The following Scripture passages are offered to aid beginning fellowships. The readings and commentary for this week are more in line with what has become usual; for the following will most likely be familiar observations. The concept behind this Sabbath’s selection is not resisting.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of January 8, 2011
The person conducting the Sabbath service should open services with two or three hymns, or psalms, followed by an opening prayer acknowledging that two or three (or more) are gathered together in Christ Jesus’ name, and inviting the Lord to be with them.
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While he [the healed beggar] clung to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astounded, ran together to them in the portico called Solomon's. And when Peter saw it he addressed the people: “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His [child] Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And His name—by faith in His name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all. / And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets long ago. Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to Him in whatever He tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’ And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ God, having raised up his [child], sent Him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.” (Acts 3:11–26 emphasis added)
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Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come—from what Peter told the sons of the prophets, endtime disciples can deduce that repentance precedes the coming of the glorified Christ. Endtime disciples can also deduce that the glorified Jesus in heaven and from heaven will bless Israel by turning every one of you from your wickedness; hence this Jesus does spiritually [that is, in and from heaven] what John the Baptist did physically in preparing the way of the Lord.
How, from heaven, will the glorified Jesus cause Israel, the nation circumcised of heart, to repent when this spiritual nation sincerely believes that it has been made righteous through grace and has no further need to turn from its wickedness?
The functioning problem within greater Christendom is that of authority, or rather the lack of authority. Every Christian does what is right in the Christian’s eyes. Few believe the Father and the Son. And statistically none will admit that he or she needs to turn from how the individual Christian worships God, repent of the person’s present lawless ways, and rethink, reconsider foundational ideology.
In all things pertaining to Scripture, the visible reveals the invisible (Rom 1:20) and the physical precedes the spiritual (1 Cor 15:46). Moses preceded Christ Jesus, who was a “prophet” like Moses raised up from the tribe of Judah. All of the prophets spoke of Jesus before He came, and all of the disciples spoke [will speak] of Jesus before He comes again, thereby establishing the juxtaposition of prophets with the first disciples and the sons of prophets with endtime disciples. This juxtaposition has Scripture forming the physical shadow and copy of the heavenly Book of Life in which the lives of disciples are living epistles (2 Cor 3:3) written not with ink but with the breath of God … the two tablets of stone upon which the finger of the Lord wrote the commandments becomes the tablets of hearts and minds of disciples upon which the Torah is written under the New Covenant (Jer 31:33; Heb 8:10).
Moses spoke of Jesus (Deut 18:15–19) who would lead Israel, the nation circumcised of heart, into God’s rest as Joshua [in Greek— Jesus] led the children of Israel into the Promised Land, representing God’s rest, a euphemistic expression for entering into God’s presence (see Ex 33:14). And Peter spoke of the glorified Jesus turning every Israelite from his or her wickedness (Acts 3:26), which is another way of saying, turning “the disobedient to the wisdom of the just” (Luke 1:17), what the angel Gabriel told Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, that John would do.
Concerning John, Jesus said to the crowd that “‘if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who is to come’” (Matt 11:14). Therefore, in the glorified Jesus, in and from heaven, is both Moses and Elijah here on earth, what Peter, James, and John [James’ brother] saw in the transfiguration (Matt chap 17).
Taking meaning from Scripture via typological exegesis separates Philadelphians from the other named churches to whom letters were written that are to be delivered on the day of the Lord; i.e., when the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man. Philadelphia’s form of typological exegesis holds that those things recorded in Scripture form the left hand enantiomer of the Book of Life [the right hand enantiomer], with the polarized light necessary to comprehend these enantiomorphs coming from the parakletos— from John 14:26], the spirit holy [pneuma hagion] that will teach disciples all things. To receive indwelling life from God the Father through receipt of His breath [pneuma Theon] in the vessel that is the breath of Christ [pneuma Christos] (cf. Rom 6:23; Rom 8:9, 11), with these two “breaths” functioning as a single second breath of life that raises the inner self from death, thereby causing the one who hears Jesus’ word [message] and believes the One who sent Jesus to pass from death [the natural state of the inner self in every physically living human being] to life without coming under judgment until after life is received (John 5:24) — to receive indwelling eternal life transforms the mind, changing its natural focus on physical things (the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions — 1 John 2:16) to a new focus on the things of God (see Rom 8:5–8).
On what does greater Christendom focus? The family and family relationships here on earth. Peace here on earth. Helping neighbor and brother. Prayers to God for the things of this world. Is there any focus on God, on believing God, on thanking God for persistent trials while knowing that God already knows that the Christian has need of food, shelter, clothing, that the Christian need not badger God about providing for the Christian or eliminating trials or 99% of those things for which Christians pray?
It is the present focus of greater Christianity that is wrong, from trying to add members to a particular sect or denomination to mingling the sacred with the profane in activities, in worship, in prayers, in a way of life that is not of God or even godly … there is no such creation as a Gentile Christian. There are Gentiles, the people of the nations, some of whom are pious and of good character. And then there are Christians, who walk as Jesus walked, with hearts cleansed by faith and circumcised by spirit, living as spiritual Judeans in a carnal world.
Christians form fractals of Christ Jesus, thereby making Jesus as the First of the firstborn sons of God, the very image of every Christian. Jesus becomes by being the last Adam (1 Cor 15:45; Rom 5:14), the first human being to receive a second breath of life, the breath of the Father [pneuma Theon— from Matt 3:16], as Adam was the first to become a nephesh, a breathing creature, when Elohim [singular in usage] breathed life into the man of mud’s nostrils (Gen 2:7). Hence, as every person bears the likeness and image of Adam and of Seth, who was Adam’s son in his own likeness, every Christian bears the image and likeness of Jesus the Nazarene and of the first disciples that walked as Jesus walked, with manifested actions and beliefs by firstborn sons of God replacing physical appearance of the sons of Adam to create “likeness.” In other words, if a Christian doesn’t walk as Jesus walked, the “Christian” lies about his or her ancestry and is not born of God but is a son of the devil who has usurped the name, the authority, of Christ Jesus.
The person who bears the “name” of another acts by the authority invested in that name: to call oneself a “Christian” requires that the person walk as Jesus walked, which means living as an outwardly uncircumcised Judean in a world hostile to all things Jewish, with persecution coming from both Gentiles and Jews and that bastardized division of humankind identifying itself as Gentile Christians.
The natural mind is a slave of disobedience [lawlessness], with those things upon which the natural mind focuses—the appetites of the belly and the loins—preventing the person from seeing and understanding and implementing the things of God. Simply put, the person who has not yet been born of God (i.e., who hasn’t yet received a second breath of life) cannot comprehend the things of God regardless of how badly the person wants understanding. Diligent study and careful scholarship will not give to the person who has not been born of God understanding of the things of God … understanding is denied through absence of the parakletos. So it is not to rabbinical Judaism or to any lawless Christian theologian to whom a person seeking knowledge of God should go. It is to Christ Jesus, the First of the firstborn sons of God that the one seeking knowledge is to go.
No Christian has to do Jesus’ job of calling a person for Him. Jesus is perfectly capable—more than capable—of calling whom the Father wants as a firstborn son in this pre-Tribulation era. Thus, Christian outreach ministries usually serve as Christian hindrances that divert intended sons of God away from the Father and the Son until the Son of Man is revealed, when grace is stripped away, and all self-identified Christians are filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God, thereby liberating Christians from indwelling sin and death.
Today, January 8, 2011, Christians do what is right in their own eyes. Among firstborn sons of God, anarchy reigns as it did among the children of Israel in the wilderness (Deut 12:8) even while Moses led this physical firstborn son of God (see Ex 4:22) … Moses’ presence, concealed by a veil representing Moses having entered into the presence of the Lord, wasn’t enough to prevent either the nation numbered in the census of the second year (Num chap 1) or the sons of this nation from doing what every person thought was right in his [or her] own eyes. The authority Moses possessed through his name/position was not sufficient to prevent Israel or the children of Israel from walking in their own ways and profaning the Sabbath (Ezek 20:10–21).
The present authority Jesus possesses through His name is not sufficient to prevent Christians from walking in their own ways, profaning the Sabbath, mingling the sacred with the profane thereby blaspheming the Father and the Son.
When every person does what is right in the person’s own eyes anarchy exists. But anarchy cannot long exist. Evildoers don’t become model citizens, but rather continue in their evildoing, involving more and more people in their evil deeds, until they can no longer be tolerated and the people embrace centralized authority that is strong enough to be a terror to evildoers. Democracy doesn’t emerge from anarchy. Rather, emperors or party chairmen or fuhrers [guides] emerge, none of whom claim a divine right to rule as kings claim, but the right of princeps, the right of being the nation state’s “first citizen.”
Democracies and republics and even constitutional kingdoms emerge from tyrannical reigns by kings claiming the divine right of kings, or in more easily understood words, that God gave to the king his unquestioned authority to rule the people and the land.
In application, there is very little difference between how a king claiming divine right and a fuhrer exercising auctoritas principis reigns over a people. The difference comes from how the individual’s authority to govern was created: as the term implies, divine right comes from God, thereby making the king responsible before God for the actions of his subjects. In other words, in a divine right kingdom, the king in his personhood represents the entirety of the nation, thereby covering in his actions and deeds the acts and deeds of his subjects so that he alone gives an accounting to God for what the nation does or doesn’t do.
With authority comes responsibility; with ultimate authority comes ultimate responsibility.
When Christ Jesus comes as the Messiah, exercising the authority of being King of kings and Lord of lords, Christ Jesus will bear responsibility for every act of every person through the Millennium, just as the Adversary, the present prince of this world, bears responsibility for every act presently committed in this world. And because Christ Jesus will, when He comes as the Messiah, be held accountable for every person, He will place His mind in each person through having baptized the world in spirit when the kingdom is given to the Son of Man.
When a dictator or dictatorial party emerges from anarchy, that dictator has no right to claim that his authority to rule comes from God. In the 20th-Century, that dictator’s authority has come from the barrel of a gun. Thus, dictators, as opposed to kings, exercise auctoritas principis, the Latin term for the authority claimed by the Caesars when power was taken from the Roman Republic, but not all at once.
Christianity is presently in a state of anarchy—
As “First” of the firstborn sons of God, Christ Jesus exercises the right of princeps, again the title that Roman emperors held as “first citizen” of Rome. And the descriptive term for the authority that accompanies being “First” is auctoritas principis, and it is as the supreme moral authority—the best understanding of auctoritas principis—that Christ Jesus reigns over disciples in this era before He comes as King of kings and Lord of lords, when He will no longer be the First of the firstborn sons of God but will be, instead, the Bridegroom who marries the glorified Bride and exercises the right of “husband” over the saints and as “king” over human beings.
Again, the relationship that the glorified Jesus presently has with disciples who have indwelling spiritual life is that of being princeps, the First of the firstborn sons of God, and this relationship comes as the outgrowth of anarchy, where the children of Israel did what was right in their own eyes while in the wilderness and where Israel in the Promised Land did what was right in its eyes:
In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. (Judges 17:6)
In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25)
When there is no king in the land, anarchy prevails, with anarchy eventually being rejected in favor of authoritarian rule, that of princeps, the rule of a “first citizen” where the citizenry retains theoretical freedom through its first citizen. Hence, we see in present day Europe and will shortly see in the United States the emergence of anarchy coming from fiscal irresponsibility, with this anarchy being intentionally created by Marxists who sincerely believe that international socialism is the answer to humanity’s present problems.
How to seize power in the name of the people has never been a secret, at least not since the days of the Caesars. All that has been needed is a good crisis … again, constitutional monarchies, republics, democracies, or any variation of autocratic rule in the name of the people, such as National or International Socialism—all claim similar power as the Roman emperors claimed, and this power is based on auctoritas principis rather than the divine right of kingship. While in practice the difference between auctoritas principis and divine kingship isn’t significant, how the authority to govern is developed differs greatly; for in a divine kingship such as King Saul had, or King David had, or any of the ensuing kings had, the king represented the people before God … all of the nation was represented in the personhood of the king; thus, a righteous king meant a righteous nation regardless of whether the citizenry repented of their evil deeds or not. It was the king’s responsibility to address evildoers and idolaters. If the king was himself an idolater, the nation was an idolatrous nation. However, if the king turned to God as Josiah did, keeping the Passover as it hadn’t been kept since the days of the judges (2 Kings 23:21–22), then the Lord bestowed favor on the nation.
When every person does what is right in his or her own eyes, no centralized authority exists: the Lord has not placed an authority superior (from Rom 13:1) over the people, and every person must stand or fall before the Lord on his or her own righteousness … the righteousness of a righteous king “covers” the king’s subjects, who are not freemen. Likewise, the lawlessness of a king “covers” the lawlessness of his subjects, who are again, not freemen. Thus, the king takes upon himself the lawlessness of a nation. But when the ruler of the people is the servant of the people, the people collectively take responsibility for national lawlessness or righteousness onto themselves. This is why national repentance by Israel under the judges was necessary; for the judges did not hold auctoritas principis.
The above redundancy is necessary for a dark reason: as long as the United States of America remains a functioning republic, with civil authorities exercising rule as servants of the people, the citizenry of the nation collectively bear responsibility for the nation’s lawlessness before God, and the citizenry of the nation as auctor will be slain at the Second Passover liberation of Israel.
When the citizenry of a nation state holds auctoritas principis, the collective citizens of the nation claim to be the “first citizen” of the nation, or the “firstborn” of the nation. Hence, the collective citizens of the nation must cover themselves by the blood of the Lamb of God by taking the sacraments of bread and wine on the 14th of Abib, or if defiled, on the 14th of Iyyar, or the collective citizens of the nation state as the uncovered firstborn of the nation will suddenly die on the day of the Second Passover liberation of Israel.
Christians within the Tea [Taxed Enough Already] Party movement that are presently striving to return the American Federal government to its constitutional bag need to fail, not something that any Philadelphian necessarily personally desires.
When Peter and John encountered the beggar at the Beautiful Gate, the day of Pentecost had already past. John the Baptist’s ministry had not turned “the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared” (Luke 1:17). Neither had Jesus’ earthly ministry. If either John or Jesus had prepared a people for the Lord, there would have been no need for Peter to tell the people at the temple to, Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out. So John the Baptist could only be a type of the one who would make ready for the Lord a people prepared as Moses was a type of Christ Jesus, with Jesus leading sons of God into heaven as Moses and Joshua lead Israel through the wilderness of Sin and the sons of Israel into God’s rest (from Ps 95:10–11).
As John the Baptist preached repentance in preparing the way of the Lord, another will come preaching repentance as John preached repentance. But this one who will come does not simply preach repentance, but will cause the sons of the disciples to repent by “baptizing” Israel in spirit—the breath of God [pneuma Theon]—thereby liberating the holy ones from indwelling sin and death. This “Israel” will be the nation circumcised of heart, and this one who will come is the last Elijah, of whom John the Baptist was a type; for this one to come does indeed turn “‘the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared’” (Luke 1:17).
John the Baptist came baptizing with water for the death of the lawless old man or old self, which a person kills by demonstrated obedience after the model of Abraham who, by faith, “obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance” (Heb 11:8). Abraham, in obedience, “went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in a land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise” (vv. 8–9). Faith is belief manifested in obedience … Abraham obeyed by faith and had his belief that caused him to obey counted to him as righteousness. But his belief, his faith that was counted to him as righteousness was not complete until it was tested in obedience in the land of Moriah, where he was commanded to sacrifice Isaac (cf. Gen 22:1–12; Jas 2:21–24).
Until tested, faith/belief [pistos] is incomplete. To be made complete, faith will be manifested in obedience … it is not enough for a Philadelphian to say that he or she believes that time is short, that the end of the age is near, and then continue living as if there were no end to this present age. The person by his or her actions demonstrates that the person really doesn’t believe the end of the age is at hand. This is not to say that a Philadelphian should sell all that he or she has and sit on a mountainside awaiting Christ’s return—that is foolishness of the highest order. This is to say, however, that a Philadelphian should consider or have considered how he or she will supply to the person and to his or her family basic necessities such as food, water, clothing, shelter when (not if) society as presently organized collapses. Yes, God will provide what the person cannot. But God didn’t provide Noah with the Ark, nor did God miraculously slay Sihon, king of Heshbon, or Og, king of Bashan. The children of Israel had to swing swords and plunge spears in faith that the Lord would give the victory to them, which He did.
Again, to be made complete, faith/belief must be tested in obedience even when common sense would have disobedience seem the wiser choice.
Preaching repentance is really not difficult, unless the ones who hear sincerely believe they have no need to repent. Then preaching repentance is preaching sedition—
Beginning earlier than its 1956 booklet, 1975 in Prophecy, the former Worldwide Church of God [then Radio Church of God] preached a doomsday scenario for the United States of America and Great Britain if both nations did not repent of their lawless ways, return to God, and begin keeping the commandments. The rhetoric of just that one booklet alone—1975 in Prophecy—should have frightened the lawless, but its claims, such as the following one, never came to pass: “human life will be erased from the earth in 25 years” (p. 3), that is by 1981.
There was no hydrogen bomb attack, led by Germany, made on the United States of America or on any other nation in the years between 1956 and 1981, or since. There was no severe famine in North America in 1975 or even earlier as Herbert W. Armstrong claimed there would be in the booklet, 1975 in Prophecy. Yes, in that booklet Armstrong foresaw the softening of a leisure-oriented America, but most every generation has thought that its youth were soft and seeking only pleasure. On a cuneiform tablet from ancient Mesopotamia, a father complained that all his son wanted to do was race chariots around the city square. So in Armstrong’s many calls for the English-speaking peoples of the world to repent, return to God, and seek righteousness, Armstrong did what John the Baptist did, only not well enough to get himself killed as John got himself killed.
The reason why Armstrong was unable to get himself killed by preaching repentance to America lay in the people of the United States still holding auctoritas principis, the “authority of the first citizen,” the authority that Caesar claimed for himself when he usurped power, taking to himself the authority to govern Rome that the citizens of Republic had collectively held … in what will seem horribly repetitious, let it be said again: when the rulers of a nation are the servants of the people, it is the people collectively that are the sovereigns of that nation. It is the people as auctor that rule either directly as in a democracy, or indirectly as in a republic. It is the people collectively that constitutes the first citizen of the nation, and theologically becomes the firstborn son of the nation, the son that is to be redeemed so as not to be slain by God. Hence, in a democracy or in a republic where the citizens of the nation hold the reins of power, the citizenry as a single “man” represents the nation before God as an ancient king of Israel, or king of Judah represented that nation before God. In a democracy and in a republic, God treats individuals as individuals only when they are His firstborn sons. All other individuals collectively form a single individual, the nation state; for these individuals jointly hold the authority of a king or emperor.
And the above will become extremely important immediately preceding the Second Passover liberation of Israel … if a pharaoh or a Caesar does not usurp the auctoritas that constitutionally resides with the people of the United States of America prior to the Second Passover, the people collectively will be slain as “the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne” was slain (Ex 12:29) when Moses led Israel out from slavery. The struggle that lies immediately ahead of America will be between the people to hold auctoritas and the would-be pharaoh who is intent upon taking to himself the authority that resides in being the nation state’s “first citizen,” able to jet around the world on Air Force One.
Although relinquished auctoritas will never be regained by the people of the United States, if this auctoritas is not relinquished the nation’s citizenry will be utterly wiped out in a day—
But that isn’t to happen, meaning that before the Second Passover liberation of Israel from indwelling sin and death, the people of the United States will cease being their own sovereign, which has already effectively happened … when the executive branch of the Federal Government rules by decrees [Executive orders] and through regulatory tsars and recess appointments, the people have really lost auctoritas. The forthcoming fight between the people and their representatives against a would-be pharaoh and his tsars needs to be lost by the people, which is akin to what the prophet Jeremiah told the Israelites in Jerusalem:
[The Lord told Jeremiah] And to this people you shall say: “Thus says the Lord: Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. He who stays in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, but he who goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who are besieging you shall live and shall have his life as a prize of war. For I have set my face against this city for harm and not for good, declares the Lord: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.” (Jer 21:8–10)
The prophet Jeremiah was continually accused of preaching sedition, but in Jeremiah setting before Israel the way of life and the way of death, with the way of life being surrender to the Chaldeans—the king of Babylon—odd dynamics were set into play: to live meant going into slavery, which foreshadows dying spiritually; whereas the Israelite who remained in Jerusalem, who suffered famine and pestilence and death by the sword does not go into slavery and never submits to the king of Babylon.
Nebuchadnezzar forms the shadow and copy of the spiritual king of Babylon (Isa 14:4); thus an Israelite surrendering to the Chaldeans typologically represents a Christian surrendering to the Adversary … does God desire Christians to surrender to Satan in order to save their physical lives at the cost of condemnation of their inner spiritual lives in the lake of fire? That hardly seems right; so there must necessarily be extenuating circumstances not easily discerned.
It is true that lawless Israel in Jerusalem [the house of Judah and displaced refugees from the house of Israel] typologically represents lawless Christians in heavenly Jerusalem, where the temple will be measured and the court outside the temple is given over to the nations [Gentiles] for forty-two months (Rev 11:1–2), with the unit of time [months as opposed to days or times] disclosing that this Jerusalem is indeed in heaven and the nations that overrun the outer court have life in the heavenly realm, or indwelling spiritual life—
When the Second Passover liberation of Israel occurs, every Christian regardless of sect or denomination or creed will be filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God; every Christian will be baptized in spirit; every Christian will be a son of God, with real life in that portion of the heavenly realm that is in the Abyss. Every Christian, upon demonstrated obedience, will be measured as part of the temple of God, the altar, and those that worship there. However, the Christian—equally filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God as the Christian who demonstrates obedience—who rebels against God is outside the temple as part of the nations that overrun and trample the holy city throughout the ministry of the two witnesses (Rev 11:3).
With earthly Jerusalem in the days of king Josiah and his sons Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim [formerly, Eliakim], and his grandson Jehoiachin, and Jehoiachin’s uncle, Mattaniah [the king of Babylon changed his name to Zedekiah] representing in type the holy city of Jerusalem during the Affliction, from just before the Affliction begins until the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man, what’s seen in the person of Jeremiah is the holy ones [the saints] who have been measured inside the temple. These holy ones are also represented in the Affliction by Moses and Aaron [spiritually, the two witnesses], and Joshua and Caleb.
No one wants to see the American republic fail, a dictator emerge, one that looks like a caricature of Pharaoh. But whoever holds auctoritas principis in the United States of America when the Second Passover occurs will die if this entity does not repent and take the Passover after the model Jesus, the chosen Lamb of God, gave to His disciples. This means, simply, that if the republic has not failed but recovers from the death blow dealt the republic by American progressives—if power is returned to the people—Americans collectively must repent of their present lawless ways and turn to God and cover themselves with the blood of the Lamb of God before the Second Passover liberation of Israel [this seems extremely unlikely], or Americans collectively will perish when God again gives the lives of men (Isa 43:3–4) as ransom from Israel, the circumcised of heart nation. If, however, assuming the Second Passover occurs in a near year, President Obama finds it necessary to usurp power in the name of the people because of unrest in the streets of America [anarchy created by community organizers], then President Obama alone will hold auctoritas principis, and one person alone will die for the nation’s sake, which isn’t to say that he will be the only firstborn who would die but is to say that he would die as the endtime reality of the son of Pharaoh when the first Passover occurred.
It is important that either all of the nation repents or that a dictator emerges, a very short-lived dictator. It would be better for all of the nation to repent, but it isn’t logical to think that American Marxists would suddenly turn to God and begin to keep the commandments by faith when American Christians [with very few exceptions] will not by faith keep the commandments.
Therefore, the Christian who today strives to return the American Federal Government to its constitutional bag—the limitations placed upon it by not having enumerated powers—strives against God, and will surely rebel against God in the Apostasy of day 220 of the Affliction. And the redundancy of this Sabbath reading will do nothing but help hide from greater Christendom the face of the two witnesses as the veil concealed the glory that shone on Moses’ face from the people of Israel.
Israel and the children of Israel could not see the face of Moses because of the veil (Ex 34:30–35; 2 Cor 3:12–16). Christians today cannot see the face of Christ Jesus because of the dimensional veil that separates men from God. And Christians in the Affliction will not recognize the faces of the two witnesses because of the ideological veil that separates the disobedient from the wisdom of the just; for the wisdom of the just would have all men turning from their present evil ways and leaving the politics of this world to the basest of men as appointed by God (Dan 4:17) to be His avengers against evildoers as Nebuchadnezzar exacted His vengeance upon idolatrous Jerusalem.
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The person conducting the Sabbath service should close services with two hymns, or psalms, followed by a prayer asking God’s dismissal.
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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."