp and comprehend. God’s exceedingly merciful to each and every one of us. All we have to do is look at ourselves. Every time our carnal human nature comes out there should be this giant bell that goes off. If we just repent from doing the wrong things God is merciful to us. He wants us to succeed.

…and peace. We should want peace, peace that comes from God, from living His way of life.

…and agape (love). That’s from God. These things are from God. True mercy, true peace, real love, the kind of love we’re talking about here, the only source is God Almighty and His Son Joshua. We need it day by day. We have to cry out for it day by day so we can fight against this.

…be multiplied. So, God wants these things to be multiplied in our life.

So, this is what Jude is addressing right at the get-go. It’s interesting where he goes from this moment because he’s going to become very, very strong in what he has to say.

Beloved… I’m just going to read it as a better translation here because some of this is really kind of messed up. But anyway. I have been given all urgency to write unto you of the common salvation. That’s what he’s saying. In other words, it’s very urgent upon his mind; that’s why he’s doing this writing. He said, “It’s been given to me, the sense of urgency, we all have this common salvation of what,” in essence, “what we need to see, what we need to grasp.”

It is necessary for me to write to you and exhort you to earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints. Now, if you look at this moment in time, the Church hasn’t existed very long, really, in the scheme of things. They didn’t know it was going to go on for another, what, nineteen hundred years beyond their time. They didn’t know these things. Yet in Revelation it talks about different eras in the Church.

So, they didn’t grasp this, but he knew this. God gave him this to see and understand, that by the time you come up to when Jude wrote this, when you go through the books of 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John, we’re getting a lot later in the period of Ephesus, the first Church era, and it’s almost to the end. Because most of them have been killed to this moment in time, the disciples, the apostles, if you will.

Soon John, which is believed to be the only one who died naturally within the Church of the apostles, he was the last, but here we have things that are written by Jude then that God wants us to see and grasp and understand that was important for Ephesus, but it’s important to everyone, especially now.

So, he says, “Contend for the faith.” What does that mean? It means you have to work for, to hold on to, to watch, to guard, as we covered last Sabbath, truth that God gives to us. Because that’s what we’re able to believe. God gives us His way of life, His understanding, His mind, truth that we have, and our ability then to see it, to believe it – which you can’t believe it unless God gives it to you, and the way you find that out is by trying to share this truth with anyone else. Because they can’t see it. They think you’re wacky, you’re nuts, you’re a religious fanatic, “Please, stop!” But sometimes we try until we learn only God can call.

And so, these things here, being said to this degree, we have the ability to believe. Our choice then to live by it and ask God for help to live by it is what faith is. Because we believe it and we want to hold on to it and we choose then to live by it, it’s a beautiful thing, faith, the ability to live by what we believe.

Beloved, I have been given all urgency to write unto you the common salvation that is necessary for me to write to you and exhort you.

It is necessary for me to write to you and exhort you to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. (Verse 4) For there are certain ones… Not in the world, this is talking about the Church. For there are certain ones who have come in alongside us who were before of old ordained to this condemnation. Wow! So, by this time, even John speaks of it, Paul spoke of these things, that there are people who came along. John referred to them as antichrist because they were the only ones who could fit the title of antichrist.

That’s why for a long time in the Church there was this thought, idea that there would be this great world leader of this great religion in the world who would be the antichrist. He can’t be antichrist. He never could have been. We didn’t understand that. Because he was never in God’s Church. He never knew the truth. None of them ever have. And you know who, hopefully, I am referring to. That great big church down in Italy. They couldn’t be antichrist. We had this conversation last night about Italy. I think I messed it up. Some Americans tend to pronounce it wrong. Anyway.

So, it’s saying here, certain ones in the Church – certain ones in the Church have come along, and it says, “who were of old ordained to this condemnation.” There are things in the Old Testament that God spoke of that would happen in the future. We’ve just never known. We haven’t known a lot of the things in the Old Testament that are about, let alone this period of time right now, the end-time. A lot of this God hasn’t shown us until the last couple of years, that there is a lot.

But Herbert Armstrong used to speak of different prophesies and so forth in the Old Testament, but we didn’t know there’s a whole lot more there about this period of time. We’re going to find out in time there’s a lot written there about the Millennium we don’t even know about yet, the Great White Throne we don’t even know about yet. In God’s time, He’ll reveal it. Awesome.

So, it says, These individuals were ordained to this condemnation, ungodly ones. Now, what a horrible thing to think that within the Church of God there would be antichrists, many antichrists, as John said. Paul gave the prophecy that there would be one who would be the man of sin, the son of perdition who would be at the forefront of an apostasy, a great falling away within God’s own Church. Those things were almost unimaginable, to think that they would be able to happen. And candidly, within the Church, before it actually happened we had no concept that it would be as massive and as hard and brutal as it was.

…ungodly ones, turning the grace of our God for the purpose of participating in lewd behavior. Now, basically, that means to do whatever you want that’s totally against God’s way of life, but to the degree that some of it is heinous, perverted, and sick. Which has happened in God’s Church over and over and over again because we live in the world, we are human beings, and people are capable of evil things.

And so, if we’re able to see it that way all things that are against God and against Christ are evil. When we begin to cut off the flow of God’s spirit in our life because of some sin that we want to hold on to, whatever it is—whatever it is—we start turning toward being antichrist. Almost unthinkable. To fight against the very one who gave his life, blood spilling out to the earth when the spear was jammed up into his gut, and his blood to the earth, for all of us. Then to turn against that?

We’ve had so many. That’s all I’ve known since I’ve been in God’s Church, the majority who just keep going by the wayside. Throughout Worldwide it happened over and over again. Some places entire congregations going with a minister who turned, became antichrist. Friends, different ones in time whom we’ve known of who eventually went by the wayside.

Then after the Apostasy, so many that God awakened and brought along, and they started a process. Some didn’t last very long. Six months, three months, a year? But we embraced them. We were thankful. We were excited. We embraced them as brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ. Many of them, the majority became antichrist again. Unimaginable that such things could have happened, but they did.

…ungodly ones turning the grace of our God into the purpose of participating in lewd behavior and denying the only LORD God and our Lord Joshua the Christ. What does that mean? Denying the holy spirit to live in us because of sin. That’s what it’s saying. That’s how we deny God. That’s how we deny Christ, it’s when we hold on to sin. If we continue to hold on to some sin and we’re not fighting it and we’re not actively engaged in fighting it, we’re working against the purpose of Christ’s sacrifice. We’re working against God’s spirit. As soon as there is sin God cuts us off.

Now, we may have the ability to continue to be in the environment, a fellowship, but when you’re cut off spiritually, when you’re literally cut off spiritually, you’re not able to fellowship on a spiritual plane anymore. You’re just living in the past on things you know. Those things have happened in God’s Church over and over and over again.

…and denying the only LORD God and our Lord Joshua the Christ. Therefore, I will put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the LORD, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt… Going all the way back to the Old Testament and what happened because we’re to learn from those things. We’re to learn of the power of Almighty God and how He worked with a carnal physical people. And how much worse is it when we’ve actually been given the mind of God, the holy spirit of God dwelling in us and we do things then on a spiritual plane, and even, period, that are worse than what they did?

…though you once knew this, how that the LORD, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterward destroyed those who did not believe. So, it was brought up over and over against here. Think of all the ones at different times. It’s going to mention some of them whom God destroyed. Because they saw physical things, but they saw enough that they should have kept their mouths shut and they should have listened to Moses and what he had to say. Very carnal. But even on a physical plane, they should have had more smarts.

Some people think that the Israelites were really great. No, they weren’t because they didn’t have God’s spirit. They were just carnal people, really carnal as all human beings are, really carnal. No one is better than others. The Israelites weren’t special above other peoples, it’s just they were the ones with whom God was working to set, to help us to see and to learn things on a spiritual plane.

Therefore, I will put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the LORD, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterward destroyed those who did not believe. Even the angels which did not keep their original domain, but left their own habitation… They went to do something different than what God had told them they were to do. They had their own ideas of what they wanted to accomplish. They listened to Lucifer who became Satan. They listened to him, a third of them. Mind-boggling!

It happened in the angelic realm. After how long? We don’t know. Billions of years of being involved with God in the creation of the universe?

Some people have this concept in the world that if God was the Creator and thinking that God’s a creator that somehow He just kind of snapped His fingers and poof, overnight, there’s the universe. Everything came into being all in one moment. No, it didn’t happen that way. A good way of understanding some of that is to realize what God did when He remolded and fashioned the earth and what He did in seven days. He could have snapped His fingers, could have happened all at once. That’s not the way God does things. We learn from that.

To learn from that, if in the future the 144,000 and all the others added in God’s Family and all you had to do was say something and it’s done. No work involved. You just say it, and everything is done and what you think in your mind is done.

Anyway, sometimes we get funny ideas because we’re very physical and we can’t grasp how God has given us things to show us there is work. God’s been working for ages and ages and ages that we can’t even comprehend. For a long, long time. To think that we’re just now getting to a point where we can see about 13.5 billion light years away from here, light in the universe. Because I think that’s where they think the edge is. And how much is beyond that, we don’t even know because the light may not have gotten to the earth yet, of something 14, 15, 100 billion light years away. How big is it? Don’t have the foggiest idea.

So the angels then, it’s talking about those who followed Lucifer, Satan, and his ideas.It goes on to say, even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and going after other flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the… It’s not the word “vengeance” in the Greek, it’s justice of eternal fire.

So, there are those that have been judged. There is a time for God’s judgment and time that God is going to do various things in His purpose, in His plan.

Now, the next verse here, verse 8, has been butchered. I don’t know what word you’d use here, but it’s horrible how it’s been mistranslated. So, I’m just going to read through part of this verse 8—Likewise, even these, the word “filthy” isn’t even there, dreamers. It just says these dreamers defile… I even hate to go through the explanation of this because this is so poorly written or translated.

I’m just going to give some corrections here. Likewise, also these… Who is it referring to? Well, back up to verse 4, “for there are certain ones who have come in alongside us who were before of old.” So, it’s referring back to people who have come along in God’s Church in time and things that they have done where they have been cut off, where they have left, where they have become antichrist and haven’t come back. The majority of people called since the Church began have gone by the wayside. All antichrist because they all had choices, every one of them.

So, “likewise, also these,” referring to those who have done the things they have. “Dreaming to defile,” as the word truly means here. That’s what it’s talking about. “Dreaming to defile.” In other words, things come into the mind of things an individual wants to do that are different from what God says they should be doing. The mind starts working.

You know, the mind by dwelling on things that are wrong and bad can be drawn then, obviously, to do things because it starts in the mind. That’s what it’s talking about. You start thinking about it first. And the more you think about it, and you harbor those thoughts, those wrong thoughts, that wrong thinking maybe toward someone or something or whatever it might be, “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” and you continue to think things that are not right as far as God is concerned and you think about them, and you allow them to grow, eventually action follows. That’s where all sin comes from, it comes from the way we think, and we think wrong and eventually, it leads to action.

So, that’s what it’s saying here, Likewise, also these, dreaming to defile… Because that means dreaming, thinking things that aren’t right with God, but just thinking about it so much that eventually you just do it.

…set aside. Not “despise dominion.” It’s not saying that. They set aside, in other words, to do away with, as it means here in Greek, to do away with what has been laid down. Well, God’s laid down the way of life, the law, the truth, and they set that aside. That’s what the mind does.

…authority. God’s authority. Christ’s authority. The authority God has given in the Church, something that something has been said and somebody goes ahead and does something that they think is right because, basically, we oftentimes don’t think about God or Christ.

We think about the ministry or the Church or something I’ve said or something Herbert Armstrong said, or whatever it might be, and feel like we can do something different because they just don’t understand. They’re missing. Well, just like it’s happened recently. Like these things just keep happening.

…set aside authority. That’s what you have to do if you sin, you have to set aside authority, the truth.

…and speak against. Slander, as in speaking against that which is holy. So, let’s say someone comes along and they start saying something that’s different than what is being taught. Maybe something as dumb and as simple as a conspiracy theory.

I think I mentioned this recently about—this goes way back many years, it started, but I found out it’s still in the Church—that there are jets that go across the sky, and you see these plumes of smoke that are back there and it’s like, “Your government is doing something bad to you. Hide from the plumes!” Anyway, I don’t know what they say, but it’s this conspiracy stuff that “I don’t know what’s supposed to be in that smoke,” but it’s like “If you see several jets crossing the sky at a certain time you probably ought to be inside.” It may take days for it to reach the ground. I don’t know, what do you do? I’m just being facetious.

Or that the earth is flat. Had someone in God’s Church many years ago here, well, not too many years back, believed the earth was flat. How can you be in God’s Church and be that screwed up in your mind? You want to think the earth is flat? Ask the ministry about that one. You just ought to know. It just shows how far the mind can go to get away from God. We want to justify something in our lives, and we’ve got to find something to rest everything on, and sometimes it’s stupid physical things. Jet plumes.

What was that one called where you lay down on this bed? Reiki. They don’t touch you. They don’t really give you a massage, but they let their hands go over you. “Oh, do you feel better? Are you feeling good?” Now, sadly there are spiritual things involved in this just as much as there are in things in the pentecostal world where people have experiences and they “speak in tongues.” Like, how fast can you run for the door?

So, we’ve had a lot of things that have come along, and people drift to strange things sometimes. They think about it too much in the mind, too much to where it becomes real to them and they won’t listen to soundness of mind, they won’t listen to reason, they won’t listen to the Church, they won’t listen to the ministry. By the time you think the earth is flat it’s a little too late. But even with things going across the sky it’s like, “And you won’t listen to that?”

I’ll just be candid with you. It’s been since the Feast that someone came along and still has that belief. Wants to hold on to that belief, that people are getting sick because of those little plumes across the sky. That’s why people are getting really, really sick, and they need to do something about it. Well, what are you doing? Is that all you believe? No, it comes out in time that there are so many things that people believe that are different, but the carnal mind has to somehow has to just think about how they’re going to justify what they’re doing. They’ve got to find something that can take them away from the Church. What a horrible thing.

I spent more time on that than I intended, but I tell you what, these things just go on and on and on and on and on in God’s Church. God is cleaning it up. One way or another everything is going to be cleansed, truly. Everything is going to be cleansed before Christ returns. What won’t be cleansed just won’t be because for those who have had such opportunities they’re not going to have the opportunity to live into the new age.

God gave that to me a long time ago and I believe it with all my being. As much as what He did to those Israelites that died to the certain age, twenty and up, and those who went ahead and went along with some of these things, and then what God did destroying them all, that by the time you get up there, you have people sixty and above in the wilderness forty years, but the rest of them, what happened? God saw to it they died in the wilderness.

Think God has the power to do that in a small group of people?

So, when we go through things like this, I don’t enjoy, necessarily, thinking about some of these kinds of things, but they have to be thought about. Jude wanted the Church, God wanted the Church to think about these kinds of things, of what has happened to people. Then to hear that these things have gone on within the Church for nearly two thousand years. It should never be that way, but it has been and it’s going to continue right up to the coming of Christ.

Mind-boggling that people are called and have the ability to still turn against Christ, turn against God within the Body of Christ, from Feast to Feast, every Feast. We’re at Pentecost and we’ve had so many already that have had to be disfellowshipped. Too many. One is too many. But several. Those things hurt. It shouldn’t have to be that way.

So, it says here, they set aside authority and speak against, slander against, that which is holy, if you will, giving honor… I’m just going to clear this up, read what it says here. It’s about giving honor to those in God’s government because the mind gets so bad it will fight against, it will argue with authority, with what God has given in the Church. “Oh, no, no, I believe this. You just don’t know yet. You don’t understand yet.” “I know. God has given it to me, but you don’t know that yet. In time you’ll understand.” That’s the attitude. That’s what people talk about. That’s what they say when they get that far along. It’s like, “You don’t understand. I do. I have this relationship with God. I don’t have to have it at Sabbath services. I don’t have to have Holy Days. There are things I can do to study God’s word and to know what God is saying.” Whew.

You should tell that to God. Why would God give the Sabbath? Why would God give the Holy Days? Why do we have Passover to keep every year if that were the case? You see what happens to the thinking?

Verse 8—Likewise, also these dreaming to defile set aside authority and speak against what is holy to honor, what God has set aside. And if we can’t do that even on a physical plane in the sense of the Church? Because it has to come from the mind.

Verse 9—Yet Michael the archangel, when, it’s not “contending,” when making a distinction, it has to do with judgment. That’s what the Greek is about here, it’s a matter of judgment. We have to make judgment. That’s why we talk about so often here, when we judge something we need to judge according to what God says and strive to be right about it. We should know because of what God has given us to know.

…when he was making a distinction with the devil, he… This word “disputed” means, “reasoned as in a debate.” You try to reason with someone. There are times when anybody I’ve talked to is at the point of being disfellowshipped, they’ve come to that point, do a little reasoning. But you can’t reason too far because if their mind is made up you can’t reason. It just comes to the point where you have to say, “We can’t communicate anymore. We really are not on the same page. We don’t believe the same things and have to follow through with what has been given to make it official, in that respect. You’re disfellowshipped.”

So says, he reasoned about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a slanderous, is what the word is, a slanderous kind of accusation. He didn’t attack Satan; he basically was reasoning in the sense of “This is what God says. This is what God tells us.” And obviously, he’s not listening, so anyway.

…but said, The LORD rebuke you! This is what God says. This is coming from God. It’s what God has said. The LORD rebuke you. But these speak against… Now, who is it referring to, “these” again? What he started saying in the beginning, of something God said a long time ago would eventually happen even within the Church, that there would be those who come along, and as John said, “antichrists, turn against God.” The majority of people have who have been called.

...but these speak against, in other words, slander as in speaking against that which is holy, those things which they do not know. They get to a point where they cannot see it anymore, they can’t grasp. Why? Because they’ve been doing some thinking and making some choices that are against God, against what God has given the Church to teach. They believe their own thing and when individuals start doing that they have cut themselves off so much from God they get to a point where they really can’t even see soundness of mind on a spiritual plane, things that to you are clear, simple, easy to understand.

How are they easy to understand? Because of God’s spirit. It’s not on your own ability, how smart we are, how intelligent we are, how much we’ve studied our Bibles, how great we are in Greek or Hebrew, or anything else.

…but what they know naturally. What they know. In other words, by their own thinking, by nature, by what God has just given us to a physical, human, carnal mind, the ability to reason about things. So, they rely on their own thinking. Do we ever do that? Constantly. That’s what we have to fight against. You know why? Because as a whole, we generally, we have this belief we’re right. That’s why sometimes we find ourselves in situations where others are wrong. We’re right.

Within the week you’re going to reason like this. It’s just carnal human nature. Where there’s going to be something happen, and hope that you’re able to see it at that moment in time, at a moment in time “I’m doing it. In my mind I’m right.” Because you’re going to find something, probably today, that someone else is wrong. It might be over at the restaurant, but you’re going to find something where someone else is wrong, they’re making a bad choice. We tend to judge then. So, this is the carnal natural mind. It’s not God’s mind. Hope you understand.

…but what they know naturally as… It’s not the word “brute” at all. …as unreasonable creatures. That’s what it’s saying. As a part of God’s creation, unreasonable. We, in God’s Church.

Now, the world is very unreasonable because everybody is right. Every political party. And those within the party, even though they don’t get along with each other and believe everything, but they tend to hold to one party, they’re right. Each one of them.

Each one of them we have in Congress and the Senate, they feel they’re right. That’s just natural human nature. That’s the way we are because God has made us that way. We have to come to see that, no, we’re all wrong, nothing works. Our system of teaching, our system of government, our system of economics… Everything is wrong. It’s not God’s. It’s the world’s; it’s by mankind’s reasoning.

…as unreasonable creatures, by these things they, as it says here, destroy themselves. Now, again, this is about God’s Church and people in God’s Church. So, if we fall into these things, as so many have, even since the Apostasy, within PKG so many have fallen into this again or for the first time. Because some were not out of Worldwide but have come along since at some point in time, especially around 2005, 2006, in through there, and ’08 on up.

But it says, “By these things, they destroy,” that’s what the word means. Not just corrupt, it means destroy. There have been many who have destroyed themselves by their own thinking, and that’s what Jude is talking about here. God hasn’t been included. So, we have to be on guard, we have to be alert to the fact that we tend to think selfishly—it’s just natural—and fight against that. It’s a good fight.

Verse 11—Woe to them! Woe to them if any were to go off on that tangent. For these have gone in the way of Cain. Now, using some examples here that should strike home to us. Who wants to be like that? But it’s just as bad, and candidly, worse because so many of the examples here are of people who didn’t have God’s spirit. But we have all been called, set aside for holy use and purpose, to have God’s spirit in our lives. To turn against that is far, far worse than any of these examples in the Old Testament.

…and have run greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah. This “gainsaying,” it’s a word that implies “disputing against the truth of what another has said.” And so, this is what they did, and this is what people do when they begin to turn against what is true. There is something that goes on the mind and people have to use their own reasoning to justify themselves.

Now, I think it would be good to go through some of the story here of Korah, and so we’re going to turn over to Numbers 16. Because it’s within this story that we can see something happening on a very physical plane and to realize that what happens in the Church is far, far worse than what happened here. He didn’t have God’s spirit.

Numbers 16:1—Now, Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men; and they rose up before Moses with some of the children of Israel. Now, when it says they rose up against him it means they didn’t agree, and they wanted things done in a different way.

We’ve had this happen a few times. They were small. They were large as a people, numbers of people. We’ve been small, but this has happened where different ones rise up. They want to change things. I think of the first one we had in Toledo. There are certain ones that rose up, had their little meetings amongst themselves. They wanted to take over the finances of the Church, they wanted to take over the name of the Church, they wanted to take over the News Watch.

Think, “Okay, you’re going to take over News Watch. Who is going to write it? You’re going to have to do your own thing because I’m not going to write it the way you want it done.” Anyway, they wanted to have control and so forth. And so, these are the kinds of things that happen, different ones rise up at different times and this has been repeated not just once but several times within PKG. Happened many times within Worldwide. Different ones would rise up, they have a different way of doing things. They’d start talking to the congregations and get them to follow them. So often they did.

They rose up at headquarters toward the end, tried to take over. Tried to have the state help them to take over. Evangelists. You think, how sick!

…and they rose up before Moses with some of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation. Now, we’ve only had maybe six, seven, eight, twelve at a time. Small, but more important than this because this is God’s Church. …two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, representatives of the congregation, men of renown.

They gathered together against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, You take too much on yourselves. Speaking of Toledo, when that first happened that first time, we started getting emails from different places in different parts of the country, and even in the world, of people who wanted News Watch and other materials, and some wanted us to visit them, like down in Georgia, then down in Cincinnati first, and then down in Georgia. And so, we made choices we’re going to go wherever God has opened up the minds of those to be of the same mind of what is being done. That’s what you’re supposed to do.

Anyway, when someone begins to turn against some of that this is what they had to say. They said, “You are our minister. We only want you here in Toledo.” They didn’t say it exactly this way, “You take too much upon yourself,” but that was the attitude. What they’re saying is, “We don’t want to be spending our tithes,” and it wasn’t theirs because as soon as you give it to God it’s the Church, “for things here, but not be traveling in these other areas and you’re not here every Sabbath. That’s just wrong. You’re our minster.”

Now, I don’t know where they thought they were going with that. They didn’t know me very well, I guess, I don’t know. I said, “No, I belong to God. I belong to Christ. I’m going to go wherever they get me to go. You’re missing something here.” That’s what happens. They couldn’t see anymore. They had already made up their minds, “We want something different. We want to govern. We want to decide how this is going to be run, how it’s going to be operated, what you’re to do and not do.”

You take too much upon yourselves, for all the congregation is holy. See? “We’re all holy. God’s called all of us.” In other words, they’re saying, “We know what God is doing. We know what God wants us to do. So, you’re doing too much here. You’re deciding too much for us.” It’s an age-old story. It’s happened over and over and over again in God’s Church. Amazing.

…every one of them, and the Eternal is among them. “See, God’s with us too. You should listen to us, too, what we have to say about how this should be done.” Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Eternal? Well, you know what? I hope we know the answer to that. It was God that exalted them. Over and over again, He was the one raising them up and making it clear this is the one through whom I’m working to all of you.” That’s basically the story of the Israelites. They’re not listening to Moses. Anyway, the story goes on, doesn’t it?

Verse 4. So, there is government. There is order in the way God works, and if we don’t grasp that, one of the most basic of things within the Church, something that I’ve said many of times, one of the main things the Church never understood during Philadelphia was government. The number one thing attributed to Herbert Armstrong for establishing within the Church of God. Awesome. Mind-boggling. Spiritually, they didn’t grasp it.

Otherwise, when it was all said and done, they wouldn’t have referred to him in saying, “Well, I learned a lot of good things from him. He was a good teacher.” Well, you don’t want to hear my full response. “Everything you learned, ministers, evangelists at that time, everything you ever learned and ever knew came through that one man. God worked through him to give you the truth. You didn’t learn diddly squat on your own, you imbecile, you fool.” Because that’s what they became when they turned against God, turned against God’s servant.

God gives these examples, of things in the Old Testament, so we don’t forget them, so we always know them and always learn them.

So when Moses heard it, he fell to his face. Why? He knew that they’d gone way too far. He knew enough about God by this point in time to know that though they didn’t get it they’re in deep and their lives are very much at stake. So, that’s why he fell on his face.

…and he spoke to Korah and to all the company. So, he addressed them then saying… So, once doing this, seeking God’s help as well, knowing what’s going to take place. This isn’t going to be a pleasant thing, as God did with him over and over again, He put it into his mind to know what to do. That’s how He spoke to Moses as a whole, it was just in his mind. Moses knew.

He got up and said, Tomorrow morning the Eternal will show who is His and who is holy and will cause him to come near to Him. The one with whom He chooses He will cause to come near to Him. So, this is going to be a demonstration now that God is going to give to show who it is through whom He’s working. Shouldn’t have to be that way. You should know, basically. That’s the way it should have been, in essence. If they had grasped everything that had gone up to this point in time they would have known these things.

Do this, he said, Take censers, Korah and all your company; put fire in them and put incense in them before the Eternal tomorrow. Take this upon yourselves. Do this job, take the incense. …and it shall be that the man whom the Eternal chooses is the holy one. That’s awkward how it’s said. You, sons of Levi, take too much upon yourselves! So, he’s correcting them here, basically, and telling them God is going to make clear who is set aside to lead, to guide, to direct.

Then Moses said to Korah, Now, here you sons of Levi: Is it a small thing to you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to Himself, to do the work of the tabernacle of the Eternal, and to stand before the congregation to serve them? In other words, isn’t this an awesome thing in itself, that God set you aside to do this?

…and that He has brought you near, you and all your brethren, the sons of Levi, with you? And are you seeking the priesthood also? “You want more? You’re not content with what you’ve been given that’s above and beyond all of Israel, and you want something more?”

This has been a constant thing within God’s Church as well. Even while Herbert Armstrong was still alive there were those who wanted to take over. Just as I mentioned a moment ago, they wanted to lead the Church.

Are you seeking the priesthood also? Therefore, you and all your company are gathered together against the Eternal. And what is Aaron that you grumble against him? “What is this about?”

So, Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, but they said, We will not come up! “We’re not going to do it.” Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us… This is really good because it really shows how screwed up the mind can become in time, even on a physical plane. This reasoning, “You’re taken us out of the land…” What does it say here? “You have brought us up out of the land flowing with milk and honey.”

“When we were in Egypt things were so much better.” That’s what the carnal mind is saying even in people who have left the Church. Like what we had before was better. It’s like…?

…that you should kill us in the wilderness, that you should keep acting like a prince over us? “You’ve always been acting like this, Moses, that you’re over all of us.” Well, he was. You think, how can the mind get that far? But it does.

Moreover, you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey. “You haven’t done that. That’s what you said.” …nor given us inheritance of fields and vineyards. Well, why did that happen? It was their own fault. Forty years God said. They were told that. Will you put out the eyes of these men? We’ll not come up! So, what are you going to do, put out everybody’s eyes?

Then Moses being very heated, said to the Eternal, Turn from their offering. I have not taken one donkey from them, nor have I harmed one of them. Then Moses said to Korah, Tomorrow, you and all your company will be before the Eternal, you and them as well as Aaron. Let each take his censor and put incense in it and each of you bring his censor before the Eternal, two hundred and fifty censors: both you and Aaron, each with his censor.

Verse 18—So every man took his censer, put fire in it, laid incense on it, and stood in the door of the tabernacle of the meeting with Moses and Aaron. Now, Aaron was the priest, and he asked, “Is this what you want? You want the priesthood as well?” And so he’s bringing them all together to do this service that belongs to Aaron in that respect.

And Korah gathered all the congregation at the doorway of the tabernacle of meeting. Then the glory of the Eternal appeared to all the congregation. And the Eternal spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment. Then they fell on their faces, and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and You be angry with all the congregation?

Now, it wasn’t just one though. There are others that said, in essence, they were in this with them. They agreed.

So the Eternal spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the congregation, saying, Get away from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Then Moses rose and went to Dathan and Abiram, and the elders of Israel followed him. He spoke to the congregation, saying, Depart now from the tents of these wicked men! Touching nothing of theirs unless you be consumed in all their sins – because of all their sins.

So they got away from around the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; and Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the door of their tents, and their wives, and their sons, and their little children. Then Moses said, By this, you shall know that the Eternal has sent me to do all these works, for I have not done them of my own will. If these men die naturally like all men, or if they are visited by the common fate of all men, whatever that sickness or whatever it might be that leads to death, then the Eternal has not sent me.

But if the Eternal creates a new thing, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the depths, then you will understand that these men have rejected the Eternal. What an incredible thing that happened on a very physical plane at this point in time after all this time. Incredible.

Verse 31. Now, what’s amazing is you read a story like this, this is an awesome thing that God did on a physical plane with them to help them to understand how He works, that He has government established. But things that have happened within the Church, we have ability to understand things on a spiritual plane and to do things of this magnitude is far, far worse. This has happened over and over and over and over in God’s Church. Our history is filled with it. Incredible! They’re far worse because it’s on a spiritual plane and their judgment in so many cases is going to be much worse as well.

Verse 31—Now it came to pass, as he finished speaking all these things, that the ground split apart under them and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the men with Korah, with all their goods. So, they and all those with them went down alive into the depths of the earth, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from among the assembly.

Then all Israel who were around fled at the cry of them, and they said, Unless the earth swallows us up also! Then a fire came out from the Eternal and consumed the two hundred and fifty men who were offering incense. Incredible.

So, they didn’t go. God gave His judgment of what would happen to them. The rest went in, and God gave His judgment of what should happen to them, to perish like they did. That’s why it blows my mind in one respect, been saying for so long, that these things are going to continue. Individuals that turn against Christ, that turn against God to the time Christ returns, that things are going to be in the heart and mind of individuals who are not in agreement, who are not fighting the fight, who are not on guard, who aren’t receiving what they’re supposed to be receiving spiritually.

And to me, to think that this should happen like this all the way up to that point in time it’s like, why? Why when we’ve been given such opportunity? And so, I cry out, in that respect, as I have, fairly strongly, Feast to Feast to Feast, for some time, that you’ve got to fight the fight, that you’ve got to fight against wrong thinking. Wrong thinking will lead you away. God is very merciful and has great patience but there comes a point in time when there is judgment if we don’t respond to what has been given to us.

So, to think that these things could continue is almost unimaginable, but they do, and they will. Every year, every year. Mind-boggling. Where are you? Where is your mind? Because you can know.

It is this Church, it is God’s way of life, and nothing, nothing has power to make me away from it except myself, and that’s not going to happen. My choice is made. That’s your choice whether that’s true or not, everyone who’s watching this. It’s everyone’s choice. That’s why I say, with the authority of God Almighty, that anyone who has not been found out by the time of Christ’s coming, they are not going to live on into the Millennial period if they’re not part of the Body of Christ in spirit and in truth.

Verse 36—Then the Eternal spoke to Moses, saying, Tell Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, to pick up the censers out of the blaze, for they are holy, and scatter the fire some distance away. The censers of these men who sinned against their own lives—sinned against their own lives—let them be made into expanded sheets or metal sheets for a covering for the altar. Because they offered them before the Eternal, therefore they are holy. And they shall be a sign to the children of Israel to remember what happened to Korah and all those who followed him.

So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers, which those who had burned up had presented, and they were hammered out for a covering of the altar, as a memorial to the children of Israel that no outsider, who is not a descendant of Aaron, should come near to offer incense before the Eternal, that he might not become like Korah and his assembly (company), just as the Eternal had said to him through Moses.

On the next day, all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron. Now, we can look at that and say, “What’s going on up there?” But that’s the way they were, just very carnal.

I think of the things that have happened in the Church when some just never learn the lesson. How anyone in God’s Church could think that they can be separated from God’s Church, from the fellowship of God’s Church, and study on their own boggles my mind. To read their own Bibles, “Just put more study into it and God will show me what I need to know.”

Where is the Church? It’s about the Church! Are we a part? Are we on our own? Are we special that God has set us apart, anointed us with some special thing that “it’s just God and me?” Because that’s what it comes down to sometimes. You think, “What insanity!” And you think that kind of thinking can’t enter into a carnal mind? It can.

They murmured against Moses and Aaron saying, You have killed the people of the Eternal. You think, how did they make the earth come open and swallow them, the others up? How did they send that fire through there and destroy everybody all in one whack? How did they do it?

You look at something like this and it’s kind of laughable on one part. You look at it and think, “How could you be that way?” I look at the Church and think, how could you be that way? After so many times of saying, “Don’t rob from God!” you’d think that would shake somebody up who’s robbing from God. Of all things why would anyone ever think of robbing from God, of not giving something on every Holy Day?

And yet this has gone up to this year. It’s gone on in the Church of God—PKG since it began. It’s continued on. That one really, literally, blows my mind, how anyone can think they can be in the Body of Christ, and they don’t tithe faithfully? I know there are some. I know of some situations, okay? That isn’t a weakness. You say, “Well, that’s just a weakness of not tithing year after year. It’s just a weakness of not giving Holy Day offerings.” No, it’s not a weakness, it’s stupidity. It’s foolishness. It’s insanity on a spiritual plane, it truly is.

Where is the mind? Where is the thinking if we can’t honor God? So, how can we work with a Body and within a Body the way God says if we can’t honor God Himself the way we’re supposed to? Well, the answer is you can’t. God will get rid of us if that’s the case. That’s why the Church is being cleansed. That can’t be around. It’s not a part of the Body. Hasn’t been, in some cases, for many years. But God gives great opportunity of patience and time.

I lost my place. I think it’s verse 42—Then it came to pass, that when the congregation had gathered against Moses and Aaron, that they turned toward the tabernacle of meeting; and suddenly the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Eternal appeared. Then Moses and Aaron came before the tabernacle of meeting. And the Eternal spoke to Moses, saying, Get away from among the congregation, that I may consume them in a moment. And they fell on their faces.

So Moses said to Aaron, Take a censer and put fire in it from the altar, put incense on it, and take it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them; for wrath has gone out from the Eternal. The plague has begun. So, they were moved with fear knowing that God was going to destroy them all because of what they were doing, those who were murmuring against Moses and Aaron right after what happened took place. Think, how can that be? And yet these things happen in God’s Church over and over again, people not shaken and moved by things that are said. Don’t believe it, I guess.

Then Aaron took it as Moses had said…

So, this sermon is being given as one that should be sobering to every one of us, to realize what we are capable of, and just because we’ve been begotten of God’s spirit doesn’t guarantee that we can continue on ever how we want. We have to live a certain way of life. And by this time, all should know and understand that, and all who do will continue to fight and be there. All who don’t grasp that, well, they won’t.

It says, So then Aaron took it as Moses had said and ran into the midst of the assembly, and already the plague had begun among the people. So he put in the incense and made atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living; so the plague was stopped. Now, those who died in the plague were fourteen thousand seven hundred, besides those who died in the matter of Korah. So, Aaron returned to Moses at the door of the tabernacle of meeting, for the plague was stopped.

You think, what horrible things that happened on a physical plane and so many died like that needlessly, foolishly. But again, they weren’t a part of the Church, they’d never been called to become part of Elohim. That time is coming in the Great White Throne. But it’s written for a matter of understanding that God deals and works in a certain way and we’re all answerable and accountable before Him for how we respond to how He works with us, molds, and fashions us, and teaches us.

And so, Jude is talking about these things, and in the context of all this it should become clearer and clearer that the most important thing is when we are begotten of God’s spirit, obviously, there should be a standard that is far beyond that which is of the carnal mind and the way we think. It’s one of the spirit.

That’s why God desires those who worship Him, worship Him in spirit and in truth. It has to be in the truth to be in spirit.

Jude, going back to Jude now.

So again, a very sobering story and one that you would think that the Church of God during Philadelphia and Laodicea would have grasped and understood and been sobered by but weren’t.

Jude :10—But these, as he goes on, as it’s going on here now, speak against those which they do not know, that which is holy, talking about that. They can’t see it, in other words, as talked about. …but what they know naturally, in other words, by their own thinking as unreasonable creatures. By these things they destroy themselves.

Woe to them! as it said, as we read. For they have gone in the way of Cain and have run greedily after the error of Balaam for reward and perished in the gainsaying of Korah.

Then going on in verse 12—These are… It says “spots” but that’s not the word. It’s literally a word that it has to do with a rocky ledge that waves crash up against. And so, these are a rocky ledge, in other words, waves just keep coming up and crashing against it in your, and it’s not “feasts of love.” Doesn’t say that at all. But it’s talking about in your love. So, it’s talking about the love we’re supposed to have within the Body of Christ, within the Church.

…feasting together with you. So, we are able to come together as God’s people on the Sabbaths, on the Holy Days, and we have a fellowship that is unique to us.

Feeding themselves, as it says here, acting like shepherds, without fear. You know, individuals who get it in their mind that they know certain things that the Church doesn’t know or that they understand certain things that we just don’t grasp yet, they have a difficult time not sharing it. They like to share it.

And so, they begin to try to share and find someone who might say or agree with them and begin to talk with them on the same plane. Speaking of planes, like those little things going across the sky. “Yeah, I’ve wondered about those. I’ve heard about those.” Anyway, then you’ve got two. Then that can spread.

“Acting like shepherds, without fear,” teachers, wanting to be a teacher, have this special knowledge. Like someone who gave themselves over to a point of thinking they’re a prophet recently. Not in God’s Church. You have certain things that God has given to you to know and to do? Not in God’s Church. That’s how far the mind can go. It’s a scary thing what can happen to the carnal human mind. Carnal because they’ve cut themselves off from God’s spirit. Then there is a being that can broadcast things to them, and they can begin to experience things that they’ve never experienced in their life and believe it’s from God. That’s what they want to do anyway.

…without fear. A cloud without water, you know, nothing there. How can you have a cloud without water? That’s the point. There is nothing there. They think there is. …carried about of the winds. Just crazy things come along and carried about with it. They’re not in control anymore. They don’t have soundness of mind that comes from God Almighty. It’s talking about the Church! It’s not talking about the world.

…trees without fruit in the fall, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. Gone. Dead, dead. That’s what happens.

…raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame. That’s what’s happened within the Church year after year after year. It’s shameful to turn against God, to turn against Christ, to become antichrist. What is the judgment for that kind of thing? There are things we’re going to learn in time, that we don’t grasp fully yet, that God’s going to reveal in time.

Our calling is serious. God was serious when He called you, when He gave you the ability to comprehend and to understand His way of life. He’s laid everything out for you in order to have eternal life – eternal life in spirit, in the spirit body. No more aches and pains and getting older. And those of you who are younger, you don’t feel that yet, but one day you would or will. He's given us everything.

And so, He dealt with a physical carnal people who should have known better even on a physical plane in a specific manner and judgment was poured out. And some think, “You mean those that were standing there, the wife and the children, the babies and the parents all standing there, and they were swallowed up in the earth and God did that to them?!” Absolutely. Rebellion and sin is not a small thing before God.

God created us not to live how we want to live. In time, when He begins to call us, we have to make a decision, are we going to choose to live God’s way and love it? You can’t fake it. Sometimes people try to fake it. They try to fake it. Those who continue to rob God, they’re just faking it. They’re faking fellowship. They like the friendship, they like the friendship of certain people until they hear that they are thieves and robbers and liars.

And after a while, they can’t take it anymore and sometimes they just quit coming because it starts to eat them up, in the mind and in the heart, because they know they’re absolute liars. They’re not living in the Church, and truthful as other people are living. It starts to eat like a canker spiritually. And God allows that, obviously. Hopefully, they would repent, but they don’t repent as a whole.

So, what does God owe us? Used to be in Worldwide that anybody who was baptized, it’s like God owes us eternal life. Everybody is going to be—that was the thinking—basically, everybody who’s baptized is going to be in God’s Kingdom. Not true at all. How we live our lives determines. Our choices we make and are responsible for determine whether we’ll be in God’s Kingdom.

He's done everything for us, given us every opportunity to latch hold of eternal life. How blessed are we? And if we don’t see those things then something else happens within the mind, and can that mind then be healed? Healing is your choice. It’s not God’s. God makes the way possible, but we have to make the choice “This is what I want. I love what God has shown me. I love the way of peace. I love the way where there is no drama. I love the way where people really genuinely care for each other, where people can be closer together, far closer than physical family.”

But it’s spiritual Family. To have genuine care and concern for one another, that’s the life. That’s the environment. That’s where real joy and real peace come from. That’s where it really exists. Doesn’t exist in the world. It’s not there. And yet sometimes people are drawn because they want it their way. That’s not an option. Well, it is an option, it’s choice, but it’s the wrong one. But you’re free to make it.

…raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. Sobering words. May be things about judgment that we haven’t fully grasped and should far more deeply, that when God offers us something we have the power of choice. He doesn’t force it upon us because it has to be genuine, it has to be something that we really want.

God knows what we really want, and if we really want what He’s offering we’ll be praying about it, we’ll be crying out to Him for it. We will be fighting self, not others, and we’ll see that when we fight others we’re wrong and we have to repent. Because that’s what God says is the way of His love.

So, we have to exercise His love. We have to make those choices. He’s shown us those things, but we have to make the choices.

Again, not a story for the Old Testament. This is a story for now.

Jude :14—Also prophesying about these, the seventh from Adam, was Enoch saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints. Now, he didn’t know how many yet, but God gave to him this is how it’s going to begin, the Kingdom, the Messiah with ten thousands of His saints. And later on, He gave to John then, much, much, much, much later on, there would be 144,000 exactly come with His Son. Incredible!

So, he’s referring back to this “long ago,” with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment upon all, on the world for a thousand years and a hundred years, and to convict (rebuke, expose, if you will) all who are ungodly among them of their ungodly deeds, of their ungodly works, something that isn’t right, that is against God. There are going to be things addressed in the Millennium far differently than what they have in the past two thousand years.

There are things God isn’t going to allow for long periods of time. There will be no rebellion ever again in the Church of God, period. There’ll be the Church of God but there’ll never be a rebellion in it like there was in the time of Herbert Armstrong or in the time of PKG. Those things will never be allowed again. Those people will be dealt with quickly.

…which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all their hard things, harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. To disagree with things that God gives, they’re ungodly and they are harsh. They are just wrong.

So again, that’s why I refer back here again to verse 4. And we’ll stop there today and continue on with the last part, I think the last part, next Sabbath or whenever Part Eight is given.

Again, verse 4—For there are certain ones who have come in alongside us who were before of old ordained in this condemnation. In other words, God knew that by calling many people from over the past two thousand years that the majority would turn against Him. God knew this. And then out of that, there would be those who could be molded and fashioned to be in His Kingdom, to be a part of the 144,000.

And so, various things have been given prophetically through time and showing that there are going to be those who just turn against God, who choose to turn against God, against His own Son, against His Church, against those He’s given in the Church to teach within the Church.

…ungodly ones, turning the grace of our God into the purpose of participating in lewd behavior. We need to understand that lewd behavior is doing anything against that which God has given us that is right.

…and denying the only LORD God and our Lord Joshua the Christ. Well, we have the choice of embracing God, embracing the power of His holy spirit by praying every day because I know I need it every day. I have to fight self. You have to fight that in you.

We have to fight self, and if we don’t understand that and see that, that we each have a battle because we have a certain way of thinking that isn’t good inside of us and it stems from selfishness, it stems from protecting the self, it stems from the self being right about everything pretty much, because we know – because we know.

And sometimes we know, we even believe it’s from God. We can so know something in our stubbornness that we know it’s from God. “I’m right!” Well, who cares if you’re right if you’re wrong toward someone else? You’ve got to change because that’s wrong, and it makes your right worthless. Because it’s not your right anyway. Whatever right comes from God Almighty and we should just strive to be at one with that. That’s why you have to pray every day, “Help me to be at one with You.”

There is no richer and better and more exciting thing than to have a confidence in your mind when you know that your judgment is not yours, but it’s come from God because you agree with what God has given.

1. Chapter 1