God’s Judgment, Pt. 1

Ronald Weinland

October 5, 2023

Feast of Tabernacles Sermon

We are going to continue in the theme or the focus of the sermons that I’ve been giving here for the Feast. As we continue on we’re now going to go to the next step.

A statement was made, again, in the intro of the last series we just completed. I’m going to read that again. We can hear things like this but to live it, that’s the challenge, that’s the task.

“If we do not learn to fully judge ourselves and judge ourselves first in all areas of judgment we’re not going to come to grasp and learn about judgment in the manner that God wants us to at this Feast.”

This sermon today is entitled God’s Judgment with this being Part 1.

As we went through what I considered to have been very sobering in the series about Exercising God’s Love, which was mentioned yesterday, it was becoming far more evident that God was revealing to us a far greater seriousness concerning His judgment that’s to be carried out very thoroughly so in the future. One of those primary judgments is coming very soon on the earth.

So again, we haven’t seen to the depth in the sense of the kind of seriousness and importance that that is and what it means for our lives and for lives of others in times past. But going through that it became evident that the book of 1st John is far more instructive about how we are to be living our lives in the Church, primarily toward one another, and that failure to do so has very grave consequences. That’s just a reality of life.

The more that God gives us in understanding and knowledge and opportunity to learn through experience because that’s how it’s really cemented in our minds is through the experiences we have, and if we don’t use those experiences properly, which have to do with in most cases just relationships, in that respect, as far as the Church is concerned, and when we have those opportunities to live something right, to experience something properly that’s a matter of choices in our mind that determines so much exactly where we are, where we’re headed, and so forth.

And indeed, judgment is upon the house of God, always has been ever since it began for those who are called. As a whole those who have been baptized with God’s spirit over the past two thousand years, the majority have not fared well. In times past, I’ll just add, that there was a time in the younger part of our development when truth was being restored to the Church after it had been primarily lost during Sardis, that there was a process of growing within the environment of the Church in the Radio Church of God and then later in the Worldwide Church of God, and it was a continual growing process with a lot of people being instructed, guided, and directed.

There were things we just weren’t there yet as far as an ability for God to reveal more and more to us about various things because it’s a spiritual thing and that has to be developed and built upon and it takes time. It took time through that period, if you will, of what we could receive. And so, the understanding of people in times past, it wasn’t with the seriousness, the sobriety, the reality of something to me is very strong when it comes to judgment. It just wasn’t seen that way. We weren’t there. That has to do with what God reveals to us as we grow. But it just couldn’t be seen and so it wasn’t taken in that vein, and because of that there was this concept in large part that most everyone when they’re resurrected in the Great White Throne they’re going to repent and change. But that’s not the result of human nature – not even in God’s Church.

So, what makes it different then? Just because it’s a better world? Just because Christ is here? Just because of 144,000? And candidly, in the Great White Throne there are going to be a lot more because of the end of the Millennium and what takes place.

So, this is a tough nut to crack, our human minds, and the only way it can be and can be changed is by our own personal choices, and God gives us the ability to do that, but we have to make those choices.

Then we came to the book of Jude after we were going through some of that, which became even stronger and straight speaking, if you will, in what was being told to the Church.

Again, I hope we grasp and understand that even though we may have read 1st John ten years ago, twenty years ago, thirty years ago, or forty years ago, our understanding has dramatically changed as we have gone through periods of time, especially around 2008 and on, of the things that God has been revealing. Even a little bit before that concerning the book of 1st John. But we’ve continually built upon it and our grasp and understanding of the things that are there now is far, far greater – far, far greater than it was five years ago. Sometimes in God’s Church, we can tend to think that we’ve known certain things for forever, for a long time, and the reality is, no, we haven’t.

Again, the book of Jude, very, very strong, and it would be good to be reminded of a few of those verses that we covered back there in 1st John, as we did yesterday. I hope by understanding that we’re repeating these things, and even some that have already been given in 1 John, that it reflects and shows the seriousness of what God wants us to grasp, to comprehend, and understand that is written there.

That’s why we’re repeating them. That’s why we’re going back through them. That’s why even in the series that we were given we had a review of many of those things beginning back in January and moving forward. It should ring very loud in our minds that God wants us to see and grasp and lay hold on these things, and we’ve been given several opportunities to do so. As we have done so through that period of time, we’re able to grow that much more, we truly are, as a fellowship, as a Family. Because how we are here, wherever we are in fellowship with one another in the Body of Christ, in the Church of God, determines our true fellowship with Joshua the Christ and God Almighty our Father.

So, because we repeat something, our human nature tends to oftentimes shut off or not zero in on as keenly because it’s being repeated. That shouldn’t be the case and I hope we understand that because it means we’re still growing in it, and we still don’t see it all. There is more to glean. There is more that needs to be etched into our minds.

1 John 2:9—Whoever says they are in the light… Now, that says a lot right there. Because everyone at any point in time, as a whole within God’s Church, I don’t care when it was – during the period of Ephesus, Smyrna, Thyatira, whatever, all those periods of time, and Philadelphia and Laodicea, and PKG, everyone would have that thought, that thinking, “I am in the light.” We don’t consider ourselves not to be in the light, as a whole, because the human mind as a whole tends to deceive itself in whatever condition is there and doesn’t see itself.

That’s why it’s important that we judge self in the light of what God reveals to us and be honest and open about it of the things we hear and about the lies we’re living when we’re not around others in the Body. How do we live? How do we think? How do we act? Because those things are exceedingly important and nothing escapes God, nothing is hidden.

Whoever says they are in the light and hates… Again, very unfortunate translation here. They didn’t grasp and comprehend at all, obviously—they couldn’t—the spiritual aspects of what was being instructed and what was in the language. But again, it’s just a matter of a comparison, a word that is used as a comparison.

You have to know by context what is being said, and this is in the context of what John is writing. So, in the manner that John is writing, whoever loves less than the way he’s instructing and guiding and directing, which is actually what God is instructing and guiding the Church in, Whoever loves less their brother is in darkness even until now. So, in what he has to say in context here we don’t want to love less than that. We want to love totally in that way and grow in that kind of love and that kind of mind. If we do less it becomes very clear this is a very sobering thing because we’re being judged for it and there are consequences. There is judgment to good and there is judgment to that which is not good.

“…is in darkness even until now.” Within the environs of God’s Church, as a whole, people don’t believe, as a whole, ever that they’re in darkness. Everyone who leaves is justified in their minds in what they’re doing. Always, as a whole, always. To go through that process, to deceive oneself, to want to believe something so different that the mind deceives itself into what it’s doing and believes it’s right, believes their right. That’s the problem.

Whoever it is who loves, agapaó, which means “in this manner, this specific manner,” their brother abides in the light, and there is no, it’s not “occasion of,” it just says there is no stumbling, there is no offense, in that respect, committed. We’re doing what we should be doing. If we’re not then there is offense which means there is sin in them.

But whoever loves less, if you will, their brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where they are going. Now, how many would ever believe that, that you’ve known in times past who were part of a fellowship and then something has happened, and they're gone, they’re disfellowshipped? Do they think that? Do they believe that? Nope, not at all. They think they know where they’re going. They think they know what is right.

Again, it’s this matter of being justified in one’s own mind, one’s own thinking in what you’re doing, even though sometimes there are very heinous sins involved. I won’t go through the kinds of sins that have occurred. Because so many things since my time in God’s Church, since 1969, just about seen everything, known of everything that did happen in human life outside that’s happened inside the environment. Not in the Church because God’s Church is filled with those who have God’s mind, who have God’s spirit working in them. When they’re cut off from that they’re no longer in God’s Church and yet that’s existed in the environment of the church.

So, we’re being instructed in things that are sobering to us and good for us but also, please understand, this is for our training. This is for your training, of what we’re getting ready to move into, things where God is going to place us that’s very much a part of why we’re experiencing the kinds of things we are with the kind of knowledge and understanding that God has given at the end of an age. That’s awesome if we understand it.

…and does not know where they’re going because that darkness has blinded their eyes. They really can’t see anymore. My experience has been whenever I have a conversation with someone like that—I don’t generally even try anymore, maybe make some statements just to make sure I understand where they are—but they can’t see. You cannot reason with them on a spiritual plane. They can’t see what is spiritual. It’s just slammed shut, absolutely nothing there that’s reflective of that which is spiritual.

Moving on over to 2nd John. Now, to me when we see these things in this light that’s incredible to grasp and understand, to be aware of and it helps the Body to be stronger. It will help in the Millennium mightily so, and in the Great White Throne mightily so, because this knowledge is going to be out there.

This is how people are going to begin. They’re going to begin with incredible knowledge from the very beginning. Understanding? That comes with time, with their experience. They have to go through various things. Wisdom that follows that because that’s when the choice has been made that that’s what they have chosen. Their minds become set that they are in agreement with God. Beautiful, the process. Knowledge, understanding, wisdom, oneness with God, the mind of God.

2 John :6—Even this is agape. This is what it is, it says. …that we walk after His commandments. Should be pretty self-explanatory. This is the commandment, that as you’ve heard from the beginning that you should walk in it. Because this becomes more difficult. It’s one thing to see various things in the beginning, like we do in the basics of The Ten Commandments even and make choices and be tried and tested in some of those things, but to make choices that this is your desire to be obedient to those things.

But the spiritual part of it as time goes on and we grow and the opportunity to apply it in our lives when that opportunity comes our way is another matter. That’s where choices of judgment have to come in. It’s not just a matter of yes or no. “Yes, I’m going to keep the Sabbath because God says so and I’m not going to work on Friday night anymore or Friday or any time on Sabbath or on any Holy Day because this is what God has said. That’s it. That’s set. Never going to happen.”

And generally, that’s what happens with most—not always—where your mind is set from the very beginning. You’ve made that choice because this is exceedingly important as to where we go and whether we’re right with God and so forth, and those are the things we can see more clearly. It’s a yes or no, “Yes, I agree, that’s what I’m going to do.”

But relationships, which is what Family is all about, and God’s Family, His desire to mold and fashion us to be able to have right relationships, Family is what it’s all about, God’s Family. Not human family. Because there are a lot of prejudices in human family, a lot of prejudices involved. But in God’s Family, it has to be in sincerity and truth and spirit in the mind, genuine, right before God. For the right purposes, for the right reasons because it is indeed at one with God, without prejudice.

You can’t have prejudice in judgment. A lot of people have faltered in that. A lot in the Old Testament. Some of the people, the high priests, and different ones, they faltered in some of those things in time. Those are things you can’t falter in because God has to be first.

…that you have heard from the beginning you should walk in it. So, we have learned what this is about even more so because it’s going back to John 13 and John 14 and some of those things that were written by John very early on, and how that God revealed to him in a very powerful way more than any other apostle these things. He came to grasp and understand as he was given to preach it that we are to love as Christ loved us. Sacrifice. Some of the things we read yesterday. It’s a matter of sacrificing self in order to accomplish that, that there is suffering involved up here in the spirit.

…that you should walk in it. For many deceivers have entered into the world. What an incredible thing to come to understand more deeply because the Church hasn’t always understood this in any fashion or form in times past, until the latter time here.

“For many deceivers have entered into the world.” There are deceivers all over in the world. The whole world is deceived! So, that shouldn’t be a shockaroo. It’s not about them. It’s about the Church, it’s about us. What an incredible thing to understand. So, many deceivers amongst the fellowship of God’s Church have gone back into the world. That’s what it’s about. They’ve chosen the world, to go back into it. Astounding!

I think of one minister, matter of fact, the one that baptized me. Thankfully, there was another one there, gave me a little bit of consolation. But thankfully, also I’d read Herbert Armstrong’s book about water baptism, that if anyone that ever has baptized someone in God’s Church, if they leave that’s on them. You’ve done what you were supposed to do. That’s it; you are baptized.

But he left the Church in time, and he came from a family that had Christmas tree farms, and I heard that’s what he went back to. Now, that’s astounding to think that of all the crazy things in the world. Sometimes people will hold on to things. Well, they may be out of the Church but “I will never eat pork again!” It’s like, there’s a halo. Well, whoop-tee-doo for you. What about things that are far more important than that than what you put in your gut? What about what you put in your mind?

For many deceivers have entered into the world who do not confess that Joshua the Christ is coming in the flesh. Now this, we see this now, we see this so clearly. This was never seen in Philadelphia. This was never seen in Laodicea. But God has blessed you to see it now, why? Is it just so you can have more knowledge and more insight into various things? Is it only because Christ is about to return? That’s the large part of it, but it’s to understand what’s going to happen because of that.

It's about your training. It’s about what you’ve been called to, that you have the opportunity to know these things, that you have the opportunity to apply these things, so that you can become sharper in serving God in the subject matter we’re covering. But we have to live it. We have to live it to teach it, to see it, to know it, to help others. It has to be very clear to us.

“For many deceivers have entered into the world who do not confess…” So, their lives, in that respect, do not confess, they are not reflective of the reality that Joshua the Christ is in them, coming in the flesh. Because that’s what that’s all about, he’s coming in the flesh. He’s coming into our lives if we desire that, if we cry out for that, if we’re seeking to conquer and overcome, if we want God and want Christ and pray to them continually, “I want, I need Your holy spirit!” Every day!

And so, their lives do not tell this truth at all, but it reflects a lie. He’s not there. Well, why not? Why isn’t it being shown that he’s coming in the flesh? You know, you can look back sometimes and see various things that have happened once people are gone, and little things pop up. You realize it just wasn’t right. That’s not how we’re supposed to live. That’s not how we should talk. That’s not how, whatever it might be, and little things begin to pop up to show a pattern of things. Oftentimes, this is what happens so we can understand more clearly what’s true and what’s right.

This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Strong words, powerful words. To grasp and comprehend that one can fight against everything that God has offered them, to fight against their Passover, their High Priest by their actions, by their life, by their choices because they’re not yielding to the process, the truth that God has given them the opportunity to live that should fill their minds and their lives with a greater fullness of a unity and oneness with God Almighty, Yahweh Elohim, which is what we should want with all of our being.

So, to think that any become a deceiver and an antichrist. A deceiver is one who hurts the Body. A deceiver, by what they do and by what they say hurts the Body. Because I have always known once that has been separated, though because of the past there can be that hurt that’s involved in that, but I’ve always seen it as being better for the Body…better for the Body. Sometimes, actually, the Body responds by, “Whew.” It’s a relief.

I know some of you know even more so what I’m talking about because they were oppressive in some cases, oppressive, hurtful, harmful. I’m amazed how many times in the ministry, being in the ministry, that people will act and live a certain way around me, speak a certain way around me but they don’t act the same way around brethren. I’ve had this thing happen to me over and over, especially in PKG, from ministers, from people in the Church who are stabbing you in the back in conversation, who are doing all kinds of things, not agreeing with certain things and talking. That kind of stuff is a cancer, and it hurts people. Because there are people who aren’t, that are going through various things in their life, perhaps new is a good example, and to hear something like that and somebody begin to have something in their mind?

I think of a book one time that was written that was filled with pure evil toward Herbert Armstrong, and I know some people, I’ve known of people that got a hold of that and it hurt their minds so much because there was so much there. And it’s like, if so much is said and there is so much there, that, well, maybe a little of it is true. That’s all it takes to screw up somebody’s mind and turn them against God’s apostle at that time. What a horrifying thing. Then the same thing happens toward other brethren, where people can say things and like, “Well, maybe, I don’t see that but maybe some of it’s true.” Horrible.

Going back to 1 John 2. These are awesome scriptures, they really are. That’s why it has been, and always will be my favorite area of scripture because of what God revealed and what it means to the Church, and John 13 and John 14, what Christ gave on Passover. Those are some of the richest, most awesome things ever revealed—ever revealed—to God’s people that God has given to us to understand about Christ coming in the flesh.

Because the Church took it as being, yeah, he came in the flesh, he lived a physical human life. At that time, it was because he gave up his power as being one of the Gods in the godhead because there were two. We didn’t understand that because God hadn’t revealed it yet. Part of the trinity was done away with, the holy spirit, the holy ghost – “The holy ghost!”—it’s like, I’m afraid of the ghost. That’s certain things that are put out there to make it like a person or being of some sort. But we still hadn’t gotten rid of the other yet because it wasn’t God’s time. He was reserving that for another time.

And so, this concept then that we had in times past, it wasn’t there. It’s like, “Yeah, he did come in the flesh. He emptied himself of all power in order to live as a physical human being and then he died for three days and three nights.” How does God do that? One person remarked to that one time saying, “Well, God can do whatever He wants to do. If He wants to be dead for three days, He’ll be dead for three days and then be resurrected.” Well, anyway, shows sometimes how far our thinking can go to justify something.

But again, these are some of the most awesome things ever given, that we understand that God is coming into our life. That’s why I can’t help it, I love it! Where he revealed for the first time—it wasn’t given to anyone in the Old Testament—until Christ came along on his final night and he said that what he did he did because the Father dwelt in him through the power (we understand), through the power of the holy spirit, and he dwelt in the Father.

Then he said, went on to say this would happen to us; it would happen to God’s people, that they would come and make their dwelling in us. “In my Father’s house are many,” not mansions. We used to think that it was like government and this hierarchy and those things that were looked upon. No, it’s about “In my Father’s house are many dwelling places,” many places to dwell. God has a Family. Everyone called in that Family, He offers to dwell in them, and they in Him and in His Son. Awesome!

So, to understand and know these things, most of the Church over two thousand years didn’t have an inkling of it. How blessed are you to see that? Because it comes alive, it comes alive in our minds. It should.

1 John 2:18—Little children, it is the last time. This is John writing very early on. The last two thousand years have been the last times. The first four thousand they were more toward the beginning and leading up toward the middle, so as an overall plan very true. The Church is toward the end, and the majority of the building that’s taking place is toward the end because it was here and there through time in the first four thousand years that God worked directly with someone. Then He brought us into an organized fashion called the Body of Christ, the Church of God, to work with more, giving ministers then to teach and lead and guide and direct accordingly.

Little children, it is the last time, and as you have heard that antichrist’s shall come… We have come to understand exactly what this is talking about because he’s referring back to Paul and what Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 2, that there would be one who would arise within the Church, in essence, that the coming of Christ would not take place until this event happened, that there would be a son of perdition, the man of sin be revealed who would seek, who in essence would create an Apostasy, bring it about. Incredible.

He was referring to that individual, the antichrist, and he said there are many antichrists. This is already. This is not a long way into the period of time for the Church over the past two thousand years. John in his nineties in here because a little bit later he wrote the book of Revelation. Somewhere maybe late eighties? Because there are things that aren’t fully known, exact timing, but this is toward the end.

But he is the only apostle remaining. It comes to a point in time where all the others have been killed and he is still alive and he’s seeing things that are taking place within the Church. He’s seeing what happens after one apostle after another are removed, killed, and he’s seeing the devastation that’s taking place within God’s Church because God’s Church, especially in that time, they didn’t have technology like we have today, and what happens when there is no apostle. He was the only one and you can only do so much, especially at that age and restricted in traveling and so forth, and then pursued by the government, and then finally sent to the Isle of Patmos and seeing the last of the things he saw that he was to write in the book of Revelation.

He said, “Already, there are many antichrists.” I can see why he’d even think perhaps even more so, “These are the last times! Look what’s happening to the Church!” But God didn’t give him to understand that no, there are eighteen hundred, nineteen hundred years left.

You know, if the different era knew there was that time left that does something to the mind, to a carnal, human being. It’s good that we have always believed through time, we look to this being the time because everyone has always wanted to see the city whose builder and maker is God. Prophets did, different ones in the Old Testament there, wanting to see God’s Kingdom come. Then when the Messiah came that’s why they became so excited and that’s why people were so moved. They were moved by God’s spirit, but it still wasn’t the time. Here, “He's the Messiah. He’s resurrected an individual from the dead. He’s healed people. I was there!” Things that people did. And so, they came out by the thousands when he was coming into town and crying out “Hosanna!” thanking God for the one who descended from David. That’s what they were saying because they believed he was the Messiah. Still got a lot of time.

And you have heard that antichrists shall come. Even now are there many antichrists. And so, we’ve learned in the Church because of history and so forth and come to understand that many have been called but very few have gone through the process and been chosen because the majority leave, are put out, separated from the Body of Christ in the last two thousand years, became antichrist.

I don’t know about you, but that is exceedingly sobering. It’s almost unimaginable. It’s really mind-boggling. What kind of words can you use to describe something like that? Horrific to think such a thing could be possible.

That’s why it wasn’t given to us during Philadelphia to see that, nor, obviously, during Laodicea because that was going down the tubes instead of growing. It was becoming lukewarm. What can you do when you’re lukewarm? Zilch. No value whatsoever. Maybe hanging on for a while and very weakened.

Therefore, we know that it is the last time. Well, because of antichrist, because of things that have happened. He just didn’t grasp at that point in time, it wasn’t given him to know that there are going to be a whole lot more antichrists era after era after era, antichrist after antichrist until the one big one that he mentioned comes to pass. That is the end as far as a period of time. This is that time.

They went out from us, but they were not of us. That’s why they went out, they weren’t of us anymore. For if they had been of us they would have continued – the word is “abided, remain,” that same word about God’s holy spirit dwelling within us. Even here, it would have continued. They would have continued. They would have continued in the Body of Christ. They would have continued in God and God in them. God would still be in them. But that is not the case.

But they went out that they might be made manifest. So, every era has had to experience people leaving because there are things that are learned in that process and there are things that one can grow in in conviction, in deeper conviction by holding on and holding fast. So, there are things that can move us that are difficult, that are bad, but we can benefit from them by the power of God’s spirit. And especially, well, toward the end.

…that they might be made manifest. So, there’s something good. In other words, it’s to be made clear. It’s to be made visible so that it’s not hidden anymore. Because that’s a good thing that God reveals from time to time and shows and brings to pass that this is not a part of the Body. And so, these things have to be made manifest and we have to learn from those things because they should cause us to think and think about our lives and think about others and our desires toward others, and how much do we love the Body and on and on it goes.

…that it might be made clear that they were not all of us.

Verse 20—But you have an anointing from the Holy/Sacred. It’s about God. It’s about the Church. It’s about the Body of Christ, showing here that God has given us His spirit. We have something so incredibly unique that helps us to be set apart, helps us to in turn with God’s spirit continually coming into that mind to set apart things for holy use and purpose.

But you have an anointing from the holy, the sacred, and you know all things, so, all that is holy. God Almighty. Joshua the Christ. God’s spirit that He gives to us, the impregnation of His spirit.

I have not written unto you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it. So, to the Church who is holding fast, he’s saying, “You know the truth.” That’s the only way you can hold on to the truth, to hold on to this way of life. So, we know the truth because of God’s spirit. We’re able to hold on to the truth because of God’s spirit. And so, he’s speaking very boldly here, “You know it. You know the truth.”

We in God’s Church, more than any other time of any era, we know truth that many of them never knew. Herbert Armstrong was given truths that the Church in no time had. He spoke of things in Revelation that John didn’t understand. John wrote about them, but John didn’t know what that stuff was about. He didn’t grasp it. It wasn’t given to him. It wasn’t the purpose to reveal the meaning of what was in there. It was just to write it as it was, period.

And to him, well, he might have known Greek, I guess. A little levity there. I was trying for humor, but it didn’t work. Like, some of the language you don’t know, so it’s Greek. Anyway. For me, it’d be like Dutch. I don’t know it. I don’t understand it. Wish I had the ability to learn languages better.

So, he says, “I have not written unto you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it.” The truth is so important to hold on to, whatever is revealed; the present truth has always been so important in God’s Church for the past two thousand years. And yet so many have let it slip through their fingers, they didn’t hold on to it, they didn’t watch, they didn’t guard, they didn’t protect, they didn’t preserve it like God said we’re to do, like Christ said we’re to do. That takes work! It takes thought. It takes planning. It takes prayer. It takes fighting. It’s a battle but one we want with all of our being.

And so, I think of 57. Awesome! And yet sometimes they’re not valued like they should be. Well, it’s too bad. If we don’t grasp how valuable they are we don’t grasp our calling. If we don’t grasp how valuable they are we don’t understand God. If we don’t grasp how valuable they are we’re not able to see God like we should because they reveal God Almighty. They reveal His mind. They reveal His reasoning, His thinking and what He wants to give us in our thinking. Important? Better believe it.

Because I’ve known of too many people that went into Laodicea, and by the time they went into it they had lost those truths. I saw truth after truth after truth begin to be dropped very early on. Even the fact of Church eras was lost. It was lost in Laodicea. People ceased to believe in Church eras! Well, that gives you a perception and an understanding of things that’s valuable if we grasp that. Yet simple things like that were lost.

A calling! That you’re called. That was lost as a whole by the ministry in God’s Church, and therefore, lost by God’s people! We are the called of God! So, you can’t get up after Herbert Armstrong is dead and many years have passed and finally, there is an Apostasy, and you say, “If you’d just open your Bibles and turn to these pages you can see this!” I can see him on a telecast, this individual. “You can understand this.” I think, “No, you can’t! That is a lie!”

To think you can tell people in an audience you can see this, you can understand this, you can grasp this if you’d just open up your Bibles and read these verses? That’s an old concept that you can prove God to yourself, that you can prove the truth to yourself, that you can prove the Sabbath to yourself. Bull!

Sorry, but I get riled up when I see these kinds of things and what’s happened in times past to God’s people because every once in a while there are little ripples of those things that still take place. We are called. If you understand that you are called you understand that only God Almighty can call someone, only God Almighty can begin to open up the mind to receive what is true. That’s God’s job.

I don’t even want to go into it. I just get riled up when I see the errors of the past and the foolishness of the past and what it means when you start losing truth and how harmful that is to everyone. Keeping people in bondage, not helping them out of bondage.

The thing to do would be to get up and try to help others of God’s scattered Church. You think you’re going to reach out to the world because you have this concept in your mind that Herbert Armstrong didn’t have 144,000 baptized members so that you have to, you have to do this work so that there can finally be this 144,000 who have to be at the end-time? And then this great multitude, that you’re going to have to become a larger church beyond seven thousand people? You’ve got to grow to become 144,000 so you’ve got to get out there and get all these people to be moved and motivated to come into the church.

And then you find out after years of witness and proof you’re spinning your wheels for a reason – because you’re not obeying God. This isn’t God’s work! If you understand what I’m saying. Get a little riled up. Look at the things and foolishness of what evangelists have done in times past who went out themselves wanting to become apostles in the Church since Herbert Armstrong is dead.

The worst one that was ever lost was the first one attributed to Herbert Armstrong, government. It’s been the greatest battle in God’s Church from the very beginning of time, to understand government, order, how God works. That no one, no one, no one, no one, no one in God’s Church learns on their own Sabbath to Sabbath, Holy Day to Holy Day as one recent individual thinks they’re doing. They can teach themselves by what they can study. That’s the epitome of insanity, absolute insanity.

God has to lead, guide, and direct us, and feed us Sabbath by Sabbath, and He does it through His ministry. There is absolutely no other way that God works! That’s God’s government. Yet that’s been one of the hardest things for people in God’s Church through Philadelphia going back to the beginning, frankly, Ephesus and all the way through, for people to grasp. But Herbert Armstrong was attributed that fourth truth of all the truths, that first truth of the 18, government, government, government. It should be so simple to see.

Yet there are people who won’t ask for an anointed cloth, and that’s government. Because God says, “You are to do this; you are to call on My government to be anointed, whether you’re healed or not you’d better obey.” What is hard in that? What is difficult in that? I don’t get it. And wouldn’t our desire be that God be involved and God help us and intervene? What is missing?

You know, I’m just going to say it. That’s why I appreciate some of the truths being referred to. Because they’re valuable. They’re treasure. Treasure! One through fifty-seven, they’re treasure. They’re your treasure. They’re valuable. They’re far more valuable than if you had from the Argyle Mines that are closed up in Australia right now, where all the pink diamonds are found, as a whole. Now they’re finding other diamonds in other parts of the world but the quality and the awesomeness of those, some of the most valuable. It’d be like you finding those particular diamonds or a mine and they’re just sitting on top of the ground. You don’t even have to dig for them, they’re just all over the place. You are wealthy. Well, what good is it? What value is it?

Reminds me of Scrooge McDuck or whatever his name was, Donald Duck’s uncle, Scrooge McDuck and he had all this money in his vault, and he would go out there and throw money up in the air. I don’t know how many people have seen those old cartoons that are very old cartoons. But he would just go out there and, like, swimming in his money. Scrooge. It’s like he’s attained.

What do those things mean? We’re here for a time, a short time, and those things are things created by God Almighty and none of us can take any of it with us. All that we take with us or have hope in is what is in the mind.

This body is not going to look good in time; it’s going to turn very ugly. I grew up on a farm where I’ve seen a lot of ugly when animals are dead, and they lie there and the maggots and the hide of a cow moving because there are so many maggots in there.

So, we’re not pretty when we’re dead, okay, and our bodies aren’t pretty when we’re dead. We don’t have to worry about make-up anymore. We don’t have to worry about how we’re combing our hair. We don’t have to worry about what we’re wearing. Well, we can’t think about it anyway.

It’s what do we value, that’s what’s important. What do we value? It’s God. It’s God’s way of life. It’s what’s in the future. It’s what’s ahead of us. This is only a means to an end. That’s all this is. That’s really very short compared to what God is offering and what’s in front. This is a puny blip in time. You get older and then you realize the clocks kind of running out. Then reality begins to strike more.

Truth. Exceedingly valuable. So many of people have let it slip through their fingers, not grasp the value of what God’s given to us, not grasping this is the mind of God. It’s about His plan and His purpose. It’s about how we move forward. It’s about how we live. It’s about everything that’s in the future that’s of God.

I have not written unto you because you do not know the truth but because you know it. We shouldn’t just know it, we should love it, all of it with all of our being because we love God.

And that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar… I love these verses when it talks about this because it calls a spade a spade. Let’s just face up to it and call a spade a spade and realize that a lie is a lie, and it makes us a liar if we involve ourselves in it.

Who is a liar but whoever denies Joshua the Christ? The reason he was beaten, the reason he was hung up on a pole, the reason he died as he did was so that God could live in us, so that Christ could live in us, so that we could dwell in them, so that we could one day be changed and receive that inheritance that Christ received along with him.

“Who is a liar but whoever denies Joshua the Christ.” So, I’m using this as a simple example because this is really pretty simple. To realize that if you don’t ask for an anointed cloth you’re denying Joshua the Christ. You’re a liar. In that part of your life, an absolute liar. You’re living a lie. You won’t obey God in something so simple and so basic that God has given us to do.

I’m not talking about the sniffles; I’m talking about things that keep us from being able to work or perform our duties or whatever it might be. You might have a headache. I’m not talking about that. I’m not talking about minor things that come along in life. I’m talking about things that get you down that are serious, things that can lead to death if you will. That even becomes more pronounced.

But if we can’t work, if we can’t go to Sabbath services? If you can’t make it to the Sabbath that might be the cause for asking for an anointed cloth. You suppose? Huh. But it’s a matter of obedience. It’s a matter of what we live. To think that even in something like that we can deny Joshua the Christ. Because we’re not obeying so we’re sinning. That’s a sin not to obey God. And so, if we sin and we do it flippantly and things happen to us in life and we just ignore what God has told us to do, don’t we realize that that quenches the spirit?

It’s like that umbilical cord, we’re squeezing it so that less blood can get through to the womb and it’s hurting our growth. It’s stunting our growth. It’s restricting us from being able to see things as clearly as we need to. That’s what happens when you have blood that doesn’t get to the heart or whatever – start getting blurry. You don’t see well. It’s kind of like that, you don’t see well spiritually.

“Who is a liar but whoever denies Joshua the Christ.” And so, primarily, this is about not yielding ourselves, not crying out for, not living as we should so that God’s spirit is quenched, and we can actually become then cut off from God’s spirit and not dwell in God anymore. That’s what this is about. So, if we do that and we deny the very purpose of why he died that’s becoming antichrist, not just a liar, as it says here.

“They are antichrist.” So, we’re to understand the seriousness of these things, and as we grow and as time continues on in the Millennium, in the Great White Throne, to be able to see things and work with things on a plane that becomes more powerful and more effective and serving others.

They are antichrist who deny the Father and the Son. I mean, it’s so clear.

So, we’re reviewing them again. We’ve been through this before, but God gives more power, more strength, more ability to build and build upon what we’ve had, so we hear things several times. The desire is, is that we are drinking in more and more as we review even perhaps as we did in one series, and then reviewing them now at a Feast of Tabernacles where God pours out the greatest help and strength of any time of the year because we’re able to meet seven days at the Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day, and more power is there than ever before through the year.

Just like every Sabbath. It’s not during the week that we have the kind of power poured out upon us and given to us in guidance and direction from God Almighty as on the weekly Sabbath. How much more then at a Feast of Tabernacles? And so, this should show the importance this is to God Almighty to us.

1 John 3:8 – Whoever commits sin… There is a primary sin here that he’s talking about in context in 1st John in relationships, in the Church. That’s the primary thing that’s being focused upon by him though this is about all sin.

Whoever commits sin is of the devil. It doesn’t mince words, it’s just saying here that you have chosen the selfish way. You’re sinning, you’re doing your own thing, you’re disobeying God, you’re denying God, you’re denying Christ, you’re denying them to live in you so that you can do something that is sin. It just calls it what it is. That is of the devil. Why? Because it’s based on that same spirit, selfishness. He did everything out of selfishness. We’re created that way, selfish, but we’re to fight it, we’re to conquer it, we’re to overcome it by the power of God’s spirit within us.

For the devil sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. That’s what we’re to do. We’re to be part of that by crying out to God for help to fight against sin, whatever weaknesses or things that happen in our lives. If it’s something we’ve done and we repent before God, we’re crying out for mercy and we’re crying out for God’s spirit and we’re crying out for help to not ever repeat because we’re learning to hate evil, we’re learning to hate those things that separate us from God and fighting the fight.

Verse 11, dropping on down. For this is the message that we heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of that wicked one and slew his brother. So, it’s using an analogy here of something physical that happened from the very beginning concerning Cain. Sometimes within the Body we need to be careful. You know if you can’t see something you can’t see it through weakness because it’s spiritual what’s being discussed. There is something that’s worse than what Cain did and that’s if we have God’s spirit and we fail to love someone else, and our actions begin to lead us away from what is true and what is right within the Church.

We become a part of that which is spiritual as far as spiritual murder is concerned, which is far more serious, far more damaging, far more hurtful than a physical murder because someone can be resurrected again in physical life, but spiritual murder is a result because of something that individuals have done in hurting others.

I think of different ones who at different periods of time, even in PKG almost from the very beginning behind the scenes, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp. “Did you know this?” “Did you hear this?” “I don’t agree with that, that’s just his ideas.” “He takes too much upon himself.”

I think of that one there. I think of some individuals, several individuals who at the very beginning thought and they tried to come to me and to my wife in the sense of “We’re here to help if you ever need help.” What it really boiled down to is they wanted to speak. That came out in time. They wanted to be able to be a part of the preaching in the Church. That’s the very reason why they weren’t being asked because they wanted to be a part of doing something that they had no business in being a part of because they had the wrong spirit. Every one of them is gone now! Every one of them is no longer with us. Every one of them! Because of that foul, stinking spirit. They wanted to be teachers.

That’s what most people do when they begin to move away from the truth. They begin to try to infect others to agree with them because “I’m right.” Whatever it might be, to spread this little stuff around, of why something is wrong or has been done wrong. It can lead to spiritual murder, killing others.

I saw several people in my thinking as I was saying that, that I’ve seen this done to because of the little chirping behind the scene. “Come over to my place. Let’s meet over here for a Bible study.” “Oh, Mr. Weinland is going to be there.” “No… No! Most definitely not. No, this is just for our little Bible study to go into some things because this would be good for us to get together a little more than what we do and we can all discuss, maybe, a certain subject. You can pick out a subject if you have something that’s important to you.”

You talk about just offering people spiritual arsenic and poison, that’s it. And you know what? Gone as a whole, most leave in those cases, who succumbed to that kind of – you know the word I want to use.

It should appall you, as it appalls me, things that have been done throughout our history because in those things we become more deeply convicted of what is right and to stand for what is right, to never deviate from what is right, to never allow evil in, and to be willing to speak out against it if need be. That’s when we need to say (I probably don’t have the words right), “Shut your mouth. Shut your mouth. Shut your mouth,” you know, or “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Just do it. Shut up.” I’ve got the words all mixed up, but anyway. There are times that that’s a good thing. Don’t you know what you’re saying? Don’t you know what you’re doing? “Shut up.”

There are a lot of ways we can stand up for God’s way of life and that’s definitely one of them, not allowing something in that will hurt anyone else within the Body.

Verse 14—We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. It’s something that God says we can have as a confidence because we know ourselves and we know that we’ve been yielding to this process and we know what it means, that we’re learning and we have a growing desire, love toward others within the Church and we want to see them succeed, we want to see them come through all that’s here. We don’t want to see anyone go by the wayside.

Rather than finding fault with someone, rather than tearing down someone, rather than looking down on someone, you know, if something needs to be addressed that’s another matter, but you better be sure it’s being done in the right way and if need be go to the ministry and ask them, “Is this something or should I shut my mouth?” And so, striving to do things in a right way. We know, we should know, if we love everyone or if we have hang ups with certain ones and put them in this little peg, whatever that might be, and look down upon them because our judgment is really good, and we know we’re right.

Isn’t that crazy human nature, what we can be like as human beings? And yet that’s what we do. I’m simplifying a little bit there.

So again, these things are being given for us to learn from so we become more alert in our own lives in learning what God is showing us so that we can become better in what we’re going to be doing in the future. We have to learn it now. There are things we have to experience now, things that will continue on, things that will happen, just as I know it will happen that by next year's Feast, we’ll have others who are no longer with us.

We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. There’s a lot said there. Because either we do, or we don’t. That means everyone.

Whoever does not love their brother abides in death. So, as a whole through time, hearing a verse like this people in the Church, in the environs of God’s Church would say, “Sure! I love everybody. I don’t hate anyone. I love them.” And not get it, not understand it, not grasp what is being said at all. Because it’s giving something here as a measure to say if you don’t love like this, if you don’t love to the point that you’re going to sacrifice your own will, your own thinking, that you’re not going to judge in the sense of condemnation, in the sense of finding fault or the sense of trying to think that you have a mission or a need to tell others how they should do certain things in their life, whether it be about the Church or not about the Church because these things happen and are happening at various levels always, always, always.

It’s like this teacheritis thing. There is something about it where sometimes we think we’ve got to share the knowledge we have, what we know is right, and really, sometimes best for someone else, if they would just do “this” or “that” they would be better off, their lives would be better. Like we know; we’re the Wikipedia of life.

Whoever loves less their brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in them. Again, we’ve already read these. We’ve already talked about this. But it’s exceedingly important to grasp it, to ask God for help to love one another in the manner that He’s revealing to us, and to examine ourselves, to look at ourselves, to make sure that we’re right in our thinking toward everyone.

Hereby we perceive love, agape. We can know it, we can understand, we’re able to perceive it by this measurement that he’s giving because he laid down his life for us. So, we have something to look at to realize what that means on a sacrificial plane, a giving plane, a willingness to suffer plane, that this is what is required to love others the way God says to.

So we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. We have to understand what that means. Not literally giving your physical life, though in some cases it could be, but it’s about more than that. It’s about that which is spiritual because the spiritual is far more important in spiritual relationships.

1 John 4:3—And every spirit that does not confess that God is coming in the flesh is not of God. Not a physical thing as seen in times past but a spiritual one for the Church. “Confess” by the way we’re living, that it’s there, our lives reflect it, are witness of it. Just a different way of saying it. If our lives don’t reflect that Christ is in us, God is in us – that’s what that’s saying, and if that’s not there then we’re not of God.

So, we can look at certain accounts later on and judge and God reveals various things that this isn’t of God. You’ve gone too far; you’ve cut yourself off from God. He’s not there anymore. But do people really believe that when they leave, when they’re out? No.

Even this is antichrist. Wherefore you have heard that it should come, and even now is already in the world.

Jude :4. So again, these things are to ring in our mind, be so etched into our thinking, into our mind that they produce actions in the way we’re reasoning and thinking, as to how we respond to various kinds of things that could take place, do take place.

Jude :4—For there are certain ones who have come in alongside of, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation. Meaning that because of free moral agency and because God knowing what we would be like as human beings, and knowing that many would have to be called, and then out of that because of human nature and the battles that are involved there are those who would be able to be chosen.

And so, knowing full well even when He created the angelic realm He knew that there would be a rebellion. He knew there would be one who would turn against Him just by what He gave him…just by what He gave him. Didn’t make him but knew.

He made us carnal, and He knows out of all of humanity there will be some who will become a part of His Family, but not all. It’s not owed to anyone, period. It is an awesome, incredible gift beyond our comprehension and blessing to either lay hold of and grasp the value of or to value something temporary instead, which shows the insanity of the human mind when it comes to selfishness.

Certain ones of old, ordained to this condemnation, in other words, from the very beginning because all aren’t going to choose it – by their own choice.

Ungodly ones. Ungodly ones. I’ve known of so many ungodly ones who had no excuse because they all received the impregnation of God’s spirit, of those who turned against God in time and did the things that they did. Ungodly, horrible, evil. There is not a greater evil. I hope that is becoming so much a part of our understanding, that it’s pure evil, the greatest of evil for someone impregnated with God’s spirit to become antichrist. What is more evil?

Ungodly ones turning the grace of our God for the purpose of participating in lewd behavior. That’s the proper translation. In other words, there’s something that’s wrong that they want to do and so it’s amazing what the human mind will do.

…and denying because of this process the only Lord God and our Lord Joshua the Christ. Because of the choices, cutting themselves off from God’s spirit and denying them then, not letting them live within them anymore because of sin, because of not repenting of sin, not accepting personal accountability and responsibility for actions that keep getting repeated over and over and over and over and over again in their life.

The misuse of various things in life, going back to certain things in life that you came out of. Marijuana, “That feels so good.” Drugs. Drugs! People taking drugs in God’s Church, bad drugs, okay? We were told a long time ago, “Just say no.” It’s such a simple thing on a physical plane. But it’s not so easy to do sometimes when you’ve been a part of that life and you come out of that life.

Think of the life I came out of, a screwed-up mind, confused, wondering what is life all about. Had a good friend killed in Vietnam. What is that all about? He didn’t have an opportunity to go on and live life. I do. There’s been that kind of feeling of guilt when people go into war and they’re the ones that come out. It just gnaws at them, sometimes the rest of their lives. God is the only one who can remove that and heal the mind. A lot of people suffer from those kinds of things. We’ve had a lot of people in the Church suffer from that kind of thing, seeing things that they should never have had to have seen, experiencing things they should never have had to experience, and then God called them.

But what a horrible thing when you’re called out of certain things, and you want to go back to it. It’s like the dog, it talks about, and it goes to the vomit. The pig that likes to go back. You can’t change a pig. They like to wallow in stuff. I grew up around them. We raised pigs. I hated pigs. They stink so bad. You go to school, and you can’t help it, if you have a lot of them out there not too far from the house, two hundred plus, and they’re living in swill, and after a while, after years it gets deeper and deeper and it rains and it just gets worse and worse and then you can’t help when you go to school…

I think of my brother who I didn’t realize had a lot of problems with some of that, of people making fun of him. Because he’d go to school and he smelled like that area, his clothes. Because what do you do? I’m sure I had them on me, but I didn’t have anybody picking on me because I responded a little differently sometimes. He took it.

But what a horrible thing to return to something that we’ve been called out of, that we value it, and don’t fight the fight. Whatever that sin is, whatever weakness we have, whatever it might be, and then to go back and to be part of it again? The moment you give it thought in the mind is the moment you begin to lose the battle. We’ve had so many people go back to those things.

And so, to understand the mind. We can understand and work with human nature in a better way, to help, to serve, to give, to lead, to guide, to correct, to nurture, to encourage. Hope that makes sense.

For there are certain ones who have come in alongside of us who were before ordained, okay, ungodly ones…and denying the only Lord God. Okay, now we’re ready for ten.

Jude :10—But these speak against, in other words, it’s about, it’s explaining who these people are. Basically, it’s speaking of the ungodly ones because that’s the context, “these,” “these ungodly ones.” But these within the environment of the Church.

You know, it’s incredible sometimes how you can look at some things and “Why didn’t we see that? Why didn’t we understand that a long time ago?” Because there are things hidden on a spiritual plane that are just hidden until God’s time and He shows it. Then all of a sudden it’s there.

Like when I was first called to see the Sabbath, I’d heard about it. I knew of individuals that kept it. We’d cut wheat in Oklahoma, used to be on our harvest run, start cutting wheat down there for one who was a Seventh Day Adventist, and he didn’t let us go out there on the Sabbath. So, I had heard about some of those things, but I didn’t get it. I’m sure I probably looked down upon him at that time. “That’s a little nutsy. If a storm comes along…” That’s what people worry about, “…hail comes along, you’re going to lose a lot of money here if we don’t get in there and get that gleaned, you know.” But I couldn’t see it.

But when I saw it, it was there. Awesome! It is like with anything, as we grow and all of a sudden God lets us see something that we wonder, “That’s always been there and just now seeing it?” Then it’s so clear. Awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome what God gives to us.

But these speak against... In other words, it’s about slander, speaking against that which is holy. But these speak against those things which they do not know. They can’t see it because people can become so weak. That’s why it’s so important to stay close to God so that we can see the things that God gives us Sabbath to Sabbath, Holy Day to Holy Day, so that we can grow in those things that God gives to us. Because otherwise, we’re not going to see clearly, we’re not going to hear properly.

I think of some who were around for a long, long time and never got things that were being said and new things being given as we were growing because of what they were doing, what they were holding on to.

But these speak against those things which they do not know, which they can’t see. If you can’t see something and something is given – like the unity of the Body and love for one another and getting a jab, a shot. Then the hoopla, the uproar sometimes that goes with that kind of thing and the things that try us, and they can’t see the spiritual part of it, of why. Because it was given by God’s apostle because there’s a need for someone in the Body to make choices and decisions for the Body, for the sake of love in the Body, and God will take care of the rest, and whatever is bound on earth He binds in heaven in those cases.

Make-up/no make-up. Make-up/no make-up. I don’t care if you went back and forth twenty times. It didn’t go back and forth that many times but it’s oh, time to get it off again, you know. Oh, now we can put it back on. Then we finally learned balance. But someone had to make that choice for the Body, for the Church because it was a big thing for the Church. Amazing. Something so physical. Choices, decisions have to be made for the Body which are blessed by God and inspired by God in the first place if we understand how it works.

But these speak against those things which they do not see, they cannot see, but what they know naturally, by carnal, normal human nature, instinct, by what comes natural for us. That’s what it’s using here as the word. So, in other words, they don’t have God’s spirit to make choices and decisions, but they just go by the way they see it, you know, their own selfish nature. That’s what it’s talking about here.

As, where one scripture says here, “brute beasts,” but that’s not the word. That’s not what it’s saying here. It’s just saying, unreasonable creatures. We’re just unreasonable creatures when we’re working by that which is just natural as far as selfishness is concerned that we all have when we’re talking about without God’s spirit.

By these things, they corrupt/destroy themselves. There’s a process there why we can grow and be enriched and there is that which we can begin to literally destroy ourselves on a spiritual plane.

Woe to them, these, those ungodly people within the Body, of things which have happened in times past as a whole. You don’t have to go on a scouting mission to find out what might happen between now and next year. God will reveal what He needs to reveal when it’s time. And hopefully, everyone is able to be there next year at this time. That’s the desire and the hope we all have and should be living our lives to make it easier for everyone to be able to do that.

Woe to them, for they have gone the way of Cain and have run greedily after the error of Balaam for reward and have perished in the gainsaying of Korah. In other words, all these things that are a matter of carnal, human nature, “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life” that have taken place in times past in very carnal ways in the Old Testament are happening on a spiritual plane. We have to work through those things, to yield ourselves to God and God’s way of life, to do things right.

Wow! We’re getting close here and I won’t get to the news today I don’t think.

Let’s turn over to 1 Corinthians. I want to move forward to this one more time because it’s something that we really need to latch on to with all of our being, to understand how certain things are equated with taking of the Passover, which has to do with judgment, how we think.

These are some of the most serious sobering verses in the sense of what they’re saying because it starts from the beginning because it’s about Passover and participating in it and what we’re to strive, what state we’re to be in and how we think.

1 Corinthians 11:26—For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord’s death until he comes. Therefore, whoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner—so, we spoke on this already—shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Guilty of his death. That should want us to make certain and hear. “What do you mean? I never want to be guilty of that. What do I need to do? I want to do it zealously, so this never happens.”

But let a person examine themselves. It goes back to what I mentioned at the very beginning. We have to learn to judge self and judge self first in all relationships because everything he’s saying here is about the Body of Christ. It is about the Church of God, and it has to do with our fellowship and our relationship with one another and the importance that we always focus on this first. In all things we do all the time in our thinking toward one another if there comes that temptation to judge someone else, to find fault with someone else. We need to be ever so careful that we don’t move in a direction that will cause us to be guilty of something like this.

But let a person examine themselves and then, in essence, eat of that… And so, it’s not a one-time thing once a year, it’s how we’re supposed to live our life all the time toward one another.

I’ll just read the rest because it’s about judgment. For any who eat and drink in an unworthy manner eat and drink judgment unto themselves, not discerning the Lord’s Body, The Church of God, the Body of Christ, the fellowship that God has given to us, let alone the physical part of what he went through for us, and how that should sober us. But this is our training ground.

For this cause many are weak and sicky among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves we should not be judged. In other words, we’re living what is right. If we judge ourselves before God the right way then we’re going through the process in the right way and we’re going to grow. But if we fall into judgment in the sense of condemnation, in the sense of fault that is because we haven’t repented and not changing in certain areas, that’s a totally other matter and can lead people right out of the Body.

But when we are judged… So, when God becomes involved in a matter there are things He will do to shake and stir up individuals, but so often by that time, it’s so difficult to hear.

But it says here, But when we are judged we are chastened/corrected of the Lord, so that we should not be condemned, to give judgment against, with the world. Sadly, as we’re going through this process here, but rightly so, God is showing us more and more the soberness of the reality of so, so, so many who have had God’s spirit who have turned against God, who have turned against Christ, become antichrist. So many will be judged with the world at the end.

That’s the soberness of these sermons at this Feast of Tabernacles. Just because someone is going to be resurrected in the future, they can be resurrected to judgment. They can live ever how they want one hundred years; doesn’t mean they’re going to change. Doesn’t mean they’re going to then receive what was there. The mind can become set in evil.

There’ll be those who repent. Our desire, our hope would be of those we walked to God’s house side by side, but I know with all my being that everyone will not. Maybe the majority will not. That’s sobering, and if they will not then they should not go any further. They should not because it isn’t right, it isn’t good. They can’t become Elohim.

Well, I have to evaluate if I’m going to go through some of these things tomorrow because Part 2 is tomorrow. But I went into some things a little more deeply than I had planned to but I’m going to save this little bit here at the end of the sermon.

Thunders. Because through the Feast some of the things we’re talking about here in talking about Thunders there is that realization we need to have in understanding where the world is, and this one here the Thunder of the Terror of War, if you will, and it’s one of the greatest of them in the sense of being able to measure and see where we are because it is the thing that leads to the crescendo and that which leads into final war.

But these are the things that are being rattled and shaken far more and it is the greatest of those Thunders that are perceived and seen and understood that we can grasp. Others happening at different times and sometimes in conjunction with this, but this is the one that has the greatest intensity, that will become the greatest before it’s all said and done because it’s by this power that mankind is going to come to a point of being, well, annihilating himself if God Almighty doesn’t intervene. That’s the reality of it. So, these things that are happening when we see or hear of these things, sobering.

“Russian State TV Threatens Nuclear Strike on the US.” The point is these things were not being spoken of in times past, to hear something about a nuclear war in times past, in years past, it would be months and months, years sometimes if there were maybe a blurb about some possibility of something come along. But not with the kind of intensity and likelihood of certain things that are on our doorstep. It shows what’s in the minds of people, the potential, the possibility of things that are out there that are incredible.

“Russian Hypersonic Missiles Carrier Frigate to conduct exercises in the Atlantic.”

“Nuclear War is inevitable conclusion of the Ukrainian Invasion.” Some have just resolved this is what is coming. It’s being spoken of by people, by leaders, by military people. It’s where we are. It’s an inevitability now. It’s just going to happen. So, what are you going to do about it?

Another one here, “Moscow warns on direct clash with NATO.” So again, over and over again these kinds of things are being said by different people in different areas. But you have to kind of know where some of them are coming from, but they’re all talking about nuclear war. More and more. First time on TV (I think I mentioned this the other day), hearing them talking about the possibility on the news there, one anchor, talking about what will happen if one nuclear weapon goes off in the atmosphere and the crippling effect it would have on the power grid of the United States.

It’s the first time I’ve seen something like that if it has been mentioned, but to have a long interview with someone and going through these things on TV, it hasn’t happened, and wondering why it hasn’t happened for a long time. But the fact that it’s there shows that more people are understanding the potential of our incredible weakness or at least there, our incredible weakness.

There are people in this world who do want a war. That might seem that that is impossible, but that’s the reality of life we live in. There are various leaders because of power and because of what they see. And to understand all this is going on, I hope that above all things we see how attitudes and minds are being changed about war on the European continent because this is the one thing above all things that I have been difficult to grasp, why would they ever turn on the one who helped them through WWII? But it’s already turning, and it has in a very powerful way.

And I understand why. We should all understand why. It’s easy to see. But these things are happening for a reason and they’re happening for a reason in the Ukraine that’s changing the attitudes and thinking of people. Want to see any nuclear weapons go off anywhere in Europe, let alone the Ukraine? That can lead to some pretty big decisions later on.

“ICBM was launched in a display of nuclear readiness.” Why don’t you just stir up the pot, you know, join in with the rest, show how great we are? We can’t even get a fast hypersonic cruise missile off the ground well, and letting the world know we can’t even develop one and Russia and China already have them. So, let’s just tell everybody our greatest weaknesses because we are no competition with you if you want to use those against us.

Isn’t the world insane? Israel was condemned in the Old Testament for being so stupid. Too bad some of them don’t read the Old Testament.

“The US Military has scheduled to launch an ICBM.” Oh, that makes me feel so much better. Everyone should feel so much better over there, right?

“US Says North Korea should pay a price for weapons deal with Russia.”

Another one here, “WWIII has already begun says Ukraine's Secretary Chief.” And we just keep trying to pump more and more in there, and if boots hit the ground more than they already are there will be a reaction.

I’ll stop there. Incredible time we live in. That’s why I made comment, and we have to be that ready in our thinking, don’t know when it’s going to take place, don’t know when it’s going to strike, but one day we’ll either awaken in the morning or there’ll be that period of time whenever it is wherever we live that all of a sudden it hits us.

Don’t know where you were on 9/11, but I know where I was, and that day is so vivid in my mind. This is going to be so much greater it’s not even funny. It’s horrible.