Don’t Give Up!

Willem Henderson

September 19, 2015

Welcome on this Sabbath day. The title of today’s sermon is Don’t Give Up!

Today I want to quote some Bible scriptures that can give us real encouragement in our faith, in the Church as well as in the world that we live in. We must be fully aware of all that has been given to us, ever since we were called. We must not give up, no matter what happens, no matter how hard things can be.

I also want to quote some examples from the Bible, about people that fought for God’s way of life, people who kept on repenting and who endured to the end and persevered in the battle they engaged in after receiving God’s spirit at baptism. David never gave up. Samson didn’t give up after he had learned his lesson. The Bible is filled with examples like this, and you can find mention of some of them in Hebrews 11, where it says they all died in the faith, not having received the promises. In other words, they did not give up, but endured even unto death!

Let’s turn to I Thessalonians 5 verse 12, and we will read until verse 25. Verse 12— Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you. Who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you. We must obey those who have been placed over us when they correct us. That’s not always easy to do. It is a battle against yourself, because “self” wants to resist and doesn’t want to submit it’s “self.” And when we refuse to submit ourselves, we automatically tend to become haughty, thinking thoughts like: “Yes but…I know better!” And in doing so we start separating ourselves from the Body of Christ – God’s Church – and we give Satan opportunity to get a foot in the door. And all kinds of thoughts enter our mind, and we tend towards giving up! Verse 13— Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. Think of all the spiritual food that we receive every week through postings and the sermons that we listen to every Sabbath.

Verse 14— And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Help each other, encourage each other, grow towards each other as much as you can and admonish each other. Strengthen each other, because when you do so you won’t consider giving up, and you will kindle God’s spirit within yourself and become stronger and draw nearer to God. And when we draw nearer to God and submit ourselves to Him, we will become stronger and we will go forward and never give up. Verse 15— Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else. Don’t have wrong thoughts about each other. See the good in each other, and forgive each other. That is an inner struggle that we all face. Forgiveness is one aspect of our inner struggle, and it isn’t always easy to say “sorry” to your brother. Our human nature always stays with us, harassing us, and especially in this world that we live in. We must be different and set a good example. And even when someone mistreats us, we must always keep in mind, “God works with me in my mind, and I know God’s plan, and the person that is mistreating me right now doesn’t know that.” And when we react differently than people “in the world” do, we set a good example, and later that person may think back of that example when they receive God’s spirit.

Verse 16— Rejoice always, and that too is something that God must give to us and work out in us. Pray continually. This means that we must involve God in everything that we do, and that we must continually think and meditate about His plan. And when someone asks you anything about the things of God, both in the world and in the Church, you must ask God to show you what it is that the other person needs most, before you answer them.

Verse 18— give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Be grateful for all that you have received since your were called. Think about the 50 Truths. It will make you stronger, and you won’t give room to thoughts of giving up because it will make you focus upon what lies before us, and you will be focused on that. It won’t be long now. God’s Kingdom will come to earth. So don’t give up now, but rather look forward to that! Prepare yourself; let yourself be measured, so you can be made to fit into God’s Temple. Fast and pray so that you may be able to endure that time of tribulation that is described in the Bible. Pray and fast so that with God’s help you may get through that time, and be able to enter into the world of tomorrow.

Verse 19— Do not quench the spirit, when you quench or extinguish God’s spirit, you are giving up. You no longer want to go on, because you no longer want His spirit working in you. You no longer fight. And you no longer beseech God to kindle His spirit within you. You become lukewarm and complacent. You get sucked right back into the world, and then Satan seizes the opportunity to influence you with his broadcasting, in order to make you give up. Don’t let this happen to you. Use God’s spirit actively so you don’t give Satan any opportunity. Surrender and submit to God, and He will work in you with His spirit, and mold and fashion you until the end.

Verse 20— Do not treat prophecies with contempt, don’t throw everything that you are given through sermons and articles overboard. Don’t despise it, but rather cherish it, meditate about it, pray about it, and more importantly, put it into practice in your daily life. Verse 21— but test them all; hold on to what is good. Study everything, and put into practice all that you have learned, the way of life that you started living when you were baptized and received the laying on of hands. Live by God’s commandments and test them; in other words, put them into practice and witness the results of actually living the commandments. By practicing God’s way of life daily, we can come to see that it is good. God has given His commandments to mankind because they are good for man and because they produce happiness.

Verse 22— Reject every kind of evil. Avoid all evil – all sin – and shun sin that keeps you away from God and removes you further away from God. And if you sin, repent quickly! Resist the devil and he will flee from you. And then you can go forward and the thought of giving up won’t even come to mind. Because, May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then…verse 24— The One who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. You need not doubt at all. God has called us because He has a plan for us, and He knows exactly what He is using you for. He is actively involved in working things out in you. If you do your part…God will do the rest. You need not worry about that at all. The only thing that can stand in the way of this, the only one that can be unfaithful in all this is you.

Verse 25— Brothers and sisters pray for us. Pray for those that are placed over us in God’s Church. And pray for each other also, that we may all persevere and never give up.

Let’s now turn to Hebrews 11, where we can read the names of those that would not give up, and where we can read what happened to them. Their faith was their priority. God was first in their lives and they surrendered completely to Him, so that He could perform the works in them, to prepare them for the goal He had for their lives. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Jacob, whose names are mentioned in the first 12 verses of Hebrews, all continued in the fight. And then we read in verse 13…please turn to Hebrews 11 verse 13 with me.  All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised. It states here that they all died in the faith, but none of them received the promise – God’s Kingdom – but they saw it from afar, just like we can see it. They only saw them from a distance, God had given them His Holy spirit, just as He has given it to us today, so that we can all see His plan from afar in the future. His plan for us is that we may become His children in His divine Family. …admitting, believing, that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. They all lived in an ungodly world, a world that is still cut of from God to this day.

Verse 14— People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. They all have eagerly looked for that country of their own, to that Family. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God. They longed for it, and that is what we must do, too. We must keep asking God for His spirit so that we can continue to develop that longing and that love for God’s way of life in us. Continuing in verse 16-- for He has prepared a city for them. God has prepared a city; in other words, a house or an abode, and He has done this by providing His Passover Lamb for us. We are those in whom God lives – abides – and we are the stones of that one Temple that He is building.

Verse 17— By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received [embraced] the promises was ready to offer up his only begotten son. In order to enter into the Temple – God’s Temple – we must sacrifice ourselves, and sacrifice those things that God desires us to sacrifice. Abraham is a good example to this, as we can read in the following verses.

Of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead. Abraham believed from the start that if he would sacrifice his son, God had the power to raise him from the dead. So Abraham didn’t give up, and he didn’t say: “No God, I won’t kill my son. You can not ask this of me!” No, he believed and trusted his creator completely, and didn’t give up telling himself that this was too much to ask. And we must react in the same manner when we find ourselves in a situation that seems to be too much to be asked from us by God. Ask for His help and focus on Him, because He will provide a way. We will become stronger through this process, and we will be better equipped to face other trials and situations we are faced with in our daily lives.

We will now read verses 20 to 27: By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave instructions concerning his bones. By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s command. By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures In Egypt; for he looked to the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.

They all kept their faith and didn’t give up. And as we read in verse 27 they all endured just as Moses did. They kept looking ahead for that country that they longed for. And most of all they looked to God, because they knew that He is the one that would bring them there. They looked for that which is invisible, the Invisible, knowing that He was with them. So it is very important that we stay close to God, our Father, and to ask Him to help us repent every day. It is important to ask for His spirit to be able to stand in this world, and not to be sucked into the customs and habits that are the world’s standards. We know that those things are not from God, but rather originate from Satan. The closer we draw near to God, the harder we make it for Satan to influence us and to make us feel like giving up. He tries to give us the feeling that we won’t be able to succeed anyway. For example, when we see the same sin popping up in our lives. Satan tries to feed those feelings to us. This makes me think of the things that are almost upon us now, that time that is now right before us, a time when God will humble all humanity, a time when all worldly things that mankind puts their trust in will be taken away from them. Only then mankind will be humbled enough to start listening. Only then they will turn to God and the things of God, and they will repent. Yes, only then they will want to listen! And when people cross our path in those days, we will be able to tell them that once the tribulation is over there will come a new time period. And we will be able to encourage them by saying: “Be of good courage and don’t give up! Have faith in your Creator, and He will get you through this difficult time!”

Let’s read on in verses 28 to 32— By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them. By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians, attempting to do so, were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days. By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace. And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets. These all had faith in God and were willing to sacrifice everything in order to be able to go on and finally reach the final destiny…God’s Promised Land.

Verses 33 to 35—who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. There is an example in 1 Kings 17 where you can read a mother receiving her son back from the dead. And let’s not forget about Lazarus.

On in verses 36 to 40— Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us. They didn’t give up. They went forward. We can be encouraged by these scriptures and the example that they set for us.

Let’s first take a look at the example of David. We just read in verse 32 that he never gave up, and always kept his faith. David had arranged for Uriah (Batsheba’s husband) to be killed by putting him in the frontline of battle. You can read about this in 2 Samuel 11, we won’t turn there now. And in 2 Samuel 12, you can read how Nathan proclaimed God’s punishment over David for this deed. God caused the child that David had begotten with Bathsheba to become ill, and 7 days later it died. What David had done was a horrible thing, and he regretted it deeply. He went before God and begged Him for forgiveness, and he also beseeched God not to take His Holy spirit away from him. He did everything within his power to convince God of his remorse, and of his willingness to fully repent from this terrible sin. He didn’t give up the fight and begged God not to withdraw Himself out of his life.

We can read about this in Psalm 51. Let’s turn to Psalm 51 verse 1. This is where David asks God for mercy and to turn this sin away from him. Psalm 51:1— Have mercy upon me, O God, According to Your loving kindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions. And in verse 2 we can read: Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. “Wash me, cleanse me from my sins.” That is what we must ask from God when we have sinned. We shouldn’t wait too long, but rather go before God immediately when we have sinned, and ask Him for forgiveness through the sacrifice of His son Jesus Christ. We must be cleansed, because otherwise, God can and will not live in and through us. When that happens, when we do not repent, it doesn’t take long before we lose the truth, and automatically that causes us to give up. We no longer see the need to repent, and immediately Satan steps in to pull us back into the world.

Verse 3— For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. David knew that he had deviated, and that he had transgressed God’s laws. When we examine ourselves, we can come to see there are things in our daily life that are wrong, that we need to change. The best way to examine ourselves, is through prayer and fasting, and studying God’s Word. Self-examination is very important. It helps us to see where we are wrong, and what we can do about it to remove the iniquities from our lives.

Verse 4— Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight, that You may be found just when You speak, and blameless when You judge. When you sin, you always sin against God, because you have transgressed His laws. He has instituted these laws so it might go well with man and in order for mankind to prosper. But mankind has not listened to God and has gone his own way. Man has made his own laws, laws that were more convenient to them.

Verses 5 and 6— Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom. Through God’s spirit we get the truth. Through God’s spirit in our minds we can see God’s plan, and we can also see what He desires from us.

Verse 7— Purge me with hyssop, forgive me my sins so I can serve You and please You in all that I need to do to in order to enter into Your divine Family. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. David had faith and trusted in God. He is a beautiful example for us of how we must examine ourselves in order to find out where we can improve ourselves.

Verses 8 to 11— Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy spirit from me. We just read about this: “Do not quench the spirit, don’t take Your spirit away” is what this verse is saying. “Please give me a steadfast and stable mind. Give me Your holy spirit.”

Verses 12 and 13— Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You. This may well become a reality in the time that is just ahead of us. As I mentioned before, people will cross our path and if they are really interested and we can see that God is calling them, we will be able to tell them about these things. They will want to know what they need to do so they can come through the tribulation. They will realize that they have sinned, and they will come to know that they can be forgiven from those sins if they are baptized and receive God’s spirit by the laying on of hands. The time that is now ahead of us, will be a time wherein God not only will add brethren from old to His Church, but when he will also draw people from the world, people with whom He has already been working and whom He has prepared to be called out by Him in His proper time. These can for example be people that have requested and read the book, 2008 – God’s Final Witness, a couple of years ago, and start to see things happening around them that they read about. They will see that it’s all true, and they will start seeking God because He will give them the ability to “see” it at exactly the right time. They will then understand that they must fight to walk the narrow way that God will show them at that time. And we will be able to encourage them and tell them that no matter what, they must not weaken and give up, but rather fight and follow the narrow way. Because that is the only way that is good and righteous that will eventually lead to eternal life in God’s Family.

Let’s read verse 14 now: Deliver, forgive, me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness. “Forgive me (you can insert your own name here) and give me the joy of being able to see that Your laws finally lead to eternal life.”

Verse 15— O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. “Inspire me to honor and worship You. Help me to always put You first, so that I won’t give up when at times things become very difficult, because I no longer stir up Your spirit in me and start falling back into the pitfalls of Your adversary.”

Verse 16— For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. God wants to see whether we will sacrifice ourselves for each other, but also for others that cross our path. He wants to see us share His love in us with each other. We must pray and ask of Him to mould and fashion us so that we are prepared to do all these things willingly.

Verse 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart - these, O God, You will not despise. God wants us to be humble in all our thoughts and actions. That is what is pleasing to God. God wants us to be humble. God hates pride. Everyone has pride within themselves, and that needs to be removed from us with God’s help. Physical Israel only saw and acted in a physical way, but we are spiritual Israel, and we must think spiritually and approach the things in our lives in a spiritual way.

Verse 18— Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion; build the walls of Jerusalem. Build up Zion – Your Church – for it is the Temple that You are building, not with human hands. Mold us as building bricks to make us fit. Paul says that God is the master builder of it all and that Christ is put over all, over His House. So we are His House, and we must stay in His House to the end, and hold on to everything that has been given to us. We must not give up, but rather allow God to mold and fashion us until we are finally made ready and God can say to us: “Well done good servant, come and inherit My Kingdom.”

Verse 19— Then You shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering; then they shall offer bulls on Your altar. We have read how that David, after all that he had done, still persevered and would not give up. He drew near to God. Time and time again he turned to his God, and repented, and asked Him to help him in to do so.

There is yet another name mentioned in Hebrews 11:32, the name of someone who seemed to be giving up because of weakness, but who finally got back on track, and received once again God’s spirit and power to do what he had to do. We’ll turn to Judges 16 for this account. Please turn to Judges 16 with me. Here we can read the story of Samson. God had prepared him to be a judge over Israel. Judges were the rulers over Israel before there were kings. The name Samson means “bright sun,” in other words, because of him the sun would rise over Israel. He was a Nazirite. If you want to know more about what it meant to be a Nazirite, you can read more about that in Numbers 6.

Samson had a weak spot for women. His problem was that he couldn’t stay away from women. He was married to a Philistine woman, as you can read in Judges 14. That didn’t go smoothly either. You can read about this in Judges 14. We will now start reading in Judges 16, verse 1— Now Samson went to Gaza and saw a harlot there, and went in to her.

And a little further we can read in verse 4— Afterward it happened that he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. He fell in love with Delilah.

Verse 5— And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, “Entice him, and find out where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and every one of us will give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.” The Philistines wanted to know the secret of Samson’s great power. Verse 6— Here we can read how Delilah asked him about this: So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and with what you may be bound to afflict you.”

And dropping down to verse 15— Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and have not told me where your great strength lies.” Verse 16— And it came to pass, when she pestered him daily with her words and pressed him, so that his soul was vexed to death…

And in verse 37 we can read how Samson exposed himself completely, by telling her the secret to his great strength: …that he told her all his heart, and said to her, “No razor has ever come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaven, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.” Of course there was no real power in his hair. God had set him apart as a Nazirite, and his long hair was an outward physical sign, a symbol of his devotion to God. And as long as he adhered to this, God gave him that great power. We understand of course, that God’s spirit gave him his great physical strength, but more importantly, it also gave him spiritual strength, and he allows that to be taken away from him because of his weakness for women; in this case, Delilah.

Without God’s spirit we are helpless. Without His spirit we are unable to continue on the path that we have chosen to follow. Without His spirit it is impossible for us to repent and to receive God’s love in us. Without God’s spirit we are utterly lost and in the clutches of Satan. Without God’s spirit we fail to notice that we are drifting away, and that we are giving up slowly but surely. This is also something that we must receive from God, so we can come to see that we need to work at self in order not to give up.

Samson’s story continues in verse 19. Delilah seduces him. Then she lulled him to sleep on her knees, and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him. He lost God’s spirit! This should be a good lesson for all of us. We too can start to stray because of a weakness in us. We can start to stray and slowly but surely quench God’s spirit in us. Therefore, when we experience such moments of weakness, we must immediately pray to God in the spirit, and ask Him to help us, to strengthen us, and tell Him how much you need His spirit to strengthen you in your inner struggle. Ask of Him to help you to not give up, but to go on with His spirit living in you.

Let’s read the rest of the story in dropping down to verse 22. However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaven. His hair started to grow again. Spiritually, he came to see how wrong he had been, and he came before God and asked Him for mercy and forgiveness; and he asked God to restore His spirit to him.

And in verse 28 we can read of his remorse. He wanted to once again serve God in the commission that God had given to him. Then Samson called to the Lord, saying, “O Lord God, remember me, I pray! Strengthen me, I pray, just this once, O God, that I may with one blow take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes!” He knew that his physical life was not important, but that it was all about his spiritual life. This became his priority once again. That was what was important to him again. And he said: “Father please restore the relationship that we once had and allow me to live a spirit life in Your Family in the future. Please do through me those things that are necessary for Your plan. Do with me as You will!

Here we can read in verse 29 the remainder of the story. There are a lot of things there for us to learn from. This sermon is about never, ever giving up. There is always a way to go on, and God shows us that way, and it is different for each of us individually. God works in different ways with each of us; He has a plan for each of us. As mentioned before, we are all being tried and tested, molded and fashioned, in order to be able to function within the Temple of God in the end. Verse 29— And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars which supported the temple, and he braced himself against them, one on his right and the other on his left. Verse 30— Then Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” And he pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead that he killed at his death were more than he had killed in his life. Verse 31— And his brothers and all his father’s household came down and took him, and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of his father Manoah. He had judged Israel twenty years.

Samson had learned his lesson. He had come to see his error and his weakness. God used Samson not only to defeat the Philistines, but he also used Samson’s weakness to teach him that the only thing that could really help him was God’s spirit. That is what enabled him to repent. It not only restored his physical strength to him so he could defeat the Philistines, but more importantly, it restored the spiritual strength to him that enabled him to overcome Satan and the demons.

So we have seen that in times of weakness (something that we all experience in life) we can always go before God and ask Him for help. Even when it seems incredibly hard to do, we can be strong with God’s spirit in us, and we can fight the fight against self! And when it happens that you think you can no longer fight the fight, when everything seems to become too difficult and in your own eyes, or when your specific weakness starts to get the better of you, remember this story that we have just read. Learn the lessons that are contained in it: “With God’s help you can overcome everything!” Truly everything. As long as you keep stirring up the spirit in you and never quench it.

We must be faithful. We must stir up that faithfulness in us because only then will we never give up. Because when you are faithful to God and His way of life, you will not easily tend towards giving up. In Hebrews 12 we can read about faithfulness. Let’s turn there and read about faithfulness towards God, and how this helps us to remain faithful to His plan for us. Faithfulness is about perseverance and steadfastness, and it means continuing in the race that you started upon baptism.

Hebrews 12 verse 1— Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. There are so many examples in the Bible for us to learn from, like the one we just read.

Verse 2— looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. We must follow our greatest example of all, the One who delivered us from death. His life on earth was perfect, and with the help of God’s spirit we too can walk in His footsteps. We will do this with trial and error of course, but if we stay close to our God, if we seek Him in prayer and study, and if we fast every month in the special Year of Dedication, we can rest assured that He will surely give us the help we need. He cares for us, and He did not call us and/or awaken us in vain.

Verse 4— You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. In our struggle against sin we have not yet shed blood.

Verse 5— And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons. “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, Sometimes we have to experience things that are not fun to go through, but they are necessary to build and develop character in us. God is always working towards the end-result. He looks ahead to what you will finally become. And this involves chastening, in order to change your character into a Godly character, and such doesn’t come about without experiencing spiritual pain. Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him. In other words, don’t be discouraged, don’t lose heart because that might cause you to give up.

Verses 6 to 8— For whom the Lord loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. It is necessary that we allow God to chasten us, otherwise, we will not arrive at our destination, the place that God has prepared for us. God loves us as we all know, not with human love, but with Godly love.

Verse 9— Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? We have respect towards our physical parents; should we then not respect our heavenly Father far more, and surrender to Him…humble ourselves before Him?

Verse 10— For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Our physical fathers raised us as they saw fit, and chastened us accordingly. But God raises us and chastens us in order to create a permanent effect in us, something that will be of permanent value for all eternity.

Verse 11— Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Somehow we never feel very joyful when we are chastened and/or disciplined by God. It rather makes us feel sad inside. But for those who subject themselves to this chastening, in the end it produces the kind of peace that results from righteousness.

Verse 12— Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees. Be strong!

Verse 13— and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. Repent and fight against your human nature. Fight against the sin that you still have in you. Be healed inside and use God’s spirit to cleanse yourself.

Verse 14— Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. Make an effort and strive to have peace and let God set you apart by changing you with His spirit. Then, after we have been changed, we shall be granted to enter into His Family.

Verse 15— looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled. Don’t neglect God’s mercy. Make sure that you are free from all anger (bitterness) because that only produces pain and disappointment for your fellow brother, and results in confusion.

Verse 16— lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. Don’t be a fornicator or an adulterer. Put God’s plan first and foremost in your life. Don’t despise it, don’t forsake it for the things that are in the world, the temptations of the world around us that tempt you to stray and give up. It is like committing spiritual abortion, because you cut off God’s spirit. So to speak, you cut off the flow of God’s spirit, and therefore you cannot be born into His Family.

Verse 17— For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears. Don’t allow things to go to far. When God removes His spirit from you it is often too hard to find your way back into His Church.

Verse 18— For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest. Our calling is no small thing. Through our calling we have come near to God. In my Dutch Bible the title above these verses reads: “Great Responsibility.” We have received a calling from God and with that calling comes great responsibility. Our great responsibility in our daily lives is to be an example in all that we do, in the Church and also in the world.

Verse 19 to 23. Verse 19— and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded, “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned, or shot with an arrow.” And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”) But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect. We must push ourselves, and encourage and motivate ourselves daily to serve God because He has called us close to Himself and has placed us into His Church. We have free access to God and His throne through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The veil has been torn! We are God’s Church. How incredibly beautiful is it to be able to experience this now?! To be able to see and understand this, and to have our ears and eyes opened for His truth. We should be grateful for this every day of our lives, and ask for God’s spirit in our lives, so that we would never lose sight of His beautiful plan for all of us, no matter what!

Verse 24— To Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. Everything has been made possible through the Old Covenant that was replaced by the New Covenant that was confirmed by Jesus Christ.

Verse 25— See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven. Do not reject Him – God – because we have His spirit. That is why it is so much worse for us to reject God than it was for Old Testament Israel to do so. We have a much greater responsibility before God.

Verse 26— Whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” This verse is about the time that we now live in. It is about all that has to happen now in order to humble mankind. We are now at the eve of great tribulation. The tribulation that is now at hand will last for 3 ½ years and 50 days. We will also have to persevere during this tribulation, and in this special Year of Dedication, we must prepare ourselves to be ready. We can still come to find ourselves facing extreme peril and that is why we must turn even more to God during this special Year of Dedication, and He will make us stronger. We can be mocked and ridiculed or even persecuted. It will be a time like no other before it, and that never will be again. And especially at times like these we can not give up. That is why it is so important that we humble ourselves during this year through fasting and praying, and ask for His guidance in our lives, so that we can go on. God tells us that we can always appeal for His help, and that we need not worry about what we should say when we are delivered up. The holy spirit shall inspire us with the words we then need to speak. If we dedicate ourselves to becoming strong during this Year of Dedication, if we repent and live our lives according to God’s way of life, He will surely give us the strength that we need to overcome every obstacle on our path.

Verse 27— Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. In the end, everyone that has persevered and hasn’t given up, and that has kept repenting shall be granted to enter into God’s Family, for eternity all, in other words, to receive eternal life from our Father.

Verse 28— Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire. We receive eternal life in God’s Family if we have persevered, if we have been faithful. Right now we need to be very grateful and serve God the way He wants us to serve Him, in a way that is pleasing to Him with awe, admiration, appreciation, reverence and respect.

There have been people that have given up just because the date for Christ’s return didn’t pan out. If that is the reason why you’re in God’s Church, then there is something seriously wrong with you. Because that’s not what it’s all about. It’s not about a date. God wants us to change. God wants us to do what is pleasing to Him. He wants us to obey His Commandments, so that with His help we can grow spiritually. We have what we call the “present truth,” and I am sure that now is the time things will really happen. I have determined for myself (as I have done before) that no matter what happens this is God’s Church and that I will never leave God’s Church, for any reason at all. We shouldn’t discard this plan of God for any date at all! God wants us in His Family; that’s what it’s all about!

As mentioned before in this sermon, we must be humbled during this Year of Dedication in order to be able to face what is coming without fearing. God will provide for us, we need not be anxious. The world will live in fear, because they will not know what is going on. The world will want to hide in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, as is mentioned in Revelation. We must ask God to encourage us, and we must not give up. And we should not fear, because we can trust on Him and believe that He, God, will protect us. And if He has something else in store for us, so be it. His will be done.

We should not be discouraged, because if we do so, we automatically give up. Paul tells us to “be strong, and of good courage!”

Let’s turn to 2 Corinthians 5, verses 1 to 10. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 1— For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. That’s what it is all about. God lives in us with His spirit. He lives in our temporary abode, and when that temporary abode— our body that we currently live in— ceases to exist, God provides a place in His spiritual abode in His Temple, in which we may stay forever more. It’s fantastic if you stop and think about it. It’s indescribable, the things that lie before us, all that God has in store for us once we will be made spiritual.

Verse 2— For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven. We sigh, yearn, long for and crave being in His divine Family.

Verses 3 and 4— if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. If we put on white garments, if we repent from our sins, if we ask for forgiveness and continue to serve God in our daily life with our body, this earthly tent, this temporary abode then we can finally enter into a new body, and the mortal one can be shed.

Verse 5— Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. God has given us His spirit as collateral for the salvation that He is offering us through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Verse 6— So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. As long as we remain in this carnal body, we are still in the world and not in a spiritual body. But we must be of good courage. God has given us the collateral to salvation, as we have just read. And Christ also tells us to be of good courage and to overcome the world.

Please hold your spot here, and quickly turn with me to John 16 verse 33. These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. We can read here that if we remain in Him and He remains in us, we can have that peace in us that we need in order to be able to go on, to conquer this world and to enter into God’s House, His Temple and live there just as He did.

Let’s now return to 2 Corinthians 5, verse 6— So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. We are absent from the Lord. We are here on earth, in the world, as strangers and pilgrims, looking forward to the change of our mortal body to a spiritual body. These scriptures are so encouraging. These are scriptures that keep us going when we are tried and tested, when for a moment we lose our focus and stumble and sin. At moments like that Satan is ever so quick to turn us away from God, and to make us believe that this world with its temptations is worth living in. Those are the times that we must think of these scriptures because they encourage us and enable us to fight against our human nature.

Paul continues in verse 7— For we walk by faith, not by sight. We must walk in faith and not in the things that we can see with our eyes, the things our senses can pick up. We must walk in faith, in the things that cannot be seen by the human eye, things we know to be true.

Verse 8— We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Paul repeats that we must long fervently to part from this carnal body, and to enter into a spiritual body in order to be with God.

Verse 9— Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. That is what we long for. That is what we strive to do. We must strive to please Him, to be accepted by Him. And how do we do this? By obeying God and by doing His will, every day of our life, every moment of our life.

Verse 10— For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. And it is written in the book of Revelation, we will have to come before God’s throne to give account of all we have done during our existence on earth. We will have to give account of all that we have done during our temporary lifetime.

I just mentioned the fact that we are I foreign parts in this world. That we are “strangers and pilgrims.” Satan is always quick on his feet to pull us away from God, and to make us believe that this world with all its temptations isn’t that bad.

James tells us in James chapter 4, that these temptations come upon us through our “desires for pleasure,” our passions, that tempt us to give in to sin. During this Year of Dedication, we must become humbled and submit ourselves in order to go through the time that is now ahead of us with the strength of God in us. That is what makes this Year so important. We must fight against self and against the pulls of the world, so we can develop the spiritual strength to resist the temptations that are all around us. James talks about “wars and fights amongst ourselves.” They are the result of our “desire for pleasure,” our lust, and our coveting, and our strife. James also tells us that we love the world and all its sinful customs and habits more than God. James 4 covers the subject of how we can draw nearer to God, and therefore, it is an excellent chapter to study into during this Year of Dedication.

During this Year we set aside one day every month for the purpose of fasting, so we can draw nearer to God. We need to fast to draw near to God. Let’s read about another type of “fighting,” and about what we can do to prevent it, and how we can stand fast in our faith, and never again contemplate giving up.

James 4 verse 1— The subtitle to this scripture is “Pride Promotes Strife.” Verse 1— Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?

Verse 2— You lust, James is addressing God’s Church, and do not have. You murder, if you hate your brother in the Church instead of loving him, and covet, they jealously desired, and this resulted in quarrels and strife, and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have, they needed God’s spirit to be able to repent, that’s what was missing, because you do not ask, in prayer. They had to learn to pray in the right way, to ask for God’s spirit to work more fervently in them, so they would be able to repent from their “desires for pleasure.” Verse 3— You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, because they prayed in the wrong way; we must all learn the right way to pray, not to please self or to gain something, that you may spend it on your pleasures, your lusts. You must pray in the interest of others. Therefore, you must pray for God to give you His spirit living in you, so you can repent and live according to His way of life. When you do that you are effectively asking this for others too, because when you repent and live in agreement with His way of life, then this benefits others around you, both in the Church and in the World.

Verse 4— Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Society around us has no access to God, and therefore they cannot do the things of God because they are not called yet. But the time is at hand that God will start opening the minds of more and more people, so that they can come to see that they were wrong in pursuing all their self made religions and customs that are not from God. So we should not be “friends” with the world, with society, because that automatically makes us to be enemies of God. Our current society is based upon competition, greed, self-interest and vanity.

Verse 5— Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? God gives is of His spirit and He desires that we use His spirit to be built up by Him. He does not desire that we neglect His spirit, and that we lean towards this world and are lured by her temptations to return to her. Because if we allow that to happen, then slowly but surely we will start to give up. It can start very slowly, but before we know it we lose the truth, and God removes His spirit from us. We are then effectively cut-off from Him, and cannot see the truth any longer. I personally witnessed people leaving the Worldwide Church of God in mass. It’s frightful and saddening to witness God’s people being sucked right back into the world like that, and to see them fall right back into practicing the pagan customs of the world.

Verse 6— But He gives more grace. If we turn to Him and ask for His spirit, God will give us the strength that we need to conquer the evil desires that are all around us in this evil world. If we are humble, if we allow Him to make us humble, then God will lift us up. He will be merciful towards us. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, God opposes the haughty, but gives grace to the humble.”

So we must be humble. Verse 7— Therefore submit to God. As I mentioned before, this is the Year of Dedication, the year wherein we humble ourselves every month, through fasting. To “submit” means: “Allow God to do in you what He wills.” Tell Him: “Do with me as You want, because I myself can’t do anything. You must do it!” Resist the devil and he will flee from you. By fasting and by thus humbling ourselves and surrendering to Him Satan will flee from us, because he can’t get a handle on us.

Verse 8— Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. If we fast with the right attitude, if we do so to ask for His help in our daily struggle to repent and to fight “self,” then we will draw nearer to God. That’s why James tells us, purify your hearts! Don’t allow sin to fester inside, because if you do your selfish human nature will get the better of you, and you will find yourself drawn back into this world. No, we shouldn’t “falter between two opinions” (1Kings 18:21). We must choose either for God or for the world. Moses says: “Choose life, so that you may live!” If we long for this world, for this society we are choosing death.

Verse 9— Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Be aware that this is the way we humans are by nature. Look deep inside yourself, see yourself, and come to see what is in you that needs to be removed, what you need to repent from, and again, ask God for help to overcome your own selfish human nature.

Verse 10— Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. This scripture speaks for itself. If we humble ourselves before God, He will eventually grant us eternal life in His Family. And then we will no longer be able to sin, because we will be born children of God in the God Family. Then we will have the same holy character that God the Father and Jesus Christ have.

Jesus Christ gave us the ultimate example of never giving up. If we look at Him and at what He has done for us, then all that we have to go through is really nothing compared to what He went through for us. He knew from birth what was written about Him, that He would have to die a horrible death, that He would be tortured and scoffed in order to rescue us from eternal death. He suffered all of this without even faltering for one moment. Minutes before He was arrested, He asked of His Father: “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” But right after He said: “But not My will but Your will be done!” There’s our example in life! This is what should encourage us, especially now that we are on the eve of all the tribulations that are going to engulf the earth.

In the parable of “The Sower and the Seed” we can see the process of being called and growing in the Church and of either persevering or giving up. Jesus said “many are called, but few are chosen.” And therefore He gave us this parable of the Sower, because He wants to show us that it isn’t always that easy, and that it is truly hard for many to endure this process all their lives long and never to give up.

Matthew 13. Let’s first go and read this parable of the Sower in God’s Word. Matthew 13, verses 18 to 23. Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

Ron also quoted this parable in the posting dated April 24th 2014, with the title “True Fellowship – Part 13.” I want to read part of that posting now:

In the Parable of the Sower, seed is sown; some seeds fall by the wayside, some among stones, and other among areas where weeds (thorns) spring up and work to choke out the seed. This pictures the condition and effect of the world as it has been over the past 6,000 years. It is a world filled with adversity toward God, His Son, His Church, and His word. In the Millennium and the Great White Throne, these same conditions in which there is such a lack of good ground in which to plant the seed will not exist. Most of what is described as preventing growth and production is either more directly from Satan (and his demons) or is the product of what Satan has produced in the world that works directly against God’s word and spirit to produce growth.

God knows and has always known where the seed is sown. In order to be in God’s ruling government in His Kingdom (in position and placement), the 144,000 were predetermined and designed to be molded and constructed (created) in an “adverse” environment. Much of that environment is the simple result (effect) of where the seed fell, and where it fell is the result of the response – the free choice – of those who were given the opportunity of a calling. Although God knew that the result of free choice following a calling would be that only a “few” would be chosen to be in His government (the 144,000), He also provided a means to “save the spirit” of many of these in another time.

A little further Ron expounds on those “many”:

The Many

It is important to know that there are also “many” whom God has reserved from among the seven eras of the Church (of all who have died prior to Christ’s coming) who will be resurrected in the Great White Throne. A large portion of these were “never called” to become part of the 144,000. Yet another substantial portion of these had been called and then tried and tested to reveal their response (individual free choices) in order to determine if they might be among those who would be chosen and then prepared to be among the firstfruits. For as we understand, all who are chosen, who are of the “few” (of the many called), must first be tried and tested before being chosen. So all of these who were not called to the specific purpose of being among the firstfruits, and all of those who were called to potentially be among the firstfruits, but who were not chosen, comprise those who fell by the wayside, upon stony areas, or in areas where weeds (thorns) choked them out. All of these became those who would be witness (during the Great White Throne) of the various Church eras and of the conditions that existed for God’s Church at those times.

Let’s now read a little further in Matthew 13 about the “Parable of the Wheat and the Tares.” Matthew 13 verses 24 to 30. Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

In the same Posting mentioned here above, Ron says the following about this Parable:

In that parable, it shows how Satan planted seeds (tares) that were not of God’s doing (of those not called by Him), but allowed by God. Not only were those who were called by God to be tried and tested in relationships once someone began to fall by the wayside, or among stones, or weeds, but they were also tested and tried by those who were fully false members – plants of Satan. These consist of a wide variety of people of which nearly all simply left in time or were disfellowshipped (although they were never in a true fellowship with God anyway).

Of a final note concerning the tares, it needs to be noted that they consisted of two primary groups of people. There were those who were simply deceived and influenced by Satan to feign conversion or they were of a more sinister group who were (or became) “set against” God. Those large numbers of tares that were deceived and falsely influenced will have opportunity of a calling in the Great White Throne, while those set against God will be resurrected to judgment afterward.

So much for quoting from this posting dated April 24th 2014. As I have not covered all that Ron wrote about this subject, I do recommend everyone to reread this posting at home.

We must cherish all that has been given to us, especially all the spiritual food that has been given to us over the past few years. We must keep it close to our hearts, and make it to be the central focus of all our thoughts and never, never give up on it. We must hold fast the truth that has been given to us, and build upon it and go forward. Jesus Christ tells us not to gather riches on earth. In other words, don’t invest into this worldly system that is solely based upon selfishness and greed. But rather invest, gather those riches that are from above. Our way of life, our conduct must be geared towards giving, towards serving others. He says: ‘”For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” If indeed in our daily lives we keep our mind and thoughts focused on that which is “from above,” and we ask of God to help us to do so then our bond with Him will grow stronger, and we will be able to withstand everything that will challenge us on our way forward. God will never forsake us, nor will He ever cease working within us. If ever there is “giving up” it is on our part. We are capable of separating ourselves from Him, and of quenching His spirit living in us.

Let’s finish up this sermon with a scripture that we read at the beginning of this sermon in 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 19. You don’t need to turn there I’ll read it to you: Do not quench the spirit.

David and Samson and all the others that are mentioned in the Book of Hebrews never gave up, but rather persevered and moved forward until they died. They kept on stirring up the spirit of God in them. They kept at the fight, because they looked forward to a better world. They kept their eyes fixed firmly upon this better world that they longed to be a part of.

Let us therefore follow their example and never give up!

Table of Contents

Chapter 1