Learning God’s Judgment, Pt. 3

Ronald Weinland

October 4, 2023

Feast of Tabernacles Sermon

Today will be the final part, Part 3, of this Feast series entitled or the Feast series entitled, Learning God’s Judgment.

Hopefully, we’re learning more the importance of judgment and why this is being stressed at a Feast of Tabernacles, and because it is being stressed at a Feast of Tabernacles to grasp how important it is that God and Christ want us to see this more fully, more completely in its full context. Again, hopefully, we’re learning more about the importance of judgment becoming a greater focus of our lives.

So again, this is all about coming to a greater oneness with God, the thinking of God, the mind of God, the reasoning that we should exercise and do ourselves in our very thoughts, in our thinking process which leads to how we actually act or live our lives.

Yesterday, in Part 2, we ended in an area of scripture that I want to return to and begin there today (this is Philippians 2) and read these again because it’s a unique area of scripture that reveals much more than we’ve ever known, really, so it’s good to go back and strive to glean more of that again.

We can read scriptures and it’s amazing where we are, depending on where we are and so forth what we see, what we’re able to receive, but it’s a building process, and ever-growing in that, because there are always things in scripture we just don’t know, we don’t understand until God shows it, until God reveals it.

Then sometimes even then we miss certain things. Later on, we hear it again or it’s repeated again in another series maybe years later, or another sermon and all of a sudden it’s like, “Wow, this is interesting. First time I’ve heard this,” and it was given maybe a year earlier. These things happen.

Philippians 2:5—Let this mind be in you. In other words, it’s something that can be accomplished, it’s something that we can live. We can experience that in our lives. Not to that level, not to that degree, but it’s something that God wants us to have. “Let” is more of a matter of this is what we’re to do, we’re to let that happen, we’re to want that to happen, we’re to be a part of that.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Joshua the Christ. What an incredible thing that we can have that, that we can experience various levels of that in our life.

…who, being made in the form of God, took no thought to seize upon being together with God. Didn’t lift himself up in any fashion or form, but as it goes on to say, but emptied himself, of such thinking, in other words, and received the form of a servant. So, again, understanding his calling, what he was to fulfill, what he was going to do, what was said in scripture concerning him, and this was his life, this was his drive, this was his motivation, this was his great deep desire, to fulfill that.

So, he willingly received what God gave him to fulfill, and we’re to do the same thing. When God calls us there’s a purpose in it, there’s that which we’re to fulfill. We don’t know exactly where we’re going to fit but God’s going to take care of that as time goes along. It’s just a matter of our yielding ourselves to it, wanting it, desiring it, and working toward that to the instruction that’s given to us.

…but emptied himself and received the form of a servant, made in the likeness of mankind. And finding the form even in mankind he humbled himself. Again, that example for us, of what we’re to do. We’re to humble ourselves, obviously, always, not being of that stature and that kind of a creation, if you will, being the very Son of God. But again, and he became obedient unto death, even the death of being nailed to a pole.

So again, this is what we’re to do. We’re to be obedient unto death, even if it requires death. In his case, it required an excruciating death. But everyone is to die. But the point is we’re to be obedient all of our life until we’re completed, we’ve completed this process of human existence.

Let’s turn over to 1 Peter 4 then, because it repeats this kind of thing over and over and over again of what we’re to learn from it and understand, strive to understand more deeply what’s required being in this form as what God has created of mankind.

1 Peter 4:1—For as much then as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves, something we can do, something we are to do, likewise, with the same mind, it’s that same thinking, the Word of God, the mind of God, the reasoning, the thinking. Again, we’re to have that, we’re to grow in that, we’re to get rid of our thinking which is a matter of selfishness, and ours coming from self and the way we think. We have to change that.

…for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. In other words, it’s a process that a fighting against sin and understanding there is going to be suffering if we’re going to change, if we’re going to become something different, if we’re going to conquer. Which the word “overcome” means. It means to conquer. It’s like in battle. So, takes a lot of work and it takes a fight, and it’s fighting against what’s inside of us. Not fighting others; it’s fighting what’s in us, detesting it, loathing it.

The longer I’m in the Church, in the Body of Christ, the more I hate and loathe my selfishness, that which is inside of me because it’s evil. God is revealing more and more how evil it is, and yet He creates good and evil. We understand that process. He made us human beings for a purpose and so forth, but because of our choices, because of the way we are we yield ourselves to those things that are evil. Because selfishness is nothing but evil because it’s about self. It’s not about God. It’s not about God’s plan. It’s not about God’s purpose.

And yet this is what we yield to so often – it’s our own thinking, our own reasoning, “my” ideas, the way “I” see it, finding fault with others. “You’re not doing this” or “You’re not doing that,” “And if you’d just do it the way I believe you should, you would be so much better off.” Incredible, how we think. It’s sick! It really is a sick mind.

What a marvel that God created us this way for that purpose, so we could experience a sick mind, so we could experience sick, evil thinking and come to understand that it is evil when God begins to open our mind to His way of life, to His thinking, which is totally giving, which is totally about peace, unity, oneness. Awesome! The more we can see that and the more we want that the more we’ll fight for that.

Because I marvel—I say it a lot—every year there are people who will not fight for it. They’re not convicted of it. They don’t love it. They don’t want it that much so other things get in the way. God has got to be number one in our life, the reason we exist. It is if we want to continue to exist. But not just for that reason, obviously, it’s because we’re in agreement with Him.

So, these have to be a matter of our choices, the judgments we seek to exercise in order to become of the same mind. Again here, That you should no longer live the rest of your time in the flesh to the lust of mankind, as we went through yesterday. To selfishness. That’s what the “lust of mankind” is about. …but to the will of God. A choice. It’s a choice day by day by day until we’ve completed this process.

It’s a choice that God has placed before us. It’s up to us to receive our purpose for our calling and fight to accomplish it in our life, to think that we can be of the same mind (not to that magnitude or that greatness), but to have that kind of a mind, incredible what God offers us.

Let’s turn over to Acts 3. So, the choices we make reveal how we judge. It reveals how we think. That reveals a lot right there. It exposes selfishness on a continual basis. To think differently, to do the will of God requires work on our part, a lot of effort, and a lot of prayer because you can’t do it on your own.

Acts 3:13. This is Peter on Pentecost and what he began to say at one point here a little bit later. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Joshua. Even there at this point calling him “His Servant Joshua.” It shows how he served, being reminded of that, that he took on the form of a servant in order to fulfill the role that was given to him. He is a servant to God Almighty.

…whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let him go. But you denied the Holy One and the Just and asked for a murderer to be granted to you. Wow, powerful. It’s amazing what people can get caught up in in the world and the sides they will take because they hate something so much when it comes to God and God’s way of life. Sometimes it can happen within the environment of the Church as well. It has over and over and over again.

I think of Herbert Armstrong, what took place during the time that the government of California tried to step in and take over the Church, and they brought in a receiver, a judge to oversee things. He brought in his crew and paid them great money, big money from the Church. And so, God inspired Herbert Armstrong to have all tithes sent to Arizona, to “Herbert W. Armstrong, a Corporation Sole,” and all of a sudden there was no money there anymore at headquarters. And so, they kind of, basically, gave up. Amazing!

…and you killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. Even his name, through faith in his name, has made this man strong whom you see and know. Now, Peter just said to the lame man that had been before them, “In the name of Joshua the Christ rise up and walk,” in some of the story flow of some of these things that are taking place there. And so, he’s referring to some of the things of what they have done, how they have acted.

But it’s not just the individuals there, there are people who came on into the Church. There are individuals there and so some of this is even, in that respect, applied on a spiritual plane to God’s people, of how we think. It’s a matter of faith, what we believe. It wasn’t the individual that was lame, that didn’t know anything; it’s the individuals who were saying these things. “Rise up and walk!” Where does that come from? Well, it came from God.

Going on. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as also your rulers did. And so, looking at this side of it and understanding what we talked about a little bit yesterday, that the world is ignorant of God’s way of life. They can’t understand what you understand, but we’re held accountable at this time or at that time.

But those things which God foretold by the mouth of His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, the Messiah would suffer, he has so fulfilled. It’s hard sometimes to put our self there. We read something, we see a story, but to think about them and what they were experiencing and what they had just gone through, it’s hard for us to grab a hold of that. But that’s what we should strive to do, to be moved by that kind of thinking and that kind of emotion, to put ourselves, in that respect, in that present time so that we can glean more from it.

Verse 19—Therefore, repent, “think differently” as it means. Think differently. Don’t think the way you always have in your life and being selfish and how you respond to things, “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” being lifted up in pride, but humble yourself, receive what God has. Because we have to humble ourselves to do that.

Therefore, repent and be converted. It’s a compound word “to change upon,” or “to change over.” So, we’re to think differently and that’s the only way to change. That’s the only way for this mind to be transformed.

…that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. There were those there then who did that, that God was drawing, opening up their minds. There were a lot of people right there at that moment in time that God moved to see and to understand things on a spiritual plane of what he was saying, of what was being said to them.

…and that He may send Joshua the Christ, who was preached to you before. So, it’s always forward-looking to the time when God’s Kingdom is going to be established.

…whom heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, when that time comes. And so, the Millennium, what an incredible time when God’s Kingdom finally is going to govern on this earth. That’s what it’s referring to, that period of time when things are going to be restored in such a powerful way. But what a beautiful thing that we get to experience a lot of that in God’s Church.

Just like I mentioned earlier, six thousand years and the oppression of women. Six thousand years nearly and then God’s setting that right within the Church. But it’s a part of the restitution of all things because it’s going to become far more powerful because it’s going to be a part of what’s taught in all the world then.

…which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.

Well, let’s turn back to the area of 1 Peter now, back over to 1 Peter. Going to jump around there a little bit. As a matter of righteous judgment, Christ chose to suffer. He had to. But it was his choice. He chose to suffer in order to accomplish God’s will that he, Christ, be our example.

So again here, we have choices once God calls us, of if we’re going to yield ourselves to that process. We have to choose if we’re going to suffer to fight against sin, which means we have to be active then in fighting against our own carnal nature, against selfishness. That’s a battle and it’s a horrible battle. It’s a mighty battle.

When you are able to begin to see what you are, when you’re able to begin to see selfishness, it’s ugly and it hurts. There should be suffering in that to realize, to know, “I don’t want to be that way,” and to know that in order to change it’s going to take a lot of suffering because of every time I think wrong, every time something comes into my mind that is wrong.

We can have thoughts come into our mind but that doesn’t mean that we have to yield to the things that are out there that we get bombarded by. And you can’t help what might come into the mind, but you can help what’s done with it at that point in time. Anything that’s wrong, anything that’s evil, anything that doesn’t fit into God’s plan we’re to reject. And that portion of telling self, “No,” there’s pain in that oftentimes, especially in the beginning. There is suffering in that. I hope we understand that.

So again, have to suffer, choose to suffer in order to accomplish God’s will that he, Christ, be our example. You have to suffer when you think you’re right about something and your instinct, your response is you want to lash back at someone else. That’s where it’s really tested and that’s where you really have to suffer because to say no to self when you’re inside, you have this strong feeling that you’re so right, you’re so justified? You know you are, and you want to lash back, you want to say something. That’s where you have to tell yourself no. That takes some suffering because of telling self, “Shut up!”

What was that song? Was that? I was razzing some the other day here and they sent a song to me on the phone. I don’t remember if it was “Shut up,” or “Shut your mouth, shut your mouth, shut your mouth.” “Shut up. Shut up. Just shut up. Shut up.” It just says that over and over again in the song. Well, sometimes that’s what we need going on in our head, “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Don’t say anything. Don’t respond.”

So, by design, we have to suffer to obey God. Incredible.

So, we’re going back here now to 1 Peter 4:1—For as much then as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind. It’s not a nice suggestion. We’re being told that’s what we’re supposed to do. We’re to yield our self to that.

Backing up to 1 Peter 2:17—Honor all. You know, just show respect. Sometimes that’s difficult to do. Just show respect when the world isn’t doing that, and they don’t show you respect. But to do it to others is the good thing, is the right thing because we have to fight against this.

Honor all. Love the brethren. Fear God. What does that mean to fear God? It’s not to be afraid of God. “I’m afraid of God.” No, we love God, we’re not afraid of God. But we’re to fear to go against God. We should fear with all of our being to do anything against Christ, which is against God. Yet the majority of those who have ever been called haven’t had that fear at all. They become antichrist, turn against Christ, turn against the one through whom they can have their sins forgiven. Incredible that we could do that once impregnated with God’s spirit! But the evidence, the witness is that’s happened a lot.

Servants (like employees) be subject to your masters (employers) with all fear. Again, it’s a matter of God because God says to do things a certain way. And to do them the wrong way, well, we’re not obeying God then, we’re not suffering, we’re not doing what we’re supposed to do, we’re not responding properly, we’re not being a right kind of example.

You know, there comes a time in the future when people we’ve known, whether it be in the Great White Throne or on into the Millennium, “You were in the Church?!” Hopefully, it’s not said that way, you know, “You were in the Church?! The way you acted, the way you talked?” That’s why the Church is being cleansed, so those things don’t happen, so that kind of stuff doesn’t happen, so that those who do come in contact say, “Oh, it was because of what you believed, because of the truth. Wow.”

If we could keep that kind of a mind on a regular basis, we’re setting an example in whatever we do. We can’t do that all the time, but we should strive to. We should pray about that on a regular basis.

…not only to the good and gentle (speaking of employers) but to the froward, in other words, the unfair, the cross, the unreasonable. You ever had someone like that you worked for? I have. I think we all have.

For this is thankworthy… Meaning commendable. Or I should say the word in the New King James is “commendable,” but the word is actually in the Greek language the word for “grace.” I love this verse because it reveals more fully what grace is all about, and I hope we see that powerfully so.

He said, For this is grace. We can come to understand grace more deeply, what God’s grace is to us by how we act, how we respond, in that regard, this is what it is. For this is grace that if a man because of conscience toward God endures grief, suffering wrongfully. If you’ve done something and you weren’t wrong in any fashion or form, but you take it and you suffer for it that’s what grace is all about.

You know, we’re to receive God’s mercy. We receive forgiveness of sin. We receive all those things that are good and right from God into our life and we’re not just to receive it selfishly and have this “special” relationship with God and then we can go around and treat people how we want and treat people in the Church how we want and treat people in the world however we want. We’re not supposed to do that. Were supposed to change, which is a part of repentance and crying out to God for help to change. But there’s some suffering in that kind of a thing, obviously, when you’ve been done wrong and you did right, especially when it was toward God you did it.

Be strengthened by that. Be strengthened by that. Not the opposite. Not with something to lash back at someone else because of how they’ve treated you and mistreated you or whatever it might be. But because of example’s sake, because of living right, we do it fighting against self the right way, the way God says to be that right kind of an example and the right kind of a person whose mind is changing then. Because that’s what it’s about, it’s about this having the ability to change. So, when you practice something that God says to do you grow in character, you grow spiritually more by doing these things.

For what credit, what value, what profit, what good is it when you be beaten harshly, or treated or addressed harshly when you have done wrong, that you take it patiently? That’s what we should do, period, no matter what it is, right or wrong. Obviously, if we’ve done something wrong and someone addresses us on that then we should take it. Sometimes people don’t even take it then, even when it’s done wrong, and you do the right thing.

But if when you have done well, as it goes on to say here, which I’ve just mentioned anyway, and you suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is (same word) grace. It’s what grace is all about. …with God.

Verse 21—For even hereunto were you called. It’s part of our calling. Isn’t that incredible? To go through experiences like this and to learn to respond properly. We should be able to do that so well within the Church, and sometimes we have battle there. But even within the world, there are ways that we’re supposed to respond better, properly.

I remember times in times past when there had to be announcements, in Worldwide especially, concerning people coming to a hotel and things maybe not working out for them and people getting upset because of something that’s happened at the hotel and they come up to the desk there, the front desk, and they’re demanding things of the people at the front desk and just being a sick example. “You’re a part of that same group?” Because they just felt like they were justified in doing so, making a scene, and wouldn’t take the suffering, whatever it might be.

Maybe the room wasn’t cleaned up? Well, wait and it’ll get cleaned up later. Maybe you were supposed to have been in at 3:00 and it’s 6:30 now, hey, and you throw a temper tantrum at the front desk. Beautiful example for the group wasn’t it? Anyway, I’m sorry.

But I remember times when there had to be announcements made at some of the sites because it was ruining our reputation in some cases at some establishments. It’s hard to get establishments sometimes in bookings and that type of thing, and you don’t want to have a bad reputation. Well, we of all people shouldn’t have.

Verse 21 again, For even hereunto were you called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example. It’s not a matter of it being just, justified, having our way because we didn’t do wrong and we’ve got to make sure that others know we didn’t do wrong and we’re justified in what we have said in coming up here and chewing you out for, you know, not having my room ready by 3:00 like it says on the pamphlet here, and here it is 6:00 and my room is still not ready?! People have talked like that and a whole lot worse. Hope no one here did. (Just kidding.)

…that you should follow his steps. So, this is the example we’re to follow. There are things we have to do. We just can’t live ever how we want to from selfishness. It’s not a choice. We’ve been called to live something different in this world.

Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. Who, when he was reviled, you know, criticized in an abusive manner and insulting manner, even especially toward the end there, did not revile back again. Just took it. That takes a lot.

Now, could someone say something in a situation to try to reason with someone, to do it calmly? How well do we do that?

Well, I know I don’t all the time. I have to be careful. I’ve learned more and more in traveling it’s a lot better to be calm and nice to people when things aren’t going well, and your plane has been delayed eight hours. It’s easy to get into a foul attitude if you’re not careful. But why? What’s it going to do? Well, it just makes you foul, bad example, or whatever, if something is said in a harsh way to someone who’s trying their best to deal with the situation that’s there that’s not in their control in the first place. But we as human beings sometimes do that.

I’ve caught myself in those situations where I haven’t responded really well in attitude. I don’t believe in harshness of words in that regard, but probably did come out a little stronger in the sense of knowing me. That’s my Type A personality. But we have to fight against those things. I do. You do. We all do. To treat people with respect.

Sometimes things in this world just aren’t able to be controlled. You can’t control breakdowns on a jet. You want to go ahead and take off on it if it’s not working right? I remember one time in Corpus Christi area where we sat on the tarmac for, I don’t know how long. Got out there ready to go down the runway and after a long time, I don’t know if it was a couple hours, whatever, came back, and they still didn’t let us off. We were there a long, long time.

And you know, people inside a jet like that, there was one here not too long ago where the air conditioning wasn’t working. You know, people got cranky. They got really cranky. Was the stewardess at fault? Was the pilot at fault? You know, it’s like we’re so demanding as human beings sometimes and we become uncomfortable, and we’re justified in how we respond. That’s what we think.

Not in God’s Church. So, often we have to repent. And hopefully, we do when we catch ourselves. Because the more you do that and the more quickly you do that the easier it becomes to respond properly. That mind is growing in you and being developed inside of you so that as time goes on you’re able to catch those things more quickly because you keep repenting as they happen, and they become less and less. It’s a part of conquering and overcoming.

…did not revile back again; when he suffered, he didn’t threaten back but committed himself to Him who judges righteously. It’s about God. We should do everything then, strive to do everything then toward God. That’s why we act and live the way we do. That’s why we dress as we do. That’s why we act as we do. On and on it goes, eat as we do, whatever it might be, because it’s about honoring God, it’s about loving God and being obedient to God and His way, His thinking that He’s given us as how to think.

…who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness. We have that life above and beyond the world around us to live differently, to respond differently, better, kinder, gentler, with humility. That’s what we’re to strive for.

By whose stripes you are healed. So, what an incredible thing we have. In everything in our life, we should be reminded day by day by day what Christ has gone through for us so that we can change and grow and have help and receive of His spirit to live as we should strive to live.

So, it’s not just on the Sabbath. It’s not just at the Feast of Tabernacles. It’s not just on a Holy Day that we’re to strive to live better, it’s all the time we’re out there.

Peter then continued with some of the same theme in the third chapter. He just hits it and hits it and hits it. 1 Peter 3:12—For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous. So, we’ve been called to be able to have righteousness in our life. We have been called to be able to repent, which only as we repent and repent day by day of sin and wrong thoughts, thinking toward others, whatever it might be, of something we’re striving to keep peace at all times and follow what has been given here that just by the simplicity of the fact that we repent we’re righteous.

That’s how God attributes that to us. Through faith. If we live by faith and we have that process in our life God accounts it to us as righteousness – knowing we are not righteous, knowing that we still have selfishness in us. But what an incredible thing that God attributes that as righteousness to us so that we can have that relationship with Him.

“Over the righteous.” So again here, this is powerful because it shows God’s eyes are always upon us. As we want Him, His way of life, we’re in His hands, we’re in His care. Whatever happens to us He’s there if we just let Him in, if we just call upon Him, if we just look to Him.

It reminds me of something else here of recent times. I think of people that have come down with various sicknesses. I think of one person, came up not too long ago, that I believe with all my being they never once in all the time that they were in Worldwide or on into PKG, not once asked for an anointed cloth when they were sick, and did not once obey God Almighty when they were sick and couldn’t go to services. If you’re sick enough you can’t be at services, then why on earth don’t we obey God? I just don’t get it! Of course, they’re not with us anymore, which says a lot.

I know of some others even here in the last couple of weeks didn’t ask for an anointed cloth when they were sick. How do I know that? Well, because we don’t have that many ministers and it’s not that large. You know, we’re not in the thousands. It’s not too hard to know when someone is ill and say, “Did they ask? Did they get a cloth because I’ve been kind of concerned about that?” “No, not from me.” Hmm.

That should blow your mind! That should blow your mind that anyone in God’s Church would not ask for an anointing cloth. Because it’s not a suggestion by God. He said, “When you are sick you are to call on the elders of the Church!!” That reveals whether we’re under government or not, God’s government. Because you’re supposed to do something, and if we’re not doing that, what else are we not doing? Because the reality is there is a lot more in there than just anointing.

There’s a lot more in our thinking that really needs to be cleansed and cleaned up. Those are the kinds of things that take people out of God’s Church because they won’t behave God in the most simple of little things. That’s a little thing. It might not be little when you’re sick but enjoy the sickness because God’s not going to help you out, that’s for sure. Just time and the way He’s created He’s already been merciful to us in creating things that we can fight against things in our bodies that we are maybe able to get back to work or whatever we need to do. But it’s not because you asked for anointing and obeyed God.

Does that mean that every time you get an anointed cloth that God intervenes and heals? No. Sometimes God lets us go through that for the very purpose of what’s in the mind. Do we still believe though we’ve cried out to God for help and intervention in a certain situation in our life that God said no? Do you know why sometimes?

Well, it’s just like our prayers. It’s like my prayers sometimes asking God about certain things for the Church, that “If there is any means whatsoever to speed up the process wouldn’t that be nice? But not my will but Yours be done. But that’s what I feel.” So, it’s a matter of realizing like sometimes praying for someone who’s in a specific trial. This is even better because praying for someone in a specific trial and wanting them to receive relief quickly, immediately, but I understand if it’s for their good and their growth to continue on in this then so be it.

Because sometimes things are for that purpose so that we can be moved, forced, if we will, to think about things more deeply, to turn to God more fully. Because sometimes we tend to drift away, and some things can help us to move back if we get things back in their perspective and realizing, “I need God all the time.” We should know that day by day anyway. But sometimes in this world, we can begin to drift a little bit.

So, I hope all that makes good sense, and we learn from that.

Let’s move on up to 1 Peter 5. I don’t think we were that far. Some of this I’ve already mentioned anyway. But what an incredible thing to understand we’re called to all this, we’re to experience certain things that are unique and different. God is not working with the world, but He is with us and so our environment, our thinking should be totally different and a unique focus concerning God, God’s calling, and what we’re supposed to go through in order for this to be changed and transformed.

1 Peter 5:6—Humble yourselves. Over and over again, this thing of humility. I think of the person I mentioned earlier who I just believe with all my being never, never, never, ever asked for an anointed cloth, and there are times I knew when they were sick. It takes in cases like that when someone is so determined that they’re going to get better. They don’t want to ask and maybe it’s an embarrassment to them. Whatever it is in the mind, I know of lots of thinking that can be involved in that and probably have been in that in situations like that.

But to humble ourselves before God?  In something like that, that shouldn’t be a hard thing to do. That shouldn’t be difficult but sometimes it is, and that’s why if it continues on for a time God can’t work with that anymore. They’re set. They won’t repent. They won’t respond. So, what should happen? Outside the Body. They’ve been out in the courtyard for so long they don’t even recognize what the Temple is even though it’s right there in front of them. Isn’t that amazing? Courtyard – Temple. They see it, but they don’t know what it is anymore. Amazing.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time. We want to be exalted? No, but putting it in perspective here it shows God’s going to do it. That’s what God’s calling is, to become a part of Elohim, to become a part, for many, to become part of His government now or later, of things where we’re going to fit into the Temple. God’s going to give us things that we can’t even begin to comprehend how incredibly great they are that make human life look like a little ant hill. (“There go the ants.”) The comparison, you can’t make it what it’s going to be like in the God Family. There are things we can’t even begin to grasp until we’re spirit.

And so, what are we willing to sacrifice in order to receive the inheritance that God says is ours? Do we want that with all of our being or do we value something else greater in this physical life? You cannot value anything in physical life close to what God is offering. If you do you’ll be gone. Everyone who has left has valued something else greater than the awesomeness of riches, of the rich way of life that God is offering us. Choices. Choices, choices, choices.

…that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him. Continuing to work to move forward in life but understanding we’re in God’s hands. To have that confidence and that boldness to know the beauty of a calling, the awesomeness of a calling, the blessing of being able to be transformed and changed, that we don’t have to have this kind of a mind that is selfish, that gnaws at us at times, that we have to fight against in order to be unselfish, to be loving and caring and giving.

…casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. Be sober. What kind of confidence and boldness do we have that we belong to God, that we’re in God’s hands whatever happens and whenever it happens?

I think of some things that Paul talked about, his desire to be with God, what was coming in time, knowing he was going to die in order to receive that. But when you die you don’t know anything. But in all practical purposes when you die the next thing is you’re there if we’ve done what we’re to do and we’ve been sealed. His desire though was for the Church.

And so, I thought about those kinds of things because I don’t know… Well, I don’t want to go into too much of that, but I’ve mentioned before I don’t know when my time is but I’m getting close to it. I’ve gone through several things already, that I’m still here for a purpose and for a reason knowing full well that on a flight – I hope it doesn’t ever happen on a flight because I don’t want that to be upon my wife. But hopefully, it’s just in bed some time, and that’s going to be hard enough, you know. But someday it’s going to happen. That’s the way life is, and it ends.

But I understand what it means for God’s Church to have an apostle, too, and if you don’t have one it’s going to be very hard. Does that mean God can’t give an apostle? No. But I believe with all my being there’ll be no more in this age; put it that way.

So, what do our prayers consist of? Well, I know in that context what they are.

…casting all your care upon Him. Don’t have anything to worry about. …for He cares for you.

Be sober, be vigilant. Means to be awake, keep watch, be alert. Can’t be lukewarm to be alert. And yet that example that exists. You know, all seven eras had things that were being done that were right and things that were wrong, as a whole. And those things that were being done in any particular era, just because one was more pronounced it just shows human nature and events of life. And the reality is all those things exist within God’s Church today at varying levels because there are battles, they’re our battles.

So, to look at lukewarmness, yes, it exists, and that’s what we have to fight against. You don’t want in your life to happen what happened to Laodicea, to be spewed out of God’s mouth. Not now. Or worse.

…because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walks about seeking whom he may devour. Now, this is about the Church. This isn’t about the world. He loathes God. He hates anything that has to do with God and God’s way of life. He hates God’s people. Always has. At times God has allowed him to attack.

But so often as far as people within the Church through time, through seven eras and on because of choices, there’s a process there if people aren’t going to obey God he’s going to have power. The more that people sin and the longer that people sin in life without repentance the more they give themselves to that being and they cannot help the things that they begin to latch on to in the mind.

To come to a point where you think the earth is flat? To come to a point where you think these things going across the sky? To come to a point where you’ve got to have these little pyramid-type structures? To go to points in life where you get off on tangents about certain concoctions of things, if you’d just drink this every day you’re going to live to be a hundred and forty? Think, “I don’t want to live to be a hundred and forty!”

Can you imagine? I cannot imagine living over nine hundred years! The evil that had to exist in the minds of individuals because the longer human beings live selfishly the more conniving, the more evil we can become.

Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. Be sober, be vigilant because the adversary as a devil as a roaring lion walks about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist steadfast in the faith. God has given us the power to resist, to have power within us that’s greater than he has, obviously, because he has no power over us if God is in us, fully within us and we’re yielding ourselves to that process and we’re repenting of sin. When individuals don’t repent and don’t obey God they become weakened and that being has more ability then to work his way in.

…knowing that the same afflictions or the same suffering are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. What a horrible thing the kinds of things that human beings go through. Sometimes within the Church, there’s a lot of suffering. But we have to understand that’s a good thing because it leads to, for us, change if we’re living right.

But the God of all grace, who has called us unto His eternal glory through Joshua the Christ… That should move us right there to think that God Almighty, the Great God of all time, Yahweh Elohim, amongst all the billions who have ever lived has chosen us to something special now at this time, being small, giving us something great? We really don’t comprehend that fully, but we should strive to in the sense of appreciation, gratitude, and thankfulness, and being in awe of it.

…unto His eternal glory through Joshua the Christ, after that you have suffered a while. It’s always there, suffering. Suffering. But by choice. “I want to for the right purpose. I want to fight this, to be able to say, ‘no,’ to be able to keep ‘shut your mouth, shut your mouth, shut your mouth,’” whatever it is. I don’t remember the song there. “…and to listen and to do it for the right reason, not to respond in a wrong way in any fashion or form ever.” Wouldn’t that be awesome? But we strive for that.

And so, yeah, self has to suffer. Good. Bring it on. So, we do that. Be careful when you ask for some of those kinds of things that you ask for mercy as well, okay?

…but after you have suffered a while make you perfect, establish… That’s what we go through for these things that are awesome in life to take place on a spiritual plane. …strengthen and settle you. All that we really want and desire, that we need – through suffering.

To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

So, I hope and will ask, do we grasp that what we’re covering here at this Feast is exactly the process of action that is needed in our life in order to accomplish what we were instructed as we went through the long series back at the end of April and up to the middle of June?

Incredible, so much there in a long, long series, and because it was that long it should show us how important this is to God and to Joshua toward us in what we’re to receive. It was a nine-part series entitled, Exercising God’s Love. It’s not a suggestion. We’re to grow in that more and more and more, especially in this time.

The ability, the action, the process of accomplishing such a thing, to exercise God’s love, is about seeking in one’s life to live by continuously, consistently working to make righteous judgments in our life. Choices. But choices that are based upon our reasoning and our thinking that we’re striving to bring into unity and oneness with the mind of God and His Son, Joshua the Christ. This is true then especially toward one another, which in turn, if you will, is about God’s Family—but one another within His Church, in His Family—but it’s about God.

Let’s review some of what was covered back then at that point in time, just some highlights, because I’ll tell you what, what we covered is so powerful, so meaningful. It’s at a point if we’re able to apply it and live it more fully, it’s spiritual in nature, every bit of it, very powerfully so and determines the amount of strength and power we can receive more so in our lives.

So, let’s turn over to 1 John 3 because words are not minced here whatsoever, and yet in times past people have read these things and haven’t seen the Church or self or our relationships within the Church as clearly as has needed to be.

1 John 3:14—We know that we have passed from death unto life. We should know that and yet so many people lose that. From death unto life. They go back to death. When individuals turn toward being antichrist, turning against what they know, they turn toward death and don’t grasp it, what God called us out of. He called us out of that to life.

We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. It’s a good measure. So, how often do you pray, how often do we pray for more of God’s love toward the brethren?

Whoever does not love their brother abides in death. This isn’t for the world. This is for the Church! And so, if we’re not living by what God has given to us then God says, in essence, we’re cut off from Him, we don’t have His spirit in us. It’s happened over and over and over again just in the past year.

Whoever, and we know that word isn’t “hates” but to love less than what is being described here in context. Whoever loves less, if you will, their brother, by the context of what’s here is a murderer. If you do it less than the way God says to do it, the way that God inspired John to write here. If we’re not applying those things and seeking help to apply those things God says we are a murderer.

And you know, I began to see this in a magnified way at the time of the Apostasy when in the book of Ezekiel, I began to understand that there are things there said about whom God has sent, those who in essence are ministers, and the blood (which is murder) is upon them for what they’ve done because they haven’t done and followed God’s charge to His people.

And we can do that within the Body, all who have done things that have hurt people in God’s Church to the point where they have succumbed to and become weaker and eventually out of the Body of Christ because their minds go so far in a different direction — which is upon them, it’s their choices, because not everybody did. But to be the one responsible for drawing people away and hurting them so that their growing ceased on a spiritual plane within the Church? To be responsible for that?

We have not grasped the seriousness of the judgment that’s already upon them in God’s Church. To be resurrected at another time, to see their shame, to have their shame broadcast? Because it will be. You know, sometimes we do shameful things in life or have done. Well, whenever we sin we do, but some things are far more atrocious when it affects others within the Church. And if individuals don’t repent or won’t repent? Because what happens is that people’s minds become set in something different. I think of different ones through time here that I believe with all my being, that God has revealed, that there are people out there (I think of WWII) who had such atrocities, and this has been repeated generation after generation after generation. Their minds are so sick, so evil!

That there has been this concept in times past that, “Oh, when they’re resurrected in the Great White Throne they’ll be able to repent of all those things.” Well, it’s kind of like Lucifer. When he started doing what he did his mind became set. From then on, no care, no concern to ever repent (because of being spirit), but human beings can become the same way, that over time of living such evil for so long, their minds can become set in certain things.

To comprehend that there are going to be people who have been in the environment of God’s Church who have been put out, who have left in times past, to be resurrected in a Great White Throne (getting a little ahead of myself, but nevertheless, to start thinking about some of this), to think that all of them are going to repent? I know they won’t! There are some who are so filled with pride, who are so right in what they did, so justified in their own minds that they’re set in that. The reality is they just don’t want God’s way of life. They just don’t want it. They want something different.

You think a person can become set in that who has had God’s spirit? I do. They left in the first place, didn’t they? They were put out in the first place. Didn’t they start preaching…? I think of different ministers, the one I’ve talked about Passover and what he did, to do that year after year after year with college students who went out and then hurt people in God’s Church with that foolishness, especially when it popped up more, more so after the Apostasy because some of them then had this so-called freedom to now preach what they’ve always believed, 14/15th Passover. And they did it.

Some got in a little bit of trouble with the organizations, but they swept it under the rug. Some of these things that we’ve experienced rile me up because it goes back to judgment and there are some things that are just and right. It’s just and right to get rid of anything that works against God, anything that works against the truth, and if people want something different they can have it, but they can’t have God’s Family. They can’t have everlasting life in God’s Family because that would be as bad as allowing Lucifer to continue on, Satan to continue on forever and forever. For what purpose? For what accomplishment? It’s better to be forgotten, erased from all time. Even people we’ve loved, walked to God’s house side by side. If that’s their choice, if that’s their mindset and they’re set in that, so be it, regardless of those emotions and feelings of the past. Because right is right, justice is justice, true justice from God.

Whoever loves less … is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in them. There is a lot said there, a lot said.

Hereby perceive we the love/the agape or perceive agape because he laid down his life for us. That example. It’s a matter of sacrifice, of suffering. Sacrificing his own will because his will was, his desire was “Father, if there be any other way, take this cup from me.” That was his will. It wasn’t sin but it was his will, it was his desire. Who wants to suffer that much? Who wants to go through something so excruciating? He didn’t. Just being clear and honest about it in human body.

“Nevertheless, not my will,” because he knew, “Yours be done.” This is written for us. That was written for us to grasp and comprehend. Awesome and beautiful and what example we’re to follow, “Not my will but Yours be done.”

Hereby perceive we the agape, because he laid down his life in essence for us. So we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Sacrifice. It’s amazing… I love how it expresses this. And we should love it, embrace it, that suffering is about a sacrifice of self, to embrace that. To sacrifice our will, our way of doing things, especially when they conflict with God’s in that regard, as far as relationships with others and how we respond to others, to do it God’s way. That’s what it’s about.

To be able to go through that, to be able to say no to self, to have the strength and the ability to say no to sin, that’s what we’re supposed to do. Choice. It’s just that’s the way it is, “No, not about to.” The more time goes on you practice that the more it's just your mind because it comes from God.

Ephesians 5, some different scriptures along these lines.

So, we’re going through things and starting to touch upon some of those things as we go forward here in these sermons, to understand responsibility, to understand accountability, to understand the need to receive, accept the ownership of what our choices are, and to understand for the right choices there are certain things, but for the wrong choices, there are also certain judgments and certain things that are done righteously so.

Sometimes we haven’t grasped those to the level we need to with the sobriety, the soberness that we need to because there are some things that can go on into time into the Great White Throne. I mention it over and over again, if we can just grasp the soberness of choices that people have made through time who have had the impregnation of God’s spirit, to turn against Christ’s sacrifice, to turn against the impregnation of God’s spirit in the mind is a very great evil, the greatest evil that has ever existed in time.

It’s worse than what Lucifer did. He was never offered that. He was never offered God’s spirit, Elohim. Part of the reason for his becoming upset and jealous and turning against God, because he wanted that, more than that, actually.

And for any who are ever called that take the seriousness of an incredible calling that’s given and then turn against it has committed heinous sin. Sin is sin and sin leads to death, but there is sin that is incredibly repulsive and evil. When you realize it on a level that things can be worse than what Lucifer did? And what’s going to happen to him?

Can some things be repented of? Yes, depending on the mind and how far it went, whether some things were a matter of falling to sleep and becoming weaker in time or that lukewarm spirit, there are things that can happen that people can repent of and change and be stirred up again. But there are times when people can go way too far to a point where their mind is so changed they really don’t want this anymore.

Ephesians 5:1—Therefore be followers of God dear children, and walk in agape. We can walk in it; we can live it. We have to ask God for it just as we have to ask God for His spirit because they actually go together. But it’s a matter of our thinking and how we respond to people because that’s responding to the reasoning, the mind of God, and wanting to live that way toward others and asking for the help to do it. Because we can’t do it of our own.

So, this kind of love which requires that we suffer, that we sacrifice something, that’s a unique thing we go that far then to love others. That’s beautiful. Real giving without human lust, pride, and so forth.

…and walk in love as Christ also loved us and has given himself concerning, for the sake of us an offering, and a sacrifice for a sweet-smelling savor to God. So, when we do that it’s like the prayers that go up. Because they have to be there as well because we have to have God’s help. But it’s that which is beautiful to God. The offering to animals and so forth didn’t do a thing and God didn’t want it, didn’t accomplish anything.

But this, when we choose to respond to God Almighty and we fight against self and we’re willing to sacrifice in order to love someone else sometimes, “Shut your mouth,” “Shut your mouth,” “Shut your mouth” you know. That type of simplicity is a beautiful thing. “Don’t hurt.” “Don’t hurt.” Because that’s what it’s about. “Don’t hurt others.” I don’t care how right you are don’t hurt others. Don’t make them feel bad.

Why would we ever want to hurt someone else and make them feel bad? Do we feel bad when we’ve made someone else feel bad by what we said? We should hurt inside, really hurt because we loathe it, we loathe what we did, we loathe that kind of selfishness. We don’t love like we should love. So, that’s a good thing, to hurt. But if we can’t hurt we’re really in bad shape. If we’re not hurting when things like that happen we’re on some pretty shaky ground. I’ll just be real candid with you.

“An offering, and a sacrifice for a sweet-smelling savor to God.” So it’s a matter of, again, to sacrifice to do God’s will, in order to exercise righteous judgment. Again, it’s always about how we think, that logic, that reasoning. Is God in it? Are we looking to God?

One more verse here, section of verses, 2 John. Over and over again this thing of sacrifice, suffering, sacrifice, suffering, love, give.

2 John :6—Even this is agape, love, God’s love, that we walk after His commandments. That is an incredible thing to think about again here, to realize God commands various things. There are commandments and it’s one thing to say yes or no to “I’m going to do this. I’m going to keep the Sabbath and so forth.” It’s another thing to exercise these things then in our lives when it comes to how we have to think about various things that happen to us because that goes beyond just the simplicity of a commandment.

Not saying they're simple, but the simplicity of that, this is much harder, the reasoning part, the thinking in part in order to apply and do God’s will, to work through that, to have right thinking towards others because we so want to be able to put people in these different categories and so forth. “Put someone here.” Find fault because we’re so right.

Even this is love, that we walk after His commandments. So, this is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it. I love this. Because a lot of people have been so confused because it’s very wordy and back and forth, like, “What’s being said?” Well, with God’s spirit, it’s pretty clear.

For many deceivers have entered into the world who do not confess that Joshua the Christ is coming in the flesh. Now, there have been long periods of time, decades, that this has never, never, never been understood by people in God’s Church. So, what an awesome thing when you come to a point in time and God says, “This is what this is.” Growth. Maturity. Beautiful. This is about the Church! “For many deceivers have entered into the world.” It’s easier to think about the world. Yeah, they’re all over the place out there. That’s not what it’s about.

Because it goes on to say, “Who do not confess that Joshua the Christ is coming in the flesh.” That can only happen to people in God’s Church. The life of Christ coming into us, that witness that’s able to be in us because we have that life within us can only happen in God’s Church. This is talking about people who turn against this, deceivers, liars – liars! We can’t be liars in God’s Church. We have to hold on to being truthful and honest, open.

I hate that. We should hate that. We should want to be truthful in life. Sometimes we try to put on this façade that, well, “I’m not this way, I want you to see something better than what really is there.” No, we all have problems and battles and things we go through.

I remember the first time I heard a couple of sermons from a minister from headquarters when he began to talk about the ministry and he began to talk about a wrong approach that had been used in the ministry for so long, this thing of sheriffing. But basically, that’s where we were as a Church because we didn’t grasp and understand of getting too involved in people’s lives and controlling, and when I heard him give that it was the first time I’d ever heard a minister talk like that, and he was being open and honest about his own life, and he said, “This is what I saw and this is what I had to begin to change, how to love God’s people.” I thought, why couldn’t we see that before? Well, we couldn’t see it because it wasn’t time yet. God has His time for revealing various levels of growing and becoming stronger.

It's like different generations of times past. I know of people that were back in the ‘50s, and, well, even later on because some of that still followed, and people within the Church and how to rear children and so forth and don’t spare the rod. Pshew, boy, was that taken literally. And in the ‘50s, that’s the way society was as a whole, how children were corrected, and so forth. It showed oftentimes.

Now, today you don’t touch a child in public or anything or you may end up with no children, they may take them. I mean, some things they’ve gone too far. But there’s a balance in life in things and yet parents when they came to realize that they focused too much on that and didn’t focus on the time and the love that should have been there because the world didn’t see that and the Church wasn’t seeing it yet and so there were parents, there were parents later on as they had children that got older, when they grew up in the ’50s, in through that period – because that was a pretty hard time and because we saw things more on a physical plane of do’s and don’ts, and then the parents were filled with guilt later on of what they did when they came to learn in the ‘60s then, things began to be taught later on, especially in the late ‘60s even more so and early ‘70s it began to change in the sense of people realizing that there is that which is more balanced and they began to learn, we began to learn.

But I had to counsel different ones and tell them “Yes, you may have applied that, but that was what we had, that’s what we knew…” I didn’t know about the present truth at that time, “and that’s the way the world was, that’s the way we were in society, and we did it better than the world around us, but you can’t carry that with you anymore. It’s gone. You’ve repented of those things and…” Anyway.

Then the next generation came along, ours. I think of our children and that was still too strong even at that period of time. Then even for the Church coming to a point in time where there were things that were very strong, and that was kind of taught.

I remember that people would come to the ministry about everything imaginable. Can you imagine someone saying, “Is it okay to have this color of car?” “Well, whatever you do, don’t get a black car! You cannot own a black car.” That happened! Things like that happened. It’s like you can’t make a choice, a decision. Is there sin in a black car? Well, there must have been in some people’s minds.

But I’m just saying that’s where we were as far as a present truth at that time, and we had to learn from that. I’ve learned from that. The Church, people learn from some of those kinds of things later on to realize that this isn’t the way it should be. I think of being under some ministers in my training, that I saw things that caused me to cringe at times. But that’s where the Church was as a whole.

Now, God was starting to reveal very powerfully so, even early on He used the one who became the man of sin to tell the ministry “You need to change.” In the beginning, there were some things given to him that the Church was supposed to apply. Now, he began to change three, four years later up the road and began to work on some of those things, but in the beginning, he gave some very strong correction to the ministry that at that time the ministry should have received, and they didn’t, of changes that should take place in how you treat the Church.

That was about the time period that this minister I heard for the first time ever from headquarters talk about such things. There is a way people are to be treated and worked with and there’s a way they should never be treated and worked with. I repented mightily because I didn’t realize that I had succumbed to some of that, that some of that was in my mind though I… Well, I don’t need to go into that.

So, anyway, what an awesome thing that we can grow and change and learn how to love each other more, and even within the Church then those things have begun to change even within the time of PKG and so forth. But through Laodicea, there was so much that was done wrong and never changed.

But going back to this, to understand what God’s love is about, that we’re called to live it, that there are changes in growth whether it be within the Church through time. Because we see that. Through Philadelphia, changes were made through time. Laodicea, for a little bit, and then it leveled off to the Apostasy. Then God blessed a group to come together, to begin to have things revealed to them that would lead us up to the coming of Joshua the Christ.

These things we are covering are the finishing touches, if we can grasp that and understand that. It’s a part of a Thunder. I hope we’re able to receive that. It’s a part of a Thunder with all the other Thunders. And if we can receive it, it’s loud and it’s powerful what we’ve been given this past year. What we’re going through concerning judgment right now that comes back to, as I’m doing right here, the sermons about God’s love and how we’re to love each other.

…that we walk after His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it. For many deceivers have entered into the world who do not confess that Joshua… They’re not showing that they’re yielding to God, to Christ living in their life. That’s not the witness, something else is. When something else is and it’s not Christ living in them you know what’s happening? God is taking it out of the Church. The Church is being cleansed.

I hope with all my being if the end, if Christ hasn’t returned by next Feast of Tabernacles, that everyone would be together at the next Feast. But I know that’s not the case.

This is a deceiver and an antichrist. What an incredible thing. It’s the Church, it’s in the Church. A deceiver and an antichrist? They don’t belong in the Church and that’s what God is taking care of here at this end-time.

Look to yourselves… What a blessing that the Church has been growing mightily in this over the past year because area to area we’ve gone into I have been so encouraged to see more of this witness of Joshua the Christ in the Church than I ever have. That’s a beautiful thing.

So, rejoice in that. First sermon was about rejoicing, rejoicing in the fact that we can live that more fully now because of what God has given to us. Because it’s something that God gives and He wants to give us more, the ability to have that kind of love in us in how we treat one another and how we talk to each other and how we think toward each other and that we really, truly love each other.

Is there anyone we don’t love? Is there anyone we don’t have a desire for that they be in the Millennium or in God’s Kingdom when He returns? That part of refining is we don’t know who or what, but we should want everyone to have that opportunity to continue on, to be a part, genuinely so.

“Look to yourselves.” So, each one of us have that responsibility, to look to ourselves, to look inside. That takes God’s help. We have to have God’s help to look inside and see what needs to be changed, to reveal it to us so that we can see it when it pops up and the help then to begin to address it more fully.

Look to yourselves so that you do not lose those things which we have worked for, and that we receive a full reward. It’s good to do that, to be able to receive the full reward from what God gives to us for the work we have done. Beautiful.

Well, that’s the end of Part 3 but I’m going to stick you with some more news today, okay.

Thunders. I marvel at some of these things when we go through them. I’ve mentioned it, sometimes I’ve quit reading them because it’s like I’m not sure, but so many have made comments, “I want to hear it.” So many don’t hear it. I think it helps us as well to realize where we are. Are we keenly hearing Thunders? Because we could begin to think, "Well, this is just normal out here,” and it’s like, no, these are not normal, and we need to see it in the context of Thunder.

Here is about Global Economic Upheaval, okay, just one Thunder. Job report – native-born workers were replaced with foreign-born workers.

You know this is a problem in so many parts of the world right now, things that are happening. I understand people wanting a better life and so forth, but you know, there are reasons in a physical, carnal world for boundaries and laws. When they’re not lived or applied things go wacky, and this is just a part of the wackiness taking place.

So, it’s not just happening in the U.S., it’s happening in Europe, it’s happening in different places, and it’s upsetting a global, if you will, type of norm of ability to have control where nations have lost control, and they can’t put it all back together again. It’s impossible. They just have to deal with it. And what does that mean?

Brazil took the lead of the corn trade from the United States after forty years. See, we look at things differently than what God does and is doing, and I’ve seen so much happen within a period. There’s a time of seventy years in there that so much has taken place. It’s about the last book as well in a very powerful way, showing what slowly has taken place. The world, it’s caught up with them.

It's like the petrol dollar. It was a slow thing. It hasn’t happened all at once. So slow that it’s like the frog. So slow that they don’t grasp what’s taking place and they really don’t believe it’s going to happen, and yet it’s already happening.

The BRICS, they’ve added so many more letters to it now that it’s BRICS on steroids, you know, of people wanting to be a part of it because they’re sick and tired of being bullied. And really, that’s what it’s about. The world is finally waking up to some of those things and sick and tired.

We should understand that but it’s all a part of Thunder, it truly is, that it’s taken this long to come together and all of it happening in a coordinated manner. That’s what God is doing. Awesome! Thunder has to be done in a coordinated manner for them to happen more often, more powerful as we get together here, toward a crescendo.

China dominated BRICS and the Middle East. You reckon? Some of these, like, you shouldn’t have to say that, but it isn’t clear to the world. It goes into interesting history in some of these things. “During the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union, there was an economic competition in which each side tried to lure unaffiliated and discontented poor nations to choose sides. Today the primary competition for nations is a contest between Western capitalism and the market-oriented communism of China which aims to end the West's dominant economic status.”

As they do that they’re cutting their own throat. Isn’t that amazing? It’s awesome what’s happening, sitting back and watching this.

Authoritarian nations are trying to avoid sanctions. You know, you say the Belt and Road Initiative in the United States, it’s like, “Belt?” They can’t get past the belt around their waist. They wouldn’t know what that means. “Belt and Road Initiative? What is that?” Because it’s never in the news.

Competition in the Middle East. “China is implementing a systematic strategic plan in the Middle East to convert its economic power in the Middle East into political power on the way to a military foothold.”

Chinese-led BRICS umbrella welcomed six new members with another twenty anxiously waiting, hoping for an invitation soon. It’s going to be a long word, BRICS on steroids. “BRICS members represent nearly half the world's energy producers as well as consumers.”

See, the world can’t live under this change. That’s the whole point of all this. It’s such a powerful thing on such a global level that it just it causes everything to crash, to fall at some point here.

Chinese youth employment hits fifty percent. That’s not good news in China. China has a way of working with things, doing things, and they have been. It’s to prepare for war. That’s how they deal with it.

Dollar issues. So, to think that all these things in the world that we see coming together, they’re coming together at one time here. But God isn’t going to allow it to take place until it does happen at one time, one great crescendo.

“We’re literally living on borrowed time. We’ve been able to kick the can down the road for many, many years…” Isn’t that amazing? Some people saw the handwriting on the wall that long ago but it’s just like it is drug out, like this frog in water, slowly but surely to where people can’t deal with it in government, and it’s gotten so large, even since 2008.

Things weren’t dealt with a decade ago and so we let the problems get bigger. And so, it’s a good analogy because that’s what’s been taking place, and it just gets worse and worse and worse until it can no longer hold up anymore.

Well, we’ll stop there today.