The City of Truth, Pt. 1

Ronald Weinland

February 3, 2024

We finished the series last week Elijah, Elisha, & More. That series had led to a new series that we’re going to begin today. That new series is entitled The City of Truth with this being Part 1. The reason for that title? As we go along in the sermon today I’ll explain.

We’re going to begin today with a quote of something that was given toward the end of the sermon last Sabbath. I’m going to repeat this again, because to me it’s inspiring for me, it’s helpful to me, it’s helpful to the Church, and there is much to learn from all this as well, to realize what God is showing us. We’re focusing on truth a lot.

And so, there are reasons for that, that God is having us do that, so that we can better grasp and understand how much we’ve really been given because it’s really more than you can grasp, and sometimes it’s good for us to think on those things and to thank God for it because we are exceedingly blessed above and beyond anyone who has ever lived before as far as truth is concerned, and the more we can see that the more blessed we really are.

This is the quote that was given: “Throughout this series,” speaking of the last series, “it’s been shown how the works done by God through both Elijah and Elisha, that were shown mightily to Israel, were shown to reveal through whom it was He (God) was indeed working. It has been contrasted with the ‘types’ between that which was done physically in nature before Israel but has been spiritual toward the Israel of God in this end time… This has been done repeatedly over the past seventy years plus to the Church. God has been restoring and/or revealing truth to His Church and through whom He’s been working, which is the spiritual ‘type’ of those things done through Elijah and Elisha.”

There was a time when this would have bothered me, going through something like this and talking about it and speaking on it, but there is a purpose for it, and when that time comes then God prepares us for it to be able to do it with truth, with what is true. What’s true is true. Awesome!

So, we’re going to delve more deeply into this matter of truth that comes from God. We’re going to turn over here, first of all, to Psalms today, Psalms 31. There is a lot on the subject throughout scripture. There really is. It’s quite awesome, and when we understand what it is even more deeply in our lives then it becomes more incredible.

Psalms 31:1—A Psalm of David. In you, O Eternal, I have trusted. Pretty strong words. So, we in God’s Church have to measure ourselves, look at ourselves, and know that we can say the same thing. If we can’t then something is wrong.

We have to be able to be of that kind of a mindset and that kind of a candor before God because God knows. He knows everything about us, inside and out. Things that we don’t know about ourselves, He has to reveal them because God knows the heart, He knows what’s inside of us and has to help us to see the things that need to be changed and the things that we have opportunity to grow in of His mind, His being, and He has to reveal all that.

Oh Eternal, I have trusted in you. (In You I have trusted.) Let me never be ashamed. This has to do with a matter of guilt, a matter of sin. The desire is to be able to be cleansed. The desire is to fight against sin. The desire is to see it and to do what needs to be done, to look to God for help to not sin. So, that’s why it’s saying it in this context, “Let me never be ashamed,” because shame is a matter of guilt. It’s a matter of sin. And so, that’s the desire, to be right before God.

But deliver me in Your righteousness. So, there’s a lot said there, “Deliver me in Your righteousness.” Salvation, deliverance, some of the things we’ve looked at as far as the subject is concerned in the last series. “Deliver me in Your righteousness,” because it’s a matter of realizing we have no such thing. There is no such thing as our righteousness, “my” righteousness. Righteousness comes from God. It’s what God attributes to us for living by faith, and that’s an awesome thing to understand, that we have a long, long way to go because we’re not going to have that until we’re changed, until we’re spirit in composition. And so, the more we’re able to understand those things and see those things, the more we grasp and understand our need for God every day of our life, our need for His spirit, His life, and His Son’s life living and dwelling in us and we dwelling in them, the stronger we become.

Bow down Your ear to me. We always desire to be heard by God. But not only that, but to have a confidence that indeed that’s what He wants. He wants to hear us and that’s an automatic thing, just that confidence in your mind to know God’s going to do that.

Now, David asked for that. He wanted that. He wanted to be heard. But because of truth that’s been revealed to God’s Church more than ever before we have that kind of confidence. Awesome to have that kind of confidence, to understand God loves us with a love we really can’t fully comprehend. We have a measure of it from time to time. We can experience it in part from time to time as we’re able to experience His spirit in our life and more at some times than others. So it is with that kind of thinking, that kind of mind, that kind of love.

So, what an awesome thing to have that kind of confidence before God, to know that every time and wherever you are and whatever you do, when you pray to God you’re being heard if – if you’re always asking for God to forgive you of your sins. That sometimes should just be at the forefront, of things we don’t even know to be forgiven, of things we can’t even see. I find to pray about that, to ask God for help, presumptuous things that we don’t know in our thinking yet, and ask for cleansing through our Passover, Joshua the Christ because the reality is we understand that sin cuts us off from God’s spirit or quenches God’s spirit.

Deliver me speedily. David went through a lot of things in his life, did a lot of things in his life, that he had to learn some horrible, incredible lessons sometimes of human nature, and yet his heart was always toward God. We’ve gone through scriptures like that and talked about that in times past, zeroing in on that. As God says, “He’s a man after My own heart.”

Well, we all desire that. We desire to be close to God and to have a strong relationship with God Almighty. And so, this desire to be delivered speedily when we’re in a difficult time, when whatever it might be that we’re going through that we see and understand, as it goes on to say, Be the rock of my safety or strength as the word is. Be the rock of my strength. Beautiful! The scripture in the New Testament: Petra. Selah.

…for a house of defense. In other words, a stronghold. That’s what the word means. For a stronghold, something that we receive strength from, something we can grasp and comprehend in a relationship with God.

…to save me. So, this thing about being delivered, about salvation, comes up over and over and over throughout what God has to say throughout scripture. His purpose for mankind is to deliver us from what we are because what we are stinks. What we are is a beginning of something that can become something incredibly great. But how many will achieve that? How many will be able to do that? Well, that’s the personal decision God’s going to give to people through time and has through time to a few.

For my rock and my fortress. So, what’s the attitude? The attitude is God is there. That’s where our strength comes from. That’s what we look to when we need help. And we need help a lot. We need help in fighting this. You need it every day, candidly, to fight self, to fight selfishness because that’s what we have to conquer and overcome.

Therefore, for Your name’s sake lead me, and guide me. What an awesome thing, “For Your name’s sake lead me and guide me, work with me, mold and fashion me to be in unity with You, to be obedient to You.” That’s what he’s asking for. That’s what we should desire always.

Pull me out of the net that they have hidden from me, and You, for You are my strength. So again, it’s this thing of understanding there are a lot of things out there that can pull people away. A trap. A net. That’s what it’s talking about, a net, something that can entrap you. There is a world out there that seeks to do that to God’s people. Always has been. Through time there’s a being out there who wants us to fail. There is a being out there that wants God to fail. There is a being out there that’s done everything he can within his power to bring that about, failure.

And sadly, there have been many who have chosen that direction, there are many who have succumbed to that because that’s what sin leads to. It leads to a separation from the help and strength we can receive, could have received, and then we become so weak that that being then can have a power in our lives of influence, of broadcasting that sometimes people can’t resist. They get to a point where they can no longer resist it and they go off, do whatever. It’s a power. But the power that’s from God is the one that can save us, can deliver us from what we are.

So, in some respects with human beings, Satan’s job isn’t all that hard because that’s the easy thing for human beings to choose and do, and that’s why so many have gone that direction. That’s why so many throughout the history of God’s Church have given up, have turned, become antichrist, against Christ, against the very purpose of why he died for us! Incredible, to understand those things.

…for You are my strength. Into Your hand, I commit my spirit. What an awesome thing of peace in your mind when you realize that that’s where our life is, it’s in God’s hands.

You have redeemed me, O Eternal God of truth. Everything that comes from God is true. Everything that comes from God is right, but we have to become convicted of those things in the process of growth. In the process of our calling, that’s where it begins. Then in the process of our growing spiritually and as to whether or not we stay there in that position, in that thinking, in that mind to realize this is where our life is, this is where our strength is. It is in truth that comes from God. Incredible!

Psalm 119, another psalm. Psalm 119:30. I have chosen the way of truth. What an awesome thing to be able to say at all times in your life within the Body of Christ, within the Church of God, “I have chosen the way of truth.” It’s a way of life. It’s a way of life that God gives to us, of how we can live.

I have agreed in Your judgments. So again, you go through some of these, and you think, “I have agreed in Your judgments.” It’s a matter of understanding, too, for us, of becoming more at one with God. It’s a matter of understanding the need to be of the mind of God, of the mind of Christ. There are so many scriptures that talk about those kinds of things. I have held fast to Your testimonies. O Eternal, let me not be put to shame. Again, this matter of guilt.

Psalm 25:4—Show, or as the word means, Make known to me (reveal to me; show me) as it is in Hebrew, Make known unto me Your ways, O Eternal. So, we’re always looking to God for help to see His way, which is the way that is a matter of a road, a path, a way to follow, a way to travel. A way to live our life is what it boils down to.

And so, that has to be inside of us. It’s something you grow in that this is what you want, this is what you desire, and you cry out to God for that, “Help me to be in Your way! Help me to stay in Your way! Just to stay in Your way!” So much of that has to do with the subject of truth.

Because there are just too many people – I can’t believe sometimes when I think back and think about Laodicea and that era of the Church when those 18 Truths ceased to be taught! Where some of the simplest of things ceased to be taught anymore. They weren’t being taught by the ministry. They weren’t coming out in articles, as a whole, after Herbert Armstrong died. They weren’t coming out in the magazines and so forth and talking about those truths.

Now, they did a little bit at the very beginning because of a transition that was taking place and because of an understanding that people are indeed desiring and wanting a smooth transition from the way that was before, as a whole, for those who would rise up. And who are they? Maybe that 10%! They can make a lot of noise if you understand what I’m saying.

And so, they knew. They knew how to talk to people. As time went along, they knew who to talk to by the very questions you asked. They knew by the questions they asked whether or not you were strong in what you believed in the past and whether or not maybe you were willing to listen to some new things because that’s how they functioned over time.

So, it wasn’t very long, 1987, 1988, in through there, and after that, we got closer and closer to the book burning. We’ve got to burn the books. We’ve got to get rid of all of Herbert Armstrong’s writings because they need to be updated, they need to be rewritten, and all that kind of garbage. It’s amazing what we’ve lived through. To think back, and look back and think, we had a book burning?! I mean, that’s really weird. But it happened. Well, the reason it was weird was because of the power that was behind it. Satanic. That’s where it came from. And so, slowly but surely, ministers quit preaching on some of those things. Because if you wanted to get ahead, you didn’t preach on those things. That happened to, I’d say, a majority.

Sermons about a calling, something as simple as that, something as simple as the fact that there are eras in the Church, went by the wayside. The farther you start getting away from truth, the more you start moving in a different direction that is not God’s way. Because see, the reality was those 18 Truths (or 21) were from God. They were from the very mind and being of God. That’s awesome to understand that! That it’s His revelation to mankind to help us to know him. Because that reveals His mind, His being, His thinking, and the more we can see that and understand that the more blessed we are and the more we embrace it— if we embrace it. Awesome!

Make me to know Your ways, O Eternal. Teach me in Your paths. There’s a lot to learn in this way of God that He reveals to us. There’s a lot to build upon. I marvel at that sometimes, how that sometimes we’ve gone through various scriptures and all of a sudden we see something that we haven’t seen before. Because it’s a matter of growing, it’s a matter of this building process that God gives to us. That’s a part of the training that takes place, part of the way that God does it.

Matter of fact, this word here, “teach me,” is as in “to exercise.” That’s how it’s used, “to be trained in something.” Meaning you have to exercise something. Mainly our thinking, our minds, and what we choose to live, His way, to be in unity and oneness with God.

Lead me in Your path. Over and over again here in the Psalms expressions like this, “Lead me,” “Teach me,” “Mold me,” “Fashion me,” “Transform me,” all the things that have to do with the changing of this mind and the learning more and more to be in unity and oneness with God.

Lead me in Your truth. Yet it’s been lost many a time in God’s Church, and sometimes people let down in it and they don’t grasp the value of what’s been given. It’s the mind of God! How awesome is that, that God reveals Himself to us more and more? The more we learn about God’s truth the more we can know God and that helps us to understand and to learn, to build upon other things. Because the more you can have that mind, well, the more you can think right, the more you can see.

We are being prepared to judge. We are being prepared to administer God’s way in this world. That’s what we go through in our calling. The more we learn those ways and to judge righteous judgment – because we’ve gone through series like that as well – that’s what God wants in us. That’s what He’s molding in us, the ability to administer His government in the Kingdom of God.

Because that’s not something that all of a sudden we are able to do perfectly. God gives us great ability and we’ll have the mind and be in unity with God and have that mind. But the sharpness of it, if you will, the strength of that and our ability to serve more, which is what we should all want, to serve as much as we can in whatever capacity that He’s offering to us, and the more we yield to that process of being molded and fashioned, the more valuable we’re going to be in the Kingdom of God to God’s people, to those being called in the world, to help them change their lives.

Lead me in Your truth, and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation, my deliverance. That’s a conviction. Those aren’t just words. It’s a matter of something that has to come out of us. It’s something that has to be a matter of conviction of something you feel, and if we don’t have that strong in our thinking, we have to pray for it and ask God for it.

On You, I wait all the day. That means you know your life is in God’s hands because that’s how you think because that’s how you’re living. Your life is in God’s hands, in God’s care. There is a peace that goes with that, that whatever happens in your life, if you’re striving to live God’s way of life, if you know you’re striving to live God’s way of life and you’re crying out, there’s a confidence that will come along with that of a peace that’s a matter of God’s spirit no matter what we go through.

Verse 9—The meek, the word meaning “the lowly; the humble; the poor in spirit,” in other words of self, spirit, selfishness, those who are of a humble mind, able to be taught, The meek, He will guide in judgment. Because so much has to do with judgment. That has to do with how you think primarily toward others. It’s about how you think toward others, judgment. The more the mind of God we can have, do have, the more our judgment can be in unity with God.

The meek He will guide in judgment, and the meek He will teach His way. It’s the only way it works. That’s how God functions. That’s how God works. Awesome! “His way,” “His truth,” if you will, “His word.” It’s about His word. It’s just said in different ways.

That’s why I love the Proverbs when it talks about wisdom. It’s the mind of God. Truth – it’s the mind of God. The word – it’s the mind of God. That’s why I love what God gave to Herbert Armstrong about the meaning of the word itself, “The Word was made flesh.” The revelatory thought of God. There can’t be a more perfect way to explain what that means. The revelatory thought of God to our minds.

He has to do it. You can’t figure it out on your own. You can’t know it on your own. God has to show it to us because it’s not in us. It has to come from God through the power of His holy spirit. And so, it’s the revelatory thought, His thinking to our minds. We either receive it or we don’t. We either accept it and desire it and want it, His way, His truth, or we resist it. We’re tried in those things.

All the paths (the ways) of the Eternal are mercy and truth. Sometimes this thing of mercy is more powerful than what we can grasp, what God wants us to give. You know, I think of the word “grace.” Grace is about forgiveness of sin that God offers us the opportunity. It’s about His love being shown to us. It’s about the opportunity to come to a point where we can actually begin to be forgiven of sin through our Passover, when God begins to show us, give us grace. It’s the ability of the patience that God has with us. All the attributes that come along with giving His way of life to us.

But we’re not to be on the receiving end selfish, in a selfish manner, that we’re just getting from God and not giving it to others. Because God’s purpose, if you understand grace and how it works in our lives and what it says in the New Testament especially, it’s to come into our life, we start receiving it, but it’s to bring change in the mind that translates into how we think and treat others.

That’s been done very poorly throughout two thousand years in God’s Church, candidly, and so God’s bringing us to a greater understanding of that, of what has to exist, of what has to take place in His Kingdom during the Millennium and the Great White Throne. That’s what He’s been preparing, an ability to communicate that and for people to grasp that in a deeper, stronger way than ever before, what mercy is all about.

It's far better to be merciful than it is to be hard on people! Some are still being hard! Even within the ministry sometimes it happens. We have to grow in those things so that we’re never hard on people. Yet, we have to do things sometimes that are hard because they’re supposed to be done because someone needs to be addressed about a matter. But we have to be ever so careful in doing that! That’s the hardest thing it seems to learn in God’s Church!

I hate it when I know that people have been oppressed, pressured. There are ways you can pressure people into doing what you think is right, how you think they should be doing something, and you hurt them. You can push them away from the Church! We have to be ever so careful that never happens, that none of us are ever guilty of that.

And yet it’s happened over and over and over in the environment of God’s Church where people have done those kinds of things. Address sin when it needs to be addressed, but address it the right way, the exact way God says to do it, and no other way! Be careful how you do it! Just that alone if people could understand that. It’s not the opportunity to go up to your brother alone and tell them how they’re doing something wrong.

It blows my mind sometimes how that people think they’ve got to change people or bring them into God’s Church or whatever it is. Sometimes I get so sick when I hear someone invited into God’s Church, a mate or whatever it might be, and they come along and then someone does something so stupid as to go up to offend them and talk about when they’re going to be baptized, or “Are you baptized yet?” Give me a break!

This still is going on in the Church and I heard it recently more than once, twice for sure. You know what? Twice is too much! Two instances of it here just in the last few weeks. It causes my blood to do a little bit of a boil because you’re pushing them away, an opportunity that maybe they would have had that because of your stupidity and being so…what? I don’t even know how to describe it! Offensive? Let God do His work in people in His timing! Who appointed you to go up and offend somebody? I hope you all understand what I’m saying.

So, it’s about relationships. It’s about not offending people. It’s about not being offensive. Of all people, we should be that way. I don’t want to be offensive in God’s way of life and thinking I have the right measure of something in thinking how you should be or where you should be or that you should be at a point where you are ready for baptism whether you want it or not and you feel pressured into getting baptised. Why should anyone ever feel that way?

Sometimes people have felt pressured into being baptized! In families or whatever it might be or within an environment within the Church. No one should ever feel like that because of something someone else is doing to them, as though something is wrong with them if they don’t get out, go out and jump in a pool right now and ask someone to come out and lay hands on them, you know? Give me a break! Where is the mercy? Where is the patience? Where is the love of God?

Well, I think you can tell these things rile me up. Because I care about God’s people, and if I didn’t something would be mightily wrong with me. So, my desire is to come to defense very quickly. That’s the way we should all be toward one another, to come to defense.

I’ll tell you what, if I hear something like this again, I think I’m just going to split something, rupture something in my body because I won’t be able to take the blood pressure or whatever it is, the stress of it all and have to hold myself back, hoping that somebody is going to tie me down and hold me back, so I don’t just go up and smack somebody. It’s the way I feel, but I have to bring this under control.

What a horrible thing to offend and hurt people. So grace, mercy, this matter of mercy, being merciful. If we could just better, more fully understand mercy. I’d far rather err on the side of mercy than to be too quick to pass out judgment that I think is right. People have found fault with me in that over and over and over again of not jumping on something more quickly, not addressing something more quickly. Do you know what I do? I. Wait. On. God. That is my mind. I will not do anything until I feel confident that God has given it to me to do because you have to pray about it. You have to ask God to be involved. I don’t want to rely on myself and my thinking, the way I think it should be done. I’m going through some things right now, thinking about “How can I address this?” and so I’m waiting on God to help me to see it. I know God will show it to me because He always does, how to work with certain situations of some of the stuff I’m talking about here.

Not about the ones that went up and said something. Next time that happens I will have a conversation. But some other things, serious things, about how someone in God’s Church can hurt someone else because of their standard, what they think something should be or whatever is here, and sometimes people can say things and push them in a certain way that it makes someone else feel they’re doing something wrong, and they need to or feel pressured into doing something in a certain way. Sometimes that’s done very passive-aggressive. I hate that even worse.

It's like saying, “I can’t tell you what to do but…” It’s like saying, “But this is what I would do.” It’s like saying, “I’m doing it God’s way, but if you want to do it some other way, that’s okay.”

I probably should have brought my blood pressure thing today. I didn’t know some of these things were going to go that way.

But mercy. Don’t we want to be merciful to others? Because we want to be given mercy. I think of how much mercy God has given me. He has given me a lot of mercy. And if you see yourself, He’s given you a lot of mercy because we’re carnal, human beings. We’re filled with a boatload of selfishness, and we’re constantly conquering that and combating that and growing. That’s how you grow. But it’s still always going to be there.

I don’t care how much you conquer. As long as you’re in this human body, the boat might not be as big or as full as it was before, but you still got plenty in there. You’re always working to conquer and overcome and become at one with God. We never arrive until we’re changed.

All the paths, all the ways of the Eternal are mercy and truth. They go together hand in hand because that’s God’s way. The truth, so much of it if we can grasp it, is about how we think toward one another, how we deal with one another, how we function in life toward others. God has made it very clear throughout scripture, Joshua did throughout scripture, how we’re to think toward others. But so often we fail in those things.

…mercy and truth unto such as keep… It’s that word “keep,” “dress and keep,” “to keep; to guard; to watch,” His covenant and His testimonies. Which are what? They’re contained in His truth. For that which is spiritual, for the Church, for those baptized, those who have the impregnation of God’s spirit, it's His truth.

“Guard and watch,” and yet it can be lost. You can begin to downsize it, downplay it, or not grasp its importance. That’s what happened in Laodicea. Just like the eras alone, downplayed its significance and made it something else because there was a motivation under all that. Because if they acknowledge Laodicea, it’s like, maybe that’s where we are, maybe that’s most of the Church, maybe it is the Church, which would bring someone to repentance, but it couldn’t be seen fully.

Proverbs 8. This word “wisdom.” Again, it’s about the mind of God. It’s about the word of God that we’re blessed to receive that comes from God. It’s not wisdom from mankind, it’s wisdom from God. It’s His mind, His revelatory thought if we’re blessed to receive of that. The reality is since it’s a revelatory thought He has to do the revealing of His mind, His thinking into our minds.

Proverbs 8:1—Does not wisdom cry, and understanding put forth her voice? It’s like, are we really listening? How much are we really listening? How much are we seeking to drink in of what God gives to us? So, it’s in the context, “if we will listen,” “if one will listen.”

She stands in the top of the heights. Now, that’s not for the world. If we understand it, this isn’t about the world. People in the world can’t pick up the book of Proverbs and start reading about wisdom and all of a sudden they have wisdom, all of a sudden they’re made wiser. “Look at the ant, you sluggard.” Well, maybe they can learn certain things on a physical plane if they could really learn that, but this is about the Church. It’s about God’s people. It’s about having God’s spirit, receiving God’s spirit, and beginning to understand these things on a spiritual plane.

She stands in the top of the heights. What is that all about? Well, if we understand how God works, if we understand a structure that God gives, “In the top of the heights,” “in the mountains,” government.

She stands in the top of the heights in the way of the house of its paths. Sometimes these are translated rather poorly. It’s talking about, literally, “the house of its paths.” So, in other words, there is that that’s there before us, for us when God begins to work with us because God has to reveal these things. It’s not something you can just read about and all of a sudden you have it in your mind.

She cries at the gates, at the entry of the city. What gates? What city? It’s about what God gives. It’s about that which God opens up when He begins to work with us, when He begins to call us and draw us, and He opens up the way to us. The gates that are no longer shut, but they’re opened up to us into a city that He begins to reveal to us over time, what that city is, when you talk about Jerusalem or Zion or different terms that are used, that which God is building and constructing and the way into that. That’s what we’re seeking, that path, that way.

She cries in the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. Well, who can listen? Only those whom God calls. They’re the only ones who can hear this. They’re the only ones that have the ability to hear this. The rest of the world can’t.

So, even this, it’s to the Church. It’s to God’s people. It’s to those with whom God works because they’re the only ones that have the ability to do something like this anyway. It’s not about a physical wisdom in the sense of man’s thoughts and thinking and how to be wise in business or whatever it might be. It’s about that which has to do with God’s way of life, God’s being, His mind.

She cries at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. Unto each of you, I call, and My voice is to the children of mankind. God’s just showing here what He does. God does the calling. God is the one that draws us to His mind, to His thinking, to His being, to His paths, to His truth, to His word, whatever words you want to throw in there that give us a bit of a jolt and encouragement, inspiration, to see something and the broadness of it, the beauty of it.

“Unto each of you, I call.” Wisdom, God, the mind of God calls out. That’s what He did when He first started calling you. He started opening up your mind, started working with you. Perhaps growing up within the environment of the Church and giving you an opportunity to see things or being called directly out of the world where you had never seen anything and He begins to give something in the mind, and we begin to see things that we couldn’t otherwise see that people around us can’t see. Because you can talk to them about it, but they can’t see it. They don’t understand it. Then we begin to have this matter of choices, what do we do with it then.

Unto each of you, I call, and My voice is to the children of mankind. Because that’s God’s purpose. In time His desire is to call everyone. But the reality is, because of choices that many have made through time, some have so seared their minds that they can’t even be called. They can’t be drawn. Horrible!

Verse 5—You simpleminded, understand wisdom. So, who is that written to? Every one of us! When you think of God—I was thinking about some of this this morning—we’re so puny. We are so puny! To understand God, we don’t have the ability. To comprehend God? I was thinking about Him this day. So often we think about that, Him being our Creator, God. He created everything.

You think of the universe and everything that’s out there and it’s all for a purpose that we don’t even know what that is yet because He hasn’t revealed it yet. It’s for the God Family! That’s why it’s out there. It’s for the God Family to inherit! We don’t understand that yet, fully, and what we’re going to be doing. I have no idea. Neither do you. There is no sense thinking about it because you might come up with some weird ideas. It’s better just to wait until the time God reveals it.

Just like everything else He’s done over the past six thousand years, in God’s time, He reveals what we need and what we should have. Everything else, we have enough, to that point in time. That’s our present truth. To try to go beyond that? Not wise.

“You simpleminded.” So, do we grasp we need God, that we need wisdom that comes from God? Because, basically, this is pretty puny. Our abilities?

The thing that makes us different.

You can look at the world. We can see things that are going on in the world and news and politicians, and I don’t care whether it’s in education or what industry, corporations, things that are going on, absolute insanity! They’re even starting to acknowledge this in some of the news. But it’s insane.

It’s like how can minds think this way? Because people have gone nuts. They’re crazy? I mean, what’s up there? What can be worked with? I don’t know! But I fear for it because people’s minds are so screwed up. What a horrible world we live in right now.

Simpleminded? The reality is all of us are simpleminded compared to the mind and the being of Almighty God, and we need Him, and we need wisdom, His mind, His being because there is where all understanding and truth is. Truth.

…you fools. If we understand what we are. Now, we grow in God’s Church. We grow because of God’s spirit. But if we rely on ourselves? …you fools, be of an understanding heart. That’s what I want, an understanding heart. To understand God’s way, to be able to see God’s way, to be able to choose. What a blessing to be able to choose God’s way, His mind, His truth.

Hear; for I will speak of noble things. God reveals things that we don’t grasp yet, but yet we’re able to grow and He reveals things to us that are exciting and inspiring through time. We’ve been exceedingly blessed in this unique end time, if you will. God just poured out more and more and more to see what we see, of the mind, of the being of God, to come into greater unity. “Hear, for I will speak of noble things.” Because they come from God. Anything that comes from God is noble, the most noble thing there could be. We’re able to have that in our lives, in our minds.

…and the opening of My lips, right things. We don’t have to worry about right and wrong. God shows us, “That’s right. This is the way, walk you in it.” It’s a choice. We become convicted of that more and more and we want to see the things that are wrong in us.

For My mouth will speak truth. We just know that. That’s the source of truth, of what is true. Everything else is a lie. Everything else is not true, of man’s ways. Every other way, every other thought of a different way is wrong, is sin, is chaos, is confusion. That’s what happens. Only God produces everything that is good and right, sound, peace.

For My mouth will speak the truth, and wickedness is an abomination to My lips. So, that which is evil, that’s what should rile us up like I was riled up a while ago, wickedness. To hurt someone else in God’s Church, to be unthinking about things that might fall out of our stupid mouths sometimes, just blurt it out, just “Let me puke on you. Come a little closer. You’re too far away. I want you to smell this.” That’s just what it’s like to not control our mouth, to say things that hurt…to say things that hurt.

I learned a long time ago, started learning a long time ago, the power of words that can hurt. When you know that you’re doing something right even. I’m not going to tell you that story, but it happened a couple years before I was called because God started showing certain things in the world and the way human beings are and the way we act. And to begin to learn the last thing you ever want to do is say something that hurts someone else. Well, that’s where it started for me.

I don’t want anything to come out of my mouth. You don’t want to hurt anybody, to cause anyone suffering and pain because words hurt.

That’s why I think of all this social media (you know what I want to say, and I’ll just refrain from it today at this point), garbage. Killing people. People that commit suicide because of it because it so hurts them. And you think, to be so hurt inside that you can’t value living anymore, you can’t see any hope and purpose of continuing on, and because of peers and things they say and things they do to get to that point where you’d rather not live. Well, what a horrifying thing we live in in this world today.

That kind of thing didn’t exist fifty years ago with the power that it has. Today it has incredible power, and they’re just now starting to really begin to see some of that, with people, with young people, where it literally needs to be governed. Because young people can’t govern it. And candidly, neither can the older ones. But they don’t gasp that yet. They think they can handle a little bit of it.

That’s why there are so many out there that though they might make laws against it they still try some coke here and there, leaders, rulers, religious people, doctors, lawyers. I don’t care where it is, there are a large number of people out there that snort drugs. Some get by with it and some don’t to a point. They screw up the mind. They screw it up regardless because it does things to your mind.

We live in that kind of a world. We should have gone way past Lot in vexing our souls day by day, our life, and seeing how evil this world has become. He saw an evil world. We see an EVIL world! Way beyond what he could see. It used to be people would think, “How could the world ever get that bad?” To think it’s going to be like that time period of his life and why God burned up cities, two cities. They disintegrated. Fire.

Today the world is so much worse, how far the mind of man has gone with technology and use of technology and some of the stupidity that rolls out of people's mouths. I don’t even want to mention what it is. You know what it is.

You think, how can it get much worse? Then all of a sudden you hear something and it’s worse. It just gets worse and worse and worse. I can’t wait until Joshua begins to come back and 144,000 are there and put a stop to this to save mankind because it’s about coming to a point where mankind is destroying himself. He doesn’t have to just destroy himself because of nuclear weapons; we have so many things out there now. There are so many ways we can destroy ourselves. Some of these stupid things that people keep fooling around with, like the Covid thing that started. There are things a whole lot worse and they’re still monkeying around (no pun intended) with some of those things, you know.

For My mouth will speak the truth, and wickedness is an abomination to My lips. In other words, contrasting truth here is what it’s doing with the ugliness of that which is not true. God’s way – everything else. Because every other way is wicked, evil, sick, perverted, disgusting.

All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; nothing is twisted, in other words, or crooked, or perverted in them. God’s way is straight, it’s clear when we see it, when we grasp it.

Verse 9—They are all plain. I think of The Plain Truth. Beautiful name for a magazine. God gave that name. The Plain Truth. I hope we understand things like that, that God inspires things to be done. The Worldwide Church of God. The Church of God – PKG. They all have incredible meaning because of what God is doing. It reveals the mind of God and what God is doing. Awesome!

“They are all plain.” It’s a word that means straightforward. When you see it it’s there and it’s clear, plain as can be, but God has to give the ability. People couldn’t in the past just pick up The Plain Truth and see it and understand it all. Certain things on a physical plane and level can be moved by some of those things, but spiritually?

They are all plain to those who understand. And who can understand? That’s the thing. Those whom God calls, those whom God draws and gives the ability to see because it’s a matter of His revelation. It’s a matter of His holy spirit to come into the mind.

…to those who understand, and right to those who find knowledge. So, we become convicted of that as we find, as God gives us more knowledge and more understanding through time. The more we live that then we grow in wisdom.

Receive My instruction. God’s way is a matter of instruction. We have to be taught in it. We have to be guided in it. We have to learn it. We have to exercise it then in our lives so that we can learn it. Sometimes you have to live something for a time before you can come to understand it.

Receive My instruction, in other words, all that is true, and not silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold. Sometimes people have chosen wealth over God’s way, a job, will not leave their job on the Sabbath because it just means too much and finances to their family.

I think of someone we visited one time. I think it was either in Pennsylvania or New York. I think it was over in New York. We sat down with him for a while, and it was amazing how much they saw. It was amazing how much they could roll out. It came to the Sabbath and the family. There were certain things in their discussion and their conversation that God had given to them, the ability to understand or see certain things, but it was the Sabbath, and so, the finances, the money became more important.

What a horrible choice! Couldn’t come on into the Church. Could not be baptized and receive something so incredibly more precious, valuable above and beyond that which they were holding on to. They lost it then. You lose it.

Then all the other things that people can be drawn to besides where they put their value. So, it’s not just a matter of gold and silver, it’s a matter of what do you value? Sometimes it’s someone. Sometimes it’s someone that someone is drawn to and then they do wrong things and then they’re sinning, and then God cuts them off.

For wisdom is better than rubies and all the things that may be desired. Whatever it is human beings can come up with in their thinking that they might desire. This is so far and above and beyond, are not to be compared to it. But you know what? You can’t give that to anybody. You can try. You can talk about it Sabbath by Sabbath by Sabbath by Sabbath, Holy Day to Holy Day, which God does, but it’s up to us to embrace it and receive it. I just think of the history of the Church and how many have not, how many have gone by the wayside.

So, indeed, truth comes from God. That’s the source. Wisdom comes from God. God’s word comes from God. It’s value, as I said earlier in the sermon here, far beyond anything we can comprehend. We really can’t fully comprehend because sometimes it’s a matter of not seeing it for the value it is. That’s why we’re going through these series because it’s about truth. There is nothing of greater value you can have. I don’t care what it is in this world. Maybe you’ve driven down the road and you see the lottery has hit a billion dollars. Now, wouldn’t that solve a lot of problems, human beings think. No, it’s just the beginning of far worse.

But God’s way of life, God’s truth, it says it can’t be compared to it. That’s a matter of conviction in our minds, to realize the value in our minds of the truth. Where are we in that? Because we’re not all the same so we all value it to different degrees, whatever that degree might be. But our heart should be to want to value it more and more and learn where we’re not valuing it to the level we should be and cry out to God in that manner.

So, although we’ve addressed certain matters concerning truth in the last sermon series, it’d be good to revisit some of that, which we’re going to do at this point. Because, well, it’s being driven home to us more and more. Do we see it?

I couldn’t help but when I was going through this thinking about the two trees. People got tired of hearing about the two trees. Maybe some of the story of Elijah and Elisha, hopefully, that’s no one in God’s Church, but knowing every year someone leaves maybe it is. I don’t know.

So, we’re going to visit just a little bit here in James and then we’re going to continue on. But Part 1 of the last series about Elijah and Elisha began by reviewing what was covered in the previous series that was entitled Healing, Believing, and True Faith, which reveals where we are.

In Part 5 of that series, we actually began in some of the story of Elijah. Now, there was a story in the midst of Elijah that we skipped over. Now, at that time – sometimes I marvel at how God works – I went ahead and went past it. I didn’t do that with Elisha, but I did with this one here with Elijah and went ahead and went past it. I think I just mentioned it in passing in an overview here because of moving forward, but the reality was it wasn’t time yet. Now it’s time. That’s how God works. I marvel at that process sometimes.

So, there’s a story in the midst of Elijah, in both of the previous series that wasn’t covered in either series, and we’re going to pick that up as we go through this. But it began here in part of the story having to do with James so we’re going to go there first, James 5, and we’re going to pick up part of that story after we do a little review here again of Part 1 and of Elijah and Elisha more. James 5:15. See, there’s a lot said here in James that the Church has never really fully understood and didn’t understand in Philadelphia, didn’t understand during Laodicea for sure, and that God has revealed more of in time here.

James 5:15—And the prayer of faith shall save the wearied, and the Lord shall raise them up. So, we’ve gone through all that. Did we receive it all? We probably did to various levels.

… Confess your trespasses (offenses) to one another and pray for one another. And so, we went through that, what that means. You do it to those you’ve sinned against. You accept the wrong you’ve done, the wrong you stated to them, you apologize, and you tell them you’re sorry for what you did, for what you said, for whatever it might be. That’s the context here.

It’s not going to other people. Sometimes people when they’re new and they come along and it’s like they have to tell the Church everything. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to hear it all. I am not your confessor. Tell it to God. God already knows. But the fact that you see and understand it was wrong, to let God know that, fine. But I don’t want to hear all that of your past. I don’t need to hear the details of those things. We have to be careful in God’s Church we don’t listen to people’s stories. We need to stop it short and say, “No, that’s in the past. That was between you and God. It is between you and God.”

Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another. So, the thought should be prayer on both sides, in hearing it in both sides in the context of this, is that someone who has done something wrong to someone else, you should strive to make it right and you begin to make it right by telling them that you were wrong and you accept that and you’re sorry for what you did and you’re going to strive not to do that ever again, though sometimes you might. You just have to tell them again, “I’m sorry, I did it again.”

I told this many of times how Laura’s dad always said, “Give me another chance.” That should be the humble attitude and spirit because that’s what that’s about, “You can give me another chance. I need it.” It’s that kind of an attitude. You go to someone else and tell them you were wrong.

So, you pray before you ever go to them and tell them that because you want to say it in a right way that it’s received by them. Then the other party to pray about it as well so that they can receive someone’s apology. Sometimes people haven’t.

I think of someone right now – I’m just going to say it – in God’s church who has something against my wife. Has had for years. She’s told her over and over at different times, “No, there is nothing there,” and that person won’t let it drop. And whoever you are out there that’s hearing me today, you know who you are, and you’ve told this to other people as well out there. It better come to a screeching halt because that’s grounds for being disfellowshipped. It really is.

To speak against someone in leadership in God’s Church, ordained to where she is ordained, and has told you the truth and you won’t accept the truth because of some screwed-up thinking on your part. You’re at sin. You’re at fault. You need to get it addressed or this is the wrong place for you.

It’s amazing what sometimes goes on in the environment of God’s Church. You’d think that she should be the easiest person, or one of the easiest— I may be… I don’t know – to approach and say, “I feel that you have something against me,” and then if we tell you, “No. There is nothing there and there never has been.” Why would we want to have something against someone else in God’s Church? That’s sin! And if we did, if there was something bothering us that you’ve done in the past, I would tell you. She would tell you.

And so, if you have the tenacity (almost said the wrong word there) to say that then what are you saying to other people? If you can say that to someone in God’s leadership within the Body of Christ, the Church of God, at the height of that, what are you doing with your mouth at other times? That’s my question.

So, “Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another.” Our desire should be to pray for one another, to be able to receive someone’s apology if they’ve done something wrong and they say they’ve done something and they want to make something right, but especially when someone says there’s nothing there anyway and then you still hold something? Where is the prayer in that? Where is the looking to God in that?

…and pray for one another that you may be healed. Do you know why it says it that way? It’s not about a physical healing. Because if you don’t get past that in the mind you’ve got problems, you’ve got sin in your life that’s not being forgiven, and you’re cutting yourself off from God’s spirit. That’s why it says it this way, “so that you may be healed.” Because if you don’t think right toward someone else in the Body of Christ you’re sinning, and you’ve got to repent of it “that you may be healed.”

Then it goes on to say, The effective, fervent prayer… I love the actual usage of the word, “effective, fervent,” because those are the two words they’ve chosen, and it should be that way, but I love the actual meaning of the words as they’re used, “actively working.” “Actively working prayer,” because that’s what we always do. We’re praying day in and day out, actively praying in our lives, seeking God’s will, seeking God’s way, seeking to change, seeking to see sin, asking God for help to see our sins.

…of a righteous one avails much. And who is righteous? Those who are doing what God says, those who believe what God has said and they’re living by it by faith. Because we believe what God says, so we do it, and God attributes that to us for righteousness though we’re not. So, that’s what it’s saying here.

“The actively working prayer of a righteous one avails much.” It’s powerful. It’s what it’s telling us. Strong and powerful, that’s what the word means.

Then it went into telling about Elijah. That’s why we went there. Because there are things to learn from that, especially in the end time.

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. We all have human nature. We all have the same battles. We’re all in the same boat. We’ve got a lot of rocks, every one of us, and we whittle away at them. Our bag should be getting lighter and lighter, but there’s still rocks there being drug around, the need for healing.

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly. He believed God. He. Believed. God. The way that God had worked with him, molded and fashioned him, and communicated things to his mind, he responded the way he should have, which we all should because God communicates things to our mind, the truth. He gives us the ability to see it.

…and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain. And it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. Beautiful. So, we went through that and discussed some of that.

Let’s go back there now to 1 Kings 17. We started in some of the beginning of the story and we’re going to pick it up where we’d skipped over, or I skipped over.

1 Kings 17:1—Then Elijah the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, As the Eternal God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except at my word. So, telling him what God had given to him. He’s prayed about it and then God gave it to him to know “This is what’s going to happen, and it’s going to be according to your word. So, when it’s all said and done toward the end then it’s going to be through you again.”

Then the word of the Eternal came to him, saying, Get away from here, and turn eastward, and hide in the brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan. And it will be… So, we went through some of the story. We’ve gone through part of the story here, Elijah, and he wasn’t well-loved for what he had to say, and he had to flee many of times to get out of the environment of where he could be found because Ahab had a wife who was pretty nasty and wanted to see him dead anyway because of all the headaches he caused her.

So he went and did according to the word of the Eternal. Awesome! Here it talked about how He commanded ravens to feed him there. So, we talked about that a little bit. You think about ravens and birds and what they’re bringing you and, meh, okay, it’s from God. It’s good.

…for he went and stayed by the brook Cherith, which uploads into the Jordan. So, he followed what he was told to do.

Verse 6—The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. Can you imagine living like that? You think of some of the stories here of different things that different ones did, and it was required of them at that time. Awesome!

Then it happened after a while… Sometimes, if you think you’re having things rough, you can go back and read some of these different kinds of stories throughout the Old Testament or even the New. Then it happened after a while that the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. Now, see, these are the kinds of things that if you’re not careful in life that you can be doing something, and life is a little tougher, and then all of a sudden, it becomes a lot tougher. And what are you going to do now? These are the things where conviction is tested. What kind of conviction do we have toward God? Because they can try you and test you.

“Are you going to keep moving forward? Are you going to keep persevering? Israel? Are you going to fulfill the name to persevere and not give up? Because I cannot use that which gives up nor straddles the fence nor is lukewarm!” So, it’s a choice. God offers that. And it’s a righteous one, plainly given.

Then the word of the Eternal came to him, saying, Arise and go to Zarephath, which belongs to Zidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded or given charge to a widow there to provide for you. So, we didn’t read that story. Now, we are.

So, he arose and went to Zarephath. Then when he came to the gate of the city and the widow woman was there gathering wood so he called to her, and said, Bring me a little water in a vessel so that I may have a drink.

Then as she was going to get it, he called to her, saying… So, he called her there and then called her again before she got very far, Bring me a piece of bread in your hand. She replied, As the Eternal God lives, I do not have bread, but only a handful of flour in a barrel, and a little oil in a jar; and I am gathering two pieces of wood so that I may go in and prepare it for me and my son, so that we may eat it, and then die.

This is how bad it was, the drought and her dilemma. She’d been prepared to do something, to respond to Elijah, her situation, what she’d gone through. This is something she fully believed that she was doing. She was going to have her last ability to have bread, and then her and her son were going to die because there is nothing else. That was the end.

Verse 13—Then Elijah said to her, Do not fear, but go and do as you have said. But first, make me, thereof, a little bread and bring it to me. So, a person could read that, “Man, that was selfish.” No, there’s a purpose in all this that God is working out. Working with him, working with her. He knew. God gives things to people in these kinds of situations to do what needs to be done at that time.

Then afterward, make for you and for your son. It takes a lot. You’re going to eat it and then die, and now he wants some and you do it? It says a lot about her.

For thus says the Eternal God of Israel… So, he’s basically telling her who he is, from whom he comes to her, to talk to her. He’s telling her what God says, but she’s not fully convicted of that yet. The barrel of flour will not be consumed, neither will the jar of oil be lacking until the day that the Eternal gives rain upon the earth. So, she went and did according to the words of Elijah. Then she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. The barrel of flour was not consumed and neither did the jar of oil lack according to the word of the Eternal, which He spoke by the hand of Elijah.

So again, stories like this that went out that Israel was able to hear, showing where God worked. All for physical things, candidly, for us to learn in the end time. Awesome how God plans and prepares and molds and fashions things as He does. And so, some of these stories, things that happened to Elijah, we read one very similar to this happened to Elisha.

Verse 17—Then it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. In other words, he was dead. So, she said to Elijah, Have you come unto me, man of God, to bring my sin to remembrance, so that my son die?

Then he said to her, Give me your son. So, he took him from her bosom and carried him up into a loft, where he stayed, and laid him upon his own bed. Then he called out unto the Eternal saying, Eternal God, have You allowed evil to come upon the widow with whom I have been dwelling by letting her son die?

Now, you have to have a pretty good relationship with God to speak like this, and this is what we’re to attain to, to be able to be truthful to God. He knows what’s in our mind anyway. You might as well just say it. You might as well acknowledge it and ask God for help to see. Because of something you’re not seeing that you want to see, that’s what you’re asking for. “I want help to see this. I want help to understand this. Why is this?”

A lot of people did this during the Apostasy. “What’s happening?” “How is this happening to Your Church?” “How could this be? Show me.” If you’re true and right with God it’s amazing what God so often does then.

Verse 21—Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and called unto the Eternal, and said, Eternal God, I pray that You let this child’s life come unto him again. Incredible that he would do this, to think to do it. I’ll just say here that I believe with all my being that God gave him inclination to do so. Okay? It was to happen though he may not have understood that or known that.

So the Eternal heard the voice of Elijah, and the life of the child came unto him again, and he lived. So Elijah took the child and brought him down into the chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, See, your son is alive. Incredible. Elijah, Elisha, and then Christ and what miracles that God did. Incredible.

Then the woman said to Elijah, Now by this—now by this—I know that you are a man of God. I mean, who hears of people being resurrected from the dead, being given life again after they’re already dead, after breath has gone out of them. That’s what the terminology is that’s used there. Incredible. It took to this point in time where she had a deep conviction now, “Now I know because this doesn’t happen unless God does it.”

We can read this, and I hope we understand – and I’m going to say it for that reason – every truth you have you have to know where it came from, be convicted of it; from God Almighty, the mind of God that comes into our minds and reveals it to us because that’s the way of God. Just the way it is, the plain truth.

Now by this, I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Eternal that is in your mouth is truth. Beautiful! Beautifully said. It’s truth. She believed this then, everything that came out of him she believed it’s the truth. Awesome!

So again here, repeating some of this, the work through Elijah continued on through his student Elisha, whom God had chosen to follow Elijah. So indeed, the work of Elijah, which means – and it’s always good to know the meaning of some of these words because it carries great meaning with it in what He is doing – it’s about His work, about “Our God Yahweh.”

You remember when Christ was crying out and some of that is mistranslated because they didn’t understand? Anyway, he was crying out to “his God Elijah,” in other words, “His God Yahweh.” I’ll say it right in a minute here. Because the word means “Our God Yahweh,” “His God Yahweh.”

So again here, the work of Elijah was about a strong, physical witness to the nation of Israel of the power of God that revealed through whom it was He was working. These are the things that are just the way it’s going to be, things that we don’t comprehend and grasp fully but will grasp more fully later on.

What you’re a part of, what you’re doing is incredible. We are a remnant of something that used to be very, very large, and to understand that we know and see things that are true that others cannot, sometimes it’s hard for us to grasp how blessed we are. It’s not about the size because some people think it’s about the size, whoever is the largest, whoever has the most people. Those things are meaningless to God. If God wants that, they’ll be there. If God wants more, they’ll be there. Whatever it is that God is doing, and God wants, that’s what will be.

Now, I mentioned some of this last Sabbath and partly in the introduction today but going on here. “As a “type” in the end time of the past seventy years plus, a work of Elijah has taken place that is preparing for Christ’s second coming” because it’s about “Our God Yahweh!” It’s about what He is doing. That’s why those words are there. That’s why the prophecies are there about “Elijah to come” because it’s about those preparing the way for the Kingdom of God, that which happened in the beginning with John the Baptist, and then toward the end here with Herbert Armstrong and on.

And yet, even within that is another “type,” Elijah and Elisha, and that has to do with the meaning of Elisha too, and where we are in time and where the world is in time.

Anyway, going on reading this again, “A strong spiritual witness has taken place that has been preparing for God’s Kingdom to come, and that witness has been first and foremost to the Church, the spiritual begotten Church of God.” Awesome!

“The work of Elijah, which is about the work of ‘Our God Yahweh’ has been about the revelation of truths given to God’s Church that first began through John the Baptist, what he fulfilled. And yes,” again here, “there is that other spiritual ‘type,’” as I mentioned here, “about a ‘type’ of Elisha, which is even more truth, in essence, that God has given to His Church in this end time. Again, it’s about his name, ‘God’s deliverance; His salvation.’”

This is where we are. God is blessing a small body, a remnant to be delivered from all that has taken place at a time when Joshua is about to return, at a time that God is about to offer deliverance or salvation to the entire world. That’s why these words and the meaning of these things are so important, of something that God did so long ago through Elijah and Elisha because it was all planning for the end-time on a spiritual plane for God’s Church.

Psalm 51:1. As we’re coming close to the close of the sermon today, I thought it’d be good to focus upon some of the verses again here that speak on the subject of truth as we close some of this.

Back in the Psalms again, Psalm 51:1—Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your loving kindness. Something we should always want, mercy. And if we understand that God is merciful to us, we’d better get the point of that power. That’s what grace is. It’s not just being on the receiving end; it’s about it working through us through the power of God’s holy spirit that we change and learn to become far more merciful to others because we know – because we know – how merciful God has been to us. That should motivate and move us in how we think toward others, to be merciful, not to be hard. Not to be demanding. Not to be judgmental, condemning in any fashion or form, but merciful.

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according unto the multitude of Your tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. A desire here to change because we see selfishness, we hate it, we loathe it, and we want help. I think about us getting close to Passover, things we need to think on.

For I acknowledge my transgressions. Not everyone has through time. Not everyone has within the Church through all time. I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. How’s that? It’s in the mind. We know what we’ve done. We know what we’ve been like. And if we understand and know those things of our past and things where we have messed up and been forgiven and we were able to continue going forward, and we see the truth, we know the truth, and we’ve been blessed to continue in God’s Church, to be even that much more thankful to God Almighty.

And indeed the sin is ever before us. Because if we ever lose sight of that, that’s where pride begins to enter in, lifting up ourselves, not being of a humble spirit, not being of a meek spirit, not being of the right kind of spirit with God and not being merciful to others. Those things always have to be in our minds.

So again, these things are said because that’s what is to lead us to what God desires for us.

Verse 6—Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts. In the innermost part of our being God desires to see Himself. God desires to see His Son because that’s what we’re being made after. When the example is given of Christ and the likeness of, to see those traits, those qualities being molded and fashioned in our minds that are being transformed. They’re transformed through the truth that God has given to us.

It’s one thing to know truth, to be able to know certain things that are there, to have read them, maybe to think about them. It's another thing to be deeply convicted of them that you’re of the same mind of God and agree with God and thank God for it. Awesome!

Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, in the innermost part of our being. That only comes by our own choice. That’s why it’s said this way. It’s our response to what God offers us.

It says, “and in…” Some of these translations are so bad. “In the hidden part You shall make me to know wisdom.” It’s an awkward translation. I’m just going to read it as it is, Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden wisdom you can make me to know Your way. It’s about hidden wisdom that we don’t, can’t grasp, can’t have except God reveal it to us. Awesome, to see some of these things.

Daniel 9. A lot is just said in this one verse we’re going to read in what Daniel was saying here. Daniel 9:13—As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil has come upon us, yet we did not make our prayer before the Eternal. Whenever things have happened, whether it had been with Israel, with Judah, with the Church of God, the Body of Christ, all the evil that came upon us, “Yet we did not make our prayer unto the Eternal,” or “before the Eternal.”

In other words, why do we pray? To see the truth, to see wisdom, the things we’ve read about today, the truth, the wisdom, the word, the mind of God, to have those things in our mind, to be able to see them clearly. And if we’re not doing that the way God says then what’s there? Are we really wanting the answer from God, or do we reject it?

I think of different things that have happened in the past. I’ve already mentioned it, things about Laodicea, things about the Church. Because if you have to admit certain things and you recognize certain time that’s before you – that Herbert Armstrong fulfilled everything up to Matthew 24:14 and “the gospel, the truth will go into all the world, and then shall the end come” – and if people don’t receive that, if individuals won’t receive that truth or other truths, about the stones of the temple, that it’s about the temple, it’s about the Church, the things of the abomination of desolation, the fact of who it was and on and on you go, if individuals reject those things that’s what we’re talking about here. Praying but not praying for the right thing. Praying to really understand and receive the word, the truth of God, and then rejecting something that comes along because of what? Pride.

…and did not make our prayer unto the Eternal. If something goes wrong it’s not God’s fault. The fault lies somewhere else. The point of this is so often, it’s right here. We’re the ones that have to repent constantly, continually.

…yet we did not make our prayer before the Eternal our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand Your truth. After the period of Laodicea and all the things that were going on, that’s what people had to do that were drawn, that were able to see some of it, as an opportunity, a chance to make things right in their own life, to get back on track. It was a matter of seeing self, seeing their own iniquities, recognizing God’s truth.

Anyway, last scripture here, Zechariah 8. We’re going to end with this verse today. It’s the very reason for the title of the sermon today, and more may be given on top of this as we go through the series because there’s a lot here. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Zechariah 8:3—Thus says the Eternal; I have returned unto Zion. Who is Zion? When did God ever need to return to Zion?

…and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. What’s Jerusalem all about? We should know these things, spiritually what they’re about, about God’s government, about God’s Church, about the spirit-begotten Body of Christ.

And Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth. Because that’s what God is building. His word, unity, and oneness with Him, His mind, His being, wisdom, truth.

…and shall be called a city of truth, and the mountain of the Eternal of hosts the holy mountain. Beautiful! There’s a lot to digest in that verse. Ask God for help to see more of it.