Rejoicing in the Judgment of God

Ronald Weinland

September 30, 2023

Feast of Tabernacles Sermon

Well, welcome to this year’s Feast of Tabernacles. This is 2023.

It’s great to be here. Every Feast that God gives to us, every Holy Day that God gives to us means so much, and every year is rather unique especially at the Feast of Tabernacles because there is always some focus that God gives to us that’s so important as far as those things we within the Church are to look upon, to drink in, and to rejoice in His Feast and what He gives to us. We are so blessed, blessed beyond what we can really comprehend.

Back in the beginning of June as we were covering the sermon series entitled Experiencing God’s Love God made it clear that the primary focus or subject, if you will, matter of sermons that I will be giving at the Feast this year would be about God’s judgment, about that which has to do with judgment that comes from Him.

If you consider all the series of those things we’ve gone through, it’s really been exciting this year to see how we’re being molded and fashioned. God’s letting us see that and understand that more, that He molds and fashions us, that He helps us to build from one level to another, and it’s a systematic process, and to be part of that is so incredible, it truly is.

And so, even this matter of exercising God’s love, God brought us to a point as He revealed His love for us, to us that’s always been there, His primary purpose for His Family, and then to help us to understand our responsibility and the calling He’s given to us to exercise that love. Then He gave us so much more.

So, this opening sermon that I’ll be giving here at this Feast, obviously, is prerecorded because this will set the stage for what is to follow and everyone needs to see this sermon, hear this sermon first. So, in early June, again, I knew that this would need to be prerecorded because it needed to be, again, the first sermon of the Feast to set the stage, to set the pace for those things that are to follow as far as the primary subject matter that I’m focusing on and will be focusing on throughout the Feast.

It's often rather difficult coordinating sermons at the Feast because New Zealand and Australia are first in the sense of beginning to observe the Feast, because as far as the earth's rotation and where mankind has started counting that time, it starts there in that area of the world and then comes around to Europe, and then finally the U.S., Canada. And obviously, this process then makes it a little more difficult when it comes to giving sermons because we’re not in Australia at this point here, can’t be there yet. It's one of those things that we have to work with then wherever we are.

Just like for this next year’s Feast, we’re, right now at this particular point in time when this is being prerecorded, we are planning, looking at various places, and considering the U.S. being a primary site this year, primary in the fact that that’s where my wife and I will be and others will be with us at that point in time, especially in the speaking and the schedule that’s there and the need for sermons to be edited as Jeremy does throughout the Feast, to get them out there for everyone to be able to watch later on.

So again, this had to be prerecorded, just as the Last Great Day has to be prerecorded because that’s the only way that everyone can begin listening to it at the time that the Last Great Day arrives and they sit down for their service, wherever you are.

So again, the synchronizing of these things and when to do it and all the work that goes into it, there are still things that have to be done throughout the Feast, so we have to take those things into account and do a little juggling as far as when sermons are to be heard and how to do it. And normally, we must also have sermons prerecorded by the evangelists so that the first three sermons can be seen in Australia, New Zealand, and then, again, because it has to be on the first day then on that particular day, later on, that day or within that day because of being in Europe, then I’m able to give the first sermon that will be recorded and edited during the Feast, which will be my next sermon in Europe today.

But other areas, that first sermon they will hear after this opening sermon on the first day of the Feast will be one that’s been prerecorded by the evangelists. And so again, we have to do that kind of shuffling so that in Europe we’ll be hearing those sermons that most of you will be hearing first, we’ll hear those in Europe toward the end of the Feast. Because in that manner, all of my sermons are recorded at the Feast then, will have the opportunity of being edited and then played up all the way to the Last Great Day.

So again, a little shuffling but it works out. Sometimes causes a few headaches but it all works out and it’s an amazing process.

So as I was saying earlier, we’re considering for next year planning to have that primary area where I will be located within, somewhere within the United States, not in Europe. So, Europe will be a smaller site this next year, at least according to the planning at this point, and then we’ll go from there. What a blessing if we didn’t have to come together in this particular manner, but in a greater manner.

But we’ll see what transpired in the following year. Everything is in God’s timing, but looking at world events, seeing what’s happening in the world, just by the Thunders themselves it’s one of the primary signs of those things we have now that God has given to us to recognize this is what we watch more than anything else because these are the things that are happening in the world as they become stronger. Because it has to be of the same nature than as a woman in travail, as it says in scripture, but in labor with a child, getting ready to have birth. Those things go along with what’s taking place with and has been taking place within the Thunders.

It’s an awesome process to watch take place in the world. We’re watching these things, we’re observing these things, and seeing how horrible the world is becoming as it goes through all of this.

So, today at the start of the Feast everyone will hear the same sermon that I have prerecorded, that I am recording now. Then the order of sermons can be shuffled around after that, obviously, like we normally have to do. But the theme or subject matter of sermons I give will have been made clear on this day one.

The first sermon, this first sermon of this Feast of Tabernacles is entitled Rejoicing in the Judgment of God. There is so much to learn from this subject matter. That’s why there are going to be so many sermons at the Feast and things that God is helping us to see more clearly now about that process that’s going to take place in time here as far as greater judgment is concerned.

We’ve always understood within the Church that judgment now is upon the House of God. It’s upon us. But in time, that’s going to change to the entirety of the world.

Since this is the first sermon of the Feast, we must begin this Feast in the same manner that Herbert Armstrong set as such a good example to the Church and to the ministry of the Church. I say to the ministry of the Church, that’s only to the length or the ability that he had of setting that example, but then the result of that had to do with the ministers who really listened and then followed suit in their time whenever they spoke during the Holy Day back in their own areas or given opportunity at the Feast. There is that which they must focus upon.

He set that example, and especially for the Feast of Tabernacles, and then he says, “Why are we here?” So, some of the most basic of things to focus upon, to think about, and then to proceed forward with other messages or the content of the messages or the primary things that God was giving at that time and as He is doing now.

And so again, there were ministers who just didn’t follow that example. They didn’t go back and in their time when it came time to speak during the Days of Unleavened Bread or Pentecost, the Feast of Weeks, or other times that they would have to speak in their season, they didn’t follow that example. Some never spoke upon the meaning of the day and yet God tells us that’s what we’re supposed to do.

So, he would ask that question, “Why are we here?” So again, just as God commanded, he, Herbert Armstrong, would go to the very scriptures that explained why, that lay out the process there of those things that God commanded and gave to us. And always, it’s always because God has commanded it. That’s why we are here, because we want to honor God, we want to obey God, we want to be in His Family, we want to be part of His Family, Elohim. Awesome!

So, let’s turn back to Leviticus 23 and begin there where we should begin in this particular case. Leviticus 23:1—Then the Eternal spoke unto Moses saying, Speak to the children of Israel and say to them concerning the feasts. Now, what an awesome thing that we have learned that this word is not the word for “feast,” it’s the word for “appointed times.” “Appointed meetings,” it can be used in both ways. But it’s been appointed, set by God in that respect, something He’s commanded to do, for us to do.

So, “concerning the,” not the “feasts.” Feasts will be a part of it but just like with Passover, it’s not a Feast. But He commands that. The weekly Sabbath, it’s not a Feast in that respect, like the Holy Days are referred to as Feasts. But again, God continues to mold and fashion us, help us to grow, and help us to learn what He’s saying and why. It puts more emphasis upon it because it’s an appointment we’re to keep. That’s why this word, this phrasing is so important, to understand what it means. Because God set this time for us, and then it’s up to us to choose after we’re called and throughout our calling, to choose to obey God. Not all choose that. The majority don’t.

…concerning the appointed times of the Eternal, which you shall proclaim. So, it’s to be proclaimed. …to be holy convocations. Even these are My appointed times. So again, making it very clear here these are appointed times that God set and it’s to be proclaimed what these are, what it is, that it’s to be obeyed.

Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, a holy convocation. So, we learn that. It begins with the seventh day Sabbath, the seventh-day cycle that we’re to always be reminded God is the Creator of All, and the greatest of His creation is the Family, is what we’re blessed to be a part of, the creation that’s still ongoing and has been for six thousand years.

It didn’t just stop after six days there, and God rested. He went back to work. He's been working for all that time with His family, to prepare His Family and preparing the world for things to come, of those things He’s appointed in time to be accomplished and to be fulfilled. It’s all so inspiring.

We’re reminded of this cycle, which we need. We need that seventh day with all of our being to get away from everything else and to once again focus on God and what God is giving to us, what He’s teaching us, what He’s leading and guiding us in, how He’s molding and fashioning us. We need that with all of our being otherwise we would drift away, and we wouldn’t be able to do it. So, God has given us this process that is powerful and mighty, if we understand it.

…you shall do no work in it; it is the Sabbath of the Eternal in all your dwellings. So, yes, where we dwell, wherever we are, but we’re also to understand that this is in us. God is dwelling in us; Christ is dwelling in us, and we have that blessing and opportunity to draw closer to Him on that day. We truly do. There is more power in the seventh day as far as the weekly cycle is concerned. God gives more in that day. Awesome!

These are the appointed times of the Eternal, even holy convocations which you shall proclaim in their appointed times. It’s a command for the ministry, for the Church. Yet so often in the past huge mistakes when people didn’t do that, when they didn’t follow that example of Herbert Armstrong and, candidly, what he instructed and told them to do in the first place.

Verse 5—In the fifteenth day of the first month at even is the Eternal’s Passover. It begins with the focal point of His plan because everything else is built upon it. This is where it starts. Awesome! And so, He has us start within a yearly cycle with this particular observance as far as something that is annual, the Passover. We focus upon it, and we learn from it, and we’re ever growing in understanding of it.

After the Apostasy God began to give a lot more in that respect to give strength to our understanding of this particular day and its timing, especially because that was being attacked because of that which was in the world because of a being that’s out there that wants to confuse the minds of people and begins to influence different ones as he did very early on in Ambassador College and began to broadcast to an evangelist because he wasn’t living as he should.

He thought of himself more highly and began to flirt with, began to come up with different ideas about the timing of Passover, leaning too much to Judaism and the misunderstandings of Judaism but doing it on an intellectual plane. Not one that’s inspired by God’s spirit. Not one that’s led by God’s spirit. It wasn’t a reliance on God and God’s spirit and what he had been taught by God’s apostle. Because if he understood the flow of God’s spirit, how God works…

Just like the Sabbath, every weekly Sabbath there is a flow of God’s spirit in the way that God works within His Church to mold and fashion His Church. That’s why Paul talked about, in essence, “Remember where you heard this. Remember from whom you heard it because they’ve been sent by God.” God doesn’t just open up individuals' minds, within the last two thousand years anyway, because it’s a structure of a church.

Now, before that it was different and there wasn’t any large organizational process to call people, to bring people to and teach them in a weekly type of process that God has used within the Church. So, what a marvel that we’re part of an incredible process. But we need to know how it works.

So, this evangelist began to teach students who were at Ambassador College to be molded and fashioned, to be trained so that they could go out, those who were chosen, which in that case were so many of them to go into the ministry, to help in Church areas because they didn’t have the kind of technology we have today. There had to be different people in different areas who could preach, who could be loyal and faithful to what they had learned and take it back and take it to other areas. We experienced what happens in time with that process.

It shows the imperfection of it. Not because of God. Not because of the structure of the Church. Not because of the structure of the Sabbath. But because of human nature, carnal selfish human nature, and what people tend to do. They begin to be elevated and lifted up and think that their own thinking is more correct about certain things and then willing to change and alter what they learned. That’s heinous. It’s so despicable, evil indeed, as we went through that series and discussed. Evil. Evil. Evil. He infected so many of the minds of so many impressionable young people at that time. Horrible!

God gave us more after the Apostasy to understand “in the fourteenth day of the month at even,” “bane ha erbium” in Hebrew, “between the two evenings.” We hadn’t understood that before. There was understanding by some, but it wasn’t focused upon a lot. But the concept in their minds “between the two evenings” was as the Passover was coming and the sun was going down then there was that kind of twilight time. Then whenever it was, ever how you’d be able to look at that, a few hours later when it was totally dark and the effects of the sun weren’t there anymore, those were the two evenings that so many thought this was about.

Again, much of this came from concepts of Judaism which stretched even farther out. But we don’t need to go into that.

But when God began to show us the use of “ma erev,” “ba erev,” “erev,” and all these things having to do with the end of one day and the beginning of another. This one here, as it was explained and shown as this word is used in another location when it came to the keeping of Atonement, two evenings, and it made it very clear the two times periods, and it’s that full day from sundown on one day when Atonement began to the end of Atonement when the sun was going down again. And when it was down then it was over; “between two evenings.”

When God finally gave that to us, such simplicity, so simple, but never seen until God gave it. The Sabbath is always between two evenings. Every Holy Day is always between two evenings. It doesn’t go into another day. The Sabbath doesn’t somehow go into Sunday, or it doesn’t somehow begin in Friday, the sixth day; it begins at a specific time, ends at a specific time. Plain. Simple. Clear.

But if we don’t see it, we don’t see it with the simplicity that’s there until God shows us this is absolute. It’s in the fourteenth day and it’s not in any portion of any other time. Beautiful.

So again, what an incredible thing God begins with helping us to focus upon the very beginning of His plan that’s about His Son. It’s about the one and only one who was to be created, made, come to life in a very unique way because God was His Father and created within the womb of Mary something unique. Never ever to be done in another other way but this way. He would have within himself in ways of the mind and the being of God that we can’t really comprehend yet.

I don’t believe we fully can until God gives us that which is spirit in composition and greater ability to comprehend things on a spiritual plane of that nature and how it worked. We don’t have to know how it worked; we just need to know that it happened. That’s the way it happened. Awesome.

Leviticus 23:39—Also, in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land… So, the produce and so forth, it’s not just specifically about fruit, in that respect, it’s talking about produce, of things that happen in a fall harvest, and the difference in time that takes place there depending on the kind of crop that it might be, grapes that come due at a certain time to be picked, depending on, again, where you on in the scheme of things. But in that particular region of the world very unique, various grains and so forth that were ready to be harvested then, various kinds of feed and so forth at that time of year.

So it says, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, in other words, that which is given, it says… And what it is here it’s a time of abundance. It’s a time of rejoicing because of the abundance that God gives. So, here is all this that’s been gathered in or being gathered in during this season of the year. But so much has been gathered in already by the time the Feast comes and now there is this ability to see the blessings of God, to see the abundance of what they have and what they’ve been given and they’re able to rejoice in those things because of the fall harvest that’s been there.

We’re to focus upon indeed. There are things we should recognize always of blessings that God has given to us. But the greatest of those, that which is spiritual, the fruit, the growth. I marvel at this past year. We have looked back throughout the year and seen the building process, the planting, the things that take place, the growing that takes place, and the building one upon another. And so, we’ve gone through the different series and things that have taken place there and rejoicing in the fruit of those things that God has given to us. Awesome!

So again here it says, …the fruit of the land. You shall keep a Feast unto the Eternal seven days. On the first day shall be a Sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a Sabbath. So, unique in how it states it, but it states it in such a manner that there is only one way that everything can be true, “seven days you shall keep a Feast. The first day is a High Day,” a Holy Day, but the eighth day, the Feast is finished. But there’s another day, the Last Great Day, a High Day.

Even you shall take to yourselves on the first day the boughs of good trees. So again, that’s not in Hebrew here but the word for “fruit,” only translated once like this and it’s here. But again, translated 118 times as fruit. So, it’s talking about that which was to be there first, the fruit. It’s amazing how much mankind has so messed up translations.

…the branches, the hands or the palms, if you will, of palm trees, and the branches of thick trees and willows of the brook. And you shall rejoice before the Eternal your God seven days. We’re to rejoice. They were to rejoice. God reveals to us we’re to rejoice. That’s a part of the Feast of Tabernacles. Think we understand that now. Why? Because every year we focus upon that as a whole within the first sermon. We are to rejoice, we’re commanded to rejoice by God in His Holy Days, in His Feast of Tabernacles. We are to rejoice.

Now, they were to do something unique in the sense of what they were told here and some of these things are explained more fully in other places of scripture but it’s a matter of gathering these and making what was referred to as a booth. That’s the way it’s probably the best translation we have. But some didn’t understand what that meant. It wasn’t a building, it was just this little thing that was pieced together where there is like a bench that could go across and a person could sit there and then have something over them for shade, and the palms and the like that would bring that. They were to bring fruit as well because that was symbolic of something more. But here it was to be placed there as well.

They were to go there every day. Awesome, what they were to do and the reasons why, and the spiritual part that has been revealed to us in the end-time here. Awesome!

And so it says, “And you shall rejoice before the Eternal your God seven days.” So again, we’re to be filled with excitement, and as a whole we are. We start doing all this planning that takes place. It begins very early on and then we decide where we’re going to go. Then as it approaches and gets closer, we start making more and more plans and sometimes quite a way out because, especially if we’re flying, because of the cost involved and we want to get better tickets and so forth. Then the need to have reservations at hotels and the like or at other place, those things by their very nature have to be done before, a long time.

And so, there’s always this anticipation and looking forward from year to year to the next Feast of Tabernacles. It’s an awesome thing, it really is. It’s beautiful what God has given to us and it’s a part of helping us to keep focused, to be reminded of things as a weekly Sabbath is as well. And so, there are those things that are long range and there are those things that are immediate.

That’s the way our lives are. There are those things that are immediate right now upon us and there are things we keep focused upon that are more long-range. God works with us in those ways and we’re able to respond, we’re able to understand it and see it.

So again here, we’re to be filled with excitement, and thankfulness because that’s a part of rejoicing. To be able to really rejoice requires a spirit of gratitude, a spirit of thankfulness. So, there has to be that which we really see and understand that we’re thankful for. The more thankful we are, the more we’re just naturally going to respond by rejoicing. That joy that goes with the thankfulness of what we have, of what we see, of what we’re able to be a part of that fills our inner being.

So, we are to be filled with excitement, thankfulness, and happiness. It’s a great time for everyone who has the ability to come together. Sometimes we have, because of age or because of location or whatever it might be, some that aren’t able to every year or can’t even travel anymore. But there is that which we’re still able to have with God, and especially with the technology we have today to be able to watch, to see sermons that are given, to hear those things that God is giving us at the Feast and being thankful for it, rejoicing in what He continues to give to us.

And so, whether we’re at our home and able to watch these things and drink in of these things, we have so much to be thankful for, we truly do. For the time we live in, for how blessed we are, for where we are in time, and it just goes on and on.

We are to work at making certain that the environment around us is kept in one, that is of a rejoicing spirit at this Feast, especially where anyone is gathered together with others. You have to work at it. It doesn’t just happen. We’ve been told, explicitly so, very powerfully so that there are certain things that should not take place at the Feast. If we’re doing what we should be doing we will be rejoicing, we will be happy, we will have peace, we will be thankful, and we will be excited for what is happening within our fellowship and the opportunities we have with one another.

So, there are physical things that go along with a spiritual Feast. It’s just not all spiritual because we’re physical human beings. It’s a time to rejoice. It’s a time that we have the ability because we’ve saved up all year to be able to have perhaps if we want something extra in that Feast there, to do something special, we’re able to do it at a time where we don’t have to be worried about our jobs or anything else because this is our focus, this is where we are. We’re able to have some unique meals perhaps and spend a little extra on something we don’t normally have at other times of the year. But we’re able to do this for a longer period as well.

So, it’s a unique time. It’s not a time to be on a diet. Neither is it a time to go too nuts and then have all kinds of work later. But still, we always as a whole come back with a little more than what we had when we came to the Feast. So, that’s a part of preparing for it as well and it’s just a part of the problem.

But again here, we are to work at keeping this spirit of rejoicing at the Feast. We have to work upon that to make sure that we’re doing that. Because nothing is to besmirch or tarnish that spirit. If we let it happen to us because of what we feel someone else has done and we get into a conflict and we get worked up and peace isn’t there anymore, but drama begins to emerge, then we’ve sinned. It’s just as simple as that.

Leviticus 23:41—So you shall keep it a Feast unto the Eternal seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths. Now, again, this word translated over two hundred times as “sit.” So, it’s a matter of what we do. It’s not a matter of something physical that we’re to do now but at that time there was that which they were to do. They were to build it with the things they were told to collect, this booth, and then they were to sit in it throughout the Feast. Have a portion of time set aside each day to go sit there. Perhaps the start of the day, and to sit there. They were to do something about it.

Well, we’re to learn from that spiritually. We don’t go out and build booths. We’re not to do the same things exactly in the same way they did by any measure because theirs was fully physical. Ours is a mixture of both, physical and spiritual, a balance in those things.

All who are born Israelite shall dwell (continue, abide, sit) in booths that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell (continue) in booths. So, it’s to be reminded of how they got to where they were and all that took place in God bringing them out of slavery, bringing them out of Egypt, making them a separate people, a unique people who could learn about and know about God Almighty, the true God.

We are to do this on a spiritual plane. It’s good at this time of year in our prayers, in the things that we do as we begin our day, to think about what God has given us in the opportunity to dwell in Him, to dwell in His Son, for them to dwell in us, and that we’ve been made so abundantly rich with truth, with understanding, that leading into God’s Family, that’s leading into the purpose of all the Holy Days, the purpose of the Sabbath, the purpose of His creation, to become Elohim.

To understand those things we indeed are very forward-looking, looking forward to the timing when Christ will return, when he’ll come as King of kings, when he will establish and set up the government of God on earth, and looking for that city whose builder and maker is God. Jerusalem, holy Jerusalem. Not a physical one, a spiritual one.

And so, we’re blessed to understand those things on a spiritual plane and we’re to be thankful for that. The more thankful we truly are inside the more we’re going to rejoice, the more focused we’re going to be able to be and to be able to fight the battles we need to fight even at the Feast of Tabernacles. They’re not just things that we have to fight when we’re at home and in our jobs and whatever it might be we’re involved in, but here at the Feast when we come together more separated from the world and able to focus on God’s purpose for our life and why He’s given us the kind of fellowship that He has.

“That your children may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell (to continue) in booths.” So again, they were in temporary dwellings until they got to where they were going, the promised land, a promised land. And so, we learn from that, that even in that process of what God gave all that was physical. It’s like the sacrificial system. God didn’t take pleasure in that because it’s responded to by carnal human nature and so much of it was done as a part of routine but not because of something that’s spiritual inside that’s happening in the change of a mind and that’s void then of total selfishness as human beings.

But we are able to do those kinds of things, to have a different mindset and to recognize the life that’s in us, the blessing we have of dwelling in God and that God brought us out of Egypt, and it’s different for each one of us, how He worked with each one of us individually. Our calling is unique to us.

If we were blessed to grow up with the Church there is still that process of God working with us because everyone has to make a choice and a decision that they don’t want that that’s out there, that they want what God has placed before them. Then when that’s there and begins to work in them then it becomes greater.

And so, we look back indeed at those things, to be reminded of how we’re able to continue to go forward. So, yes, we look back in a spiritual manner and we look forward in a greater spiritual manner because that’s what we’re holding on to with all of our being, what God is offering us.

So He says, again, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Eternal your God. It’s God that’s made all these things possible in our individual lives. How blessed are we? It should be easy to rejoice, to be thankful to God, especially during eight days, that we have all that time away from the world as a whole.

So again, the Israelites were to look back at that which was temporary. But going into the promised land, again, for them was a very physical thing like the offering up of offerings that God was not well pleased. Because going into the promised land wasn’t what it was all about. It’s the spiritual part, what God has promised, that we’re going to inherit all things.

So, that was only a type of something far, far greater on a spiritual plane. We are to look forward, mightily so, to God’s Kingdom, to God always dwelling in us and we in God and His Son.

Notice verse 41 again, that refers to keeping this Feast. “So, you shall keep it a Feast unto the Eternal seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month.” To celebrate God’s Feast, His Holy Days, is to rejoice in Him. That’s how you celebrate. You rejoice. Not as the world celebrates in the way they do so often when they come together in large gatherings. We are unique. It’s something done before God on a spiritual plane.

So, it’s to rejoice in Him, in His statutes, His laws, and His judgments. His way of life. Everything that He’s given to us about His way. Because that’s the only true way to live life. Everything else is a fraud, a counterfeit, a deception, and filled with pride and selfishness.

Notice what God told the Israelites through Moses just before they were to go into the promised land. This is in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is the second giving of the law. Here they’ve been in the wilderness for right at forty years now and now God’s having Moses before he dies, before he’s separated from Israel in death, to reestablish, to remind them of everything that’s taken place, of their history that forty years, if you will, as well, and of the law and everything that God has given, and then to have other things prepared and planned for moving ahead.

And so, here is Deuteronomy 4:1—Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to do, “which I teach you,” as the King James says, New King James, “to observe.” So, to do, to observe we have to see certain things. It’s our choice to observe, to do those things.

That you may live. So again, this message here is really more for us than it was for them. Now, their life of what they were to live, what they were going to be able to experience, that if they would seek to obey God with the ability that they had, it wasn’t spiritual on their part, and to do what was given in Deuteronomy that they would be blessed. There would be greater blessings in their life the more that they adhered to these things, so they would have a life that was more full.

But this isn’t fully what it’s about. It’s about that which is to be fulfilled later on and that which God has called us to, to enter into a promised land, to inherit all things, if you will, and to know what these things mean so that we may live through time, throughout time, age lasting life. But to have that life in a way that’s full and rich, exciting, awesome. It’s of a totally different mind when we’re at that point. No selfishness involved whatsoever like there is in human life. No drama like there is in human life but the richest of experiences in friendships and relationships that can’t be lived to that level until we’re there.

That you may live and go in and possess the land which the Eternal your God of your fathers is giving you. That’s what God is offering to give to us, to inherit all things.

You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Eternal your God which I command you. So, there are those things that God gives to us that are very simple and very basic. Don’t change that framework. Like Passover, it’s in the fourteenth day. Everything that Christ fulfilled was within that fourteenth day during the daylight portion, during the nighttime portion before that. Awesome!

Verse 3—Your eyes have seen what the Eternal did at Baal Peor; for the Eternal your God has destroyed from among you all the men who followed Baal of Peor. But you who held fast to the Eternal your God are alive today. Wow. See, that’s what they were told. That’s what they were to think about as Moses was guiding them, directing them, and giving them this final instruction before they went into the promised land.

And just before we, some who are going to be a part of the Family of God soon, others who are going to be able to continue on with their growth and development in a new age, to experience something that only very few are going to have the opportunity to be a part of, to have had experience in the Church of God being called after the Apostasy or even during. And primarily then those afterward who are going to be able to continue on in the Church of God in a new age. Not many are a part of that, are going to have part in that either.

But He says here there are those things we’re to remember, to know. Look at all the things that have happened, all the evil that’s taken place in the environs of the Church. We went through that recently in that series. All seven eras experiencing evil within the environs of the Church. People looking upon others and thinking they’re in the Church, treating them and living toward them as though they are in the Church. That’s the way we’re to be until God manifests that no they’re not. Then we’re to do otherwise.

But until that takes place, until God makes it clearer, until God gives it, then we’re to work together and we’re to be forgiving toward one another. We’re to be there to support and to help in the right ways. Then that which is wrong God will bring it to light and get rid of it.

But there’s been a lot of evil. There’s a lot of evil that came into the camps of the children of Israel in that forty years. God reminds them of that. Deuteronomy, Moses is telling them, and to remember back. Then He’s reminding those who are still there.

But you who held fast to the Eternal your God are alive today. I think of those within the Church who are able to keep this Feast of Tabernacles. So, alive, yes, physically, and alive spiritually, which is the most important thing. But to look back and realize there are so many who are not, who had those opportunities.

But as it says here, “held fast.” So, rejoice in the fact that you’ve been blessed to hold fast, that you have been able to do that, for it took a lot of work. Rejoice in that. Be thankful for that. Don’t take it to self in pride but just understand how important that is and how blessed you are that God has intervened for you as you cried out over and over at different times and helped to carry you through to this point in time.

Because without God’s help, we can’t go through these things. But to realize that’s what’s happened and that’s why we’re still here, beautiful. Something to truly rejoice in because we’re thinking about it and thanking God for it.

Surely, I have taught you statutes and judgments. They didn’t grasp all these things, but He was teaching them things that really had to do with how we’re to think. The laws, the statutes, the judgments are a process, really, when it comes down to it, of a matter of teaching us right thinking and helping us to recognize wrong thinking. That’s why these things become so powerful and so important.

Just as the Eternal my God commanded me, that you should act according to them in the land which you go to possess. Therefore, do (observe, to keep), “to preserve” as that word means, “to watch.” That means to be alert. It means to be on guard. These are words that are associated with that thinking. But to watch over, to keep. That has to do with a desire to do so, to want it, to preserve what God’s given to us. We don’t want to lose it.

We have a history full of time within the Church and the Church eras where we see the frailties and the faults of human life and thinking. We have to hold fast.

For this is your wisdom. What God has placed before us, as we grow we come to understand these things more. We can’t receive it all at once. We grow in this. It’s wisdom that we can have. He says, “It’s your wisdom.” Well, wisdom is from God. The right thinking comes from God. The soundness of mind, for true soundness, what is truly sound comes from God. He’s letting us know, “This can be yours.”

…and your wisdom and your understanding. What a peace when we really understand things. I think of the sermon we’re going to have at the end of the Feast, the Last Great Day. The more we come to understand that entire picture of what that day is and what it looks to and what is to be accomplished in it the more at peace we become, truly. The more understanding we have of this, the more balanced we become. We have a concept, or not a concept, but a view of life, of physical human life in a different way than the world does, and something to be exceedingly thankful for.

Because we don’t live in the same kind of doubt and confusion and fear and worry as the world does. We know. We know and there is incredible peace in that. We rejoice in that for everyone in their time, whatever that might be. Because God knows what’s best.

It is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the people who will hear all these statutes and say… So, in that time period on a physical plane, there were those in the nations around them who heard and saw, and they were in awe. The closer they were to God, they saw things that were unique that they wanted but didn’t understand it because it’s about God and what God gave to them, the favor that God gave.

But again, they saw things that were different and unique, and oftentimes they tried to copy a lot of it. But they couldn’t have it.

Surely, this great nation is a wise and understanding people. So, there were times, those times when they were closest to God, if you look at David and various periods of time and different ones who came up later, there were things there that were recognized by others.

Going on. "Surely, this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” Even after the captivities of Judah, there were other nations, Babylon and then Persia, the Medo-Persian Empire, the leaders of those areas. Especially the Medo-Persian Empire and the favor they gave to the Jewish people to go back and to have several times that they went back into Judah and into to Jerusalem and gave them the wealth to do so. These individuals were used in the closest of relationships to the royalty oftentimes because of something unique they saw in them.

I think of Daniel. I think of the times that different ones looked to these individuals for guidance and direction because they saw something unique in them. It came from God. And for in time when people are resurrected in that Great White Throne and people who live in the Millennium, they’re going to begin learning and understanding these things in a profound way. They’re going to understand things that the 144,000 went through because there is going to be six thousand years of history there that’s all of a sudden been unraveled and revealed in a very powerful way that so much has been hidden through time because people have destroyed and changed history and the writing of history.

But one day they’re going to see it and they’re going to see the truth in it and how God has worked with them. Then for those who, especially at the beginning live on into a new age, and to see the things they went through and their experiences. Awesome!

For what nation is so great which has God so near to them? They saw something unique, and they had a physical belief, not necessarily accepting as their God, but they had a God that was powerful and filled with wisdom and gave them incredible favor and blessings and help.

…so near to them as the Eternal our God is to us. For whatever we may call upon Him. And so, so much more than for us and what it means then for the Church. But this is something physical that they went through.

Deuteronomy 4:8—What nation is so great that has such statutes and righteous judgments? So, they heard about these things, and when some of these individuals said something, something came out of them about a certain way of judging and dealing with matters, there were leaders who were in awe of what they had to say. And people were. That’s why there was favor there then to so many because of how they dealt with things in a different manner because it came from God.

…that has such statutes and righteous judgments as in all this law which I set before you this day. Only take heed, again, that word “to keep,” “to watch,” “to preserve.” …only take heed to it to yourself. In other words, keep it to yourself, watch for it unto yourself. It’s like we do on a spiritual plane, we recognize that there are those things that we have to fight for and hold on to and fight against our carnal nature and preserve and hold on to whatever God’s given to us exactly the way God’s given us and not to change it but to strive to live it.

…and diligently keep, again, “watch,” “preserve” yourself unless you forget the things. So again, it’s the statutes, the judgment, the law, keep, preserve it to yourself. You need it. Then it says, “and yourself watch, be careful, preserve that way in you.”

…all the days of your life. Simple. Not simple to live. All we have to do is look at the history of the Church and everything we’ve been covering of recent times here, about all the evil, the majority of people who have left.

So, teach them to your children and to your grandchildren. Sometimes people don’t do a good job of that. Parents sometimes don’t do a good job of that. It’s one of your primary jobs, to make sure that you focus on teaching your children that which you can. It’s going to be physical, going to be about stories and things that might be of stories in the Old Testament and things that are there that at a very young age someone can begin to understand, teaching them certain behavior in Sabbath services. It’s teaching them, preparing them, teaching them about certain things in their life and how they act and live, and speaking about God then and talking to them about various things. So, certain simple things to teach children.

Deuteronomy 32:1—Give ear, O you heavens. So we started out in Deuteronomy 4 and now we’ve moved toward the end. So, that was toward the beginning of Deuteronomy and now we’re moving toward the end of Deuteronomy and things that God was giving, that Moses was giving that God was giving him to give to the Israelites.

Give ear, O you heavens… Most of it is spiritual if we grasp it. …and I will speak. Hear, O earth, the words of My mouth. My teachings shall drop down as the rain. My speech shall drip as the dew, as the raindrops upon the tender plant, and as the showers upon the vegetation. In other words, even for us if we grasp what God gives to us, we grow. It’s a slow process and it’s over a long period of time compared to that which is literal in vegetation and how it grows, that which it needs, the dew at certain times, the watering at certain times, the sun at certain times, and good measure and all of those things, and balance in all of those things.

God is showing that as He works with us He gives us those things in the right measure, at the right time, and uses a physical example to look at in saying, “You’re going to have all you need to produce a lot of fruit.” It’s in our choices.

…as the droplets upon the tender plant and as the showers upon the vegetation, Because I will publish the name of the Eternal. Give or ascribe greatness unto our God. Each one of us can only do that individually. “Ascribe greatness,” recognize God, recognize Him for what He’s done, acknowledge it and be thankful, receive it in a right mind and a right spirit.

The Rock, “the Rock,” our Rock. I think of that which we just weren't ready to receive at the time because we were very physical and didn’t understand a lot of the scriptures about Petra. They were looked upon in a wrong way as a location rather than being Almighty God and what that means to us individually in our relationship with Him.

The Rock, His work is perfect. For all His ways… All. His. Ways. …are judgment. It’s the mind of God, the being of God, the way to think, the way to evaluate, the way to make decisions, the right decisions, the right choices, the ability. All His ways are judgment who is a God of truth. Everything is truth that comes from God. …with no iniquity. Nothing wrong in it whatsoever. It’s all perfect. It’s right. It’s good.

He is just and right. Beautiful!

So again, all of God’s ways are judgment and it’s all about truth and the ability to work with truth that we’re given, the ability to work with it, to practice it. Like the matter of exercising God’s love, the ability to receive that, the ability to put it into practice, the ability to make judgments in a way that we are growing in, have grown in in our thinking toward one another within the Body. It’s all that is perfect for living life, the ability to think right.

So again, we are so blessed, and God has separated us from the rest of the world. Not just in the Feast of Tabernacles but He did it when He called us, separated us from the rest of the world, and from the Church that was scattered. We’ve been separated from that. Thank God! Thank God that we understand. We’ve been cleansed of this thing of “Jesus.” It’s Joshua. I’m so grateful for that.

We’ve been cleansed of other things, the fact that we’re to recognize women in a way that was lost from the beginning in the Garden of Eden because of sin. And brutality, in a sense, ruled after that because of the strength of men and the power and the misuse of power and the force that was used there because of the strength in masculinity. Abused and misused as a whole through history.

Then in the end God begins to reveal women are to rule. Women are to rule as well as men. One is not better than the other. The changing that has to take place with that and the way people think within families and society. But to be done right God’s way gives it soundness and balance. When the world does it it’s not balanced, it’s not sound, it doesn’t look good, it isn’t good.

So again, we’re so blessed that God has separated us from the rest of the world, from the Church that was scattered, to know what we know, to see what we see, to understand what we’ve been given through experience and life to understand. Because it’s through the experiences in large part for us too that have followed an apostasy. All the experiences of what it means to hold on to, to preserve what God gives to us and to fight for that, and to see what has happened out there.

So again, we have so very, very much to be thankful for and to rejoice before God at His Feast. So, that’s our primary focus every time at the beginning of the Feast. Rejoice! It’s not an option. But we should want to, we should desire to. It’s part of obeying God and it’s a part of realizing we have a fight to fight inside this to make sure that things don’t come out of this mind in a wrong way but that we do things right before God.

So, let’s look at verses that were given just before the Holy Days, again, that are listed in Leviticus 20. So, just before chapter 23 is what I’m talking about here, that was given concerning the Holy Days, that we’re looking back a little bit at Leviticus 20 now.

Leviticus 20:22—Therefore, you shall keep, again, the same “to watch and observe” all My statutes and all My judgments. God is giving us a blessing to be able to focus on a subject at this Feast of Tabernacles whereby we can grow more in understanding of these things and in a manner that gives greater peace, greater soundness of mind, and can stir us to make sure, certain that we’re able to exercise and do things the way God has given them to us.

Just as God has given us in the thing about exercising God’s love. We have to exercise judgment; and what that means, we’re going to learn a better portion of during this Feast. We’re going to go through scriptures. It’s not that we haven’t heard them before, we’ve heard them a lot, but with a special focus and with special help to receive them now on a greater level spiritually. Awesome!

Therefore, you shall keep all My statutes and all My judgments, and do them, that the land, or the place, if you will, where I am taking you—Where is He taking us?—where I am taking you to dwell may not vomit you out. Sound familiar?

What happened in the very last era toward the end of two thousand years to God’s own Church, warnings that He’s given. Because there were certain things that weren’t done in a right way. We’re to learn from those experiences and be more on guard, be more watchful, be more desirous of doing it exactly the way God gives to be able to keep what He’s given to us.

He says we’re to keep all His statutes and His judgment and do them. So, God’s showing us more how to do this, truly, and that’s what’s so important.

And where He says, “Where I am taking you to dwell,” God is blessing us. We understand that we’re being taken to dwell in God forever and God in us forever and His Son, forever. Not being cut off like we are or the quenching the spirit at times or falling asleep spiritually and getting sluggish spiritually. On the contrary. Because sin and drifting away, not being focused like we should be leads to the wrong things in life. But to understand where we’re going and where God’s taking us in a relationship with Him and His Family, it’s beyond the ability to express. Truly is.

To understand we don’t want to be separated from God. On the contrary, we want to be in God forever, forevermore.

You shall not walk in the statutes of the nation, also sometimes translated as “people” of which or of whom I will cast out before you. So, there are those who have been cast. That’s in the world. That’s what they were talking about, nations and peoples and so forth.

Do we see how this applies to us in the Church? We think of all those who have been cast out, who have been separated, who don’t have part in this and what it takes then to do, to live what God has given to us and the blessings, the gratitude, and thankfulness we’re here and able to hear this and to be given opportunity and choice to do these things, to grow in these things?

…For they commit all these things, in other words, all the evil spoken of before this, all the evil. There’s been so much evil. The ability to see evil for what it is, what a blessing. To recognize how dangerous, how insidious, how deceitful evil really is.

…Therefore I abhor them. The choices, the evil that’s there, and those who choose that way.

But I have said to you, You shall inherit the land. It’s not “their land.” It’s not about “their land.” It’s “You shall inherit the land,” what He’s giving. It’s God’s. It belongs to God and He’s saying, “You are going to inherit this,” and He’s telling us what we are going to inherit.

I will give you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey. It’s never meant to be that which is physical, but God has fulfilled it physically in a very powerful way in the world. But the greater fulfillment of this is, in a physical scale, is the Millennium and the Great White Throne.

But it’s way beyond that because it’s about that which is spiritual and that which fills life in a way that we’re not going to be able to understand it until we’re there.

I, the Eternal your God, have separated you from (same word here), the others or from people, from the ways of mankind.

Therefore, you shall distinguish, means “you shall put a difference” between clean and unclean animals, between unclean fowl and clean. Even something very physical and simple like this that we’re to do that has to do with our thinking and to understand God tells us. This isn’t just about physical food. It’s about that which is unclean in life and we’re to make a distinction in those things, we’re to put a difference in those things. That’s our choice. He tells us what we are to do.

Just like within relationships within the Church, He tells us what to do and how to do it, and that we’re to love each other and we’re not to judge others in the sense of a judgmental spirit. We’re to be for one another. We’re supposed to be willing to sacrifice ourselves, our own suffering, our own hurt, our own time, our own energy for the sake of others, whatever that might be.

…and you shall not make yourselves detestable by animal or by fowl, or by any kind of living thing that moves on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean. So, very simple here. What God has said is unclean is unclean. There are things in life that are unclean and yet man wants them. People in the Church have left the Church because they’ve wanted that which is unclean.

You shall be holy. “You shall be sanctified, remain sanctified.” God has called us to be sanctified. He’s given us the ability to be sanctified. He’s given us of His spirit to be sanctified and He offers us His holy spirit daily to be sanctified, to remain sanctified for holy use and purpose. So much of that and the ability to continue in that depends on our choices and our decisions and our judgment.

You shall be holy to Me, for I the Eternal am holy. He’s calling us to be in His Family. …and have separated you from people, same word again. “I have separated you from the way of mankind.” That’s what He’s telling us. …that you should be Mine. Elohim. The God Family. It’s a choice. Then it’s a matter of the choice in judgments we make.

So, how incredibly blessed are we? So again, we should ever strive to grasp more deeply these things that God gives to us.

Deuteronomy 30. Again, going back to Deuteronomy 30 and focusing upon what is here, what it says in the sense of understanding what Moses was doing and just before they went into the promised land. Backing up a little bit because we were in 32. Now we’re in Deuteronomy 30.

So, this is how the final part of instruction was given through Moses, and this is the setting for it.

Deuteronomy 30:15—See, I have set before you, it’s not “this day.” It’s not about “this day.” …the days for life and good. So, in other words, in the future. This is how you can attain it. It’s not something that was just for that day. So again, a bit of a misuse of translation here or a slight misunderstanding of what it’s all about.

See, I have set before you the days for life and good. Choice. It’s always been a choice. Ever since we’ve been called we’ve been making choices and various kinds of judgments from the very beginning. But then, now, in that respect, in our calling, we’re to sharpen our ability to judge, how we judge, how we think, and to understand there’s a process involved in judgment. Obeying a command is a little different. Judgment, it’s about the thinking, it’s about the mind, it's about the process we go through to come to a conclusion. Is it at one with God or not? Judgment.

“I have set before you the days for life and good.” That’s what God has set before us ever since our calling, the days for life, everlasting life, the days for good on a scale that we really can’t comprehend. But we grow in that understanding the longer we’re in the Church and until the day we receive it.

…and death and evil. Death and evil, because that’s where evil goes, death. To be destroyed. So, it’s just that simple. It’s just that basic if you will. There is that which is to life and that which is good and there is that which is a matter of the choices, whether they be evil that leads to death, not life.

And so many have gone down that road. So many choose that road. It’s insanity. It’s the wrong thinking of a mind, the wrong choices of a mind that could do otherwise but won’t. Doesn’t want to.

Satan got to a point where he didn’t want to anymore. He didn’t want to do what God gave to him anymore. He wanted his way. And when he did that, being spirit, that’s the way it was from then on. It was set. The human mind can become set in evil. What awaits it then is just death, a time for death. It’s what will be there.

So, I marvel, again, how God has worked with us this past year to come to this Feast of Tabernacles and to focus now on judgment. I hope we are able to see it and receive it on a spiritual plane. All those sermons that we went through, all those sermons that we even reviewed and focused upon more keenly, more deeply that have so much to do with this subject here of what we’re going through and what God was inspiring Moses to give to the children of Israel. And if you understand the children of Israel, you know it’s not something He was giving which was physical but that which was into the future, of that which is spiritual, spiritual Israel.

That’s what God sets before us when we’re drawn when we’re called by Him. “The days for life and good, and death and evil.” And you know what? It’s really sobering when you think about the history of seven eras of the Church and even the time of PKG after the Apostasy, so many have chosen the latter. Lost it. Don’t see it anymore. Don’t grasp it anymore. Didn’t preserve, didn’t keep, didn’t watch that which was valuable and needed. That’s what the majority have chosen.

In that I command you, not “this” but in these days, all the days before you for us in the Church once we’re called, to love the Eternal your God. You can’t give that to anyone. If you love the Eternal your God you will seek to honor Him in what you do, even in how you dress, something as basic as that, and how you wear your hair, what you do with it. I don’t have much to wear but it’s there and it reflects something that the world doesn’t understand today very well, as well. Man and woman and a clear delineation and to glorify that in response to what God gives to us.

So, there are so many ways that we do this, to love the Eternal our God, to love Almighty God. And that hasn’t, again, that hasn’t been exercised well throughout the history of the Church. But we’re given those opportunities. The more we love God the more we rejoice in Him, the more we rejoice in what He reveals to us and what He gives to us and helps us to grow in and helps us to see and life just becomes richer and richer. Not the things of the world. Those don’t give lasting happiness and fullness of life.

You know, people want something, they go for it. They think they’ve got to have it and that’s what will make them fulfilled and happy. Then they receive it and because it’s of the world it’s never going to work, it’s never going to produce what they seek and what they want. So, the mind goes into even further in those things. You look at the course and the nature of mankind. It’s filled with evil.

I command you in these days to love the Eternal your God, to walk in all His ways, to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments. It’s a matter of agreeing with God and making choices and decisions, ability to judge because it’s right, because it’s of the same mind of God. That’s the goal and desire.

…so that you might live and increase. Ever increase. You know, wherever God’s spirit goes it can’t help but produce fruit. If we look to God and God’s spirit is involved in our lives and the change is taking place, fruit is going to be produced. It’s just automatic. If it’s not being produced then it means the individual is going asleep, is sinning, is moving away from God, is quenching the spirit, whatever.

…that you might live and increase; so that the Eternal your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. So, God wants to bless us. He wants to have lives that are blessed. The greatest of that will be in His Family.

Verse 17—But if your heart turns away… I read that and I think so many have turned away. Every year some turn away. Well, they actually start turning before they actually come to that point in time, and they can’t see it. But to turn away is a slow process and after a time if it continues on it just grabs a hold of a person and you have no control, no strength because the strength comes from God.

But if your heart turns away so that you will not hear, or maybe cannot hear (will not, can not), because at some point decisions are made that are different from, in defiance of what God has given to us.

…but shall be drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them. Too often people look at this physically and think, “They’re not going to go to other gods and worship other gods.” There are a lot of people who have left the Church through time here, there are people who have come up to the point of knowing Joshua, and it’s not that hard to go back to “Jesus” somewhere else. Incredible! And that’s just one truth. There are so many truths that people can come to a point in time with where they go back, back away from God, from what He’s given and serve them. That’s other gods.

Why? Because we’re raising up something like an idolatry, some other god that we’re worshipping. Generally, ourselves and our own thinking, our way is better, “than what the Church tells me,” not understanding without the Church you’re nothing. Without the Church, you’re not able to be molded and fashioned. Without the Church, you’re without God, without His holy spirit. How do people lose that?

I, it’s not the word “denounce” unto you, it’s I declare. That’s what the word is. I declare the days. Again, that word, not “this day.” I declare the days you shall surely perish. So again, this too is about judgment. What did He say in the beginning here? “…the days for life and good, and death and evil.” One or the other. Can’t have a combination. It’s one or the other.

And you shall not, it’s not “prolong.” You shall not be long in the days upon the land. Correct translation. “You shall not be long.” So, we’re either going toward life and life in God’s Family, everlasting life, or our days aren’t going to be long. We’ll have more about that throughout the Feast, and especially on the Last Great Day or building up to the Last Great Day.

You shall not be long in the days upon the land where you pass over Jordon to go to possess it. “Where you were to pass over.”

So, there is that which God has given to us as a physical plane, a physical example of something, of what they did. And for us, we’re able to do that, when we get to a point where we passed over everything else that is behind us and we’re in a different body, a different life, and we’re spirit. Well, that’s life forevermore.

Verse 19—I call heaven and earth to record the days I have set before you of life and death, blessing and cursing. So, time, in that respect, will have that which is recorded, witnessed as to our choices, as to our individual choices, and the reality is that we receive one or the other. Blessings in life because of a unity and a oneness with God, which is life, or death, and the cursings that leads up to it because of disobedience. That’s all it’s about. It’s about sin that leads to death, evil.

And it’s not the words here, “that you may.” It just goes on then in the next portion here and just tells us what we’re to do. Love the Eternal your God. “Love the Eternal.” That’s a choice! The only way we can do that is to love His ways, to love everything He’s shown to us, His commandments, His laws, His statutes, His judgments. In other words, His truth, that which He’s given us to see is true. The more we love that the more we really love God because it is God. It’s His mind. It’s His being He wants to share with us. The more we embrace it and desire it, well, there’s a relationship there then, a closeness that’s there because we love it, we love God, we love what He gives to us.

Love the Eternal your God so that you might obey His voice and that you might keep close to Him, for He is your life. The life that continues on. He’s our life now and the life that continues on. We have to have that life in us day by day by day if we desire that life in His Family forever.

…and the length of the days; that you might dwell in the land which the Eternal gave oath to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, to Jacob, to give them. So, we’ve been given so much. That’s what this is all about, the blessings of life, the richness of life, the fullness of life, the beauty of life, the meaning of these days, the opportunity to be able to keep them at this particular time in the time that God set aside that we should keep them. We do and we’re thankful and we have the blessing of having a unique fellowship with one another, as a whole, for most.

So, what an awesome thing to understand. We’ve been separated from all other people. That physical example of what God did with Egypt He’s done with us on a spiritual plane, separates us from all others— What a blessing! —so that He can give us of Himself so that He can give us truth to live by that leads us down a path, a way into His Family.

So again, we have been separated from all other people on earth to have such an awesome opportunity now to choose the life God has set before us. Because it’s about those choices. It’s about the judgments we make along the way and the ability of thinking in the mind to do that that comes from, it’s stimulated by God’s spirit but becomes our own mind and our own thinking. That’s what it must be that’s in unity and oneness with Almighty God.

So indeed, we are to rejoice in God. Truly. Because we’re in Him and in His Son and they’re in us. To rejoice in God and all that He’s giving to us day by day of His spirit, of His life. To rejoice in God, especially at this Feast, at a time He tells us to rejoice, to focus upon these things and all that He has given to us, of His ways that give peace, that give comfort.

Do we grasp peace and what we have? Peace of mind? The more drama we get rid of and the more peace in life that we can have in the thinking of the mind it’s a beautiful thing.

So again, in all of His ways that are in His statutes, righteous judgments, and in all His law, in His truth. This is our celebration in which to rejoice at this Feast of Tabernacles.

1. Chapter 1