The Philadelphia Church

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 about taking no anxious thought.

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Jesus left the temple and was going away, when His disciples came to point out to Him the buildings of the temple. But He answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”

As He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?” And Jesus answered them, “See that [not someone you deceive]. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. / Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.  (Matt 24:1–14 emphasis added)

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According to Jesus, Christians are not to be alarmed—unduly concerned—when they hear of wars and rumors of wars; i.e., when they hear of what is presently occurring in the Middle East and in North Africa. Nor are they to be unduly concerned about famines and earthquakes … a major earthquake followed by a tsunami has devastated northeast Japan while in the Near and Middle East, wars and rumors of wars—civil unrest and revolution—are putting upward pressure of crude oil prices, which in turn is threatening Western nations as economies suffer under irresponsible fiscal policies certain to bankrupt any household or nation. No one, no nation can spend its way out of debt, and this includes the United States of America although the gimmick of debt-based currencies [fiat currencies] temporarily “solves” the national and international problem of not enough hard money for nations to conduct business. The larger problem, however, lies in the nature of “business,” which results in the commodification of life itself.

There is little dispute of the physical reality that a person brings nothing into this world and takes nothing out of this world. All that a person accumulates during his or her lifetime remains in this world; thus, a person without much—a person in a have-not nation state—will leave this world with as much as a person in the wealthiest nation state. The difference between a person without much and the person with much is how the person lives during his or her lifetime. And regardless of the quantity of possessions, the person who is not alarmed by wars and rumors of wars, by famines and earthquakes in various places lives with greater comfort than the person who is alarmed. Hence, theoretically, Christians should be the most content [undisturbed] category of human beings on the globe. And when a segment of greater Christendom knows what will happen and when, that segment of an already content category will have comfort that cannot be purchased with the dust of this earth. And that is all gold coinage is: dust of this earth, yellow in color, metallic and heavy, smelted, rolled, punched, and pressed into discs bearing the likeness of an identifying image.

The person who spends his or her lifetime striving for the dust of this earth, or striving with dust as in the case of farmers, takes no more from this earth than the person who has not strived, which is not to encourage idleness for the commandment begins, Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath to the Lord your God. (Ex 20:8–10; Deut 5:12–14). Labor precedes rest. Striving for or with the dust of this earth precedes resting from this struggle.

Note well, rest [the Sabbath] does not precede laboring for six days, but follows laboring. A person does not begin physical life in heaven, but begins life as the dust of this earth, with the fleshly body of the person returning to dust. Solomon wrote,

Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him? (Eccl 3:16–22 emphasis added)

Man is to rejoice in his [or her] work/labor, and that is difficult for an assembly line worker to do. That is difficult for anyone who has a job that he or she hates. Hence, the problem with laboring for the dust of this earth is in what labor is done, not in the concept of labor … a person should enjoy (or at least like) what he or she does for six days of the week.

Before the glorified Jesus, the last Adam whose breath [pneuma Christos] gives life (1 Cor 15:45), breathed on ten of His disciples and said, Receive the Holy Spirit [pneuma hagion — breath holy] (John 20:22), judgment was not upon either the wicked or the righteous, but would come upon both at the appropriate time. However, once disciples received a second breath of life—and that is when judgment will come upon the wicked and the righteous in the place of justice and in the place of righteousness—judgment was upon the disciples; for Peter writes,

 But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And

“If the righteous is scarcely saved,

what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” (1 Pet 4:15–18)

Judgment of Christians—of all who are truly born of God—began with the first disciples, not with Moses who ended death’s reign over humanity (Rom 5:14), or with Israel the Lord’s firstborn son (Ex 4:22) in the wilderness. Judgment of the human person begins when the inner person, the inner self, is resurrected from death and is freed from being consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32) as a son of disobedience (Eph 2:2–3). Sin [unbelief manifested as transgression of the commandments] no longer has dominion [authority] over the resurrected inner self (Rom 6:14), and will never again rule over the resurrected inner self unless the person returns to unbelief as Sin’s willing slave (v. 16), at which time the Christian takes him or herself out from under grace.

The person who sins despite having the Law—the wicked individuals Solomon found in the place of justice and in the place of righteousness—will perish when this person is physically resurrected from death; for as Paul writes, “[I]t is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified” (Rom 2:13). What should frighten greater Christendom, though, is what immediately precedes Paul’s statement that it is the doers of the law who will be justified: “For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law” (v. 12) … the same standard applies for judging those who have the Law and for judging those who do not. One standard, belief of God. Hence, the same standard applies for judging those who dwell in the place of justice and in the place of righteousness as applies to judging those who dwell in a place of wickedness. The same standard applies in a Christian’s judgment as will apply when ancient Israel is resurrected from death to receive a second breath of life. Grace simply covers the Christian’s transgression with the blood of Christ Jesus until judgments are revealed, with judgments made on the basis of whether the Christian believes God until and through the point of physical death. Therefore, judgment remains on a Christian until the Christian either denies Jesus or until physical life has ceased.

What advantage does a Christian have, then, over the Jew or the Muslim or the atheist? The Christian has one significant advantage, that of being first, but almost all of Christendom will squander this advantage just as Esau sold his birthright for what passed through him in a day … what advantage did Esau have over Jacob? What advantage did the men of Israel have over the men of Egypt? In Egypt, uncovered/unredeemed firstborns perished because they were first, but Israel was the firstborn son of the Lord, and the men of Israel covered their households by penning a paschal lamb on the 10^th day of the first month, and killing this lamb at even on the 14^th day, smearing its blood on doorposts and lintels. But the men of Israel squandered the advantage they had, the advantage of being the firstborn son of God, for they were slain at Mount Sinai when the Law gave Sin life so that this beast could slay the men of Israel generation after generation. At Sinai, the Lord promised Moses, “‘Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book … in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them’” (Ex 32:33–34).

There is no escaping judgment either for the person who is first or for the person who is last. When the people of Israel left Egypt as the firstborn son of God, they possessed the right of primogeniture, the right of the eldest son to inherit the entire estate of both parents, but because of the gold calf, the people of Israel lost the right of primogeniture while Moses was in the cloud atop Mount Sinai; for when Moses returned with the second Sinai covenant, a heavenly covenant ratified by the shining of Moses’ face, a caveat outside of the covenant was added,

Moses assembled all the congregation of the people of Israel and said to them, “These are the things that the Lord has commanded you to do. Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. You shall kindle no fire in all your dwelling places on the Sabbath day.” (Ex 35:1–3 emphasis added)

In commanding the people of Israel not to kindle a fire on the Sabbath, which represents entering into God’s rest, into His presence, with life coming through indwelling fire, the dark fire of cellular oxidation that sustains physical life and the bright fire of God’s breath that sustains eternal life—Moses’ command that the people of Israel not kindle a fire on the Sabbath pertains directly to, Whoever has sinned against me, I [the Lord] will blot out of my book. The people of Israel had sinned against the Lord, and He blotted them out from His book. The people of Israel lost the right of primogeniture; they lost the right to be first, to inherit the entirety of the estate of the Lord when the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man (the Son of Adam); for the command to not kindle a fire on the Sabbath forms a prohibition against receiving indwelling eternal life, the breath of God [pneuma Theon]. This command, for as long as it is kept, reinforces Israel’s remembrance of its rejection of Moses and of the Lord at Sinai, forty days after the Law gave life to Sin.

Moses in the cloud atop Mount Sinai formed the shadow and type, the left hand enantiomer, of Christ Jesus being with the Father in this era represented by the First Unleavened, with the seven endtime years represented by the seven days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And as the people of Israel broke free and returned to the paganism of Egypt while Moses was in the cloud, Christendom broke free and adopted the paganism of Hellenist Asia Minor and has since risen up to play spiritually as the people of Israel did physically at the base of Mount Sinai.

Judaism, however, does not understand Moses’ command not to kindle a fire on the Sabbath as a remembrance of the people of Israel’s transgression of the commandments at Sinai … the greater Christian Church does not perceive that beginning the week with its Sabbath reveals that Christians once entered into the presence of God but for every day of the week—but for every century since the 1^st-Century—have not done so. Christians do not perceive that “Church” is not somewhere that Christians go but is the Christian wherever he or she is presently located. Nor does the Christian perceive that he or she does not have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit [pneuma hagion] if he or she continues to transgress the commandments—

How can rabbinical Judaism be so blind as to not comprehend the command against kindling a fire on the Sabbath is a curse, a heavenly reminder that they mocked the Lord at Sinai in demanding that Aaron cast for them a gold calf as their god[s]. If they are now faithful not to kindle a fire on the Sabbath, they are faithful to keep this reminder in the foreground of all they do. If they are not faithful, they sever themselves from any relationship they could have with the Lord unless the Father draws them to be a disciple of Christ Jesus. And Israel demonstrates by not kindling a fire on the Sabbath its loss of the right of primogeniture, surrendering this right to Christendom, which in turn will lose it when Christendom rebels against the Lord on day 220 of the Affliction.

For as much as the two witnesses will lament the reality that Christians lose the right of primogeniture in the Affliction, the third of a humanity (from Zech 13:9) will benefit from their loss … the people of Islam, the theology being an ideological cover crop that will have been plowed under in the Affliction, will be among the third part of humankind that received the right of primogeniture in the Endurance, the last 1260 days of the seven endtime years, thereby seeing the last being first before God. However, before this happens, the people of Islam will have to learn to love their neighbors and learn to love their children more than they hate Jews. The plowing under of their covering ideology will see the end of all buying and selling.

The lawlessness of greater Christendom is openly seen in the transgressions of the commandments by Christians, with the day on which the Christian formally worships God disclosing that Christians have already lost the right of primogeniture (1 John 3:4–10). But what is perhaps as difficult for a Christian to perceive—what is for Christians comparable to Moses’ command not to kindle a fire on the Sabbath—is the physical enslavement of Christendom, the enslavement of all peoples through buying and selling. Even the last of the Anabaptists have succumbed to the blandishments of transactions … yes, what has been not been recognized by Christians is their physical enslavement by the spiritual king of Babylon.

Certainly much has been written in the past decade about Christians continuing in spiritually bondage to the reigning prince of this world through the indwelling of sin and death in the fleshly members of disciples (see Rom 7:7–25), but nothing really credible has been written about Christians—about all peoples of the world—being physically enslaved, not with iron shackles but with doublespeak, calling good evil and debt wealth. The shackles of doublespeak have slaves calling their enslavement freedom, while they make bricks for the spiritual king of Babylon.

Rightly or wrongly, since the enthusiasm of 16^th-Century Protestant Reformers exploded across the European continent and then onto North America in the 17^th-Century, the righteousness of a Christian has been linked to the outward prosperity of the Christian, with the implication being that if God is not physically blessing the Christian, there must be concealed unrighteousness … what any of this has to do with not being overly concerned about wars and rumors of war, famines and earthquakes in various places is through the non-scriptural linking of natural disasters to God, with too many Christians advancing the claim that natural disasters reflect God’s judgment of a people, something that was unfortunately done in 2005 when a significant number of Sabbatarian Christians ignorantly claimed that hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans was somehow related the wickedness of the people of New Orleans—

The above will, most likely, take a moment to digest: Are the people of New Orleans any more wicked than the people of Las Vegas, where what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas? Or are the people of New Orleans more wicked than the people of New York City, or of Los Angeles, or of Detroit, or of any other American city of comparable size? No! they are not more wicked, which is not an endorsement of their righteousness for they are, indeed, wicked as are all who transgress the commandments of God. But with God there are no degrees of wickedness, with the 33^rd degree being where God intervenes with a hurricane followed by flooding coming from faulty levees. Rather, this is to say that except to protect the Elect, God presently keeps His hands off this world that is, by itself, doing a fine job of destroying itself.

The recent tornado that went through Rayne, Louisiana, destroyed tenement-type housing units where some of New Orleans’ less-desirable residents have dwelt since Katrina … was the tornado spun into existence by God because these less-desirables had managed to escape destruction in New Orleans when Katrina wiped out the homes and businesses of righteous and wicked? Could God, if He truly wanted, not have wiped out these undesirables by simply stopping their hearts? Certainly He could have. It is nonsensical to claim that Katrina represented God’s judgment of New Orleans.

If the Lord has already taken the right of primogeniture from greater Christendom as evidenced by Christians worshiping on the first day of the week—and this is absolutely true, worshiping on Sunday discloses that Christians once entered into the presence of the Lord but have since been condemned to only having life in this world (worshiping on Sunday conveys to Christians the same type of message that not kindling a fire on the Sabbath conveys to rabbinical Judaism, if the Christian or Jew has understanding)—that all that remains for the Lord to do is give Christians the opportunity to turn their backs to Him before He gives the right of primogeniture to another people, the third part of humankind. But when spiritually dead, Christians do not have the opportunity to spiritually turn their backs to the Lord; thus Christians must be returned to spiritual life so that they can rebel against God, which they will certainly do as Israel rebelled against the Lord in the wilderness of Paran (Num chap 14).

When Christians link material prosperity to spiritual righteousness, they set themselves up as commodities that can be bought and sold, a choinix of wheat for a day’s wage, three choinikes of barley for a day’s wage — the Christian labors for what passes out the bowels, thus trading “life” for what will be dung on the face of the earth. “Life” is now a commodity that can be bought for a little wheat or a little more barley.

The Christian that can be bought and sold is not presently of God, but remains the slave of Sin, the four headed king of the South. And linking righteousness to prosperity, usually credited to Calvin, is wrong; i.e., the product of wrongheaded thinking. If any relationship exists, it is an inverted relationship: the righteous person will lack having the prosperity of this world.

But the reason for this inverted relationship hasn’t been well understood, with this lack of understanding producing hateful rhetoric that blames God for Katrina or for the earthquake that has devastated atheistic northeastern Japan. God wasn’t directly responsible for either. Nor is God responsible for the wars and rumors of wars in the Middle East. And if God is not responsible for these things, then the Christian need not have anxious concerns about them. What the Christian needs to be concerned about is preparing for inevitable disasters that are certain to strike the neighborhood of the Christian, who needs to be as Joseph was in Egypt.

Christian disciples have led many astray … every person who is humanly born is born as a son of disobedience; is born as the bondservant of the Adversary (Eph 2:2–3; Rom 11:32). This person does NOT begin his or her life in the presence of God, but begins toiling the soil as Adam and Eve toiled after being driven from the Garden of God. This person will enter into God’s presence at the end of the week, with the week representing his or her years of toiling for or in the dust of this earth. This person will appear before the Lord to be judged in the great White Throne Judgment (Rev 20: 11–15). However, for firstborn sons of God—for those human beings that the Father has foreknown and predestined—judgment is now upon them, and they judge themselves through whether they believe God and enter into His rest at the end of the week, or whether they believe the Adversary and leave God’s rest to labor for the remainder of their lives in and for the dust of this world.’

The Christian who chooses to leave God’s rest and labor for dust squanders his or her birthright, that of primogeniture, but that is the Christian’s choice for no Christian lacks knowing that the Sabbath is the seventh day of the week. All the Christian lacks is belief of God.

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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."

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