Elijah, Elisha, & More, Pt. 4

Ronald Weinland

December 30, 2023

This will be Part 4 of our current series Elijah, Elisha, & More.

Last Sabbath we ended while we were covering the occasion when the king of Israel, Jehoram, the son of Ahab, asked Jehosophat, king of Judah, to join him in going up against Moab. And also, the king of Edom, I believe it was there, in the south there, went up with him. And they hadn’t prepared well for themselves nor their army going into that area. Which boggles my mind, as far as water and the like is concerned, because the place isn’t running with a lot of good water. I mean, it’s right below the Dead Sea where they were coming in anyway, and that’s filled with salt so you can’t drink that.

So, you have to go around from the south, is what they were doing, and they hadn’t prepared at all, basically, and so Jehoram, the very positive thinker he was, was pretty much down on everything and saying that God had brought them out there to die, basically, and to kill them.

Wasn’t his fault; it was God’s fault. Isn’t that amazing how people can be sometimes? I think about them coming across the Red Sea again and right again turning against God and upset at Him and upset at Moses, obviously taking it out of Moses first and foremost.

But since they hadn’t prepared well then they finally got a hold of, or at least Jehosophat wanted to see if there was a prophet in the area, and they finally went to Elisha, called upon Elisha. And he told them about the water that could come out of the area down through the south there and to dig the pits. And when they saw, when the Moabites saw all the areas where the water was they just saw what they thought were pools of blood because of the red color. And so, they thought they had easy pickings. Went in there with that kind of an attitude, not on guard at all, and had quite a slaughter of the Moabites at that particular time.

So anyway, that was one example then. Now, we’re going to 2 Kings 4, continuing on here. Because over and over again God was doing various things through Elisha to reveal very powerfully so that He was working through him, and that that had been removed, obviously, from Elijah. Elijah had been taken away. And now just making it very clear to Israel that Elisha is His prophet. And did so in a pretty grand way because event after event after event was taking place. If you remember the example asking for the double portion of the amount of spirit, in that respect, if you will, of the things that were being performed through Elijah were now going to be performed through Elisha.

So, 2 Kings 4:1 it says, Now, a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried unto Elisha, saying, Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Eternal. Now the creditor has come to take to himself my sons, my two sons to be bondmen.

So, because of the inability of the husband to work and provide, now because of the responsibility they had in the land they were living on, and other things may be involved there, they were going to owe money. And so, this was what was taking place. It said the creditor has come because they couldn’t pay the bills anymore and the two were going to have to go into servitude, if you will. It’s not slavery but it’s for a period of time until a debt is paid off. That’s how things were done in those periods of time.

So Elisha said to her, What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in your house? So, he added to that, and she replied, Your handmaid has nothing in the house except a jar of oil. Then he said, Go, borrow for yourself vessels from all around, of all your neighbors—empty vessels; do not borrow only a few. Means borrow a lot.

Now, when you have come in, you shall shut the door upon yourself and upon your sons; and you shall pour it, referring to the oil that she had in the one jar, into those vessels and you shall set aside that which is full. So, she went from him and shut the door upon herself and upon her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured out – of the jar then into these vessels that they had gathered. Then it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, Bring me another vessel. And he said to her, There are no more vessels. So the oil ceased. In other words, in the jar, it was all poured out into the vessels.

Then she came and told the man of God, so he said, Go, sell the oil, and pay your debt, and you and your children live off the rest. What an incredible story. Don’t know how many there were but it sounds like a lot. God just multiplied it and the jar just kept pouring oil until every vessel was full. Incredible story like this, to read through something like this that was done.

Now, for us we should grasp the analogy of oil and what God has given to us in abundance in spiritual wealth which is greater than what we can actually grasp. We really can’t grasp fully what God has granted us. It’s hard. It’s difficult. We can learn, we can grow in that understanding, but to really grasp it fully we really can’t.

So, we can look at such a miracle like this given through Elisha and be in awe, as we talked about last Sabbath – and we should be – but we should be in far greater awe of God’s mercy, His abundance of grace, and the great spiritual wealth that He’s given to us that is far, far beyond this very physical example of this widow and the pouring in of the oil into the vessels.

We’ve been given so much greater than that. This is a very physical thing and an awesome miracle indeed, and it’s inspiring to read through these things, of what God gave through Elisha, what He performed through Elisha, but what we’ve been given if we can grasp it, and we should strive to grasp it, and I think by knowledge we obviously do and by certain understanding, God has given us so much more.

If you think of six thousand years. I so often think of the ones of old, forefathers of old, and if you go through the history and you see the things that they received, the greatest eventually came up to the time of Moses – and this was a long, long time in. And then the ten commandments were given, and other laws were given for a Levitical system to be established, and a worship toward God in an organized fashion. Because nothing had been like that before, and he was awesomely blessed.

But again, it was dealing with a physical, carnal people, not a spiritual one. God wasn’t calling them as He calls the Church and people into the Church to receive the begettal of His holy spirit. They didn’t have that. Moses had it, different ones, a few here and there had it, but as a whole most didn’t. They were just carnal, physical people.

And you see that over and over again in the forty years in the wilderness and how they responded to God, how they responded to Moses and Aaron over and over again. It’s not a pretty story because of carnal human nature. It wouldn’t have mattered whom God had called, if it’s physical the reality is we learn from that, but even after they were given the law they couldn’t keep it.

Now, they started observing various things in an organized fashion as far as the Sabbath and the cycle of time there in the Holy Days eventually that were given to all of them. But they didn’t grasp it all, what it was all about. And still incredibly carnal.

We see our carnality and what it’s like to conquer and overcome it. The lesson of it all, obviously, which is a beautiful picture on Pentecost, is that on the day of Pentecost God gave the law to Israel, and then the example that we understand and grasp is that God poured out His holy spirit upon the Church, the beginning of the Church in 31 AD and the beginning of His holy spirit being given revealing in a very powerful way, you can’t keep God’s law and God’s ways, you can’t understand it without God’s spirit.

That’s a marvel to grasp and comprehend. People can’t keep God’s law by their own physical efforts because they don’t understand it, they don’t see it first and foremost. And unless you can see it and grasp it, what God is doing and why God is doing it, it doesn’t have the real meaning. And they just resort then to carnal human nature, into whatever they want to live by. Awesome to understand this.

And so, if you look at all the people through time, and it wasn’t until the time of Christ, after nearly four thousand years of people on earth, you go through Abraham, Moses, and different ones through time, different ones of the prophets, and they had very little as far as really understanding things about God’s plan and purpose.

And then finally Christ came, and he began to reveal something about the law that hadn’t been understood, that the world really can’t grasp and comprehend, that it’s spiritual. It’s spiritual in nature. And began to teach those things to the Church in an organized fashion through churches, through areas, various areas of the country at that time. And Paul was called later on to go out into the gentile world and teach it, and other places raised up in time.

But still, even then there was so much that they didn’t grasp and comprehend. What was given to the apostles is awesome, when you go through and understand for the first time in a very powerful way they understood spiritual things. Far more than anyone through the Old Testament time. And so, it just kept increasing through time—that’s been God’s purpose—until more is fulfilled. The Passover came, he died for us, the Church began, and then nearly two thousand years of the various Church eras that we’ve gone through in times past that are in the book of Revelation.

And they didn’t know those things, as a whole. And they sure didn’t understand the rest of the story in Revelation. And they couldn’t understand things in Matthew and other things having to do with the end-time, if you will, as we call it, in a time that leads up to a great war and finally, God intervening to save mankind from destroying himself. Because if God didn’t intervene that’s what would happen.

So, what we see and what we know, and what we comprehend is so vast. So, you think of the oil that this woman was given, it’s an awesome story. It’s a beautiful story. But what’s been given in your mind of God’s holy spirit, of the oil, if you will, from God is so far beyond that.

Last Sabbath we went through some of the truths that God has given to us, and it’d be good at this juncture to consider some more. Made comments through times past over and over again, the truths that God gives to us, which has to do with more understanding, more insight of God’s purpose and God’s plan that He’s been working out for mankind, God began to restore and give more through His apostle, Herbert Armstrong.

Awesome, the things that are there, and the truths that the world hasn’t understood. The very purpose of why mankind has been created, writing The Mystery of the Ages, awesome, as God began to give through Him that the whole purpose of everything is to become a part of Elohim, God’s Family.

The world hasn’t known those things. In times past, you don’t see those things being spoken of in the same manner because the understanding wasn’t there, if you want to talk about the early apostles and some of the things that were written there, and yet toward the end, because of what we’re getting ready for, because of the Messiah coming, Joshua the Christ, and God establishing finally His Kingdom on the earth.

The world doesn’t know those things. They don’t grasp that. They don’t grasp the Holy Days that reveal those things. How blessed are you? How much oil has been given to you? It’s not that we’re better than anyone in the past. It’s not about that. The oil has to do with what God gives of His spirit to grasp and comprehend greater things. It’s about the blessings of that.

So, it’s not a matter of a comparison, going back to the very beginning and looking at the different ones that are there, or to Elijah and Elisha and thinking that someone is better, it’s just that God gives more and more and more, which has to do with the mind, which has to do with understanding and wisdom that comes with that in time, which has been in more abundance in this time than any other period in six thousand years. I hope we grasp that.

So, one of the examples in all this that’s been given, that’s candidly encouraged me a great deal… Because after 2012 I didn’t know what had happened. We didn’t know what had happened. And slowly, but surely, God began to give understanding. But it wasn’t easy to go through those things. And then slowly but surely God continued to give more. Every time God has done that it becomes an encouraging thing because we grasp and comprehend that truth can only come from God.

And so, I think of those additional truths that God gave throughout a period of time there, and then to come to see the number, thirty-six. Eighteen that were attributed to Herbert Armstrong that had been given at that time, that God poured out His blessings upon the Philadelphia Church era. Awesome insight and understanding far beyond, far beyond what the disciples understood, the early apostles, if you would, the early apostles. Incredible! He just keeps giving more and more. It has to do with the quantity, the amount that He’s been giving.

Just like in those vessels, the amount, it’s about the amount that was given there. And as time has continued on God has just given more and more and more. And that should encourage us as well.

And I think of the name as well when we look at some of these things and recognize then. So, I’m talking about a double portion of God’s spirit. Not in the sense of knowing more – or I guess we do in a sense, because more has been given to us, but that’s what it’s about, it’s about because of what God gives up here that we’re blessed with. He’s just blessed us awesomely. Why? To do what the work of Elijah has been about, that talks about in scripture. So, I’ll go through some of these.

And I think it’s good to remember what Elijah means, “My God Yahweh.” Our God Yahweh. That’s what it’s about. It’s about what God is doing, what He’s been giving, what He’s been revealing through time, and understand what’s about to come upon this earth.

So indeed, God has given a double portion, if you will, more as he did here of Elijah to Elisha, and in this final period of the end-time before Joshua the Christ returns and complete the preparation… Because this is what it’s about. It’s about preparing for God’s Kingdom.

That’s why I marvel at the name God gave, just as He did to the Worldwide Church of God at a time to reveal the work that He was doing through Herbert Armstrong. And then final preparation toward the end before Christ’s coming.

So, we should be well aware of how God gave Herbert Armstrong eighteen specific truths, truths that so much of the ministry never comprehended. You know, I marvel at that because of certain directions that people chose to go. Because individuals began to cut themselves off from the flow of God’s holy spirit. And number one or number four, if you will, of all the truths, but the number one attributed to Herbert Armstrong was about God’s government.

And so many have never understood that, God’s government, how God works. We’re still learning that in the Church. We’re still growing in that in the Church. And that’s good. Because you have to understand it, how God functions, that everything has to be in unity and in order, but God’s way, not our way, but God’s way.

So, Truth #50:

50 (29) God has revealed the identity of the Elijah to come. As part of this revelation, God has clarified to His Church that John the Baptist was a “type” of the Elijah to come…

For what? What was the purpose? What was the matter of the “Elijah to come?” What was it about? It was about the one who’s going to fulfill it all, Joshua the Christ. The first time as Passover. And so, John the Baptist had a work to do, and he was a “type” of the Elijah. Awesome! Because it’s about a work in preparation for Joshua the Christ, the first coming and then the second coming.

Truth #6 given to Herbert Armstrong, the third, if you will:

6 (3) God’s purpose for mankind.

Already referred to this but it’s awesome.

God is reproducing Himself…

Now, people sometimes hear this in the world and they think, “You are just looney tunes as all get out.” And sadly, they can’t grasp that and comprehend that until God draws them, until God gives it to them. Because there are things on a spiritual plane that one can’t begin to fathom. All they have to rely upon is carnal reasoning, natural human reasoning. And so, those things sound weird or strange to them.

But what an incredible thing when we begin to understand the whole purpose. God created mankind was to give potential in time to those whom He would call to have opportunity to live on, age lasting life, in His Family, composed of spirit, in His Family. But what does that mean? Elohim. To become part of that Family.

That’s how I love how it describes Christ being there at this point, “And we don’t see yet all things fulfilled,” as it talks about in Hebrews, as it talks about in Psalms, and so forth, and to understand the awesomeness of what God is doing, that He gives a portion of His very being, His very mind to receive the impregnation of God’s spirit because there’s that spirit essence.

Another thing God gave through Herbert Armstrong, to understand that all mankind has a spirit essence in their mind, in their being that gives you the ability to think and to reason, to plan, to create on a physical plane, different from the animal kingdom, if you will, or animals or other creatures on the earth. They’re programmed but it’s still a spirit essence that’s in them. They don’t have the brains to think things out, to know when to go north as the geese or go south in the wintertime for geese and ducks and other things and the migrations of birds and mammals, animals. I think of whales and different things that go back and forth even in the ocean from time… Some of their migrations are so incredible. And they do it all the time.

I think of the butterfly, the monarch butterfly. If you ever get a chance and you haven’t seen it yet go on YouTube and look at the migration of the monarch butterfly. Now, there are other types of the monarch, but the primary one is the one that comes out of Canada, and it comes part way, and they stop, they have the metamorphoo, metamorphosis if you will, that has to start again. They die off and the process starts all over. And then they go a little farther south the next year and the process starts all over again. Three times this happens before they finally get down into some mountains, in a mountain region in Mexico.

And if you’ve ever seen some of the pictures of where they finally migrate to, trees, huge trees are just covered with monarch butterflies. Branches are just totally covered with monarch butterflies, orange in color. And then they start the process back, but they come back in one year to Canada, a cycle that takes four years. And they do it every year. And they’ve taken some of these and they’ve put these little sticker type things on them where can track them and they’ve taken them into different areas, like to New York if they’re in the central part of the US, and they come right back, get right back on course again going to that same area down in Mexico.

Brains? Thinking it out? No, they don’t have brains, except, well… But they have that spirit essence that God gave to them that all of them have. And it’s by an instinct. We call it instinct. They do things by instinct. And a lot of times people would like to imitate… Like bats and radar, sonar, whatever, radar not sonar, that’s not a word, but again, mankind just trying to figure these things out. What are they? How do these things work? And so, they’ve looked at different things like bats and how they fly around in the dark and you learn from to a point of things you can think about and try to copy. But nothing like what God gave.

So again, just to be in awe of what God gave to all life on earth. But to mankind something unique, the ability to think and reason. Your brain, mind is such a precious thing. That’s why it’s so, so horrible when people can go too far, even in physical life, to so mess up their minds that they go too far that they can never receive of God’s spirit. There’s going to be a lot of that.

I think of the time of Noah when it talks about what people had already done, what they were doing to their minds because they were living in such an evil manner, and you live that for so long – and back then they lived for hundreds of years, and their minds became so vile he declared to them “You have destroyed… You are destroying your own mind.” Refers, gives the same example to Satan, what Lucifer did. Human beings can do the same thing except we have more time that it takes to accomplish that. But a lot of people have already done it in the millions and millions and multiple millions, billions probably if we knew it, destroying their mind.

That’s why taking of drugs and different things that can destroy your mind are so bad. Because after a time it can become so corrupted (I think that’s a word that’s used over and over again), you’ve corrupted your own mind. That’s what He told Lucifer. And mankind then during the time of Noah, they’d corrupted their minds.

Because you can’t take anything else with you. You can save up, you can plan… I think of Scrooge McDuck rolling around in a vault on his money. I’ve known of people like that. Build up all this wealth and then they die. It happens to all. You can’t take it with you. What’s up here is all you have that you take with you. So, to guard it, to protect it, sometimes we don’t grasp the importance of that.

God is reproducing Himself and no other church knows or preaches this truth.

Save, obviously, those who came out of the scattering. They know of it. How much they’re holding on to it, are able to do that? So, they know it by knowledge.

We are to be born of God and become God—in the God Family...

So, what an awesome thing then, because all human beings have that little spirit essence, when it finally comes time then God calls us, gives us the ability to understand His plan and purpose and we make a choice whether we want to obey Him as we’re able to see truth and whether we’re going to keep the Sabbath and the Holy Days, and the beginning of His law and we want to repent of our past.

Because John the Baptist taught repentance, but it was more on a physical plane as far as the nation was concerned, and it led to then many of those being called into the Church later on. But again, John the Baptist started the process in the sense of preparing people for Christ’s first coming. That’s why there were so many. When they came into Jerusalem there were so many people, several thousand by this time who believed that he was the Messiah. They didn’t understand that, but they believed that he was the Messiah, the descendant of king David that God was going to use to restore strength and power to Israel, to Judah in this case, and to take away the Roman rule over them.

That’s what they believed because they were oppressed by the Romans. Didn’t work out that way because there is far more to the story.

And so, we can be baptized then by our own choice and have the impregnation then of God’s holy spirit with that spirit essence in us. What a marvel to understand that, to understand the process, to have the impregnation of the very being of God Almighty in our minds and that we can grow spiritually, we can grow in greater unity and oneness in agreement with God and the mind of God. There is nothing more beautiful than to be in agreement with God about everything you can be, to cry out for help to do that more and more in your life.

Because that’s about His will, doing His will, seeking Him and His will in our lives because we agree with Him. How do you do that? Through time, conviction, through experiences, things you live, and choices you make, always making choices. You make choices every week. Every day, candidly, you’re confronted with choices, what are you going to do? How are you going to do it?

God is reproducing Himself and no other church knows or preaches this truth. We are to be born of God and become God—in the God Family: Elohim.

Where do you find one of the apostles writing that like this? It’s there. What did they see? A little bit like John when he wrote Revelation. He didn’t grasp what he wrote. He didn’t grasp what he wrote. He didn’t know what he wrote but he was given it when he was in prison on the Isle of Patmos for that period of time. God began to give to him the book of Revelation and he wrote it, but he didn’t comprehend what it was all about. And it was for, most of it, the vast majority of it, for the last seventy years until Christ comes.

Then contrast that truth with Truth #56:

56 (35) Through the power of the holy spirit, Almighty God will “dwell” IN His Family into everlasting life, and they will always dwell IN Him. This will be accomplished through the power of the holy spirit that emanates from God and it will never cease to be “coming into” the lives of all who are in the God Family. This will be a perpetual and continuing process into everlasting life.

We couldn’t understand that until we understood something so incredibly vital and hidden for so, so long, and it’s John 14, John 15, and other places in scripture, things that mostly that John wrote about in 1 John and so forth, that when it talked about and how it’s translated that, speaking of Joshua, that he was coming or coming again, or that he… It’s been used several different ways. But the interpretation of people in the world that wrote the scripture, they didn’t understand what it was about. They didn’t grasp what it was saying in John 14, that Christ is to be continuously coming into our life. That’s how he comes or is coming. So many took it as something in the future, he is coming again. That’s not what it’s about at all. We know that. Philadelphia didn’t understand that. Laodicea didn’t understand that. What an awesome thing.

And we just take it for granted sometimes then that we’ve always known this. No, it’s something to be in awe of, that at the end of an age God gave us greater understanding that it’s about Him and His Son dwelling in us.

That’s why I love John 14. There is, to me, there is nothing else that was greater given to mankind than what’s in John 14, to understand that. Christ said, “The works that I do,” he said, “They’re not mine. They’re the Father who dwells in me and I dwell in Him.” And all of John 14 goes on to talk about the story then that we can have the same thing, that we can have that life living in us, John 15 that talks about the vine and the husbandman and the fact that we can dwell and that God can dwell in us, that we can experience the same thing that Joshua the Christ experienced.

He was a physical human being and he had to be baptized. Now, he had from birth things in him that we cannot comprehend, of knowledge, and when he was twelve years old went into the temple area during the Feast and dumbfounded those who were there by the thing he had to say. They were dumbfounded by what he had to say, by the knowledge of a child, the way they looked upon him – Awesome! – because he had the mind of God. There are things he knew that we can’t comprehend because he was made this way in the womb, because his Father was God Almighty. Incredible to see that, to understand that.

And then to understand he, too, was baptized. He had to go through what we have to go through. He had to receive the literal impregnation then of God’s holy spirit in that mind – which is beyond our ability to comprehend right now, just be candid with you. But he did. He was baptized and received the impregnation of God’s holy spirit, that which we are able to do and go through that same process so that God could continually be coming into our lives.

He had no sin and God came into his life on a continuing basis, able to do incredible things, things that he could have done that he didn’t do. He makes that well known. “I could call upon so many legions of angels at this moment,” but he didn’t because it wasn’t a part of God’s will, wasn’t a part of God’s purpose. But he let them know, he let it be written that he could have done that.

So, going on here:

Once begotten of God’s holy spirit, the flow of the holy spirit can be suppressed and completely removed (cut-off) from a begotten person’s life.

And to me, last year’s Feast, God has revealed some things to us in a way, in a powerful way that we haven’t understood before in the same way, the incredible judgment of God, that once we’re called, and anyone who has ever turned against, who has been called… Because the vast majority of people called since the time of Christ into the Church, the vast majority have turned against Christ. That’s really hard to understand.

And yet we have witnessed in the Church those things that have taken place. The vast majority of people I’ve ever known, into the hundreds and hundreds, and I believe into a few thousand, gone by the wayside by choice, turned against the beliefs they had received, began to do things they shouldn’t have done, become cut off from God’s holy spirit. That’s a horrifying thing.

We’re all responsible for our choices. When God calls us we’re exceedingly responsible then.

God dwells (abides, lives) IN the life of a spirit-begotten person (a person of the holy spirit) and they therefore dwell IN Him. Through the power of the holy spirit, the life (nature, truth, Word, way of life) of God begins to dwell in a begotten person’s life (in the spirit essence given to the human mind), helping to change the very way one thinks and lives…

That’s why I think of that butterfly, metamorphosis that they go through, and the different stages of life. And then the same word, in essence, metamorphoo in the Greek language that’s used in Romans 12 that talks about the transforming of the mind. It’s that word. That transforming of the mind is metamorphoo, that our minds can change from a carnal selfish nature which is what we have from birth to a time when God calls us that His spirit begins to work in the mind by our choice because we want it, we cry out for it, we ask God for it, and He gives it to us (as long as we continue to do that) and our thinking changes. We become different.

We become different very quickly in many regards because we have chosen a different way of life. We do different things. And people we knew in the past, what happens there with those friendships? Did we change or did they change? Sometimes we can begin to think that somebody else has really changed, “They’re changing toward me, and what’s wrong with them?” and it’s no, you’re changing.

And so, the same people don’t want to be around you because you’re not the same person anymore. You’re different. You don’t talk the same way. You don’t act the same way. You don’t live the same way. And a lot of times that separates relationships then because you’re not the same person. And that’s good because you’re growing with God’s help to become something different. Metamorphoo, transforming of the human mind.

…helping to change the very way one thinks and lives, from that of selfishness and pride to that of outgoing concern and love toward others.

That’s a sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon that I’ve given through time. We have to choose to change, to learn to love others, not to be hard on others, not to be harsh to others. But we have to fight this because that’s our nature to do that. And the way we react and act toward things, we generally first and foremost react in a wrong way, and then we have to repent of those things and slowly but surely this mind can be changed into thinking differently toward others, to learn to love one another, especially within the Body, within the Church.

This power, however, is suppressed and sometimes cut-off because of sin…

Well, whenever there is sin it’s cut off. That’s why we have to repent quickly, not let something drag out and let sin drag out and continue in our lives. Because if we do we’ll get weaker and weaker and weaker spiritually until we’re not a part of the Body anymore. And then in God’s time, He reveals those things and has those things addressed either by the Church or Himself.

This power, however, is suppressed and sometimes cut-off because of sin, as God will not dwell in sin.

What a beautiful thing. That’s why we have the ability to repent always, because of our Passover, through Christ.

Once given spirit life in a resurrection from death (or resurrection from physical life) to spirit life, this process of God dwelling in a “born” person’s life (no longer begotten), and they in Him, will never cease nor be interrupted, but will be perpetual and continuous into everlasting life.

I think about when God gave that and the awesomeness of seeing it, of all of a sudden because we understood this matter of John 14, of God living in us, and then sin, we cut off that flow of His spirit and this back and forth that happens in our growth, if you will, as long as we keep repenting and keep seeking God’s help we’re able to grow and this mind be transformed. Slowly but surely we have spiritual growth then. But it’s not guaranteed yet until we’re born into Elohim.

And then, what an awesome thing. When God talks about dwelling in His Temple, and so many of the different kinds of scriptures revealing that what He’s creating He will always dwell in it. And to not have understood those things before, what they really meant. It’s what it means, He dwells in us in His Family, Elohim, forever, and we in Him. That’s incredible. Never to be cut off again, to be of the exact, of the same mind, absolute agreement with God in everything forever, forever, and forever in the future.

Each member who is born into God’s Family has independent reasoning and thought, but each is perfectly united in purpose, will, and one way of life through the power of the holy spirit that will forever abide in them (which continuously emanates from God—who is the source).

Again, we can’t fully comprehend those things, but we have been given an understanding or knowledge of the process. We understand a little bit more and it just keeps being added to.

It is God “forever dwelling” in each member that makes the Family of God a reality in “one” perfectly united way.

I think of Herbert Armstrong so often talking about because God can’t… He knew that no one could be trusted but Him, Himself. Mankind can’t be. God teaches us how to grow in that through His help because His spirit dwelling in us. But the reality, until we’re in Elohim, and we’ve all experienced that. Betrayal is something that everybody experiences in God’s Church. We witness it. We see it, what it means when someone turns against God. And it hurts. But each one of us has the choice to not be that way and to keep fighting.

Truth #54. If we ever get tired of these we are in huge, huge trouble. If these things don’t inspire, move, and motivate us and help us to have that… Just like reading the story about the oil being poured into the vessels. That’s inspiring what God did through Elisha, what he told the widow woman to do. But what He’s given to us is so much greater, and this should always be inspiring to us. So, if it ever gets to a point where we become dull in some of these things cry out to God for mercy and for help to be stirred up in spirit. Truly, you don’t want to lose this excitement for God’s truth and God’s way of life.

54 (33) Angels were created and composed of spirit essence when given life by God (spirit life), yet they do not have self-sustaining life inherent in themselves.

What an incredible thing to come to understand that. Because the concept was in times past, like the angelic realm, that because they’re spirit they live forever. We came to find out, no, they don’t live forever. What God creates, God can destroy, whether it be physical or spiritual. Incredible. He has that power. That’s why He revealed then what’s going to happen to the demonic world, what’s going to happen to Satan himself, that I truly believe he didn’t know until the time came that it was given.

They are sustained by God, and only God has immortal, self-sustaining life inherent in Himself.

What an incredible thing to come to understand! Did we have to have that? No. Could we have received it somewhere down the road more in the future? Sure. But God blessed us to see it now, to be inspired by it now, to know what’s going to take place and how it’s going to take place.

It also needs to be understood that at their creation (although the angels were given spirit-sustaining life) they were never given of the holy spirit…

That was an awesome revelation to God’s Church. They’ve never had the holy spirit. It wasn’t meant for them to have the holy spirit. Only those begotten of God were to begin experiencing the blessing of the holy spirit, and only those who are born again into Elohim, into a different life, not physical anymore but spirit, composed of spirit, are given of the holy spirit from then on. And to comprehend that the angelic realm never had that? That’s an awesome blessing of understanding about God, about the mind of God.

Every truth that God has given, every additional truth helps us to understand more about God, about His purpose, what He’s doing. It helps us to understand His love, His purpose for His creation, and how He’s accomplishing it. I love that!

…they were never given of the holy spirit, nor were they ever given access to it.

Awesome revelation. They were just told the truth from the beginning and that’s all they knew. We don’t know for how long, millions upon millions, we don’t know. We know that that universe that’s out there didn’t just pop into existence one day. That’s what some people have the concept of, of creation, God just commanded, and it all came into being. That’s not the mind of God, the way of God. God shares. And He shared with the angelic realm the creation of a physical universe that took a long, long, long time to come into being.

That’s why I marvel, wrote about in one book there, going out in Kansas, going out there and there is this shelf you can see along one region where so much of the wheat, and then there’s a grassland that comes down below in some areas, supposed to be, they call them rivers, but very seldom do they have running water. But I could go out there and find sharks teeth. And you realize then the history of things. They found dinosaurs in those regions as well, different creatures that are in the museums in Kansas. And you come to learn that these things, been millions of years ago that they existed. They existed in the earth and then we come to learn what happened to the earth and what God did in that first six days.

You’d think it’d be easy to understand that that just by the way it’s written that individuals could know that, because it starts out by expressing something that was already there. He started separating the firmament. Well, what do you mean? When did He create that? What day was that? It was already there! And the waters, they were already there. And it starts talking about this process of molding and refashioning the earth. And then on the sixth day, He created mankind. Awesome!

55 (34) God created both good and evil.

So, people read that scripture and they struggle with it because they don’t comprehend. “Well, what do you mean? God makes evil?” Nope. But we understand the process, of how He created it. It’s the potential for it.

…but to understand “how” [that God created good and evil] is to understand why God gave beings, both human and angelic, independent free choice, apart from Himself, as free moral agents.

Everyone is free to choose.

God’s way is the way of right living that produces the only true peace that exists in right relationships. By revealing (showing, teaching) “this way—the way of peace,” evil was created.

This happened because “in” those created, there existed the choice to live a different way than the way of peace revealed by God.

So, we look at the angelic realm and think, how long did it go before one being had some wrong thinking develop in his own mind? Jealousy. Envy. Lust. And the moment he started that process his mind was sealed because he was composed of spirit. Because once that happens in a spirit-composed being that’s it. And so, he and a third of the angelic realm turned against God. Incredible to understand those kinds of things and how it can happen. Because they had free choice.

But how many millions of years, if that’s what it was, did they all live in harmony and unity in the creation of what’s out there? And then he tried to destroy the earth and it became without form and void, became chaotic, every living thing on it died. So, they try to figure out what happened. Well, it just all of a sudden everything just froze. So, there’s evidence that things froze. And so they find some, sometimes a mammoth, you know, encompassed in ice.

How did that happen so quickly? Well, when you suck out everything in the atmosphere, and you know how cold it is up there, and all of a sudden you have an instant freeze in a very powerful way, that’s what he tried, to destroy the earth. Incredible. We can understand those things.

I didn’t finish this. Let’s see:

This happened because “in” those created, there existed the choice to live a different way than the way of peace revealed by God. When any being in God’s creation chooses a different way of living than the way of peace that He has shown (given), then “evil” is created.

By the wrong choices that the angelic realm made and by the wrong choices human beings make.

2 Kings 4. Let’s continue on with some of the life of Elisha here in those things God was working through him. Because over and over and over again it reveals things that God did through Elisha to drive the point home of what he was given, to give the witness of what was taking place in his life.

2 Kings 4:8—Then there came a day on his way to Shunem that Elisha was passing by where there was a great woman who implored him… “Great” meaning in wealth, if you will, abundance of life, living; well known is probably a better way of explaining it. Some put it in such a way in some of the translations you think, “Well, she’s a big woman.” No, it wasn’t about that.

…where there was a great woman who implored him to eat bread there. And it was, as often as he passed by, he turned in there to eat bread. Then she said unto her husband, Behold, now, I perceive that this is a holy man of God who is continually passing by here. Let’s make a small chamber, I ask of you, on the wall; and let us set a bed there for him and a table and a stool and a candlestick. Then it shall be when he comes to us that he’ll turn in there.

Then there came a day that he went there, and he turned into the chamber and lay there. Then he said to Gehazi his servant, Call the Shunammite, speaking of this woman. So, when he had called her, she stood before him. And he said to him, Say now unto her, Behold, you have been careful for us with all this care. What is to be done for you? Would you be spoken for to the king? In other words, put a good word in? …or to the captain of the host?

So she answered, I dwell among my own people. It’s kind of an expression that’s used as you go into some of this, “I’m well taken care of, and I don’t have need of anything else.”

So he said, What then is to be done for her? Then Gehazi answered, Truly, she has no child, and her husband is old. So, he’s looking at things that she is lacking, and this is something that is there, but now it’s too late.

And so he said, Call her. And when he had called her, she stood at the door. Then he said, About this season, according to the time of life, you shall embrace a son. What an incredible thing to be told in this kind of a situation.

And she said, No, my lord. Man of God, do not lie to your handmaid! It’s like “toying with me,” or “telling me something that I’ve always desired but way past this time now.” But the woman conceived and bore a son, and when the appointed time had come, of which Elisha had told her. So the child grew.

And it happened one day that he went out to his father, to the reapers. So, it was harvest time and he went out. Then he said to his father, My head, my head! So he said to the servant, Carry him to his mother. And when he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees until noon, and then died.

So, she went up and laid him in the bed of the man of God, shut the door upon him, and went out. Then she called to her husband, and said, Please send me one of the young men and one of the donkeys, that I may run to the man of God and then return.

And so, he said, Why are you going to him today? It is neither the New Moon nor the Sabbath. And she replied… It’s a way of saying, “All is well,” but it’s saying here, more like saying, It’s okay. Whatever. Then she bound the donkey, and said to her servant, Drive on, and do not hold back the ride for me unless I tell you. So, there must have been a cart there or whatever. He’s doing the driving of it; she’s in there. So she departed and went to the man of God at Mount Carmel.

So it was, when the man of God saw her afar off, that he said to his servant Gehazi, Look, the Shunammite woman! Now, please run to meet her, and say to her, Is all okay? Or Is all well with you? Is it okay with your husband? Is it okay with your child? And she said, All is okay.

You got to marvel at the mind like that, of an individual under that kind of stress. But God had given her something of a confidence and a belief this is the man of God and she’s going to approach him in a certain way.

Now, when she came to the man of God at the hill, she caught him by the feet, but Gehazi came near to move her away. It just wasn’t done so he’s going to move her away and not let this happen. But the man of God said, Leave her alone, for her life is in deep distress. So, he could see she’s in great distress here and what she’s done. The Eternal has concealed and not declared it to me.

So, what an amazing thing here. Before this, now Elisha to this point, there are things that he’s known ahead of time. We’ve read some of the stories. He’s known what to do because God gave it to him. But now he’s saying, “I don’t see this. I don’t know what’s taking place.” So, that’s what the first thing he has to say here, “It’s been concealed from me that I can’t see it.”

So she said, Did I ask a son of my lord? Did I not say, Do not deceive me? Then he said to Gehazi, Get yourself ready, and take my staff in your hand, and be on your way. If you meet anyone, do not greet them; and if anyone greets you, do not answer them; but lay my staff on the face of the child. So, he was urgent then to go ahead and get this staff here because he knew what had taken place by what she’d said.

And the mother of the child said, As the Eternal lives, and as you live, I will not leave you. So he arose and followed her. Now Gehazi went on ahead of them and laid the staff on the face of the child; but there was neither voice nor hearing. Therefore, he went back to meet him, and told him, saying, The child has not awakened.

And when Elisha came into the house, there was the child, lying dead on his bed. And he went in, therefore, shut the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the Eternal. Then he got up to lie on the child, and put his mouth on his mouth, his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands; so he stretched himself out on the child, and the flesh of the child became warm. So, all these things had to be recorded at some point. He had to tell these things because there was a purpose in this, that the story was to be known for what actually took place.

He returned and walked back and forth in the house, and again went up and stretched himself upon him; then the child sneezed seven times… Isn’t it amazing how God uses that number over and over again? That which is complete. Seven days in the week. Seventh day is the Sabbath. It’s a complete process that God has given for teaching His people. And now here seven times in this. …and the child opened his eyes.

Then he called Gehazi and said, Call the Shunammite woman. So he called her. So, when she came in to him, he said, Pick up your son. So she went in, fell at his feet, and bowed to the ground; then she picked up her son and went out. Awesome story. Just kind of sends chills down your spine just reading it and the intensity of the moment and the time, and here is someone being resurrected from the dead. Awesome! Something that only God could do, and did it through Elisha to again, drive this whole matter home. Double portion of God’s spirit being given to him, the things He was revealing, that He was giving through him to accomplish and do. Awesome!

But again, remember through this entire process these things aren’t to be compared with what we’ve been given when it comes to truth, when it comes to understanding God’s purpose for life, to understand what God is doing, what God is doing within the Church, what God is getting ready to do in the world.

Tell you what, you look out there, we don’t know. We don’t know. We know we’re getting so close, the things that are happening as far as economies in the world and people trying to keep it propped up and things that they go through. Some of the sabre-rattling that’s going on that just boggles the mind, what different ones are saying about nuclear war and nuclear threats. And this just goes on and on and on.

I’m just kind of curiously waiting and seeing if the Hezbollah start an attack on Israel in the midst of some of this. If they do, we have arrived, that things can move so fast after that point.

So, that’s how close we are to things taking place. And some of the leaders in Russia and some of the commentators that are there, TV, and so forth. They don’t say the things they do without some backing in talking about what they’re going to do to various countries in Europe and the use of nuclear weapons and kind of always taunting the US that they have hypersonic missiles, and that China has hypersonic missiles, and the US doesn’t. Because there is no defense against them. Incredible, what’s going on.

China and Russia now in the new talking about an alliance that is really shocking to a lot of people. You think, hasn’t been a shock for us. We’ve known it’s been coming for a long time. It was given to Herbert Armstrong to understand China and Russia are going to be united. We understand they’re going to be a result of the events of the Sixth Trumpet. The biggest part of the nuclear war is going to be done by them. But not the main part in the beginning. Incredible!

We’re going to be able to watch those things come about in the sense of being witness of it because it’s in our time. That’s part of our purpose, being witness of what’s going to take place here at the end. Not a pretty sight. It’s not something we want to see. But it’s a reality.

And what an incredible thing to understand it has to happen because it’s the only way God’s Kingdom can be ushered in, that mankind has to be humbled to this degree, that God just lets people go by their own choice to war. He’s not going to stop them from going to war. He hasn’t in all the wars that have taken place through time. Because it’s not His purpose. It’s to allow mankind to go through the things that we go through so we can learn the greatest lessons of all, that if God didn’t intervene, as He says in scripture, as was given to Herbert Armstrong to understand, if God didn’t intervene we would annihilate ourselves.

There is enough nuclear power to destroy this world many times over, and who’s going to be the one who stops using the nuclear weapons once it starts? And that’s the problem. So, it’s scary, it’s horrifying, and God’s going to allow it to go up to one-third of mankind being destroyed before He starts to intervene. Actually, more than that because the other Trumpet events before that, there are a lot who die. But in that one Trumpet alone God says one-third of the earth is going to be destroyed.

And then what an awesome thing takes place, Joshua the Christ and the 144,000 who are resurrected into Elohim, come back with him and it talks about they’re going to make war. Not coming back this time as the Lamb of God. Not coming back as he did the first time, to be our Passover, to die as the Lamb of God, to let them spit on him, to let them beat him as they did, to lash him with the cat-o-nine-tails that skin ripped off his body and his being and his face, to where he wasn’t even recognizable, as it says. Incredible!

Now, he’s coming back as the Lion of God, as it says, and he’s going to take control. And it says they are going to destroy those who are destroying the earth. And at that time alone another third could easily be destroyed because there are a lot of people who are working at destroying the earth at that time.

And then God establishes His Kingdom because it makes believers out of those who see all this come to pass, beings that they are able to see manifest to them in a physical manner, in ways that are going to scare the you-know-what out of people. Literally, will scare that out of them to the point where people will lose their bowels in the sense of excrement and everything else that when you’re scared to death like that and you see something like that. And it’s going to humble people for the first time.

You know after WWI; it shook people up. WWII, even more so. Tried to have a United Nations. Hasn’t done a thing except become political for different nations and a sounding board in a perverted, sick, disgusting way. And some of the treaties they tried to sign before that. But it shook people up and they felt, “We’ve got to do something so that this never happens again.”

And it’s been a long time but there’s another one coming. All those things that they’ve done have turned into a farce, and the greatest farce is the very statue they put in front of the United Nations, the very one that depicts exactly what God is going to do when finally, it says, “They will beat their weapons into plowshares.” And there’s that statue. That’s what they’re doing.

They’re trying to mimic that, that this is what they’re going to do, bring God’s Kingdom to the earth? How many in the United Nations even believe in God? Well, they believe in different gods, but I’ll tell you, so sick of selfish mankind and what we’ve done, and God proving to us and showing to us we can’t govern ourselves.

And God’s given us six thousand years to show us, to give us the evidence we cannot successfully govern ourselves. Why? Because we’re selfish. One country feels that they’re the right ones and so they conquer others or impose their ways on others.

It’s like this SWIFT program, the banking system. And so, you try to get everybody on your side to go against other countries and cut them off from ability to transfer funds and have… And now so we have BRICS coming up and different countries wanting to be part of the BRICS process where they don’t have to deal in petro-dollars anymore. This is a big thing.

And to think that the US is going to allow this to happen? This country would try to go to war first before they’ll allow BRICS to become a success. If we don’t grasp that we don’t grasp what’s happening in the world and what’s happening between governments truly.

That’s why there are different alliances being made between China right now and Saudi Arabia and some of these other countries. Because it’s always been about, in the end-time here, oil. Still is. It’s powerful. It’s a powerful weapon. It’s a powerful thing that countries have tried to use against each other. The world depends upon it. We’re not quite there to having other sources of batteries and everything else that are going to save us. Sad.

So, what an awesome thing that you see the things you do, a horrifying time. We just happen to live in it. And that’s why so many of the sermons have been about the fact that you’re in God’s hands whether you live or whether you die. But God blesses us in a very powerful way because He’s got a purpose for us at the end-time. Beautiful, to understand that.

Not a place of safety. What an incredible truth to understand in that. Used to be there were those who think… The advertisements right now. Do you know why they’re on TV right now about this rapture again? It was back around before 2008 and you saw different things on the rapture, and what people were writing in books and everything else out there. And now, it’s starting again on TV, you’re seeing these things about a rapture, and they show people and all of a sudden they’re horrified that someone has disappeared. Why? Because they’re taken up there somewhere. They’re not going to have to be here when the war starts. Because that’s what they believe.

And they believe that they’re going to be taken to this place… And if you’re in a Boeing, whatever the jet is you’re flying on, and all of a sudden it happens and the pilot and the co-pilot, because one of them can still fly. So, both of them happen to be in that belief and when they’re raptured you’re up the creek, you know, but they’re going off to this place of safety.

And we used to think back in Philadelphia, during that period, because God hadn’t revealed the truth about it yet, that Petra, because it spoke of Petra, and we know the area of Petra and where the Israelites came through, in that region of the world, on that side in Jordan and as they were coming up to the promised land to go into the promised land, as God was working with them. And they dwelt out in those regions for a long time.

And we used to have pictures of Petra and think, “What an incredible thing. Because God’s going to take,” you know how many? “144,000 from the Church over to Petra.” In other words, the Church had to become that large in adults who were baptized, not counting children. And finally, some began to realize you can’t all get into Petra. It’s too small.

So, how is that going to be accomplished?

I remember one time they started building hotels out in that region, that people took tours in there. It’s like, “We don’t have to be in Petra, but at that area.” So, it’s already being built for us, all these hotels. Because we thought on a physical plane because God hadn’t given it yet that Petra is the term given to God Almighty. He is our Rock. He is our Petra, if you will. It wasn’t about a physical location with the same name.

And so, we came to understand that. But there’s a lot of people out there thinking that they’re going to go to a place of safety while the rest of the world suffers. No, God intends that everyone witness what’s coming to pass. It’s awesome.

Not a pleasant thing but it has to happen because there is no other way for mankind to be humbled so that God’s Kingdom can be established, so they’ll have more of an anxious desire. Just like after WWII, to establish a United Nations, to have good ideas on a physical, carnal plane, but not able to accomplish it. Only God can. And to understand that once again mankind is going to be brought to a point of a willingness to listen to different ideas, how to prevent anything like this ever happening again.

But this time it’s going to be evident only God can do it, Christ and the 144,000 whom they see. And they’re going to have a different spirit. And then God’s truth is going to begin to go out and they’re going to learn all the false things that have existed for six thousand years on this earth and how God has been treated, if you will, or looked upon during that period of time.

Anyway, throughout this period of time in Elisha’s life, God continued revealing to him, through him, if you will, that He was working – revealing this to Israel, if you will in a very powerful way. That’s the story flow we’ve been going through and the miracles that were done, the different miracles. And we’re going to continue to go through some of those because this isn’t the last of it. And there are lessons we can learn on a spiritual plane for ourselves just like we did today about the oil.

That’s what God wants us to see. He wants us to understand, look at the wealth He’s given to us. That widow and her sons were able to live off that for basically, it reveals here, for the rest of their life. That’s what they were going to be able to live on. There was that much wealth to be gained out of all the vessels that had the oil on it. “You can live off this from here on.” Incredible.

And to think, that’s what we’re going to live on, oil, that which comes from God, forever and forever when it comes to it.

I’m going to stop there. Can’t get into the next example here. Anyway, with that, we’ll finish for the day, and come back to it again next Sabbath in Part 5.