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 the good news that all who endure to the end shall be saved.
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Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of January 23, 2010
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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The foremost question for Philadelphia today is how to show love to his or her brother-in-Christ when “that brother” sincerely believes Philadelphians err in taking meaning from Scripture via typology. This is a real question not easily answered, but a question that must be addressed by all sons of God, by all who are not sons of the Adversary.
Disputing about words is contrary to Paul’s instructions to Timothy (“Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers” — 2 Tim 2:14). Such disputing is known from personal experience to do no good: if a person wants to argue about what Scripture says, the person is not teachable and most likely is not presently born of God. So what’s to be done? A person is not to cast the Lord’s bread to swine, but to feed the spiritually hungry. Who, though, and where are the hungry and what can be done for or about the fattened sheep that bully the hungry?
In his first epistle to Timothy, Paul writes,
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (2:1–4)
These instructions to Timothy would seem to have all disciples living as quiet folk, as Amish, Old Order German Baptists, Hutterites, Old Believers, but the desire of Christ Jesus is that all people be saved, that all come to the knowledge of the truth. So how will the lawless Church be saved, if that is even possible at this late date? Is it not the responsibility of the disciple who has been given knowledge to disseminate that knowledge? Was a prophet of old not to speak?
Amos records the words of the Lord,
For the Lord God does nothing
without revealing his secret
to his servants the prophets.
The lion has roared;
who will not fear?
The Lord God has spoken;
who can but prophesy? (3:7–8)
What will occur, what the Lord will do has been revealed to endtime prophets, who do not deliver new words from the Lord but new meanings for the words that were delivered long ago. And these endtime prophets can no more not speak than a person can not feel fear when a lion roars nearby, or when a brown bear clicks its teeth as the person stands in an alder ticket on Kodiak Island.
Those who serve the Lord as endtime prophets are few in number and will always be as few as when Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel delivered the words of the Lord to Israel. So there will not be many who speak for the Lord—the “many” are all false prophets who mingle the profane with the sacred to produce bastardized readings of Scripture. They neither hear the words of the Lord, nor understand the writings of Moses. But as ignorant and unstable disciples they twist Paul’s epistles into instruments by which they will be destroyed. To not warn these ignorant and unstable disciples of what will come is to have no love for them.
When a Philadelphian knows in advance that he or she will get slammed for the Philadelphian’s attempt to bring the ignorant disciple to repentance, there is great hesitation to speak … it is commonly said that a person can lead a horse to water but cannot make the horse drink, which is not entirely true but true enough to make the point that Christians have the word of God available to them, but no one can make these Christians read the words on the page, let alone believe them. One popular televangelist delivers his inspirational sermons while holding his closed Bible high in the air: his sermons have in them the amount of godly understanding that can be gleaned from a closed Bible.
This Sabbath reading can be summarized in saying that there is nothing Sabbatarian Christians can do or say that will bring lawless Christians to repentance. Most faithful disciples do enough by living quiet, godly lives in the pursuit of righteousness. They are to be lights that shine as candles do; they are not to “hiss” as gasoline lanterns do. However, Philadelphians are not satisfied to let their spiritual brothers perish in the lake of fire without making a good faith attempt to bring these lawless brethren into repentance. Philadelphians are not content to live as quiet folk, but feel morally obligated to deliver the endtime gospel message that “‘the one who endures to the end will be saved’” (Matt 24:13).
Such a simple message [gospel] is mocked by those Christians who do not understand it. Evangelical Christians, the Sabbatarian Churches of God, the Orthodox Churches of God—all hold and will continue to hold that this simple, and of itself, quiet message isn’t a “gospel” but a self-evident statement that neither needs proclaimed to the world as a witness to all nations, nor is even worthy of worldwide proclamation. Thus, Philadelphia alone proclaims this endtime good news, which takes no great strength to proclaim. Rather, it takes love for those who Philadelphians know in advance will despise them.
Is it important for lawless Christendom to be warned that on a second Passover in the near future, all firstborns not covered by the blood of the Lamb of God will suddenly perish? If these lawless Christians will believe in a bodily rapture to heaven, they are certainly able to believe that God has the will and the means to end the lives of biological and spiritual firstborns not covered by the Passover sacrifice. Of course, they will believe they are exempted from any such mass die-off of humanity, that their personal relationship with Christ is enough to protect them, and it would be if they had a personal relationship with Christ for if they had a personal relationship they would take the Passover sacraments on the dark portion of the 14th of Abib as Jesus instructed His disciples.
Is it unreasonable of Jesus to ask His disciples to wash feet, to take the sacraments of bread and wine when He took them; i.e., when Moses commanded Israel in Egypt to take them? Would it be unreasonable of Jesus to reject the disciple who takes bread and wine as the representation of the body and blood of the Lamb of God on the remaining days of the year? Moses told Israel in Egypt,
This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. (Ex 12:14–15)
If leaven is the representation of sin as Paul uses the analogy in 1 Corinthian 5:6–8, then the circumcised-of-heart Israelite will live without sin for seven days that represent seven years, and the circumcised-of-heart Israelite who sins shall be cut off from Israel. This circumcised-of-heart Israelite will not have endured to the end!
If the Christian (the circumcised-of-heart Israelite) who sins during the seven endtime years of tribulation will be cut off from salvation, it would seem that the good news Jesus proclaimed in His Olivet discourse (that all who endure to the end shall be saved) is worthy of being proclaimed to all the world as a witness to all nations. If grace for Christians will end when the law [Torah] is placed in minds and written on hearts as natural grace ended for Israel when the law was given, Christians certainly should be forewarned, especially when prophetically their rebellion against God is known and seen in type by Israel’s rebellion at Sinai, then Israel’s rebellion in the wilderness of Paran … as Israel, with the exceptions of Joshua and Caleb, could not enter the Promised Land (God’s rest — from Ps 95:10–11), Christians, with the exception of those who die in faith during the Tribulation and the Remnant, cannot enter into heaven but will perish physically and spiritually.
The endtime disciple who minimizes the importance of the good news [gospel] that must be delivered to the world as a witness to all nations being the simple message that all who endure to the end shall be saved lacks prophetic understanding to such a degree that this disciple should be silent and learn from his or her spiritual elders. This disciple doesn’t understand that first the Church at the Second Passover, then the remainder of the world when the kingdom is given to the Son of Man will be baptized in spirit (the life-giving breath of God) and will have the Torah written on hearts and placed in minds so that all know the Lord. No evangelical campaign will be necessary to teach the nations about the Father and the Son; no resources need to be spent to preach Christ to the world; no Christian army will make war against infidels. As disciples in this era need to do no work to be saved, no one in the Tribulation or in the Endurance will need to do any work to be saved; for believing the Lord is not “work.” A person’s belief will be manifested in obedience, which will entail doing those things that are pleasing to God.
In his poetry, David wrote,
In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,
but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering
you have not required.
Then I said, “Behold, I have come;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me:
I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.”
I have told the glad news of deliverance [righteousness]
in the great congregation;
behold, I have not restrained my lips,
as you know, O Lord.
I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart;
I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness
from the great congregation. (Ps 40:6–10)
The Lord gave to Israel laws about animal sacrifices after the nation was condemned to death because of its rebellion in the wilderness of Paran: the sacrifices were to begin, according to the Lord, “‘When you [Israel] come into the land you are to inhabit’” (Num 15:2). They were added as a covering or garment of obedience for the children of Israel so that Israel would not die immediately for the nation’s lawlessness. They did not take away the sins of Israel, but rather, they covered disobedience with a form of obedience that was a lifeless shadow and type of Christ Jesus’ righteousness, which was His obedience.
It is not a form of obedience—obedience that occurs after contemplation of the disobedience that necessitated the death of a beast—that the Lord desires, but simple belief that will always manifest itself as obedience to God. According to John, sin is the transgression of the law (1 John 3:4), a statement that will remain true until the Torah is written on hearts and placed in minds so that all know the Lord. Then, when all of Israel is filled with spirit so that there is not indwelling sin and death within individual Israelites, sin will no longer be remembered but God will send a strong delusion over all who refused to love the truth so that they will believe what is false, thereby condemning themselves to the lake of fire. Unbelief will prevent disciples from being saved as unbelief prevented the nation that left Egypt from entering into the Promised Land; for unbelief is the root of every transgression of the commandments.
David did not hide the good news of Israel’s deliverance in his heart and say nothing to the nation; rather, David proclaimed in the great assembly [that foreshadowed the great assembly of Ezra’s day] the Lord’s faithfulness and salvation. He spoke because a prophet cannot refrain from speaking the words that have been given him.
It is not labor [work] to keep the commandments: what labor is involved in keeping the Sabbaths of God? What work is involved in resting from one’s physical labors on the seventh day? What work is involved in focusing one’s thoughts and desires of the heart on the Lord on the seventh day? There is none. It is the Adversary’s lie that obedience to God constitutes a religion of works.
To make Abraham’s faith complete, the faith that the Lord counted to Abraham as righteousness (Gen 15:6), the faith that was manifested when Abraham believed the Lord that he would father a son and that his seed would be as the stars of heaven required that Abraham have his belief tested by sacrificing the son he had received by promise. This is what James, the Lord’s brother, understood, but what Martin Luther never understood. Faith or belief that is untested by works is of no value to anyone: faith must be supplemented by virtue, which will have the disciple obeying the Lord. When faith has been supplemented or tested so that this faith is manifested in deeds, then the person establishes that his or her faith is genuine. The person transforms an intangible thing through its manifestation into a substantive thing in this world.
The endtime gospel that all who endure to the end shall be saved carries the implication that Christians who sin will be cut off from Israel once grace ends, not something Christendom in any of its muddied flavors teaches. All of Christendom holds that disciples are now under the New Covenant, which has sins being remembered no more (Heb 8:12); but the New Covenant remains to be implemented, and won’t be implemented until disciples are filled with, or empowered by the spirit of God at the Second Passover liberation of Israel.
Christendom refuses to believe that grace will end … if sin was not counted before the law was given (again, Rom 5:13), the situation seen when Israelites went out to gather manna on the Sabbath (Ex 16:28–30), but is counted afterwards as seen by the man found gathering sticks on the Sabbath being stoned to death (Num 15:32–36), then sin is not counted against circumcised of heart Israel prior to the law being written on hearts and placed in minds, the spiritual equivalent to the law being audibly heard at Sinai by physically circumcised Israel.
If the sins of a person are not counted or reckoned as sin against the person either before the law was given or before the Torah is written on hearts and placed in minds, then these two states of Israel are analogous, with Israel having no indwelling eternal life when a physically circumcised nation and with Israel having indwelling eternal life as the circumcised-of-heart nation. In both situations, Israel is under grace, natural or spiritual. The Israelite’s sins are covered; the record of debt that stands against the person hasn’t been canceled, but held in abeyance, waiting to be paid or reassigned when judgments are made or revealed. And if a person is in his or her natural state as a son of disobedience—John Locke was wrong about the state of the mind at birth—then the record of debt for sins committed is in this world will be paid in this world. Thus, for all who are of Israel in this world, this record of debt recorded in this world was paid at Calvary.
But canceling a record of debt for sins committed in this world doesn’t cancel a record of debt for sins committed in that portion of the heavenly realm that is in the Abyss where circumcised-of-heart Israel has life through receipt of a second breath of life, the divine breath of God.
Jesus said, “‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart’” (Matt 5:27–28).
If a man looks at a woman with lustful intent, is there any sin committed in this world? No, there is not. But there is sin committed within the mind, and for the disciple who has been born of God, there is sin committed in that portion of the heavenly realm within the Abyss. Same pertains with anger. And the sin committed by the inner son of God cannot be canceled by a death in this world. This sin wasn’t canceled at Calvary, but this sin (as the reality of the sins of Israel read over the head of the Azazel goat) is “covered” by grace, by Christ Jesus’ righteousness, just as the sins of a son of disobedience, all of which are committed in this world, are not immediately paid-for by the death of the person but are covered by natural grace, a term that Paul doesn’t use but a concept that Paul ably addresses.
Because a son of disobedience has been consigned or concluded to disobedience (Rom 11:32) as the bondservant of the Adversary, the son of disobedience is not free to keep the commandments but must break one or more of them. Only when this son of disobedience has been drawn from this world by the Father and given a second breath of life so that the inner new self is not a slave to disobedience (sin will have no dominion over this new self that is under grace) is the inner self free to keep the law of God. However, sin and death continues to dwelling in the disciple’s fleshly members; therefore by drawing the person from this world, the Father initiates a war within the disciple, with the law of God that is in the disciple’s mind fighting against the law of sin and death that continues to dwell in the flesh. The disciple’s fleshly body will not be liberated from indwelling sin and death until the Second Passover, when by being filled with spirit and empowered by spirit sin and death no longer dwells within the tent of flesh but is moved outside the tent in what becomes a public war fought openly so that both man and angel can see victories and defeats.
· In the same way that natural grace ended for Israel with the giving of the law, spiritual grace for the Church will end when disciples are baptized in spirit and have the law written on hearts and placed in minds; i.e., when disciples come under the New Covenant at the Second Passover.
Again, is it important that Christendom be forewarned that grace will end when the Son of Man is revealed? It would certainly seem important that a warning be extended. It would certainly seem important that Christians are warned that their sloppy handling of Scripture will be their undoing. But will any Christian listen? Probably not. So the only real motive for delivering such a warning is love for brother, neighbor, God. Most assuredly there will be no monetary reward for delivering such a message. Marxist economical theory is an intellectual fraud, for who “pays” for bad news? The Christian ministry that prospers in this world will preach as an agent of the Adversary, and will reassure disciples that they will be blessed in this world and in heaven for sowing seed into fertile ground. But the emperor’s new clothes cover no sin in either this world or in heaven.
The gospel that will endure through the ages is the warning message that grace ends at the Second Passover, that the New Covenant will finally be implement after a very long wait, that unbelief under the New Covenant will condemn a disciple as sin did under the first covenant. And Christendom—the circumcised-of-heart nation of Israel that leaves spiritual Babylon at the Second Passover—will rebel against God as natural Israel in the wilderness rebelled against the Lord (see Num chap 14). Therefore, it will be the children of Israel, the third part of humankind (from Zech 13:9), that enters into salvation as it was the mixed circumcised and uncircumcised children of Israel that followed Joshua into God’s rest.
Are the words of Zechariah somehow not important?
Awake, O sword, against my shepherd,
against the man who stands next to me,
declares the Lord of hosts.
Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered;
I will turn my hand against the little ones.
In the whole land, declares the Lord,
two thirds shall be cut off and perish,
and one third shall be left alive.
And I will put this third into the fire,
and refine them as one refines silver,
and test them as gold is tested.
They will call upon my name,
and I will answer them.
I will say, “They are my people”;
and they will say, “The Lord is my God.” (13:7–9)
Jesus identified Himself as the man who stands next to the Lord of Hosts, as the Shepherd who would be struck (Matt 26:31). His identification of Himself as the Shepherd will now have the sheep being disciples, with the little ones being human beings [future disciples].
The little ones are divided into three parts with the implication that the parts are approximately equal in size—
Would it be important for Christians to know that they are numbered among the little ones? While a great many Evangelicals believe that they will escape the Tribulation by being bodily raptured into heaven, they will escape nothing except salvation if they rebel against the Lord as Israel rebelled in the wilderness. The Rebellion or great falling away that Paul addresses in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 is Christians rebelling against God on day 220 of the Tribulation as Israel rebelled in the wilderness. And as Israel could not enter into the Promised Land (Num 14:40–45) because of unbelief (Heb 3:19; Num 14:11), rebelling Christians cannot enter into God’s rest because of unbelief; because they would not enter when the promise of entering stood.
Would it be important for Christians to know that most of today’s greater Church is prophetically slated for the lake of fire, that individually a Christian can save him or herself simply by believing Moses, hearing in Moses the voice of Christ, and believing the words of Christ Jesus who spoke only the words of the Father? But apparently hearing the voice of Christ in the writings of Moses is too alien a concept for most Christians to accept. Although Christians hear and believe the words of Augustine and of Thomas Aquinas and of Martin Luther and of John Calvin, they do not believe the writings of Moses or the words of Christ Jesus. They do not believe the words of John, Peter, James, Paul; therefore, they are condemned as Esau was even before their birth.
If the inner new self that has been born of God as a firstborn son is not covered by the blood of the Lamb of God the year of the Second Passover, the eternal life that has come from heaven will be lost as firstborns not covered by the blood of a paschal lamb in Egypt perished on the first Passover … would it be important for born of God Christians to know that they must cover the inner son of God on the Passover by taking the sacraments of bread and wine on the dark portion of the 14th of Abib? If they do not, this son of God will not enter heaven because of unbelief and will perish in the wilderness of sin. The record of debt incurred by this son of God is not in this world but in the heavenly realm where these sins are presently “covered” by Christ Jesus’ righteousness until the Body of the Son of Man is revealed. But this contractual covering must be annually renewed by the disciple taking the sacraments on the 14th. Taking the sacraments weekly or quarterly doesn’t count. And for this reason more so than any other, the vast majority of Christendom has not been born of God, but are as Israel was in Egypt.
How does a person know whether he or she has been born of spirit? Paul said,
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. (Rom 8:5–7 emphasis added)
The person born of spirit (i.e., born of God) submits to God’s law and is not hostile to God … can anything be more simple? The person whose mind is set on the things of this world will not keep the commandments and cannot keep the commandments for this person remains a son of disobedience, the bondservant of the Adversary. Therefore, when surveying the greater Christian Church, scouting congregations for disciples wanting to submit to God’s law, the person finds very, very few disciples willing to submit to God, with Sabbath observance being the test of whether a disciple willingly submits to God. So disciples can say with certainty that very few Christians are presently born of God. The vast majority has not been born of God, have no idea what it means to be born of God, and speak from ignorance about being born of God.
How does the person not born of God know that he or she is not so born? What basis would the person have for saying he or she was or wasn’t born of God? If the person has a spiritual experience, is that experience with God or with a demon? How does the person know? And all of this comes back to the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. If the person will not eagerly submit to God, becoming obedient to the commandments, the person has not been born of God, regardless of what the person believes about him or herself.
But this does not mean that the person will not be filled with spirit at the Second Passover: it means that for the person’s spiritual protection, the person never received a second breath of life but awaits spiritual birth at the Second Passover liberation of Israel. Then, when empowered by the breath of God, when liberated from indwelling sin and death, the Christian whose mind is not set on the flesh and on saving the flesh will submit to God, keeping the commandments. This person is then able to keep the commandments. Hence, when most of Christendom returns to lawlessness in the Rebellion of day 220, Christendom will commit blasphemy against the spirit of God, with these rebelling disciples believing that they serve God in their lawlessness. They will be as Cain was; they are today as Esau was because of their unbelief.
How important is it, really, to warn greater Christendom that following the Second Passover, which will physically see the death of firstborns not covered by the blood of the Lamb, grace ends and any transgression of the commandments (which can then be kept) will be blasphemy against the spirit of God? Such a warning is fully incorporated in the good news that all who endure to the end shall be saved, but isn’t it self-evident that if a person endures in faith that the person will be saved? Isn’t it equally prophetically evident that a great falling away or Rebellion against God will occur when the lawless one is revealed? Why? What does this lawless one do or say that causes Christians who know they must endure in faith to be saved to suddenly rebel? And the answer lies in mixing the profane with the sacred—
When Samuel anointed Saul as king of Israel, Samuel said to the people,
The Lord is witness, who appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt. Now therefore stand still that I may plead with you before the Lord concerning all the righteous deeds of the Lord that he performed for you and for your fathers. When Jacob went into Egypt, and the Egyptians oppressed them, then your fathers cried out to the Lord and the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your fathers out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place. But they forgot the Lord their God. And he sold them into the hand of Sisera, commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab. And they fought against them. And they cried out to the Lord and said, “We have sinned, because we have forsaken the Lord and have served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. But now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, that we may serve you.” And the Lord sent Jerubbaal and Barak and Jephthah and Samuel and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and you lived in safety. And when you saw that Nahash the king of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, “No, but a king shall reign over us,” when the Lord your God was your king. And now behold the king whom you have chosen, for whom you have asked; behold, the Lord has set a king over you. If you will fear the Lord and serve him and obey his voice and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, and if both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord your God, it will be well. But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you and your king. Now therefore stand still and see this great thing that the Lord will do before your eyes. Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call upon the Lord, that he may send thunder and rain. And you shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking for yourselves a king. (1 Sam 12:6–17 emphasis added)
Samuel called upon the Lord, who sent thunder and rain that day, destroying the harvest, and the people feared both the Lord and Samuel (1 Sam 12:18).
King Saul is the shadow and copy of the man of perdition, who will not seem evil but will seem a humble, good man, a man of great stature (not physically as Saul possessed, but culturally as in a broadcaster or communicator) who knows he is unworthy of the greatness bestowed upon him; yet a man who has the audacity to do what Saul did when Saul said, “‘Bring the burnt offering here to me, and the peace offerings.’ And he [Saul] offered the burnt offering” (1 Sam 13:9).
Saul attempted to justify having made a burnt offering to the Lord, but Samuel told him, “‘You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you’” (1 Sam 13:13–14).
The man after the Lord’s heart was physically King David, but spiritually is the last Elijah, Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God. Thus, the man of perdition—the lawless one who mingles the sacred with the profane as in Saul making burnt offerings to the Lord—shall be in the Tribulation as King Saul was, whereas in the Endurance the Lamb [Christ] shall be as King David was, with the recovered geographical territory forming the shadow and type of circumcised-of-heart Israel’s recovered knowledge of God.
As there was a void or space under the last Elijah when He lay over the Body of Christ to breathe life back into this corpse in the 16th-Century, a void that allowed Luther’s and Zwingli’s reforms of the Old Church to take root and grow whereas a century earlier the reforms of Wycliffe and Hus were suffocated by the authoritarianism of the papacy, there will be a space of 220 days after the Second Passover when rebellion against God of the type practiced by King Saul can take root and grow. This rebellion will not seem like rebellion to most Christians, who are accustomed to mixing the sacred with the profane in holidays such as Christmas and Easter. It will seem like the “right” thing to do to the man of perdition, a human being who sincerely believes in the rights of man. It will be identifiable by Christmas observance. And the two witnesses, as the mirror image of Samuel when he called upon the Lord to send thunder and rain on the day of the wheat harvest, will shut the skies so that no rain falls during the days of their prophesying (Rev 11:6).
Would it benefit Christians everywhere to be warned that they cannot mingle the sacred and the profane and come up with a thing pleasing to God? That a thing such as the U.S. Constitution is not of God? That democracy and democratic governance is a thing like Korah’s rebellion? That when Korah said to Moses and Aaron, “‘You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord’” (Num 16:3), Korah was simply expressing the principles upon which the United States of America was founded? Would it benefit Christians everywhere to be warned that the man of perdition will be to the two witnesses the mirror image of Korah to Moses and Aaron? That the man of perdition will kill genuine disciples as Korah and his friends fell alive into the earth? These faithful disciples will be spiritually alive when they are buried by the man of perdition. They will descend into the Abyss, martyred as their brothers in the faith were martyred in the 1st-Century (Rev 6:9–11), and they will sleep under the altar until the Resurrection of firstfruits.
Philadelphiacannot not-warn Christendom that it is only those who endure in faith to the end that will be saved. Of the remainder of humanity—that is, of the third part of the little ones (from Zech 13:9)—all who endure to the end shall be saved; all who endure will not take the mark of death upon themselves. They will not mark themselves with the tattoo of the cross when the Antichrist [the Adversary when cast into time] demands that they do so … is it important to this third part that they are warned not to mark themselves for death in the Endurance, the last 1260 days of the seven endtime years? It is to them. So the endtime good news that all who endure to the end shall be saved is not a light and trivial message, but a deadly serious understanding of biblical prophecy explicated by the mirror-image of the prophets of old.
The Philadelphia Church is not a sect or denomination like other Christian religious organizations with which governing agencies are familiar; it is an association of fellowships without an organizational structure in this world. It has no headquarters or headquarters fellowship. It has no membership criteria other than its bylaws will be incorporated into a fellowship’s foundational documents. Therefore, it lacks those features that traditionally distinguish church organizations: it lacks corporate status, a board of directors, a steering committee, a centrally ordained ministry, a central budget. It is, however, a recognizable continuation of the Anabaptist reforms of the 16th-Century as modified by Pietism and as expressed in Old German Baptist and Sabbatarian German Baptist fellowships. It stresses the separation of Church and State, voluntary membership of adult believers, baptism of adult believers, biblical pacifism, separation from worldly corruption, and full restoration of the New Testament Church at the Second Passover. Its history in North America goes back to the immigration of first German Menists in 1683 to Germantown, Pennsylvania, and specifically to Dirck Keyser (born 1635, Amsterdam, Holland; died November 30, 1714 at Germantown, PA, and buried in Upper Germantown Burying Ground). This Dirck Keyser is the son [dirck] of Dirck Gerritsz Keyser (dob about 1600; dod 1655), who married Cornelia Govertsz, daughter of Tobias Govertsz van de Wyngaert, a Mennonite minister and one of Amsterdam’s representatives that signed the Dordrecht Confession of 1632, the foundational document for Menists. And the son [dirck] of the Dirck Keyser, born in 1635, who was Pieter Dirck Keyser (born November 26, 1676, in Amsterdam; died September 12, 1724, in Germantown, PA), who left the Mennonite Church in 1719 to join the Old German Baptists.
The move from Mennonite to Old German Baptist by Pieter Dirck Keyser was less a rejection of one ideology than it was a movement toward greater perceived theological perfection or purity that has continued, with some interruptions, for generation after generation — the movement was from one Anabaptist teaching to another, with each holding essential similarity, a similarity that is retained by The Philadelphia Church, whose doctrinal positions are based on the typological writings of a 13th Dirck Keyser, with this nearly unparalleled continuity of ministry coming from God blessing those who love and seek Him to a thousand generations, millennia in the future.
In the void under the last Elijah’s first and second attempts to breathe life back into the dead Body of Christ was the space needed for an Anabaptist movement to journey from spiritual Babylon to the Land beyond the River in a manner foreshadowed by a remnant of Israel returning to Jerusalem in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah.
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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."