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 scarcely a few being saved.
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Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of March 14, 2009
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.
The person conducting the services should again read or assign to be read Hebrews chapters 8 and 9.
Commentary: It has been customary to assign the writing of Hebrews to the Apostle Paul although modern textual criticism raises doubts, based on word selection and phrasing, about whether Paul really wrote the epistle, but someone within Paul’s sphere of influence certainly did, and if Paul didn’t, then probably someone with Paul at the time (possibly a woman) did; for in the epistle’s salutation is a direct address by the apostle.
A new covenant [chadash bereeth] is promised by the prophet Jeremiah (31:31–34), and it is this new covenant that was not yet in effect when Hebrews was written … what was becoming obsolete and ready to vanish away a quarter century after Calvary is still becoming obsolete and ready to vanish away; it has not yet become obsolete and it has not yet vanished away.
A covenant in Hebrew is bereeth — ברית, coming from the primary root bara, usually assigned the meaning of “to cut down” or “to create” (as in Gen 1:1) or “to make fat,” carries the sense of making a cutting, and implies the sense of a compact or the distance between cuttings. The Hebrew word bereeth has been assigned the sense of a federation or confederacy or league (as in the League of Nations), but as used by the Lord in reference to Israel, the word conveys the physical sense of the distance between one shedding of blood (cutting) to another shedding of blood. Thus, the marriage covenant is a physically eternal covenant, for the covenant is made when the hymen is broken and blood is shed on the marriage bed. The hymen cannot be rebroken so the covenant runs forward until broken by death. The Sinai covenant is like a marriage covenant in that the Lord “married” the nation of Israel, with Israel shedding blood when Moses cast blood on the altar, on the Book of the Covenant, and on the people (Ex 24:5–8) … as the husband sheds no blood on the wedding bed, God shed no blood at Sinai; but as the wife sheds blood when her hymen is broken, the people of Israel shed blood at Sinai.
The marriage covenant made at Sinai required of Israel to “‘obey my [YHWH] voice and keep my covenant’” and Israel would be “‘my treasured possession among all peoples … and you [Israel] shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation’” (Ex 19:5–6). Israel broke this covenant while Moses was still atop Sinai (Ex chap 32), and the sons of Levi, that day ordained for the service of the Lord, slew about three thousand men of Israel—as servants of the Lord, the sons of Levi slew brother, companion, and neighbor, thereby shedding blood as the agents of the Lord, thus ending the covenant made forty days earlier. But this isn’t the end of the Sinai Covenant, for the Lord made a second Sinai covenant “‘with you [Moses] and with Israel’” (Ex 34:27). And this second Sinai covenant is not ratified by blood but by Moses entering into God’s rest (a euphemistic expression for His presence) that left a shining on Moses’ face (v. 29) as a type and shadow of glorification.
Every covenant ratified by the shedding of blood is an earthly thing and the shadow of a heavenly covenant ratified by better promises (Heb 9:23). The shining of Moses’ face as a type of the promise of glorification is a better thing than physically being the holy nation of the Lord.
Read the terms of the second Sinai covenant:
1. The Lord will drive out physical peoples from before Moses and Israel;
2. Moses and Israel are to take care not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of Canaan;
3. Moses and Israel are to tear down pagan symbols of worship, for Moses and Israel are to worship no other God by the Lord [YHWH], who is a jealous God;
4. Moses and Israel are not to make for themselves any gods of cast metal;
5. Moses and Israel are to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread;
6. The firstborns of Israel are to be redeemed
7. Moses and Israel are to keep the Sabbath;
8. Moses and Israel are to keep the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Ingathering [Sukkoth]; three seasons [Passover, Pentecost, Sukkoth] all of Israel’s males are to appear before the Lord;
9. The Lord will cast out nations before Moses and Israel, and will enlarge Israel’s borders;
10. Moses and Israel are not to offer the blood of the Lord’s sacrifice with anything leavened;
11. The best of Israel’s firstfruits are to be brought to the house of the Lord;
12. Moses and Israel are not to boil a kid in its mother’s milk.
Notice, no Ten Commandments! … Notice also the commandment to keep the Sabbaths, weekly and annual—keeping the Sabbaths has been raised in importance to be equal to the first commandment to have no other God but the Most High.
As an aside, words do not have inherent meaning[s]. Rather, auditors assign to linguistic icons meaning, with this assignment of meaning being arbitrary in the auditor’s first language. So the Jew who writes that Greeks did not understand the correct definition of the word Bereeth fails himself to understand that there is no “correct” definition of any word, that there are only “usual” or “unusual” assignments of meaning so a “law” is a “covenant” and is a “testament” as well as an “agreement” and a “promise.”
When Israel at Sinai promised to keep faith with the Lord, Israel entered into a covenant with the Lord, with the covenant ratified by blood as a shadow and type of a spiritual covenant, made not with a physical people and nation but with the spiritually born firstborn son of God, with son not referring to a numerically singular referent but to Christ or the Anointed One, of whom Jesus was the First of many brothers.
What about the Ten Commandments if these commandments are not part of the spiritual Sinai covenant?
On the plains of Moab, with the Promised Land in sight, the Lord commanded Moses to mediate a second covenant with Israel:
These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant that he had made with them at Horeb [Sinai]. / And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: “You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders. But to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear. I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn off your feet. You have not eaten bread, and you have not drunk wine or strong drink, that you may know that I am the Lord your God. 7 And when you came to this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out against us to battle, but we defeated them. We took their land and gave it for an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of the Manassites. Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do. (Deut 29:1–9)
“You are standing today all of you before the Lord your God: the heads of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and the sojourner who is in your camp, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water, so that you may enter into the sworn covenant of the Lord your God, which the Lord your God is making with you today, that he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, as he promised you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. It is not with you alone that I am making this sworn covenant, but with whoever is standing here with us today before the Lord our God, and with whoever is not here with us today. (vv. 10–15)
The “Second Covenant” is not the New Covenant!
The new covenant is not yet in effect: "In speaking of a new covenant, he [Christ Jesus] makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away" (Heb 8:13) … what was becoming obsolete and ready to vanish away is not the second Sinai covenant, which is a heavenly covenant and not an earthly copy of a heavenly thing. Nor is the Covenant that was and is becoming obsolete the Second Covenant, or Moab covenant, which is also a heavenly thing, ratified by a song (Deut chap 32).
Again, the Covenant that is becoming obsolete and ready to vanish away but has not yet become obsolete and has not yet vanished away is the Passover Covenant.
How can a disciple be certain?
The terms of the New Covenant are, from Jeremiah chapter 31:
1. The Lord will put the Torah within Israel (v. 33) — the Torah isn’t the Ten Commandments or some vague linguistic icon, but the Law of Moses, the first five books of Scripture.
2. The Lord [YHWH] will be Israel’s God, and Israel shall be the Lord’s people.
3. No Israelite shall teach neighbor or brother to Know the Lord, for all shall know the Lord.
4. The Lord will forgive Israel’s iniquity and remember the nation’s sin no more.
Why will no Israelite teach neighbor or brother to know the Lord? Because every Israelite will be born of spirit, and born filled with or empowered by the spirit, having within the Israelite the mind of Christ, the Anointed One.
What is the purpose of Christian ministry today? To teach neighbor and brother to know the Lord—and the testimony of Christendom is that humankind does not now know the Lord.
Again, the New Covenant does not replace the first Sinai covenant—that covenant was replaced while Israel was still at Sinai. The New Covenant is not the Second Covenant, the covenant to which better promises were added when it mediator went from being Moses to Christ Jesus. Better promises are not added to an abolished covenant, nor does an abolished covenant receive a new mediator. But since Calvary, the barrier of physical circumcision has been abolished, thereby allowing the peoples of the nations, called the Uncircumcised, to come near the covenants of promise, which are in the Torah and which have not been abolished or Gentiles could not come near them.
Paul writes,
Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Eph 2:11–22)
Just as the covenant made with Noah that was ratified by a bow being set in the sky (Gen 9:9–17 … the bow being a better sacrifice than blood) remains in effect, with this covenant being part of the Torah, the Second Sinai covenant remains in effect as does the Second Covenant, the Moab covenant. And the Passover covenant, which is not a heavenly covenant and will pass away, remains in effect until blood is shed by the Lord, with this blood being the lives of men given as the lives of Egyptians were given when Israel was a physically circumcised nation in physical bondage to a human king.
Sin is forgiven according to the terms of the Passover covenant; for Jesus said when passing the cup, “‘Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’” (Matt 26:27–28) … what covenant? The wine represented Jesus’ blood in what covenant? The answer is the Passover covenant. And if a disciple does not drink of the cup on the night that Jesus was betrayed, there is no forgiveness of sin for the disciple although, like Cain, the disciple would be accepted by God if the disciple does well (Gen 4:7), meaning living without sin.
As saints approach the forthcoming Passover seasons, there will many “Christians” who either by refusal or by ignorance or by neglect will not drink from the cup on the night that Jesus was betrayed. Strong arguments will not change the minds of those who refuse to drink from the cup, nor will pleading cause those who by neglect do not drink. Perhaps, though, those who do not drink because of ignorance can be taught, but that rarely is the case for there is no excuse for ignorance in this endtime era. If a “Christian” were serious about his or her relationship with the Father and the Son, the “Christian” would already be taking the Passover sacraments on the dark portion of the 14th of Abib. So what’s seen is a visible Christendom filled with rebellion against God, with many individual Christians being so unteachable that if they were livestock they would be unworkable and fit only for the slaughterhouse. As it is they are vessels made for dishonorable usage, vessels of wrath prepared for destruction (Rom 9:22–23); for when life and death were placed before them on their day of salvation, they chose death. They chose not to “‘obey the commandments of the Lord [YHWH] your God [Elohim] that I [the Lord] command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules’” (Deut 30:16).
It is by the terms of the eternal Moab covenant that Israel is offered life. It is this Moab covenant, which includes all of the Book of Deuteronomy (Deut 30:10), that the lawyer cites when Jesus asks the lawyer how he read the law:
And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” (Luke 10:25–28)
The lawyer knew what was required under the law to inherit eternal life: Jesus told the lawyer that he had answered correctly, that the lawyer only had to do what the lawyer said and the lawyer would live. So Israel had a law that if pursued by faith would have lead to righteousness (Rom 9:31) … the Moab covenant requires Israel to come to God by faith when in a far land (Deut 30:1–2).
The promise of the Torah is that men who by faith keep the precepts of the law can inherit eternal life, and the principle better promise added to the covenants of promise is that Israel would receive actual eternal life prior to demonstrated obedience, with this life domiciled in a tent of flesh until judgments are revealed. Then the person who heard the words of Jesus and believed the one who sent Him would pass from death to life without coming under judgment (John 5:24) whereas the person who received a second breath of life but because of unbelief would not by faith keep the precepts of the law will come under condemnation (vv. 28–29). This person’s sins will be returned to the person.
The Passover covenant was ratified by the shedding of blood (the blood of paschal lambs by Israel; the giving of Egyptian lives by the Lord — Isa 43:3). And this Passover covenant, again made on the day Israel left Egypt not six and a half weeks later at Sinai, will continue forward until blood is again shed to end this covenant—and the reason this covenant is growing obsolete is because Jesus shed His blood as the Passover Lamb of God at Calvary. However, the Lord has not yet again shed blood although He has promised that He would (Isa 43:4). And it is this second shedding of blood by the Lord, the slaying of firstborns not covered by the blood of the Passover Lamb of God, that begins the seven endtime years of Tribulation.
The prophet Zechariah wrote,
“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 Shepherd who will be struck: Jesus said to His disciples, “‘You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered”’” (Matt 26:31) … falling away is being scattered. Being cut off and perishing goes beyond falling away or being scattered.
Before proceeding, the concept of thought-couplets being the structural device around which Hebraic poetry is built needs to be examined in the above passage: the natural or physical presentation of the thought in the initial couplet is, Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me. The spiritual presentation is what Jesus cited, Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.
The second thought-couplet consists of its natural presentation—I will turn my hand against the little ones—and its spiritual presentation of the same thought: two thirds shall be cut off and perish, and one third shall be left alive.
The first and second couplets together form one larger thought-couplet which has the first couplet as the natural presentation of the thought forming the second couplet … the Lord of Hosts (the Father, for Jesus would be the man who stood next to the Lord of Hosts) will turn His hand against the little ones as He brought the sword against Christ Jesus. The little ones are to the Lord of Hosts as Jesus was to the Lord of Hosts; the little ones are the Body of Christ, and if the Body then they are also Christ. And the Father will bring the sword against Body as He brought the sword against Jesus.
The natural presentation of the third thought-couplet is, And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. The spiritual presentation is, 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.” And this third couplet, which is formed from two lesser couplets, is actually the spiritual presentation of the couplet formed by the first and second couplets … the third part of humankind that will all be born of spirit when the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28) constitutes the largest portion of the harvest of firstfruits that began with Christ Jesus, the First of the firstfruits.
Now, do these numbers agree with other biblical prophecies?
Without making the case here, the assertion will be made that the prophesied Tribulation is seven prophetic years (2520 days) long, with the first half (1260 days) forming the shadow and mirror image (chiral image) of the second half (another 1260 days). The middle of the Tribulation is marked by the kingdom of this world becoming the kingdom of the Father and His Christ (Rev 11:15); by the kingdom of this world being given to the Son of Man (Dan 7:13–14); by dominion over this kingdom being taken from the four kings that are the four horsemen (Dan 7:11–12); by Satan and his angels being cast from heaven (Rev 12:7–10); by the Holy Spirit being poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28); by the split Mount of Olives “swallowing” the armies of the man of perdition (Zech 14:3–4; Rev 12:16; Dan 9:26; Ex 15:12); by Satan coming claiming to be the Messiah and giving his usurped authority to the king of Greece (Rev 13:1–4). Satan is the second beast of Revelation chapter 13; the spiritual king of Greece is the first beast (the king of Greece is not one king but a federation of kings functioning as one king).
Within the seven years of Tribulation are three woes, with the second woe having a known beginning and a known end … the first woe ends in Revelation 9:12. This first woe apparently begins in Revelation 8:13, when an eagle with a loud voice flew overhead and said, “‘Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth,’” and apparently includes just the fifth Trumpet Plague. The second woe that begins with the sixth Trumpet Plague ends at the 1260 day mark, the end of the ministry of the two witnesses (Rev 11:14). The third woe, now, is the seventh Trumpet at which the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man thereby beginning a reign that shall never end (Dan 2:44). The third woe, then, does have an effective end when Christ Jesus returns, but this woe will also include the short while (three and a half years) when Satan is loosed after the 1,000 years, which is why its end is not seen within the narrative of Revelation—
A few words need to be said about Revelation: John was in vision on the Lord’s Day, which isn’t a day of the week but the “day” at the end of the age when the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man. Thus the vision John sees doesn’t occur at the end of the 1st-Century CE, but at the end of the age when the events of the vision are soon to occur (Rev 1:1; 22:6, 10, 12, 20). John is told not to seal the vision for “‘the time is near’” (22:10), but the time was not near to the 1st-Century CE but is near to the 21st-Century. So the words of Revelation have not been understandable because the words describe attributes of, or how the entity functions in the plan of God; e.g., Christ Jesus doesn’t “appear” as a slain Lamb (see Rev 1:13–18), but He functions as one so He is described as one (Rev 5:6; 14:1–5), with the seven eyes said to be seven spirits of God, for the seven spirits function as eyes and the seven horns are now the seven churches.
Daniel’s visions were sealed and kept secret until the time of the end (Dan 12:4, 9; 8:17, 26), and despite the angel telling John not to seal the prophecy of Revelation, the prophecy was sealed by two literary tropes, the first being that the vision doesn’t occur until the day of the Lord, when Christ Jesus as the Lamb removes the seals of the scroll, and the second being that the things named or described are how the things function in the plan of God. The Lamb has not, as of today, removed the seals off the scroll, but because the scroll is written within and without, quite a bit of the scroll can be read because the visions of Daniel have been unsealed: we are living in the generic time of the end, that period shortly prior to the beginning of the Tribulation.
Returning now to the numbers: the sixth Trumpet Plague occurs at or near the middle of the seven endtime years of tribulation, and in this sixth Trumpet Plague a third part of humankind will be killed. The remainder of humankind will be shortly born of spirit when the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh; this third part of humankind will be as Seth was, in that this third part will be by birth accepted by God and will be a replacement for righteous Abel, slain by his brother. Thus, the third part of humankind slain in the sixth Trumpet Plague functions as the ransom for the third part that will be shortly born of spirit as sons of God, called by God and identified by God as His people (Rev 18:4).
The prophet Isaiah in Hebraic poetry recorded,
But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I give Egypt as your ransom,
Cush and Seba in exchange for you.
Because you are precious in my eyes,
and honored, and I love you,
I give men in return for you,
peoples in exchange for your life. (43:1–4)
The natural portion of the first thought-couplet is, he who created you, O Jacob, with “Jacob” being the given human birth name. The spiritual portion of this first couplet is, he who formed you, O Israel, with “Israel” being the name Jacob received after wrestling with the Lord and prevailing (Gen 32:28).
But the first thought-couplet forms the natural portion of an expanded thought-couplet consisting of the couplet, Fear not, for I have redeemed you; (the natural presentation of the thought) I have called you by name, you are mine (the spiritual presentation), forming the spiritual portion of the expanded couplet.
Isaiah is a very good poet: he uses the two couplets of verse one as the natural portion of an doubly expanded couplet representing verses one and two, with two couplets in verse two that together form one expanded couplet that represents the spiritual portion of a thought, all of which will form the natural presentation of a yet more complicated thought-couplet in which verses three and four form the spiritual portion, with two couplets being in verse three and two couplets being in verse four … complicated? Imagine writing this building thought-couplet that reveals that Israel’s exodus from Egypt forms the shadow and type of Israel’s future exodus from death, or the mental landscape represented by Assyria (Jer 16:14–15; 23:7–8; Isa 11:11).
As the Lord took the lives of Egyptian firstborns as the ransom for Israel’s liberation from bondage to Pharaoh, the Lord will again take the lives of firstborns not covered by the blood of the paschal Lamb of God as the ransom price of Israel’s liberation from sin and death.
When will the Lord take the lives of firstborns not covered by the blood of the Lamb of God? He will take these lives at the second Passover liberation of Israel, now a nation circumcised of heart (Rom 2:28–29), now a people who were not before a people (1 Pet 2:9–10). He takes these lives at the beginning of the seven endtime years of tribulation—and the taking of these lives forms the shadow and type of the sixth Trumpet Plague.
Approximately a third of humankind are firstborns, with very few of these firstborns covering their sins with the blood of the paschal Lamb of God, taken on the night that Jesus was betrayed (the dark portion of the 14th of Abib). As a result, approximately a third of humankind will be supernaturally slain in a very short period (between the 14th and 17th day of the second month): this means that more than two billion people will die suddenly, all of whom are firstborns who did not take the Passover sacraments.
The focus of the world will instantly be on God. Whatever was important the day before will no longer be important. Getting right with God will be the only thing of concern.
If a third of humankind die at the beginning of the seven endtime years, these years coming upon humankind as the flood came upon the earth in the days of Noah who entered the Ark on the 10th day of the second month, the day when the Passover lamb for the second Passover was selected and penned, then two thirds of humankind will remain alive [1 - ⅓ = ⅔].
But of the two-thirds of humankind left alive, a fourth is given to Death, the fourth horseman and fourth king: “And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth” (Rev 6:8). The math now is: ⅔ x ¾ = ½. This fourth king is dealt a death blow and his body is taken to be burned when the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man, so except for those killed when Satan makes an image of this fourth king and makes the image speak, Death is finished for the kingdom of this world really belongs of the Son of Man even though Christ Jesus will not return for another 1260 days. But with only half of humankind remaining alive, the sixth Trumpet Plague occurs.
The math following the sixth Trumpet Plague is: ½ x ⅔ = ⅓. One third of humankind will remain alive, the number the prophet Zechariah gives … this third part of humankind equates to the ten virgins, in that they were born empowered of spirit when they received a second breath of life. They were never under grace; they never committed sins in the inter-dimensional portion of the heavenly realm. They are true spiritual virgins whereas disciples born of spirit prior to the second Passover have “covered” sins that either will or won’t be given to Satan when their judgments are revealed.
But of the ten virgins, only five enter with the Bridegroom.
There are not many names written in the Book of Life; there are few.
Peters asks, “‘If the righteous is scarcely saved / what will become of the ungodly / and the sinner’” (1 Pet 4:18).
A disciple can answer Peter’s question for him or herself.
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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."