God’s Infinite Mercy – Pt. 1

Ron Weinland

May 12, 2012

A lot of questions keep coming up because of where we are in time, and again, it’s an incredible thing thinking about where we are.  As I heard the opening prayer here I couldn’t help but think about different moments in time, and there have been some incredible ones where God’s intervened on the earth.  I think of the time when Jesus Christ came, that which is prophesied over and over again in the Bible, in the Old Testament, about a Messiah who would come, and those things that are written prophet after prophet after prophet in scriptures.

And yet, when He came He wasn’t accepted, He wasn’t recognized according to the scriptures for who He was. It’s an awesome thing how God works, to understand that He came as a Passover.  He wasn’t coming as the King at that time, which is what ‘the Messiah’ means.  The word ‘Messiah’ has to do with an anointing of one who is going to reign, be a King on the earth, to rule as the prophecies indicate, as they show in scripture.  And so the Jews couldn’t accept that, that He was the one.  It didn’t fit their scenario, mainly in large part because He wasn’t a Pharisee, or He wasn’t a Sadducee, or He wasn’t one of the ‘normal’ groups, and so He wasn’t accepted – and especially when He began to acknowledge indeed that He was the Messiah.  They just didn’t understand.  They didn’t grasp that He had to come once to be the Passover and then He would come back later as the King of kings.

And to think that’s where we are in time right now – I believe it, you believe it, we believe it with all of our being - but it’s something we live by faith.  That’s what the definition of faith is, you live what you believe even though you don’t see it. That’s what Hebrews talks about.  And yet we live that and we now understand in a deeper way things about different ones mentioned in scripture, that they walked in faith, because they didn’t have the promises fulfilled yet.

I think of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and it’s said of them that ‘they looked for a City who’s builder and maker was God.’  But it said they didn’t receive the promises, not during their lifetime.  They only had small things accomplished and fulfilled in their life, very small compared to what God was going to do in time.  And yet we live in an awesome, awesome time, to think of where we are, to think of what’s getting ready to take place in two weeks, and to think about how God has brought it all about.  It’s much of what the sermon is about today.  But to understand how God is doing it, again, that’s how we learn and that’s how we grow and become more in awe of the Great God.

But questions have come up about the 26th and the 25th...and the 27th is pretty well set.   But we think of different times.  We know that what’s going to happen is going to happen at Jerusalem time; not Australia, not New Zealand, although the day starts there as far as the world is concerned.  As far as God is concerned it starts in Jerusalem and when Jesus Christ begins His return it’ll be at the end of the Sabbath before Pentecost comes, right at the very end.  Don’t know exactly how it’s going to transpire but we believe those things, we understand those things.

And so questions come up about different ones, because in... I don’t know what the time between here and Jerusalem is - one hour.  So what is it, 7:30ish before Pentecost begins in Jerusalem, it’ll be 6:30ish – somewhere around there – on the Sabbath.  You’ll be almost to the end of your Sabbath.  In the States, in the eastern time zone it’s around 12:36. So anyway, people are thinking about what do we do on that day?  And I’ve made some comments about whether or not to get together and as I had mentioned in the United States, we’re not going to have services in our normal locations, we’re going to have people pretty much stay in their own home areas.  If some want to get together in some areas I’m not going to say you can’t.  You have to decide for yourselves because wherever you go, as one example here, someone was asking about getting together on the 26th and wanted to ask about it, they said that some live 40-50 miles away and they were planning on getting together even that night of the 25th, and that’s fine.  But please understand, those who live 40-50 miles away you may not get back... that’s Los Angeles.  Your car may not work.  I don’t know what’s going to happen and where it’s going to happen.  It’s not going to be a nice time.

We thought this could have started at the very beginning of what’s referred to as the ‘great tribulation’, understanding that’s about the Church now, far more so, which we’ve always understood, but as far as the world was concerned we haven’t understood fully because it’s in God’s timing, how He does it.  And what’s going to take place, especially with Russia and China and what they finally do, it says they destroy a third of the earth.  That’s very clear language.  They destroy a third of all the earth.  And the United States is not going to escape that, Great Britain is not going to escape that, Europe is not going to escape that.  So there are some cities in some places that aren’t going to be a great place to be in some respects.  That’s just the way it is.  I don’t know where they are – God hasn’t told me those things – I’m not a fortune teller.  Sometimes people think I should know everything – No, I don’t.  God has given me an outline of prophetic things as far as the Bible is concerned; we have that outline that we’ve had for so long.

How it’s going to all transpire...? We understand some of that as far as tribulation and what that means for us now.  It’s going to be right up to the end.  I understand.  I understand more deeply now than ever before it can be in the last hour of the day!  It doesn’t take very long... people already have, nations already have scenarios of what they’re going to do if an explosion...if a weapons coming toward them they’re going to act quickly, they have to.  That’s the way it is.  And they act quickly and then...  A nuclear war to us is so insane, it’s so unreal, it seems like it can’t happen.  Man has used everything he’s ever invented – and we live at that time.  And God says - and that means more to us now than ever before – if He didn’t intervene and cut it short He said man would annihilate himself.

We have the power to destroy the earth forty times over with all the nuclear weapons that are there.  It sounds insane to some people – that’s too bad.  It only takes once.  But God says He’s going to let China and Russia, as a whole, destroy a third of all the earth, and then He stops it all; because they’re the last ones, they’re the ones who send the most.  Somewhere along the line someone holds back – Europe?  We don’t know; we don’t understand it all but it happens quickly.

So, where do you want to be on that day?  Because that may be where you have to stay for a while; it’s going to take a little while to get things taken care of.  You’re not just going to be able to get in your car and go someplace right away that afternoon or later on that day or the next day, or two days from then or three days from then.  So, think about where you’re going to be because you may have to stay there for a little while.  Just use wisdom, ask God for help in making wise choices.  I can’t make those choices for you.  You have to ask God for help, guidance, and direction in what to do and how to do it.  And candidly, some of those things you’ve save aside when it comes to basic things like food and so forth, you may be able to, obviously, use them for a few days or a few weeks even afterwards.  So, that which you’ve saved, that which you’ve put aside, which a lot of different groups and organizations and people do throughout the United States (I don’t know about over here), but it’s not a bad thing to do...it’s a wise thing.  ...probably still have good use of it.

So, if you invite someone to your home and they’re there with you on the 26th and you don’t have enough for them all to last a week or two or three before you’re able to receive help and before things start moving again...   Anyway, things to consider.

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It is awesomely interesting to see how God is inspiring and leading the content of sermons as we are wrapping up the end of man’s age.  That hits me in a very powerful way because I’ve been giving these for quite some time, and then I realize I’m giving this one and I’m giving the one next week and we may pre-record something for different places in the world, because Australia and New Zealand, things could happen afterwards, possibly here in Europe.  You may be able to have services, obviously.  In the States, it’s iffy, what’s going to happen because of time zones.  And so if I’m led to give a sermon and pre-record it and put it on the system then you’ll have a sermon, but as a whole I have a two part sermon left to give.  This is part 1 today, and that strikes me in a very powerful way and I’m sure it does you as well, that we could be so close to something taking place that the world has no idea.  The world didn’t know when Jesus Christ came, the world hasn’t known anything that God has done through time – only a few – and that’s the way God has given it throughout time.  And we understand those stories.

Again, we only have two more sermons to go here before Pentecost weekend.  I have a few things written down I want to go through here.

I’ve mentioned in some sermons how that the magnitude and awesomeness of the universe is so very inspiring when considering the greatness of Almighty God, His great power and might that not only created the vast universe but even sustains it.  And we cannot, I cannot, you cannot grasp such a thing; it’s impossible.  And even as people have a belief in God they have no concept of how great and how powerful and how all-mighty God is.  They do not recognize Him as the Creator, the One who has put this universe here, the One who has created everything that exists.  They’d rather believe in evolution, try to do something that only the human mind in it’s very limited form can come up with, the best ideas – and it is so incredible what people are willing to believe, supposedly intelligent people that teach in universities.  And you think of some of the things that are taught about various creatures, who for millions of years finally evolved to a point that they could do something they couldn’t do before.  And you think, “And how many died along the way? And so if they all died out how did they decide they’re going...?”

This little bird, on the side of these cliffs in California, that lays an egg on the side of a cliff.  It’s jagged rock; it’s the only place they lay their eggs.  They lay an egg and it’s designed in such a way that the wind can come along and it can spin in that one spot and it’ll never fall off the cliff.  And you think, “Okay, how long did ‘a’ bird have to live before ‘that’ bird came up with a plan to figure out how to lay it’s eggs in order to only be that way?”  I mean the foolishness of mankind to think that we evolved certain things through time.  Man has been here for 6,000 years and we haven’t changed too much and we have a better brain and a better ability to think and reason than anything that’s ever existed before, so why can’t we come up with something new?

So the credit, the honour, is not given to the Great God who put man here, and man is about to learn about the power of Almighty God...and that’s what the plan of God is about, to bring man to that point in time, to humble mankind, because man is filled with pride and haughtiness before God – always has been!

But thinking about the vastness of the universe should help us become far more in awe indeed of our great God, especially when considering His creation in us, in mankind.  Because this is the greatest of all His creative power, of what He’s doing to create, to make Elohim.  What an awesome thing!

The world thinks that when you die you go down to some fiery pit somewhere or some little nether world or someplace where these little things are running around with pitchforks that are hot and they’re going to stab you in the rear-end and they have little pointed tails and flames are flying everywhere.  And yet you think, if you’re going to live for eternity how can flames bother you?  But supposedly these flames do.  And otherwise, you’re going to go off and you’re going to be put wherever heaven is, or stuck somewhere in between.  And they have no concept that that’s not God’s plan!  God made man for the reason that in time we could become a part of His Family, greater than the angels as it shows us in the scriptures, a greater creation than the angelic realm, spirit beings, the ability to live eternally...or life everlasting, to have everlasting life in you.  We can’t comprehend such things but that’s what God says He’s doing to make a God Family, Elohim.

So, before we move into the subject matter of this sermon I want to mention something about the physical creation that helps put some of the awe of this universe into perspective, if you will, but awe of God into a stronger focus when considering this sermon today.

A couple of weeks ago my son-in-law sent me a video that discussed the marvels of one of the largest known stars in existence, and in times past I have made some references to a large star called ‘Epsilon Aurigae’, and this particular star and the reason I have mentioned that one is because it has to do with a book I read back in the 1970’s about the universe and so forth.  And so I’ve always held onto that one star because I’ve mentioned how that you can put 100 of our suns through the diameter of that particular star, and you think, the magnificence of that, the greatness of that, just of something that great in the universe, that large.  I mean, we don’t even understand our own sun, but to understand something that much larger, that much greater, is an awesome thing, that God created it and put it there for a purpose and for a reason.

But in this particular video it told about another star that makes ours look really, really, really little, and it’s known as ‘VY Canis Majoris’, and to get a bit of a reference I just want to give some comparisons here today, just to think about some of these things.  Because when you start thinking about even the different solar systems that are out there, the different galaxies that are out there, it’s so incredible, billions and billions of light years away, and you start thinking about that, you think about how long it took the light to get here to the earth, for something to be what we can see is 14,000,000,000 (14 billion) light years away means that it had to come into existence at least 14 billion years ago for the light to reach here so that we can see it now.  I can’t comprehend that!  A thousand years? A million years? A billion years of time to travel?  We’re limited!

But anyway, to get a bit of a reference we’re going to begin by making some references of our sun with the earth and then with this ‘VY Canis Majoris’.

- Our sun is 1.4 million kilometers across, (right through it); 870,000 miles.  It accounts for 99.9 percent of all the matter in our solar system.

So if you want to take all the matter, the asteroids, all the planets, the moons and everything else, the sun accounts for 99.9 percent of all the matter in our own little solar system.

- You can fit about 1 million earths inside our sun.

That’s how great the sun is.  I can’t comprehend that.

- You have to fit a little over 1 hundred earths through the diameter of the sun to reach from one side to the other.

Now, consider this ‘VY Canis Majoris’:

- If placed in our solar system its surface would extend out past the orbit of Saturn.

So that means that the entire amount of it, in other words the radius going from our sun, would go all the way out past the orbit of Saturn.  That’s how humongous this particular star is.

- To make it around the circumference of our sun at the speed of light (if you’re travelling at the speed of light around our sun, which you can’t do) it would take you 14.5 seconds.

Now, that’s moving!  14.5 seconds to get all the way around the sun it’s so great!

- To get around the circumference of ‘VY Canis Majoris’ at the speed of light it would take 8½ hours...

...compared to 14.5 seconds around ours.

- If the earth were to be represented by a sphere of 1 cm in diameter (.39ths of an inch for those Americans) the sun would be represented as a sphere with a diameter of 109 cm.

So, if you consider the size and you have the earth here at 1 cm, then the sun would have to be 109 cm in diameter, or 3 ½ feet.

- At these scales ‘VY Canis Majoris’ would have a diameter of approximately 2.3 km.

Not 109 cm ...2.3 km, or 1.43 miles.  How awesome is that, that God is so great to... and that’s not even counting... that’s not even talking about the galaxy it’s in and all the solar systems that are in each galaxy and all the galaxies out there that they’re finding. And kind of like a long time ago when they started taking ships from one part of the world to the other and wondering if they’re going to drop off or whatever, and they want to find the end of it; man is trying to find the end of the universe.  We haven’t changed a whole lot, we’ve just changed the distance of where we’re travelling and our science and so forth.  No, man’s trying to get out there and find out how far out there it is.  There’s only so far you can reach depending on something that’s created, depending on when it was created and brought into being.  And some of that which is out there, the light hasn’t reached the earth yet.  Man... so intelligent yet so foolish.

Going on with more information here.

- This means that you can place 109 earths inside side by side, literally, through our sun but it would take over 2000 (that’s earths...)  ...but you could place over 2000 of our suns side by side to reach through the diameter of ‘VY Canis Majorus’.

2,000 of our suns all the way though the diameter to reach from one side to the other!  We can’t understand those things! And how many earths would it take to reach the diameter, from one side to the other, compared to the 109 of our sun?

- It would take 235,000 earths [to reach the diameter, from one side to the other].

Look how big this earth is.  We just travel by jet and you get messed up, your time is all messed up and you travel 6 hours, 8 hours, 9 hours, 14 hours by jet and it totally messes you up because it takes so long to get there and your time change and everything else that’s there, and I can’t grasp the magnitude of this earth let alone something this size.  And our Great God put it all there, and yet He tells us...  That’s why I marvel when I hear David, when David in the Psalms talks about how when he looks in the skies he marvels at God’s creation and understands (paraphrasing) that it’s about what God is doing with mankind, with what He’s doing with us, how small we are and how Great God is in His great plan.

And we look at things like what we understand today and we think about how small we are – because the reality is what God is creating in us as He lives and dwells in us, as God gives us His holy spirit and He says in one day we’re going to be able to be changed from mortal to immortal.  And you think of that process there of what we’re going through; and yet that, God says, is the greatest of His creation.  You.  Me.  Those who can become Elohim, a part of His Family.  Far greater than that sun out there.  Far greater than that galaxy it’s in.  Far greater than all the galaxies put together.  God says this is what it’s all about.  How blessed are we?

So again, such figures are impossible for the mind to fully grasp; that such a creation is impossible for the human mind to comprehend, but God does want us to know that His creation of Elohim and the means for us becoming part of that Family is far, far greater than the creation of the physical universe, and obviously so far, far more important.

There is something in the last posting on the site that I want to read to you now and then we’ll go into the body of the sermon.  I want to quote a couple paragraphs:

When I began writing posts for this site, I initially envisioned the possible need of writing more often, primarily due to our preparing for the possibility of “great tribulation” beginning at the very start of this final three and one-half year period. However, great physical tribulation did not begin at that time, and it thankfully has not yet begun. So the need to write more often in order to help people deal with tribulation that could have begun early on has not been needed. But rather, in the midst of horrifying prophecies for this end-time...

Because they are horrifying, what’s finally going to happen before God intervenes and stops it.

But rather, in the midst of horrifying prophecies for this end-time, God has revealed in a most powerful manner one of His greatest attributes toward His creation—toward mankind. It is the awesome quality of “mercy”!

As the Church was fully ready to immediately enter into the period of “great physical tribulation,” or at the least, within six to nine months after this final period of three and one-half years began, God began to reveal His will for “how” this final end-time would unfold. It would be in a manner that would give (or allow for) the greatest possible potential to deliver the largest number of people into a new age upon Christ’s return. Therefore, God inspired His Church early on to enter a two-day fast in order to draw closer to God and then petition Him to provide the means whereby “more” people could be saved alive to live into the new millennial period. That means and manner whereby God would accomplish this was revealed to be through His love filled “mercy” for His creation.

That almost gives me chills reading that, even though I wrote it, thinking about that.

This sermon today is about the magnitude of God’s love toward all of us, all of mankind; and this sermon is entitled God’s Infinite Mercy with this being Part 1.  I marvel at the sermons and the order of which God has designed and given these things in time and where we have been and what we have gone through, and now in two weeks to conclude with this.  Because the last three and a half years has been all about this; this is what it’s all about.  This is what God wants the world to understand.

As I was reading this I couldn’t help but think, there was a time when God erased all human life, save for one family, off the earth.  And for 120 years his family worked, he worked, Noah worked at building a great ship.  I can’t even comprehend that one.  I’ve lived a little more than half that time and I think, “What an awesome thing that that’s what his life... that’s what he did for such a large portion of what we consider life.”  At that time they had a lifespan much longer, before the flood, and God changed that after the flood.  And what an awesome thing to think what God said.  It was a horrifying thing for God.  I was reading through some scriptures, and we may get to some here later on [that] talk about God has no pleasure in the death of anyone, nor the wicked, as He says.  He has no pleasure in that.

God talks about His love for what He’s created, everything – everything in His creation.  That’s why there are certain laws regulating life having to do with even how we treat life, even animal life and so forth.  There are things out here of how we’re to perceive and understand what God has created, a respect for this world, to care and to keep what God has given to us.  And God loves it all and He loves us far more because of what He has built, created, and made us to have and the purpose and so forth.

But I think of what God did at the end of that time.  He placed a rainbow in the sky.  He said, ‘That is My token; that is My sign to you that I will never destroy the earth like this again.’  Because before that the earth and the way it was watered and everything else was different.  Now, that’s a good one for scientists, if they could only look into it a little bit, try to understand it, what happened.  God changed the way the waters and things were watered on the earth.  See, because a rainbow would have existed if there had been clouds and watering in that way.  I hope you understand that.  Something changed, the way God took care of it... and I could go into more of it and what some of it’s about...  But anyway, I marvel at that because after that time in the way the rains came and the way the earth was taken care of became different.  And man’s lifespan became different because of things to do with the sun and things to do with our atmosphere and so forth.  And so it was a natural consequence that man would live shorter.  That’s how God did it. God can create an atmosphere and environment...I don’t mean just an atmosphere out here, but that’s so much of it; but an environment where we can live longer in a physical body but He stopped that and He told us why.

And I marvel at that!  I marvel that God said no longer, never again will the earth be destroyed like this.  Never again would He do that, and that’s His promise.  People are ignorant of it in the world.  Every time they see a rainbow they have no idea that God Almighty put it there as a sign day after day – because there’s rain every day on this earth, not that you see it every day or you see a rainbow every day, but it’s out there regularly.  Man’s not moved by that; he doesn’t even know the story.  Sad.

This is a hard thing to where God has come.  This is not a pleasant thing before God, to come to a point where He’s going to allow man – and that’s one of the greatest lessons He’s going to allow for mankind – that’s why technology has been withheld for nearly six thousand years, because if present technology had come around two thousand years ago or before we’d be gone already.  God’s plan has been remarkable in the sense of giving man a time period of 6,000 years to live on this earth, and that toward the end of it He would begin to give to mankind, not because of the intellect of mankind and not because of something evolving in time, but because God gave it into the minds of individuals to begin matters of what we refer to as science, mathematics, and physics and so forth.  Before that it was withheld from mankind, mankind was not allowed to have it although mankind did some great things and God gave that ability as well, as far as building and so forth, some things that have been lost and they don’t understand.  Yet, as far as technology and science and the escalation of those things, God makes it very clear in scripture this is reserved to the very end-time, and the power of mankind to do as we’re doing today.

I think of technology and our ability in the last few years of being able to have a sermon given in any spot on the earth and people all over the earth being able to hear it as readily as they do, even live and so forth.  When we started doing this we didn’t have that, back in the early 2000 or late 1990’s, ’99, ’98, in through there, early 2000, up to 2003 or so, and then things have increased mightily.  It’s about God’s mercy, and God’s showing the world that.  But a part of His plan is to allow mankind to come to the point to show him what He would do if He didn’t intervene, if God Almighty didn’t intervene and stop him from destroying himself.

So God has revealed in this end-time over the past nearly three and a half years now, that one of the greatest attributes that mankind needs to embrace is that which God has shown all mankind at this end-time; it is that of mercy which comes from God, from His love, from agape.  Agape is God’s love, He’s the source of it, you can’t work it up, it comes from God.  But mercy, which is a product of God’s love, must at times be also mixed with judgment, for mercy does not mean man can do whatever he pleases and not suffer the consequences of sin.  But in the midst of sin, again, God is awesomely merciful and this is important to understand when looking at how God is working out this end-time.

Let’s turn over to Revelation 11 and begin there today as far as scriptures are concerned, because it all ties together with what God is showing and where God is leading us in these last couple of sermons.

Revelation 11:10 – speaking of the two witnesses, speaking of what God is doing at the very last 3½ years, the last 42 months as it talks about...And they who dwell upon the earth shall rejoice, be glad over them, talking about there when it talks about dying and so forth, and we’ve gone through explaining what all that means, and celebrate, and shall send gifts one to another; and so again, the question was asked, “When?” And the answer is in the rest of the verse... because these two prophets tormented them who dwelt on the earth, and who dwelled on the earth. And it has to do with the truth that God gave; that’s where the torment comes from, when you turn against God’s way, when you fight against the truth, when you...especially if you’ve had the truth and you fight against it, there are certain things that gnaw at you and you have to justify them.  There are certain things that come back at you and you’re reminded of from time to time and they’re like jabs and they gnaw at you and they torment you.  This is what happens, is happening, has been happening to so many people out there who once were a part of this Body, who once were a part until the apostasy occurred in 1994.  And then someone comes along and God gives more power to that as time goes along, to show certain foolishness of ideas that some of them hold onto.

And there are certain things of the truth they can’t argue with.  They try to, but all along in that is a process of torment in the mind because they’re fighting against God and they can’t fully justify it....they can’t fully justify it.

Let’s turn over to 2 Thessalonians 2 and then we’ll come back to Revelation 11.

2 Thessalonians 2:8-13 - And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, again here, showing it’s something that comes from God, that God has spoken, that God has said should be, and it goes on to say here...  It’s not something that God just all of a sudden says something or does something and something comes out of His mouth and something happens to someone and they disintegrate, consumed.  People are so weird.

... and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming: and so we understand what that means.  If you’ve read very much at all you know what this is talking about. Whose coming is... it’s not even ‘him’, it says, Whose coming is after the working of Satan, shows where he gets his power.  Again, the world doesn’t believe there’s such a being as a whole, and some do but they don’t grasp that oh yes, he’s very much alive and there are millions of beings called demons; they’re angels who rebelled with him.  He was Lucifer, the great arch angel at one time, and then he was restricted to this earth for a purpose, to be here with mankind for 6,000 years, to speed up a process so that we could become Elohim, which we talked about in last year’s Feast of Tabernacles.

Verse 10 - And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them who perished; because they received not the love of the truth; that can happen to people.  In time you can come to a point where the love of the truth begins to cool off, it isn’t as strong as perhaps when a person is first called or at some highlight in your life in the sense of being humbled and brought to a point of deeper conviction toward God. It’s something that God says you have to be on guard, and watch, and He tells you to thirst and to hunger.  That’s up to us to thirst and to hunger.  He doesn’t cram it down our throat – He doesn’t force feed us His way of life.  We’ve got to want it and we’ve got to cry out for it...and then God will give it to us.  He will strengthen us when we acknowledge we need it, because we know we need it and so we cry out to God, “Feed me!  Strengthen me in Your power, in Your life, in Your mind, in Your thinking, in Your ways, not my ways...”

...because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved.  That’s how we’re saved, the truth, through the truth.  We come to a point where we acknowledge certain things that are true and then we begin to make choices of whether or not we’re going to live by it.  One of the greatest has to do with the Sabbath – that’s where it generally begins.  That’s a big step for people, especially in a protestant world, and in Europe in a world highly swayed by the Catholic church through time, a Catholic church that didn’t really have a strong beginning until 325 AD.  There was another Church way before that!  As soon as Jesus Christ died, on Pentecost 31 AD a Church began and it wasn’t the Catholic church, it was God’s Church, small.  He said, “A little flock...” that would always be here because that’s His purpose and plan.

And then finally 325 comes along and what happens?  This other church getting bigger and bigger all the time, more popular – because God’s way is not popular in this world.  You think about what they did!  I marvel at this history!  I marvel how they came along and said, “No longer are we going to require Passover, we’re going to have Easter.”  You’re just going to do away with God’s Passover?  This church that went side by side, battling back and forth with God’s Church, with the true Church, and slowly but surely began to change certain things and became more and more popular, began to adopt ideas and religious ideas from different areas – finally came along with... And even Easter, where does that come from?  Religious worship of Astarte and it’s called different things in different languages, Isis, and you go on and on, mother/child thing that’s been there long before Jesus Christ came long, long before Mary.  And so this great church began to change things.  So this world, that’s so called Christianity, of Christianity, believes in Sunday.

And so when you come to the point where God shows you, “No, it’s the seventh day Sabbath you’re to observe.”  ...that tests people.   Are you going to obey God?  Do you have a love of the truth?  Does it open up your mind?  Do you begin to understand some of the things about God’s plan and realize you’ve been deceived and understand why that day came along?  And if you go back in history and you just read a few encyclopaedias and you do a little study you’ll find out where Sunday came from, Sunday worship...from the catholic church, because they had to use Easter then to give credibility to what they call a sunrise service, and “because of the sunrise service and when Jesus Christ was....   that’s the day we’re supposed to worship on from now on...”  And yet you go through and you study the scriptures and God makes it very clear, “No, it is not, it’s the seventh day Sabbath.”  Paul, the apostles, they kept the seventh day Sabbath; they taught on the Sabbath, they weren’t teaching on Sunday.  Incredible!

And so, we begin to receive a love of the truth and we begin to have our minds opened up and we begin to learn all kinds of things once God begins to draw us and helps us to see things that are out there that we’ve never seen before.  We begin to understand not only is it a weekly Sabbath there are yearly Sabbaths, annual Sabbaths, and His plan becomes more exciting.  We begin to see that the seven day week has a purpose because it’s about a seven thousand year plan and God just adds more and more and more and it becomes more and more exciting.  But if you start to lose the love of the truth - what a dangerous thing!  And it’s happened over and over again through history.  It happened to the Church of Laodicea.  The Church of Laodicea became lukewarm about the truth of God.  God says He can’t accept that which is lukewarm.  You’re either hot for His way of life, you definitely want it – you can’t be nonchalant about it, lukewarm about it.  If you’re cold, that’s an easy one, you’re just not with it, you don’t care.  That’s an easy one to judge.  But the lukewarm one, that’s a harder one to judge...but God says He won’t accept that.

Verse 11 - And for this cause God shall ‘send’, interesting word.  It means ‘dispatching word’.  This word ‘send’, it’s about ‘dispatching word’ that we’ve talked about already, ‘...about something or someone’.  Remember we read about that in Revelation – they send gifts one to another, dispatching word.  Awesome!  And so God shall send them strong, that which comes to them, in essence, working or active delusion, and that’s what happened, that’s what happened to the Church.  That’s what happened when Mr. Tkach Sr. got up and gave the sermon he did in Atlanta back in 1994 and began to do away with all of the truth that God had given to His Church over the past 2,000 years.

And so because there wasn’t a love of the truth God says something happened in people’s minds.  There were those who latched onto that because there wasn’t a love of the truth, this is easier...this is easier, what came along, this delusion.  It was easier to fall into it because why?  Because when you come into the truth you have battles, it isn’t easy, you have to make decisions in family, you have to make decisions in business, in jobs – whether you work on Friday night after sundown and into the Sabbath or not, whether you’re going to work on the Holy Days, and you make that choice and that decision, and other laws, which we understand.  And you begin to live this way of life – it isn’t accepted well by the world, and so we understand what this means.  And so it’s easy to go back to the world and the way it is out there because if you live this way of life the world doesn’t embrace you and doesn’t love you.

That’s the way I’ve lived my life since I was aged 19.  I know full well what the world thinks about this way of life.  I’ve had other jobs long before I went into the ministry, crossing the United States and calling on different companies and so forth, and I know how they treated individuals who had different ideas, different people you come in contact with concerning the Sabbath if you couldn’t do something, have a meeting on the Sabbath.  “Sorry, not going to do that.”  “Oh, why not?”  and you tell them... “...you’re nuttier than a fruitcake.”  Just because you believed in the seventh day Sabbath.  “Why aren’t you like the rest of society?  Why aren’t you like all the rest of the people out here?  What are you, Seventh Day Adventist?  What are you... a Jew?  ...a JEW?!  What are you?”  ...these things that people say out there in the world.

Verse 12 - That they all might be judged who believed not the truth, and so when people know the truth and they leave it and go away from it, what a horrible judgment to come under from God. This is not a small thing!  And so the reason why we’re going into some of this is to talk about why the 7,000 are spoken of in Revelation that God says He’s going to destroy, that were a part of this Church at one time.  Because to do what they did, to do what has taken place is not a small thing with God.

You can go back and read about how God dealt with the Israelites. They didn’t even have His holy spirit but He held them accountable for the law He gave to them because they said, “We’ll do it!”  They made a covenant agreement with Him, the first covenant. They said, “We’re going to do it!”  And we understand why they couldn’t, but... anyway.

That they all might be judged who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Because it’s easier!  They had pleasure in that!  It’s easier when you go out to eat at a restaurant and you’re sat at this Japanese table (I’m not picking on the Japanese, please understand), but this table where they cook your food for you.  Teppanyaki; you’re all sitting around this place here and the chef is on the other side putting on a show – and they do an awesome job – but they have this custom in the States, I don’t know about over here, where they have this appetizer and it’s always shrimp.  So when we go to a place like that and on our side of the table, if there’s just two of us on a table of ten, or if there’s a whole table we say, “This whole group, we don’t want any shrimp.”  “You don’t want any shrimp?!”  And the rest of the table is like, “Let us have theirs.”  “Fine.”  But you have to stand up for this way of life.  You have to say, “No, I don’t do that. I don’t eat pork.”

And so we ask sometimes when we’re in a different restaurant, like this morning here, my wife asked, “Is this horse meat?” because this restaurant has had horse meat in it before and we don’t eat horse *whinny* ...Sorry.  We don’t do that because God says don’t do it.  He said, “I made your body to function in a certain way and you put certain things into it you’re going to mess it up.”  We don’t go against the manual regarding a car and put in diesel when it says to put in regular unleaded gasoline but we go against what God said and He made us and we’re far more intricate and complicated than any kind of car you can buy.

Going on here, verse 12 - That they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation; that’s why God calls us.  He doesn’t call you to fail, He calls you to be saved, and if you’re called in the beginning of something, especially like all of you who are new now, you’re called, you have an opportunity of a head start in this and you’re able to learn from this experience. You’re going to be able to experience things that are unique to you that others are going to learn later on, and what they learn later on is going to be unique to them.  But you’re a small group that has an awesome opportunity to learn certain things now that God’s going to use in the future!  And that’s an incredible thing to understand.

So, God has chosen you from the beginning, chosen you to salvation through sanctification, which means to be set apart for holy use and purpose, of the spirit, by His spirit, by His power, that’s how He does it, and belief of the truth: That’s how we’re set apart.  That’s why Jesus Christ said in the very night before He died, His last night of preaching to the disciples; ‘Sanctify them through Your truth;’ as He prayed to His Father, which was for us not for Him.  He spoke those things so we could have them written for us and recorded.  ‘Sanctify them through Your truth; Your word is truth.’  So, when people reject the word of God, they reject that truth...  anyway, once you’ve known it.  The world can’t help what they don’t know.  They’re not being judged according to those things.

So anyway, once you know the truth and you turn from it, as I was saying, people are horribly held accountable for that, in a horrible way what’s been done.  But for the world, again, how we treat the world and how we treat people, there are some awesome lessons here to be learned in how we think and in large part we understand this.  But to be merciful... to understand they can’t help it.  Not to look down upon people.  That’s why we don’t try to cram this down anyone’s throat, because we know you can’t.  We don’t try to make people uncomfortable by going out and proselytizing – that’s not God’s way of life, to try to talk people into this way of life.  God has to draw people.  But that’s getting ready to change too in two weeks.  He’s going to draw people all right and the whole world is going to know that a giant change has taken place when Jesus Christ returns.  This time it says He’s not returning as a lamb, He’s returning as a lion, as King of kings, because this time He comes with power to enforce God’s way of life.  And those who don’t want to live by it... it’s not going to go well for many because they are not going to be allowed to continue as mankind has for the last 6,000 years, ignoring God, mocking God.

Revelation 11:11 – continuing on with the thought of what we were doing in Revelation... because this is following the last series we had.  And after three and one half days, which we understand is 3½ years, this was Christ’s ministry – talked about the 7 days ministry of His, the 3½ and He was cut off; and that’s being finished.

...the spirit of life from God entered into them, not physical life but spirit life, changed from mortal to immortal, entered into them and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them who saw them. So as we talked about, that doesn’t mean that everyone sees that, has to see that.  It’s kind of the like the time when Jesus Christ talked about all those who put Him to death, basically when it speaks of those in that terminology, they’ll see His coming.  It doesn’t mean they’re going to see Him returning.  The terminology there in English is a little awkward, but everyone’s going to come to know in time.  In the Great White Throne, for the vast majority of them, they’re going to know that Jesus Christ is indeed King of kings.  So, in time people are made aware of these things, they see it by what’s in the mind not literally what’s by the eyesight.  We should understand that.  When you see something it doesn’t always mean that it’s a matter of your physical eyesight, it has to do with what you come to see when it’s given to you to see it.

It says, and great fear fell upon them who saw them.  So for some that come to that knowledge who are going to live into the millennial period, who come to see and understand what is true, great fear.  God talks about some of that.  Even in the Great White Throne when some come to see what they have done – it’s going to be a fearful thing when people are resurrected back into a physical life a second time, for those who enter into that.

Verse 12 - And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up here. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. Again, they’re not all going to see these two people.  They’re scattered all over the world, okay, and they’re not going to have such great sight that they can see two streaks....  Anyway....  It’s not a physical thing, okay?  And we don’t know how it’s going to happen anyway.  But they’re going to come to see them, they’re going to come to understand.

Verse 13 - And the same hour, in other words, when they’re resurrected, so it is talking about a timeline here now that is literal, there was a great, the word is ‘earthquake’ but in the Greek it’s ‘shaking’ and the tenth part of the City fell, we talked about that the last Sabbath and the Sabbath before, talking about that City.  We understand what it’s talking about when it’s speaking of Jerusalem as a City, as the Church, and those things that God is doing.  It’s not the physical location.  When it talks about Jerusalem being as Sodom and as Egypt, He’s not talking about the physical location; He’s talking about His Church and what happened to His Church at the end-time.

So it talks about a tenth part of the City fell and in the shaking were slain of men, (by men), by name, if you will, of men, as we talked about the translation, of people seven thousand.  So seven thousand die.  It’s talking about those who were a part of the scattering, seven thousand die at that particular moment in time.

...and the remainder, the word meaning ‘the others’, ‘the remnant’, or ‘the rest’; and not remnant in the sense of God’s remnant, but those who are left over, those who are remaining.  ...the rest were made afraid, brought to fear, and gave glory to the God of heaven.  So at some point here there is repentance and there is a giving glory to God because of an understanding of what had taken place, candidly, things they had done, of coming to see and understand certain things they had heard that were true, they understand that are true.  They come to see things about the apostasy, an acknowledgement of certain things they’ve never really acknowledged. So there are a lot of things taking place here, but at some point there’s repentance and a giving glory to God, it says, the God of heaven.

And then it says, The Second Woe is past; and, behold, the Third Woe comes quickly. That’s interesting, the timing!  Have you looked at that?  The timing?  You know when the 2nd Woe, when it’s passed?  When has it passed?  When a resurrection takes place.  There is a point in time when there is a resurrection that takes place, 144,000, talks about the return of Jesus Christ, 144,000 over the past 6,000 years, of individuals whom God has moulded and fashioned, who are resurrected to come back with Christ (it talks about in Revelation), to rule, to reign with Him as He is the King of kings.  And it talks about this moment in time and what’s taking place.

This is at the very end of this...this is at a moment in time as He’s coming back, that God puts an end to World War III.  He puts an end to what the battle is, has started.  It says, Now the Second Woe is passed and behold the Third Woe comes quickly. That’s when God Himself intervenes and does the things He’s going to do that follows in the scriptures there.

The question was asked, if a tenth of the City fell, the Jerusalem that had to remain outside, if you remember the story here of the Temple, that which was given to the Gentiles, the non-believers, that which spiritually became as Egypt and Sodom.  And if seven thousand were killed, by name, as we looked at the meaning of that, what that means, then how large was the City at that time?

So again, repeating some of the things mentioned in the previous sermon.

All this reveals that the City, Jerusalem, was given a count, a number in its size by God to be 70,000, but a tenth part was to fall, 7,000 to die and cannot enter into the Millennium, or the millennial period.

So, that means there are 63,000 remaining.  Is that possible?  So just repeating some of the things said in that sermon.  Is that possible?

Let’s go over to Ezekiel 5.  I’d mentioned last Sabbath that I thought about going into these verses, but it became clearer that’s exactly where we’re going.  God will show it, God will reveal what He does.  But what an awesome thing that God has made possible.

Now, those who have lived through the prophesied scattering in a remnant that God first delivered is revealed here in Ezekiel 5 and we’ve gone to this oftentimes because it tells exactly what happened to the Church at the time of the apostasy.  This goes along with the apostasy of 2 Thessalonians 2.

Ezekiel 5:1 - And you, son of man, take a sharp knife, take a barber's razor, and cause it to pass upon your head and upon your beard: then take balances and weigh it, and divide the hair. And you shall burn with a fire a third part, of the hair, in the midst of the City: The midst of what City?  It’s Jerusalem again.  It’s spiritual!  It’s the Jerusalem that God is working with to become a part of His Family, how it’s spoken of over and over and over again in scripture.  It says... and when the days of the siege are fulfilled: and you shall take a third part, and strike about it with a knife: and a third part, says throw it up in the air, scatter to the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them. Just because they’re scattered doesn’t mean a sword doesn’t come after them.

And again here, the word for a sword shouldn’t escape us either, to understand it’s about the truth of God again, it’s about what happens, what’s going to happen to them, and we’ll go through that as we go along here.

But again here, Ezekiel told to do this physical thing.  To me it’s an awesome thing when you go through and read the story of Ezekiel; this is why some critics of the Bible - intellectuals – tear apart Ezekiel, because they make fun of him.  They make fun of him because he wrote what he wrote after Israel had already been taken captive.  It was written later.  And so he goes through and makes this story here, tells the story, and yet because people don’t know that it’s prophecy for the future, it’s about prophecy that’s going to happen later on they say, “See, it’s a bunch of hooey.  Different ones came along and wrote the book...” and they don’t understand.

Anyway, he was a prophet of the House of Israel, because so much of it is about physical Israel, the different nations of Israel, where they are today.  Not in the land of Israel, not the tribe of Judah.  If there’s a tribe of Judah, the Bible talks about that, if it’s the Jews.  It’s talking about the rest of Israel, like here in the Netherlands, and Belgium, and some of the different countries, Switzerland, Sweden, and all the way over, even all the way over to Ireland and Great Britain and the United States and Canada, Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar, Zebulon, over and over again.  You think, yeah.  It’s sad the world is just so ignorant of history, of where people came from.  Isaac’s sons – Saxon’s and so forth.  Anyway, crazy-crazy-crazy.  Things that are simple to us once God gives you the truth.

Going on in Ezekiel, verse 3 - You shall also take thereof a few in number; so he’s being  told in the midst of this just take a few of number out of all this, a little bit, and bind them in your skirts. Awesomely interesting!  I remember the first time coming across this and understanding what was being said here after the apostasy when God showed how this word is used.  It’s a word that’s translated as ‘wings’.  It’s not translated as ‘skirts’.  It is in some place in the sense of the border of a skirt because it’s on some of the kinds of garments they had, I guess, but as a whole it’s a word that talks about ‘a covering of wings’.  And if you think about Revelation, what it says there, it means more to us because it talks about the Church and coming under the wings of a great eagle, how they’re protected and go into the wilderness and they’re protected for a ‘Time, Times, and a Half a Time’ from the face of the serpent in Revelation.  And this goes with it; it’s talking about protection that God’s going to give a small amount of people that are called a remnant, out of all the midst of all this group.

And who’s deserved that?  Who has deserved that?  Not a one!  But it’s a part of God’s plan!  Who in human life deserves what God has called them to?  Who deserves to become Elohim?  Not a soul.  It’s just a part of God’s plan and how He works it out is His doing.  Whom He calls, at what time, is His doing, and it’s just an awesome thing no matter when it is; God has a plan and we’re blessed to be a part of it, whenever that is.  Those of us who went through the apostasy and God set aside to be a part of this remnant, how blessed are we?  We’ve come to understand - at least we should have, and I believe we have – come to understand the mercy of God in an awesome way because we see how merciful God’s been with us because we know who we are, we know what we are, we know the sin in our life, we know the human body, we know the human life, what we are as human beings.  There is no one perfect, there is no one righteous, there is no one just, as far as human beings are concerned apart from God.  The only thing that you have that is just and righteous in you is God, and to that degree you yield to Him and become more at one with Him to live His ways.

And so, through a period of time, whatever that period of time is, 20-30-40 years, 50 years, you begin to change, you begin to grow – not immediately overnight.  Oh, you have to make some big changes in the beginning because of the Sabbath, the Holy Days, and etcetera, etcetera.  You make those changes right away.  You make the big changes right away because these are the big glaring things that determine whether or not you’re going to go forward or not.  But, the other things of the mind, of your life, take time and because you’re a human being you’re always going to have certain things that are always wrong with you.  That’s why I love what Paul wrote.  If Paul hadn’t written what he did, if God hadn’t inspired him to write some of those things about this battle, this war, that Paul said, “After 25 years as an apostle of God...” you know when he cried out to God about his spirit, about this battle, about this war inside of him.  Let’s turn there.

It’s going through Romans 7 here, he’s talking about various things, talking about how the law is spiritual, Romans 7:18 - For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh), dwells no good thing: everyone has to come to that.  Everyone has to come to understand that... in my flesh dwells no good thing.  What’s good?  That’s why Jesus Christ said there is no one good but one – God Almighty – and we’re able to receive good from Him into our life, of His way, of His truth, of His mind, of His being.  And that’s why it talks about later on in Romans here, chapter 12, where it talks about this transforming of the mind, the renewing of the mind that takes place and it’s this transforming, ‘metamorphoo’ in the Greek, like the cocoon and the butterfly and the change.  It uses that same Greek word and showing this change that takes place in the human mind through time.  But it takes time!

But there are certain things that are always in you.  And John makes that clear, ‘the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life’ is always a part of human life, you can’t get rid of it because you’re in a human body, because God created you, designed you for that purpose, that you could enter into such a battle.  You have to make choices then, you have to make choices to repent and seek God, because that’s how character grows and develops in the mind.  You realize every time you repent you’re acknowledging that you are wrong and that God is right...and that’s how you grow in character; holy, righteous character.  You’re acknowledging you are wrong, God is right and you don’t want this way, you don’t want self, the way of selfishness, you want God’s way.  It’s an awesome thing that God has given to us.

So he says, I know that in me (in my flesh) dwells no good thing; for to will is present with me; how often have you felt that?  ...to will is present with you to do something right, you want to do it, but sometimes you don’t do it, sometimes you’re caught off guard, sometimes someone cuts you off in traffic... *grrrrr, snap*.  I caught myself doing that yesterday.  I was driving along coming from the airport up to Antwerp, my wife was sleeping a little bit there, and I was praying...right as I was praying something happened and I had to ask for forgiveness there.  I thought, yeah, how dumb, how sick are we sometimes!  You lose an attitude toward someone else who’s done something stupid and you think bad thoughts, wrong thoughts toward them...you have to repent.  People are going to think I’ve got to be the worst driver in the world!  But a lot of these things come out when you’re driving, or when you’re walking along the sidewalk, or when you’re at work and someone does something to you that oftentimes does and says cutting things or whatever.  These things happen in the world, but your reaction to them is what counts, that you don’t react as they did, you don’t react in kind.  God tells us we’re to be different, but sometimes we still fail, don’t we?  Oftentimes!

...for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which is in me, which I would not, that I do. There are things we don’t want to do, and find out “I’ve’ done it again,” and we have to repent again!

Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I do it, but sin that dwells in me. So he understands this battle.  And it goes on to say here when we get some of the things he says; I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present in me, with me, in me.  That’s what it’s talking about. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: He uses this term ‘the inward man’ to talk about that which happens to the mind when you receive the impregnation of God’s spirit, God’s spirit that dwells in the mind, and so this inward man.

So God has given you of His spirit that dwells in you, this life.  He says, “I delight in that”, and I do and I know you do.  I delight when I’m able to see, know, and think about the truths of God and the life it gives when you live what is right, when you respond properly, when you love people, when you understand that love, that it comes from God, the bond, the friendship.  You know, as soon as you meet someone new – it’s like today – you meet people who are new and there is something unique there in God’s Church because of God’s spirit.  It’s almost as though you’ve always known them.  There’s that bonding that is stronger than the human relationships in life because it’s of God’s spirit, because we’re at one and God gives that in the mind.  We know we’re a Family, we know we share the same things. It’s an awesome thing.  You have to experience it, you experience it.

Then he says, I see another law in my members, that dwells in me, in other words, warring against the law of my mind, there’s this battle, warring against the law of the mind, because carnal human nature doesn’t want to live God’s way of life, we resist God’s way of life.  It’s natural to resist God’s way of life.   Human life doesn’t want someone telling them what to do all the time.  That’s just the way it is.  We want to do what we think is right.  That’s what God says, “You want to do what you think is right.  See, you need to learn to do what I tell you is right.”

...and bringing me into the captivity of the law of sin which is in my members. And this is when he cried out; O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death? Then he goes on to thank God through Jesus Christ, he says it’s through Jesus Christ it’s going to happen.  This is not a bad thing.  It mentions the same thing, that one word, ‘O wretched man that I am’ – is mentioned one more time.  It’s only used twice in scripture, one more time in Revelation when it talks about Laodicea.  Their fault, their problem was they were ‘rich and increased with goods’, they thought they were better than what they were because of all the knowledge God had given them through Philadelphia, and He told them their failing was not to recognize, ‘O wretched man that I am’.  Because when human beings are apart from God, that’s what we are.  And if you deeply believe that then you cry out to God with greater fervency, greater desire, “I need you, I need Your life, I need your help in my life to change.”  We can’t do this on our own, we have to have God’s spirit to change the way we think toward people and the way we speak toward people in conversations or arguments and we have to get rid of those things, learn how to deal with others in a godly manner not a normal human carnal manner.

Going back here to Ezekiel 5:4 - these things are about the Church, talking about a remnant, talking about being merciful, that not a one of us has deserved this. And so if you truly deeply see yourself, ‘O wretched man that I am...”  ...or woman... you come to believe those things with all your being, that’s the way you think toward God and that’s the way you understand toward God, that this is the way we are as human beings, that you recognize in a deeper way how much you need God, then again we’ve come to appreciate and understand the mercy of God that much more.  Because I know... I know me...not as well as God knows me, but He shows me even as I continue to grow, shows me things that must change or that we continue to work on.  Because you see, as long as you are in this physical body you have things to work on, until it’s over with.  And then you’re given a different body, a spirit body, and you don’t have these battles anymore, you don’t have this war going on in you anymore.  Life changes and you’re more at one with God because you have that mind and that unity and oneness with God for life everlasting. It’s an awesome thing.

So how thankful are you?  How much have you come to understand the mercy of God, those of you who are a part of the remnant?  Because you see, everyone else that’s been called in the last few years, you weren’t a part of the remnant, you weren’t a part of that which came through the apostasy in the Church.  See?  ...and that which is left over, the remnant, the small amount after the apostasy that was able to continue on with the truth.  Very few of us on the earth.  Very few of you here today represent all this part of Europe.  How incredible is that?  That’s why people look and say, “You’ve got to be kidding! This is all the bigger you are?  This is it?!  You’ve got to be really warped!”  And that’s what people think.

Thankfully two more weeks...so the world can see, so it can be their time, so they can come to repentance, so they can come to see and understand the mercy of God, that God intervened like He said He would, that He stopped mankind from annihilating himself and that he can begin to live a right life, no longer wondering about their religious beliefs, of all the thousands and thousands of ideas and churches and beliefs out here in the world.  And now to know, because He’s here!  You can’t quibble any longer, “Is He the Passover?  Is He the Messiah?”  Because it’s going to be known!  Everyone is going to have the ability to know it!

Two short weeks!  Well, a little bit longer, see, because by the time you have services here it could well go beyond a few hours.

Then take of them and cast them into the midst of the fire, talks about binding them and then take of them again, (verse 4) this small amount, and cast them in the midst of the fire and burn them in the fire; meaning trial.  It’s not over with yet, okay?  My battles didn’t end.  Your battles didn’t end after you became a part of the remnant.  It’s a part of life that we go through trials.  That’s what refines us.  That’s why God uses the examples of gold being melted, and silver, and the dross, because it’s heated up so much that the dross, the impurities that aren’t a part of the pure silver come to the top because of the temperature, and then they can scrape off, skim off the top that which is not a part.  And God uses that example in scripture, that this is what trials are like, that there are things you can’t see in life until you go through a trial, a hardship that brings it to the surface so you can see things that are impure in your mind, in your life.  And then you can’t hide them anymore because they’re out in the open.

Perhaps you’ve said something, done something, whatever, perhaps you’ve reacted wrong to a trial, whatever it is, and then you can see that reaction and then come to understand the wrong thinking there that must be repented of before God, and it comes through trials.  Life wasn’t meant to be easy.  Physical life is not meant to be easy; it’s filled with trials when it comes to God’s way of life.  It’s going to get a whole lot better in the future because there won’t be doubts and misunderstandings and deception anymore. Satan is not going to be around anymore. The demons aren’t going to be around anymore.  That in itself is a marvelous thing.  What an awesome thing!

I’m so thankful that being is about to be dealt with, who has deceived mankind for 6,000 years – hideous – taken people into wars, been the cause of many wars, of stirring up people, the atrocities, the ugliness of some of those things, people who are literally even possessed by that being himself and by others.  And people think, “Possession?!  Is that possible...”  Yeah, it’s possible.

And then it goes on to say here, and burn them with fire; for thereof shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel. It’s spiritual.  Everyone’s going to be tried.  This is not over just because the apostasy came...it’s going to be stirred up more now, people are going to be tried more than ever before now – a lot of fire to try people, what they are.

And then a new thought, verse 5 - Thus says the Lord Eternal; This is Jerusalem:  or the Jerusalem, that I have set in the midst of the nations and the countries that are round about her. Small, but God says, “Here she is, and I’ve set her in the nations.”  Wherever people are called all over the world.   That’s why we had the name before in Philadelphia, ‘Worldwide Church of God’, because Mr. Armstrong was inspired to change the name to fit what God was doing at that time; a work that was going throughout the world.  8 Million ‘The Plain Truth’ magazines going out to all the world, incredible!  Largest TV and radio broadcasting in the world at that time of any religious organization. Mr. Armstrong being invited to visit world leaders all over the world, things that were taking place at that time.  Awesome what the Church has lived through thru time, because Jerusalem was in the midst of the world and the world didn’t accept her.  This is what he’s talking about here.

This is the Jerusalem that I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her.  And this is what happened then at this point in time, a punishment that was going to take place, a scattering that was going to take place, and God...and it’s still out there, all over the world, not scattered in one location but everywhere that they are, scattered a little bit here and a little bit there.  That which we’ve talked about that’s become Sodom and is Egypt and that which is a part of the remnant that has continued on.

And she has changed My judgments into wickedness more than the nations: What is God saying there?  He’s saying, this Jerusalem that I have set in the midst of the nations – we’ve come to the point in the first few verses here of an apostasy, of that which is totally destroyed.  We’ve talked about this in times past, how uncanny it was – this is what helped – God used this to help to begin to see what had happened to us, that we’d actually had an apostasy, was to recognize that one third of the Church went back to Protestantism after Mr. Tkach gave that sermon.  It happened rapidly.  Another third just quit – because what do you do?  What do you do when you’ve known the truth, you’ve believed the truth, and then the organization you’re a part of changes? You’ve known throughout your whole life that this is the only organization where the truth exists, that is where God’s Church is, so what do you do?  You can’t go back into anything in the world because you know it’s not of the truth.  So you just disregard it all because if this wasn’t it then there’s nothing...then there’s nothing... and people were lost, didn’t know what to do, just quit, kind of gave up on everything.  And another third was scattered into all the different organizations that are out there that still tried to hold onto the Sabbath, the Holy Days, a resemblance of things that Mr. Armstrong had taught the Church and so forth.  Uncanny.  A third and a third and a third.  It’s incredible, the numbers!

And so He said, They have changed My judgments into wickedness more than the nations: Why does God say that?  Because it says what the Church did is worse than what the Gentiles do. That’s what He’s saying!  The condemnation upon you is far worse than what the gentile – and that word just means non-believers – than all the rest of the world has done, because of what you’ve done.  And the reason being is because we all have God’s spirit, they don’t.  It’s understandable if someone of various kinds of religions continue in the way they... they can’t help it, they were taught something at birth, they grew up in a certain location and whatever that religion was in that area that’s basically what they reflect.  You grow up here in this part of the world this is what you believe.  You grow up in certain other part, you grow up in the deep south in the U.S. and if it’s going to be religious I can tell you two or three of the churches you’re going to be associated with.  That’s just the way it is, they’re the majority.  And a certain kind of thinking that’s different from farther up north or different from out west in the U.S. and so wherever you are...  But you can’t help that, that’s what you are.

God is saying, “You knew better!  You had the truth!  You not only had the truth, you were far more than Israel was of old and Judah was of old because they were given the commandments at Mount Sinai and had them from then on, recorded and given as how to live life toward each other and toward God – laws of how to regulate relationships and family and family life – but they weren’t able to keep it.”  We’ve done far worse than that because they didn’t have God’s spirit, we do.  So to turn against God once you have God dwelling in you, the impregnation of God dwelling in you, is far more a matter of judgment in a strong, strong way, to treat lightly what so very few on earth have ever been given.  And that was the condemnation that God was giving here.  He’s saying, “Look what you have done!”

And the scattered Church today can’t even begin to comprehend that, they can’t begin to acknowledge such a thing.  They hate hearing such a thing when they’re told anything like that. When they’re told you were guilty of the apostasy, you’re guilty of becoming lukewarm; you were guilty in your sins for contributing to what happened.  You were guilty and you had to be vomited out of God’s mouth as it says in Revelation about the Church of Laodicea, the last era of the Church before the end would come.

So He’s saying here, your wickedness...You have changed My judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and My statutes more than the countries that are round about her: for they have refused My judgments and My statutes, they have not walked in them.  And what has happened in the last 3½ years especially, because what has happened since the apostasy is magnified in the last 3½ years.  Everything that God gave to His Church that was sent out there to the scattered Body has been rejected over and over and over again, and yet God’s blessed the Church to grow and grow and grow to where there is such a chasm in between.  You know Lazarus and the rich man – that gulf that’s in between is so great now between even the scattered Church and God’s Church because of what’s happened.

Verse 7 - Therefore thus says the Lord Eternal; Because you multiplied more than the nations. It’s talking about sin, because you multiplied sin, you increased sin, your sin is so much greater, that’s what He’s saying, that terminology used here, that are round about you, and have not walked in My statutes, have not held on to the trunk of the tree, the truth.  You know, some of the first articles that came out, like in ‘Time is Running Out’ and some of those things, we talked about holding onto the trunk of the tree.  What is the trunk of the tree?  The 21 Truths that God gave to the Church at that time; 18 through Mr. Armstrong.  Hold onto those things!  We failed to do it as a Church.  That’s what happened in the scattering.

You have not walked in My statutes, neither have kept My judgments, neither have done according to the judgments of the nations that are round about you; In other words, you’re worse!  And that’s difficult for a group of people to come to acknowledge and to admit, because they can’t even admit there’s been an apostasy yet.

Verse 8 - Therefore thus says the Lord Eternal; Behold, I, even I, am against you, no longer receiving favour, no longer receiving help, you’re on your own, except for a small group, a remnant.  And only by His mercy do we exist, because He had a purpose in what He’s doing through the remnant, to bring us to this time, that the Church would also always exist. God said the Church would never be able to be destroyed, it would always exist to the very end, but we’d be so incredibly small.

He says, I am against you and I will execute judgments in the midst of you in the sight of all the nations. And I will do in you that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do the like of it anymore; it’s never going to arise again.  There was one apostasy, one man of sin, one son of perdition that was to do what he did toward the end of the age, toward the end of time; the very thing that God said was to be a sign of the return of Jesus Christ, once the apostasy would take place.  That’s why I marvel at the number of days, the number of days from the time of the apostasy to the day Jesus Christ returns.  We’ve talked about that.  Awesome!

He says whereunto I will not do the like in it anymore because of all your abominations, because of what you’ve done.

It’s been easy oftentimes for the Church of God, for people in the Church through time, to go back in the Bible and read about things in the Old Testament, to read about the Israelites being led through the Red Sea and get on the other side and they’re already complaining and murmuring against God.  And the easy thing for us to do oftentimes is to look at a story like that and think, “How could they do that?!  He separated them from Egypt even, and the plagues that came, they quit coming upon both groups, even set them aside for a time and the last several plagues didn’t even come upon them but it just came upon the Egyptians, and then the blood on the doorposts, the final plague didn’t come upon any of them, and they were able to begin movement out of Egypt, to be freed, finally, from slavery, from Egypt.  And God took them up to the edge of the Red Sea and then He opened up the Red Sea – stories that people mock and laugh at, “Sure...”  They try to find a narrow area where... there’s no place like that through there anyway.  Mankind!  Incredible what people won’t believe.

And so God brought them up there, and we look at stories like that and we find out just on the other side they start murmuring and complaining against God, and we think (in our righteousness we think) because of what we can see, because we can see God’s love...  They couldn’t see!  They didn’t...  They weren’t even given the 10 Commandments until later on!  But even after they were given them you know what?  They were murmuring and complaining.  That’s always talked about, murmuring. Israelites are known for their murmuring, complaining.  All people do it, but we’re definitely known for it.

And we sometimes begin to think that we’re better than others.  Sometimes in the Church, if we’re not careful, we can begin to think because of what we know that we’re better than others.  Well, we’d better be living better than others – that’s a different matter.  It’s a matter to know that we’d better be living different than others, living by a way of life that indeed should be better than the world around us in how we treat each other and how we treat others in the world and how we think toward them.  That should be a given!  But to begin to think that we’re better than others, to look down upon others, to think, “How could they have done that?”?  That’s looking down on someone!  We ought to know how they could have done that!  Because they couldn’t help it.  They didn’t even have God’s spirit!

That’s why the condemnation is so great then, when you come to understand people who have God’s spirit, to turn against God!  What happened with the apostasy is incredibly unbelievable!  That human beings of that size of the Church in the world at that time, all over the world, could at one time, as a whole, two-thirds of it just turned against God overnight!  That’s basically what started happening in December of 1994 – thousands, tens of thousands of people overnight turning against God, turning against the truths of God. How do you think God took that?  He tells us how He took it.  It wasn’t a small thing.

But for us to get that through our minds, how horrifying, how horrible such a thing is...that’s another matter sometimes.  And so the remnant...to understand the mercy that God has given, to understand how we’ve been blessed – we better not look down upon those who were spewed out of God’s mouth thinking we’re better than them...than Living, United, or any of the others out there.  Whew!  That’s the wrong course of action!  Anybody who is a part of the remnant knows that as a whole, you know you’re here because of God’s mercy.  Because if you hadn’t have been pulled out of that – God uses the example of like a firebrand, like when you brand cattle and you put this brand in the fire to get it hot so you can brand an animal – He says, like a firebrand plucked out of the fire, that’s what we’re like.  We were being heated up in the fire and we had no way of escape except that God Himself pulled us out of it, otherwise we’d be where everyone else is, in one of the three groups - scattered without God, just without God because doing nothing, and the others gone back to Protestantism -  one of the three groups.

Verse 10 - Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of you... So people read this and think, “What a horrifying thing!  Cannibalism!”  Cannibalism!  No, it’s worse!  You know, sometimes we think about physical things and physical life being horrifying, and indeed they are. This very example here is being given to see what they did is far worse than the nations. (Two more weeks.  That seems a little surreal too, doesn’t it.)

But the very reason for this example here is to show something, such a contrast of something that’s so insane.  God is showing this for this very purpose, so it shocks the mind!  Cannibalism?!  ...and a parent eating their own child?!  That’s a horrible! ...you can’t conceive of such a thing!  And neither should we conceive of what the Church did, that someone with God’s spirit, impregnated with God’s spirit, could turn against God!  That’s how insane it is!

And so is this, but this is a spiritual thing – parents eating - the example given here – is done spiritually, has been done spiritually within the Church.  People who have swayed others to go with them to leave the Church – eaten them up, destroyed them.  You’re responsible.  Perhaps a child toward a parent, or a parent toward a child – that’s the example being given here – you pull them away from the truth of God, they came with you because of influence, because of their trust in you or because of family.  You know, I saw so many people when the apostasy did come and people went in these three different directions – the thing that was repeated over and over and over again was not because as a whole... the scattering was a little different because there was a little bit of conviction there because of wanting to hold onto the truth of the past, but very weak.  But the other group, the one that was going to give up and leave, and the other that was going back to Protestantism, there was something that happened over and over again there that I am a little shocked about but I understand it.  People didn’t make choices by conviction of the truth, or what they believed, they did what they did because of family and friends, because maybe one who was a little more predominant, dominant in the relationship was going to go do one thing and swayed others into doing it.  Others followed, and it wasn’t because of convictions, it was because of relationships.

That’s what this is referring to; that if you lead someone away from the truth you’re guilty of this, of destruction in a hideous way before God.  So He says it in a hideous way physically so we can begin to grasp what it means spiritually, if we can.  That’s why God uses examples of adultery as idolatry, of how horrible it is in marriage for someone to go outside and have an affair outside of marriage.  He says that’s what it is in a relationship with Him, to play around with other ideas out here that don’t come from Him.  He says its adultery.  But today in the world the world’s not even abhorred by adultery anymore so can’t even use that example for scripture as a whole!  Isn’t that horrible?  Amazing!

Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of you and the sons shall eat the fathers; and I will execute judgments in you, and the whole remnant of you will I scatter into all the winds. Now, I said in the previous verse here... this is not talking about the remnant, earlier, this is a different terminology that’s being used through here.  This is not the remnant of verse 3, speaking of those who are protected by the wings, this is going on and telling a story of what happens afterwards, after the three split that takes place and a remnant that’s saved out of all that that’s protected by God, and then now it’s talking about what happens to the rest of the Body, if you will, the group of people out there.

I don’t know how to put this...maybe I can put it in this way too – something began to happen in the Church that I was a little puzzled by at times wondering what was taking place, because in the mind, if you think about people having gone back to Protestantism, if they’re there, they’re gone.  For some who have gone out and just quit – they’re out there, they’re gone.  But you know what?  God’s called a lot of people back – not from the scattering of the one third that was scattered into some of the different groups, God has called some back out of some of those at different times, but relatively small numbers.  I haven’t compared numbers, I don’t work with those in this area, but there have been a lot of people that just had given up and quit because what do you do - until finally something’s shocked them and they came back.  Some who were a part of going into Protestantism or staying in Worldwide, and a lot longer when they went into Protestantism.  God has called some out of all three areas, and I have been a little baffled by that, trying to understand that because of Ezekiel, basically, until recent time, that the story goes on and God tells what He’s going to do now with all three groups basically, is what He’s showing.  That just because of what happened in the beginning, this is what took place, God still has a plan of saving, in time, what can be saved, and what He must deal with in judgment as well.

So, when it says the whole remnant of you will I scatter into all the winds – now He’s talking about everything.  This is spiritually in every way and any kind of dealing with God, it’s everything that’s scattered.  And everybody is scattered, that’s always been that way, more and more; that’s something that’s increased through time.  This is the whole remnant of what is left; again, which includes only what God is counting.  I want to add this to it, what this is talking about.  It includes only what God is counting as the whole remaining remnant that He is counting.  In other words, what happened initially we’re able to look at and say, okay, we had 96,000 baptized.  96,000 baptized, that’s about what was baptized at that point in time, 32,000 have gone back to Protestantism, 32,000 have just quit, and 32,000 out here are scattered in all the different groups.  That’s about what it came down to.

But now God is showing something here in this area that there is that which He considers to be a part that He’s going to work with that candidly leads us up to what it’s talking about in Revelation.  Because we have always known in times past, in Philadelphia, that not everyone who came was really a part.  They hadn’t...  how can I say it.  That’s it - they weren’t really a part - they weren’t a part of the Body.  They were there, they went under the water but something didn’t take.  That happens in life sometimes, it’s just one of those things, maybe for the wrong reason, maybe somebody grew up in the Church, as an example, and they get baptized only because this is what you do: when you get 18-19-20 you get baptized in the Church.  But that doesn’t mean this is what they wanted. It doesn’t mean that this is what their conviction was, that this is what they wanted to live by.  They went through the motions to please parents or to please friends and so forth.  And so maybe that helps to understand a little bit of this.

So, not everyone is God counting as a part of this portion now.  If you look at 70,000 as a whole remnant that God is dealing with, that God is going to...because He’s talking now about a group out here that He’s going to work with that’s scattered into all the winds.  They’re in every area.  There are some who have gone back to Protestantism and some who are not doing anything and some who are in some of the scattered groups out here.  And if God calls that His remnant and He says there are 70,000 in Jerusalem, then there are 70,000 in Jerusalem.  And if God says I’m going to take a portion of this – because they’re not going to live through – because it’s going to be used as an example of something to shake and stir and bring to repentance the rest...then what an awesome thing.  So be it.  It’s a whole lot better than the overwhelming majority not being able to live on into a new age and having to wait until the Great White Throne.  What an awesome thing if indeed God works everything out like this – that’s where it’s going.

So again, 70,000 as a whole remnant is possible indeed, the whole number with whom God was working at the time that the Church was re-established as the Church of God – PKG on Pentecost 1998, who were alive, if you will, at this time.  Because a lot of people have died at different points in time along the way.  And so God is talking about a base group of people here that leads up to the end-time that He is going to work with.

You know, this is an awesome thing, to understand that God does the calling, He plans so far ahead of time whom He’s going to call, how He’s going to call them.  He works with us in different ways in our life and we don’t even know it, to bring us to a point in time... that He doesn’t just put everything into a little box here and shake it up and say, “Let’s see what falls out today.  Oh yeah, their names...”  No, God works with people, He moulds and fashions us to call us in His time, and it’s by design.  He works with us in life and He has a purpose for all of us.  He sustains a universe out there that we cannot comprehend – billions, billions...we talked about one star – trillions out there and we don’t comprehend it.  What about mankind?  Are we less?

If you understand the importance of mankind and how God is working with mankind, He is able to deal with human beings.  I can’t comprehend working with more than one at a time as a whole.  I can’t, because I’m limited; God isn’t.  And because He isn’t so often people can’t accept the truth of the might and the power and the majesty and the greatness of Almighty God.  That doesn’t change the truth.

So, He’s able to work with and is right now, billions of people on the earth, in His time...getting ready to call a whole bunch of them.  And not only that, even more so focused upon....  I find this a marvel, I really do, that God’s focus still – people who sacrificed, who gave, who lived this way of life through Philadelphia, into Laodicea, some who didn’t come along until the era of Laodicea after Mr. Armstrong died, different ones out there.  We can’t comprehend the love, the relationship that God had with them.  We can begin to strive to.

I’ve often talked about a song that speaks of ‘walking to God’s House side by side and council blended sweet’.  And it talks about the friend, ‘his speech more smooth than butter was, yet in his heart was war,’ something changed.  And I think of all the times in different areas – I’ve been in different Church areas – I think of Houston, the congregation we were in back in the late 70’s, close to 600 people in that one congregation.  And walking to God’s House side by side, the friendships, how you got to know people, how you get to know people in a large group like that, some far more than others, obviously, but still know them and you’re there and you do things together, you draw closer together.  When you’re in a big group like that there’s a lot more you can do too because you’re closer together in various cities and so forth.  And I think of the love, I think of the yearning I’ve had over the years here to see people come back.  I’ve so yearned for, I’ve talked about it in many sermons, about people I’ve known who are going to be able to come back and share with us and at least go into... even those who can just come into the Millennium in the beginning here, and those who can’t in the Great White Throne.  I look forward to embracing them when their minds are brought back to being able to see what they did and they repent of that.  Because they will, as a whole.  That’s what they’re going to do when they see what has happened.

And I can’t express... My wife and I have talked about different families at times we would so love to see brought out of all this because of the friendships and relationships we had.  God’s is so much more!  Can we comprehend something like that?  That whatever feelings you have towards others, that God’s is so much more.  He’s working with every one of them.  He has a desire for every one of them.  He started a work in every one of them.  He called them to what?  ...as we read earlier....to salvation, to succeed.  And so His desire, far above what ours can be – indeed it’s going to be one of mercy because His love is so great in what He’s going to accomplish.

And I’ll tell you what, there is a being out there that this just perturbs the tar out of and I’m just tickled pink about that one because I like to see him perturbed and torment himself, as God says he’s going to be and is.  Satan.  This is not good news for him because he has been wafting in the thought of success, “Finally!  Look what I have done to His Church!”  He’s always fought against everything that God has done from the very beginning starting with Adam and Eve, and the children all the way up through Abel, righteous Abel as it talks about, all the way up through time as God has worked with various people through time.  You think of different situations.  And now, where we are, the blessing of seeing so many come along like this because God does have such a great love for them.  I lost my train of thought there but anyway, let’s go on.  I have a little bit more here, I’m not going to get as far as I thought today.  I can’t have three parts I don’t think.... anyway... pre-recorded maybe?

Verse 11 - Wherefore, as I live, says the Lord Eternal; Surely, because you have defiled My Sanctuary with all your detestable things: Awesome what it’s saying here. Again...says the Lord Eternal; Surely, because you have defiled My Sanctuary... What could better describe what happened to the Church?  ...you defiled My Sanctuary, where we dwell, where God dwells, in His Temple.  Now we understand when it talks about  the Temple, Jerusalem, Zion, Mount Zion, all the different examples that are used and it’s talking about God and His Sanctuary where He dwells, where He lives.  And it’s not a physical building He’s shown, He’s shown it’s in the Church, in the people, and finally in His Family and into eternity.

... because you have defiled My Sanctuary with all your detestable things: What are those things?  Well, it started with the apostasy, all the detestable things that teach against God’s way of life, that preach against this way of life, to tear down any truth at any point in time; things that happened even after the apostasy, of watering down when the Passover is - 14th/ 15th, the battle that went on there - Pentecost and how some tried to bring in different ideas of how to observe Pentecost and when to observe it at certain times when certain cycles come around.  You know, all this bickering and tearing down – that’s what God is talking about...with all your detestable things: things that we fought against in the beginning after the apostasy over and over again.  People in God’s Church who were talking about, “You’re going to go to heaven for 30 days.”  ...”Oh no, you’re going to go for 45 days.”  “...there are going to be some that go to heaven on Pentecost and they’re going to come back with Jesus Christ when He comes on Trumpets...”  and all the stupidity, battles that were going on out there.  And you finally get down to the point, “Not a one of you is going to heaven!  There’s only one, God says, that has ever went to heaven – Jesus Christ – went before God’s very throne!”  He’s coming here, Jesus Christ is, and God Almighty, His purpose and plan is to dwell in His Family for eternity.  It’s not about going to a place, this idea that people have of going to a place.

He says, you have defiled My Sanctuary with all your detestable things, and with all your abominations, therefore will I also diminish you. We were small as it was; 96,000 baptized, 150,000 in attendance approximately worldwide.  Diminished.  The apostasy came long and we have different groups out here, 15,000 the largest, 12,000 the next largest, 7,000 the next largest, different groups starting up in the beginning here, some other onesies and twosies.  It didn’t take very long and after a while we had 500 different groups out here in the scattering.  I think they’ve lost count now, its way over 600.

He says, I’ll diminish you, this is what we’re going to go through because of what we did.  God says, I’m going to diminish you.  And when the remnant...diminished, diminished, diminished.  That’s why I talk about the first time we had services after the apostasy and had such a small group of people remaining.  It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.  The hardest sermon I’ve ever given in my life, and it’s been that way, and we were that way for many, many years, small, small, some growth in different areas beginning to come in, like the Harrell’s back there, some of the first ones in a different area other than Cincinnati, that was quicker because they were right there and we’d been there before.  But Georgia area and then other areas started coming along and finally here in Europe – still small – God diminished us.  And all the different groups out here and all the battlers that have gone on they’ve constantly been diminished, splitting here, splitting there – on and on it goes – still don’t learn the lessons.

...you defile My Sanctuary with all your detestable things, and with all your abominations, therefore will I diminish you; neither shall My eye spare, neither will I have any pity. In other words, while you go through this, because you must go through it because you did this, you have to learn from this.  But His plan is still to save us out of it, those who can be delivered.

The next third mentioned in this chapter is spoken of in a different manner than verse 2, so you go on here, you’re reading verse 12 now.  It’s not the same part as the previous verse.  The normal thought would be its talking about the same thing.  No, it’s not.  He says... A third part of you shall die, spiritually dead as Sardis became dead, with pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of you: Do we understand what that is?  Pestilence?  Famine?  We should understand it as God’s people; we’ve had many sermons about that.  Famine – famine of God’s word, you don’t have God’s word anymore. What happens when you have famine?  And pestilence comes along – something comes along and eats the crops because there’s not much there and so often what happens the pestilence grows and the things that take place and it just eats up everything that’s there.  There’s nothing there for you to eat, there’s nothing for you to survive on.  That’s what it’s talking about here.

So, these are those who think they’re spiritually sound and strong.  Who’s that?  ...who think they’re spiritual sound and strong, who have looked down on God’s true remnant.  Awesome!  That’s what it’s about.  But they’re in famine and don’t even know it.  They’re not growing.  They’re trying to hold onto what they think is the past, something of the past.  They’ve been losing that.  They lost sight of what the Temple is a long, long time ago.  They don’t even know what the Temple is as a whole – a couple here and there that do.

...and a third part shall fall by the sword round about; these are those who have just gone the way of Protestantism but by fully misusing the word of God, if you will: and I will scatter a third part into all the winds and I will draw out a sword after them.  Those scattered who have willingly chosen to not be of any of the organized groups.  So totally, these thirds are used in a totally different way than the others and they’re not of any of those who have gone back into Protestantism or anything else. But it’s about God’s word, it’s about whether they have the ability to receive God’s word and where they are out there right now and what God’s going to do to bring them out.

Thus shall My anger be accomplished in you, God says it’s going to be fulfilled, it’s going to be accomplished, it’s going to end, and I will cause My fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted: in other words, we pay for sin.  You can be forgiven of sin but there’s still a penalty you pay, and something of this magnitude you can be brought to repentance, you can come to repentance, but there’s a penalty to pay for sin so often in life.

...and they shall know that I the Eternal have spoken it in My zeal, they’re going to come to understand, God says, in His time, that I’ve done this, when I have accomplished My fury in them. We’re almost to the end of it. Moreover I will make you a waste and a reproach among the nations that are round about you, in the sight of all who pass by....of all who have seen it for what it is, what it was before and see what it is now and the mocking and everything else that takes place.

So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, a mocking.  That’s how God’s Church has been treated, even the scattered Church of God.

...an instruction, notice this because it’s not just for now, it’s into the future.  How often have I talked about what we have gone through is going to be one of the most important, it will in essence it’s the major if you will, right to the top of lessons to be learned for people into the Millennium and the Great White Throne – what you can do with God’s spirit dwelling within you and what happened to a Church at the very end of time that’s to be a lesson and instruction from then on out.

You know, we have instruction written in here in different periods of time; what was given up to the time of Christ in the Old Testament is very physical as a whole for understanding for people.  When Christ came along He began to magnify the law and show that it was spiritual, and began to show that if you have hatred in your heart that’s murder, if you lust after a woman you’ve committed adultery in your heart already.  It’s about the mind.  And so He showed the magnification of the law.  It’s not just about physical law it’s about how you think in the first place. It starts in the mind and the mind has to change, your thinking has to change.  And so an incredible growth that began to take place.  And then what began to take place from then on as far as the apostles were concerned and things added to scripture. And it’s been that way, a progressive revelation by God of truth, and now we’re down to the end of time here and this, what’s written now, what’s going to be written about this period now is going to be one of the greatest lessons ever.

...an instruction and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about you, when I shall accomplish, the word mean’s ‘to accomplish’ judgments in you in anger and in fury, in ‘hot displeasure’ it means, and in furious, or ‘hot displeasure’ with rebukes. I the Eternal have spoken it.

Verse 16 - When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for their destruction, that’s what destroys in time; you don’t have any food you go by the wayside, you begin to become famished, without food.  ...and which I will send to destroy you: in other words, bring you to ruin, and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread:  it doesn’t get better it gets worse. So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts, and they shall make you barren, the word ‘bereave’ you, means that, make you barren; and pestilence and blood shall pass through you and I will bring the sword upon you.  I the Eternal have spoken it.  Not physical things!  Human beings, we tend to think physically!  We understand these things are spiritual.

Going back to Revelation; I want to read this right quick like one more time here in Revelation 11.  Let’s be reminded of what it says in Revelation 11 and then go back to the next segment of Ezekiel.  It speaks of those that God is dealing with in Revelation 11 who are classified as gentile, non-believers, Sodom and Egypt.

Revelation 11:13 - And the same hour, in other words, when the witnesses are resurrected, there was a great shaking, and the tenth part of the City fell, and in the shaking they were slain by name men/people, seven thousand: and the remainder, that which was left over; all the others in other words, were made afraid, brought to fear, and gave glory to the God of heaven. It’s an awesome thing!  What an incredible thing to understand what’s going to take place and how God is using that as something that’s going to bring the vast majority then, when it’s all said and done, to repentance, because then they see, then they understand what’s happened.  When they come to understand the apostasy, come to understand what’s happened with all the scattered groups and are brought back into a relationship with God again – but to live physically – they can’t be a part of the 144,000 but they get to live on into the Millennium.

Ezekiel 20:33 - As I live, says the Lord Eternal, surely with a mighty hand and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you: Again, speaking to the Church, some of the same things here we’ve talked about in times past in Ezekiel 20.  It’s talking about the Church and what’s happened because of the apostasy.

He says, with fury poured out will I rule over you. Now this is true physically as well for Israel, physical Israel and all the world, candidly, what’s going to take place and what God does at the end here. And I will bring you out from the people and will gather you out of the countries wherein you are scattered, so it gets very specific here, this is zeroing in on spiritual Israel, and with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face. In other words, bring them face to face with where they were with, in other words, where they are with all the people on earth.  In other words, this is what has happened to the earth at this point, when they see what’s taking place, when they see God had to intervene and do what He did.

You know, people in the Church, when Jesus Christ returns, when a nuclear war takes place, they’re going to know this is it!  Can you imagine you being a part of the Church in times past, in all the knowing of all the things you do and you see Europe does what it does and all of a sudden Russia and China do what they do and it happens so quickly and so powerfully and all of a sudden so much is destroyed... you’re going to know where you are in time!  And when you see something in the atmosphere that God said was going to happen and then it comes back to haunt you, all those things you knew...people are going to be brought to repentance quickly.

Because the rest of the world really doesn’t know yet, do they?  We thought they would come to know.  We thought there would be that out there with...that somebody would come to know.  Well, God has shown that by the time they’re going to come to know is exactly with His Son’s returning.  Then they’re going to know.  So they’re going to know where they are, the wilderness they’ve been in.

Verse 36 – And as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness in the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, says the Lord Eternal.  And I will cause of you to pass under the rod, you know what that’s about? A tenth.  It’s about a tenth.  Oftentimes it’s used in a different way, obviously, if you are to cause something to pass under the rod that you’re giving to God...it’s like the sheep, they go by the rod, every tenth one is God’s.  That’s what it’s talking about, passing under the rod.  They have a rod out here and they’re going under in the chute area, or whatever, and they’re going by, and every tenth one goes to God.  God was very specific – you don’t go through and pick out the bad ones, you just line them up and send them all through and every tenth one.  Because that’s the tendency of human beings too, we’ll give ten to God, okay, that one there and....  anyway.  So this way every tenth one that comes through there that’s the one that goes to God, there is no picking and choosing which is strong and which is weak and so forth.  It’s just this is it, okay?

...and I will cause of you, speaking of that Body, to pass under the rod and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant: You know what?  God’s showing us what the ten percent was; 7,000 that He’s setting aside, that He’s using in a different manner, and especially if you understand what happened after this, some of the things that took place and how God looks upon this, that I don’t have time to go through at the moment...

And I will purge out from among you, following a context here, a tenth, one every ten, And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and those who transgress against Me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they have been scattered, and they, the ten percent, shall not enter into the land of Israel: not yet.  In other words, there’s going to be a group that God says will not enter into, just as He didn’t let certain ones enter into the physical land of Israel, what was inherited.  There are going to be those who can’t go into the Millennium, but there are sure a whole lot more who are going to be able to now.  We’ll come back to this next Sabbath and continue on, build upon it.

It’s exciting!  It’s all about the mercy of God and what God has brought us to and what God is giving, and He’s shown that from the very beginning of the last 3½ years, and what an awesome way to end here – to realize that God has saved this to the very end to show us something even more exciting about the Church, and something that’s not too exciting to Satan, because he can’t relish in this anymore that he destroyed so much of God’s people, because God’s going to bring them along in His mercy.

~~~end