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 burial of the dead.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of March 5, 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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All these are the twelve tribes of Israel. This is what their father [Jacob] said to them as he blessed them, blessing each with the blessing suitable to him. Then he commanded them and said to them, “I am to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field at Machpelah, to the east of Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite to possess as a burying place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife, and there I buried Leah—the field and the cave that is in it were bought from the Hittites.” When Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people. (Gen 49:28–33)
Then Joseph fell on his father's face and wept over him and kissed him. And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel. Forty days were required for it, for that is how many are required for embalming. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days. …
So Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father's house. Joseph lived 110 years. And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation. The children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were counted as Joseph's own. And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.” So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. (Gen 50:1–3, 22–26)
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Egyptians embalmed their pharaohs and later their princes, but the reason why Egyptians embalmed lay in their Pharaohs’ quest for immortality: Pharaohs sought to be stars, lights in the black sky, lights that ruled in darkness, the night sky being likened to death. The Pharaohs’ quest for immortality represented possessing life in death as a star shines in the night sky. They sought a similar thing to what Christians seek today, going to heaven as a living being after death; i.e., going immediately to heaven and not waiting decades or centuries or millennia before being resurrected from the grave.
The concept of night following day was how Egyptians perceived life, with birth representing the dawning of the day and the light of the day representing the life lived, with night then representing death; so a star in the night sky was life in death. But for Hebrews, the concept was reversed: night precedes day, with death preceding life not following life. Hence from darkness came light in Genesis “P” creation account (v. 3), with all of the darkness preceding and not following the coming of light. And so it is with human sons of God that are humanly born without indwelling heavenly life, but receive eternal life in Christ Jesus as a gift of God (Rom 6:23), with eternal life coming from the breath of God [pneuma Theon] in the indwelling breath of Christ [pneuma Christos].
At one time in Egypt’s history, Egyptians had knowledge of God; for Paul writes,
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. / Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Rom 1:18–25 emphasis added)
When a person realizes what Egyptians were known to believe and what had to also be believed for them to arrive at their religious practices, the truth of what Paul writes becomes self-evident—and the Adversary’s perversion of what was known about God is also self-evident in the simple reversal of light preceding darkness (of life preceding death) that is representative of what is taught by endtime Christendom that has more in common with Egyptian beliefs coming through Greek borrowing than with Christ Jesus, an observant Jew.
The difference between life preceding death [the basis for Egyptians embalming their dead was their attempt to preserve life in death] and life coming from death [the core of Hebraic belief and poetics] is expressed in having the weekly Sabbath precede the work week [Sunday observance] and having the weekly Sabbath follow the work week [true Sabbath observance]. But it does no good to have life then lose it when the person dies, what the Pharaoh’s understood; thus, when life precedes death religion must provide a means by which life can be continued in death, and for Egyptians this meant embalming the body so that the inner person would continue to live in death. False Christendom, borrowing heavily from Greeks, holds that human beings are born with immortal souls that at death go to God in heaven or go to an underworld where they are perpetually tormented, which if deconstructed would make Egyptian belief seem more reasonable and loving than Christian dogma.
False Christendom is simply a form of Egyptian paganism that has life preceding death, what seems reasonable and logical to the carnal mind. And regardless of why North Americans say they embalm their dead, their reason lays in their quest for immortality … apparently Egyptians believed that as long as the Pharaoh’s body was preserved in his tomb, the star that was the Pharaoh would continue to shine and would not fall from the sky.
And there it is, the two opposing philosophies of life: either life precedes death with the day beginning at dawn, or life comes from death with the day beginning at sunset. Roman pagans couldn’t decide which philosophy was correct, so they began their day halfway through the night, with death both preceding and following life, a representation that argues against any immortality: out of death comes a life that lives and burns brightly, then sets and returns to darkness, an almost postmodern expression of humanism.
Although it is doubtful that most North Americans think deeply about why they embalm their dead, embalming because that is the thing most North American Christians do; embalming because that is the expectation of friends and family, funeral home directors and state legislators, embalming really only preserves the dead for long enough to assuage the anxieties of the next generation, or the generation after that … within the scope of time, how long is fifty years or even five hundred years—and which funeral home will warranty their work or the casket and vault they sell for five hundred years? All embalming does as practiced by modern North American funeral homes is bury wealth in the ground for the sake of giving to bereaved family members the sense of comfort that comes from knowing the family members have done all they could for their beloved dead. This sense of comfort might seem worth what it costs, but it really isn’t. For the Christian who truly believes that the dead will live again, either in the resurrection of firstfruits at Christ Jesus’ return or in the resurrection at the great White Throne Judgment after the thousand years during which Christ reigns over this earth; for the Christian who truly believes the words of Holy Writ and not in fairy tales or the lies of the Adversary, embalming has no value and is an unnecessary burial expense.
If the dead has done good—believed God and put that belief into practice—then the mortal flesh will put on immortality without the aid of any human mortician.
There have been repeated Christian attempts in the past to reduce life to two basic philosophies: good versus evil, or give versus get. Social elitists perceive a world divided between those who have and those who have not. Marxists divide the world between the bourgeois and the proletariat. Feminists divide the world between us and them. And the American philosopher Charles Peirce said that all bipolar schema were the result of simple-minded thinking and were inherently false because an element of Thirdness must necessarily connect the two poles, and what Peirce wrote is true: an element of Thirdness does connect life preceding death with life coming from death, with the bridge between the two poles being Christ Jesus, to whom all judgment has been given.
· No human person is humanly born with indwelling eternal life (i.e., an immortal soul);
· No human person had indwelling eternal life prior to the last Adam, Christ Jesus, who received this life when the breath of the Father [pneuma Theon] descended upon the man Jesus in the form of a visible dove;
· No human person since Christ Jesus has no indwelling eternal life apart from receiving the breath of the Father in the breath of Christ [pneuma Christos]
· The human person who truly hears Jesus’ word [His message] and believes the Father passes from death to life without coming under judgment (John 5:24) … the inner self of this human person receives life through receipt of a second breath of life, the breath of the Father;
· No human person can truly hear Jesus’ word unless the Father first draws this human person from the world, thereby causing this person to be foreknown and predestined to be called, justified, and glorified;
· Hence, salvation [receipt of indwelling eternal life] is not dependent upon the acts or the deeds of the person prior to being called by God, hearing the word [message] of Jesus and believing the Father: the called person passes from death to life without coming under judgment;
· However, once the inner self receives life, judgment comes upon this inner self, with the judgment made to be revealed upon Christ Jesus’ return—
· But the person foreknown by God; the person predestined, called, justified, and glorified knows what his judgment will be for the living inner self of this person sleeps under the altar until the fullness of his fellow servants who are to be killed as he was are slain in the Affliction and Endurance.
Few human beings have received indwelling eternal life while they physically lived. Most who will receive eternal life will receive it when they are resurrected from the dust of this earth, with night representing the period when they lived physically and the period when they slept in the dust of this earth. But the Lord’s promise to Abram was that his seed should be like stars (Gen 15:5), many lights in the night sky, many living sons in death. Abram understood the Lord to say that his seed would inherit eternal life, and Abram believed the Lord and had his belief counted to him as righteousness (v. 6). And the Apostle Paul uses Abram’s belief, here, when the Lord promised him that his seed would be as stars, as his example for the depth of faith that is pleasing to the Lord.
Abraham did not have Sarah embalmed; nor did Isaac have Abraham embalmed. For he believed the promise made to Abraham that his seed would be as stars, what Pharaoh sought. Hence, there was no reason to embalm the dead: the promise that Abraham believed would have his descendants possessing eternal life; i.e., life in death. And those who today have the faith, the belief of Abraham will not embalm their dead. They have no need to preserve the corpse: Egyptians believed they needed to preserve the corpse. Christians truly born of God do not.
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Pharaoh [generically and collectively] formed the shadow and copy of the endtime king of the South, Sin, the third horseman of the Apocalypse, the demonic king from whose dominion Christendom will be set free at the Second Passover, the king who cannot harm the oil and the wine, the processed fruits of the Promised Land; i.e., those disciples who bore fruit of the spirit when it wasn’t the season for fruit, and who not only bore fruit but who experienced the crushing and pressing of that fruit. Hence, Egypt and its princes form the shadow and copy of what not to do. And to shorten what could be a lengthy argument, let it here be acknowledged that Christians prior to their liberation from the sin and death that as of today dwells in their fleshly members (see Rom 7:7–25) as Israel in Egypt dwelt in slavery to Pharaoh throughout the days of Moses—let it here be acknowledged that Christians embalm their dead because they can just as Egyptians embalmed the dead of Pharaoh because they could. But once freed from indwelling Sin and Death, the demonic kings of the South and of the North, Christians ought to abandoned the practice of embalming their dead and return to the example Jesus left with His disciples, that of burying the dead as soon as reasonably possible after death, with the goal being to bury the dead within a day and bury the dead without embalming, without disemboweling, without doing any more damage to the corpse than is necessary to place the corpse in a coffin.
But there is a practical reason for ceasing to embalm: following the Second Passover liberation of Israel, there will be too many dead to individually embalm each person—and mass graves dug by bulldozers and covered over by these same crawler tractors is an unsatisfactory solution to the problem of mass death … part of living is burying the dead, burying parents, family members, sometimes children, neighbors, friends, acquaintances. We become the light that shines in darkness when we stand amongst the dead—“Another of the disciples said to him [Jesus], ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead’” (Matt 8:21–22). The citizenry of this world are spiritually dead; they are the dead that Jesus referenced, the dead that are to bury the dead of themselves, the doubly dead. Christians are not their fleshly bodies, but their living inner selves … it is for fleshly bodies to bury other fleshly bodies. The one to whom Jesus spoke was not then born of God: there was no living inner self in the disciple who asked for permission to bury his father. Hence, Jesus assigned to the disciple’s only life [breath] what would pertain to the inner self once the spirit was given as He does in Matthew 10:28—
To understand either Matthew 8:22 or 10:28, the disciple must remember that those to whom Jesus spoke did not have living inner selves. When Jesus spoke, only He had a living inner self. Thus, Jesus assigned to the disciple[s]’ physical life that came from the breath of life Elohim [singular in usage] breathed into the nostrils of the first Adam attributes that would pertain to the breath of life He breathed on the Ten the day He ascended to the Father and returned as a life-giving spirit (from 1 Cor 15:45) to be with His disciples (see John 20:22).
It is the inner self of a born-of-God Christian that doesn’t bury his Father, who does not die. Human fathers die, and the fleshly body of the biological son will bury the earthly body of his father, but he will bury without tears; for the inner self knows the fate of the dead. If the man he buries did what the man knew was right, the man will be fine when judgments are either made or revealed. If not, there is nothing that can be done for the man who is buried.
In this world, following the Second Passover liberation of Israel there will be family members, friends, and neighbors that are stunned by a third part of humankind, all uncovered firstborns, perishing in a day, especially considering that those who identify themselves as Christians will be filled-with and empowered by the breath of God so that, finally, they know God in a way they did not expect to come to know Him. And most of them will not like the Lord they have suddenly come to know. They will be shocked that God, out of love, would kill so many … this will not be their definition of love, and they will be quick to reject this God who has suddenly and unexpectedly intervened in the affairs of men in such a dramatic way.
But what does the Lord tell the prophet Ezekiel?
Then certain of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me. And the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Any one of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols, that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me through their idols. / Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: Repent and turn away from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations. For any one of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel, who separates himself from me, taking his idols into his heart and putting the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to a prophet to consult me through him, I the Lord will answer him myself. And I will set my face against that man; I will make him a sign and a byword and cut him off from the midst of my people, and you shall know that I am the Lord. And if the prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel. And they shall bear their punishment—the punishment of the prophet and the punishment of the inquirer shall be alike—that the house of Israel may no more go astray from me, nor defile themselves anymore with all their transgressions, but that they may be my people and I may be their God, declares the Lord God.”
And the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, when a land sins against me by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it and break its supply of bread and send famine upon it, and cut off from it man and beast, even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness, declares the Lord God. / If I cause wild beasts to pass through the land, and they ravage it, and it be made desolate, so that no one may pass through because of the beasts, even if these three men were in it, as I live, declares the Lord God, they would deliver neither sons nor daughters. They alone would be delivered, but the land would be desolate. / Or if I bring a sword upon that land and say, Let a sword pass through the land, and I cut off from it man and beast, though these three men were in it, as I live, declares the Lord God, they would deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they alone would be delivered. / Or if I send a pestilence into that land and pour out my wrath upon it with blood, to cut off from it man and beast, even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, declares the Lord God, they would deliver neither son nor daughter. They would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness. / For thus says the Lord God: How much more when I send upon Jerusalem my four disastrous acts of judgment, sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast! But behold, some survivors will be left in it, sons and daughters who will be brought out; behold, when they come out to you, and you see their ways and their deeds, you will be consoled for the disaster that I have brought upon Jerusalem, for all that I have brought upon it. They will console you, when you see their ways and their deeds, and you shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, declares the Lord God.” (Ezek chap 14 all, emphasis added)
Does it necessarily take disaster coming upon a land before that land turns to the Lord? Does it take sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence coming upon a people and leaving the people few in number before this people turns to the Lord, repents (rethinks how the people worships the Lord), and does what is right in the Lord’s sight? According to what the Lord told Ezekiel, this is the case. And no one can save this people, not even Noah, Daniel, or Job; for the righteous can only deliver themselves from unbelief.
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What separates a human person from a beast? The ability to reason? No, anyone who has worked with dogs or pigs, cats or ravens know that these animals have similar abilities to reason and solve problems as small children have—and is not a small child a human person? There are cultural elitists who deny legitimacy to fetuses, to newly born infants, to small children, to the elderly, and there are not words strong enough to condemn the inhumanity of these cultural elitists, social reprobates that are themselves unworthy of life. If Christians were not to love their enemies—and these elitists are the enemy of every Christian—then the servants of Christ Jesus would impose the legitimacy of every human person, regardless of age or disability, on elitists who intend to harm the very young and the very old. But Satan remains the prince of this world: he was a murderer from the beginning. It is only logical that those who administer his governance here on earth are also murderers, who are easy to identify when these murderers kill human fetuses but much more difficult to identify when they spiritually kill self-identified Christians that are today the fetuses of the sons of God—and Christian pastors and theologians slay their flocks when they hinder them from keeping the commandments of God, especially the Sabbath commandment.
The above might prove difficult to linguistically untangle: a Christian today, by professing that Jesus is Lord and believing that the Father raised Jesus from death, is not necessarily born of God; for the Christian who truly has the earnest of the spirit will keep the commandments of God. Therefore, the majority of Christendom—all who worship on Sunday plus most Sabbatarian Christians—are spiritual fetuses, awaiting birth at the Second Passover liberation of Israel from indwelling sin and death, with this birth being seen in Scripture as Zion bringing forth a nation in a day (Isa 66:7–8) and as the Lord again giving the lives of men for Israel (Isa 43:3–4). Therefore, without yet being born of God but awaiting birth at the Second Passover, Christians (with very few exceptions) are spiritually as human fetuses are physically, yet unborn but with birth assured if not aborted. And as human fetuses can be aborted by the injection of a saline solution into the womb (or other means), Christian pastors and theologians tell congregations that they as the salt of the earth do not have to strive to keep the Law for Christ Jesus fulfilled the Law. These pastors tell their parishioners that if Christ is in them, they have fulfilled the Law through the indwelling of Christ, which is a lie. For if Christ is in them, they will walk as Christ Jesus walked, and they will not be able to keep on sinning; i.e., transgressing the Law (cf. 1 John 3:4–10; 1 Cor 11:1).
The Christian pastor or theologian who teaches the Christian not to strive to keep the commandments of God spiritually aborts the Christian that will be born of God at the Second Passover. This pastor or theologian reaches behind the Christian’s spiritual birth and injects a lie (a saline solution) that will cause the Christian, when truly born of God, to not keep the commandments and thereby return to Sin [unbelief] as its slave after having been liberated from Sin at the Second Passover. No sacrifice will remain for the Christian, who by returning to Sin will have committed blasphemy against the spirit. Thus, the Christian’s unbelief that caused the Christian to transgress the commandment[s] cannot be forgiven. The transgression, itself, is not counted against the Christian. Rather, the Christian’s unbelief will be what is unforgiveable once the Christian has been liberated from indwelling Sin and Death.
So there is no doubt about what will happen, Paul writes,
Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thess 2;1–12 emphasis added)
The Apostasy cannot come until Christendom has returned to God through being returned to life: with very exceptions, Christians are today spiritually dead. But the gates of Hades [the grave] shall not prevail over the Body of Christ. As individual Christians will be resurrected from death through the Father giving to Christians a second breath of life, His breath in Christ’s breath, the Body of Christ [the collective of all Christians] must also be resurrected to life through filling (not simply giving the earnest) Christians with the breath of the Father so that, although still mortal, these Christians will not die from internal causes but can only die from an external cause such as martyrdom. For Christians, the Second Passover ends death coming from internal causes. But these Christians remain subject to death coming upon them from the hands of other human beings (the sword), from wild beasts, from the death angels to be released in the Second Woe (Rev 9:13–21).
There are elitists who would identify God as a greater mass murderer than Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot combined … what these elitists fail to comprehend is that God asserted His claim of ownership to all that open a womb (firstborns) in the days of Moses, commanding Israel to, “‘Consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine’” (Ex 13:2) and,
When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as He swore to you and your fathers, and shall give it to you, you shall set apart to the Lord all that first opens the womb. All the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the Lord's. Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem. And when in time to come your son asks you, “What does this mean?” you shall say to him, “By a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery. For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first open the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem.” It shall be as a mark on your hand or frontlets between your eyes, for by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt. (Ex 13:11–16 emphasis added)
Christ Jesus is today Israel’s Redeemer; yet who among all of the children of Israel eats the body and drinks of Christ Jesus? Only the one who takes the Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the night that Jesus was betrayed; i.e., on the dark portion of the 14th of Aviv, which this year will be after sunset on the evening of Sunday, April 17th [the 14th of Aviv will begin with that sunset, with the daylight portion of the 14th falling on April 18th]. Every other Christian either eats or doesn’t eat Cain’s offering, the fruit of the earth: bread and wine. Only on one night a year [the 14th of Aviv] and only after having prayed over the unleavened bread and the cup does the fruit of the earth become the body and blood of Christ Jesus, with one exception: the person who is defiled on the 14th of Aviv or who is on a long trip may take the Passover sacraments on the dark portion of the 14th of Iyyar, according to the regulations given for the Passover in the first month (Num 9:9–14).
The Israelite, the Christian who is not defiled and who is not on a long trip and who fails to keep the Passover of the Lord at its appointed time (at even on the dark portion of the 14th of Aviv) shall bear his sin, meaning this person has no Redeemer, not because one doesn’t exist but because of his or her unbelief this person refused to redeem the firstborn in the person’s household.
Is a farmer faulted because he or she slaughters an animal that belongs to the farmer … well, actually, vegan elitists do fault farmers who slaughter what is their own. So let the cultural elitists who condone killing human fetuses fault God for slaying His own, all unredeemed firstborns of man and angels in heaven and on earth; for indeed, this is what God will do at the Second Passover liberation of Israel. In a day, approximately one third of humankind [2.3 billion people] will die suddenly and unexpectedly, and die without regard to ethnicity or creed or location of residency. All of these firstborns will be unredeemed. All will appear before God in the great White Throne Judgment to give an accounting for those things that they did while physically alive.
Paul writes,
For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Rom 2:12–6)
The advantage that Christians and Jews have over the other peoples of this world is that they have the Law available to them; for the person who doesn’t have the law yet who transgresses the Law will perish without the Law, something that hardly seems fair until a person realizes that what can be known about God has been plainly evident to all peoples through the things that have been made, that it has been ungodliness and unrighteousness that has suppressed the visibility of God from all (Rom 1:18–20). Yes, ancient Egyptians knew what could be known about God. So the person not called by God to be one of the Elect can nevertheless know God through exercising love for neighbor and brother, love that demonstrates that the Law of God—the law of love—has been written on the person’s heart apart from receiving this law in its codified form: the Ten Commandments. And it is for this reason that I am not—that Paul was not—ashamed of the good news of Christ Jesus, the good news that all who endure to the end shall be saved, the good news that the dead Body of Christ will be resurrected from death at the Second Passover and when resurrected, will eventually include all who are alive and who believe God, with the person’s belief being manifested in deeds done by hands and body.
In the spring of the year when weed seeds sprout, bringing forth a blue and yellow carpet of wildflowers, and fields smell of wild garlic, is the farmer faulted for plowing under nature’s beauty so that corn or soybeans, wheat or oats can be planted in the field? Can the person near an Iowa field eat enough corn flowers and wild mustard to sustain the person through long winter months? What about the person far from the field? What about the person who depends upon combined grain transported by road and rail? This person might well enjoy the sight of Johnny-jump-ups, chicory, and dandelions in spring fields, but this person expects recognizable foods to be on grocery shelves, not dried dandelion and chicory roots that the person can roast and grind for the person’s breakfast drink—and roasted dandelion and chicory roots when ground and steeped make a reasonably good hot drink, perhaps better than toasted barley. But North Americans expect to find coffee beans, ground or whole, on grocer shelves, not roadside roots.
Our dead expect that we will bury them, not leave their bodies to rot in open fields, their bones gnawed by mice and voles for the calcium they contain.
Even if a person wanted to have his or her firstborn embalmed after the Second Passover liberation of Israel, it will not be possible: there will simply be too many corpses to either embalm or to cremate. The dead will have to be buried, and should be buried, not cremated; for burial is an interment in the earth as Abraham interred Sarah in the field he purchased from Ephron the Hittite (Gen 23:4, 16–20) whereas cremation represents destruction as Sodom was destroyed and as the lake of fire will destroy unbelievers.
This earth is not today the property of the saints: this earth belongs to those who are dead … Abraham was considered to be a mighty prince when he dwelt among the Hittites (Gen 23:6); he had large flocks, many servants, portable tangible goods, but the only piece of land he owned was the field he bought from Ephron the Hittite to bury Sarah.
Until the kingdom of this world is taken from the king of Babylon, the present prince of the power of the air, and given to the Son of Man (Dan 7:9–14; Rev 11:15–18), this world and all of its lands remain under the dominion of the Adversary. And attempts to govern this world or improve how this world is governed—e.g., return the federal government of the United States of American back to its constitutional limits, or install democratic administrations in Egypt, Syria, Libya—only amount to attempts to partner with the Adversary to make his governance of this world work better than it does. And following the Second Passover the ten horns on the head of Death, the fourth king and fourth horseman, are ten prominent theologians, three of whom the little horn [the Adversary as he possesses Arian man of perdition] uproots on day 220 when the man of perdition is made known.
It is not yet time to intervene:
Pilate … called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” (John 18:33–36 emphasis added)
It will not be time to intervene in world affairs until after the present prince of this world is cast into time halfway through seven endtime years of tribulation, and then it will be wise to wait until Christ Jesus returns. Until then, the land of this world is for burying the dead and not for possession by the living. The fleshly body of the saint has to dwell in this world, but flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor 15:50). So permit those who are dead to buy and sell fields and forests, grave plots and gravel pits. The saints already have an inheritance in heaven.
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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."