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 being able to obey God.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of March 14, 2015
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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Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw Him they worshiped Him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Matt 28:16–20 emphasis added)
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2.
Last Sabbath’s reading left off with make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—
If all authority in heaven and on earth is not given to the glorified Jesus until halfway through seven endtime years of tribulation, when does the glorified Jesus tell His disciples to go forth and “make disciples of all nations”? Does He not tell His disciples to “make disciples” after all authority has been given to Him? Assuming what the glorified Jesus tells His disciples is “true,” this glorified Jesus does not meet with His disciples in Galilee until the second half of the doubled day 1260, the first day that the Adversary and his angels have been cast to earth, with the Adversary coming to devour whomever he can; coming as the returned Messiah, and again deceiving humanity. Only when he comes claiming to be the Messiah, his deception will not hold for he will no longer control the mental topography of living creatures …
Once the Adversary and his angels are stripped of their presently-held dominion over the mental landscapes of living creatures, human persons will no longer be serfs of the Adversary. Regardless of whether the person previously claimed to be a Muslim or a Hindi or a Buddhist, the person will become Israel, the firstborn son of the Lord (Ex 4:22). The person will be baptized in spirit [fully immersed in spirit] (Joel 2:28), thereby giving to the person a circumcised heart, and the person will make an offering to the temple: his or her physical life. The person will become a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1) and the temple will be the building for which the Apostle Paul laid the foundation (1 Cor 3:10–11), the building constructed from living stones (1 Pet 2:4–5). Paul writes, “Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple” (1 Cor 3:16–17). In addition, Paul writes, “What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. …’” (2 Cor 6:16).
Pause and consider the ramifications of you, as a disciple, going forth to make disciples of all nations, with those whom you make into disciples being serfs of the Adversary, consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32) as a son of disobedience (Eph 2:2–3); for unless the Father draws the person from this world, the person cannot come to Christ Jesus (John 6:44). The person remains a son of disobedience, only now the person believes that he or she is a Christian because the person has invited Jesus into the person’s heart; the person has accepted Jesus as his or her personal savior. And because the person remains a son of disobedience, the person will involuntarily transgress one or more of the commandments, with Paul writing, “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 8:7).
The Christian who remains a son of disobedience because God has not drawn the person from this world and delivered the person to Christ Jesus does not and indeed cannot submit to God’s Law: this Christian will inevitably transgress one or more of the Commandments, and to break one Commandment makes the person a sinner, thereby continuing the person’s course of life as a son of disobedience. And what is it that you as a Philadelphian observe about greater Christendom? That collectively, Christians strive to enter into God’s presence on the day after the Sabbath, the day that Christ Jesus was resurrected from death and ascended to the Father where He was accepted as the reality of the Wave Sheaf Offering. Hence, almost without exception, Christians transgress the Sabbath Commandment, making these Christians law-breakers, sinners … ah, but they will tell you that they are not under the Law but under grace. They would be if God the Father had drawn them from this world and delivered them to Christ Jesus to be called, justified, and glorified by the indwelling of the spirit of Christ [pneuma Christou] in their spirit of man [to pneuma tou ’anthropou], thereby causing them to be born again or born from above or born of spirit, these three expressions addressing the same indwelling of Christ in the person, this indwelling causing the person to walk in this world as Christ Jesus, an observant Jew, walked in this world.
The person saved by grace is the person who hears the word of Jesus and believes the One who sent Jesus into this world and who has passed from death to life without coming under judgment (John 5:24). This person is made a slave of obedience that leads to righteousness (Rom 6:16). This person really has no choice about whether he or she keeps the Commandments—oh, the person may believe that he or she has freewill, but the person doesn’t. This person has been purchased from the Adversary by the blood of Christ Jesus to become the slave of obedience; this person will now be numbered among the Elect of spiritual Israel, those foreknown by the Father, predestined by the Father, called by Christ, justified by Christ, and glorified by the indwelling Christ. This person becomes the personification of God the Father in this world—and this person needs to behave as if he or she were God, with the great of the Elect being the one who serves the most. This person needs to serve others, particularly his or her brethren.
Backing up and taking another run at what is wrong with greater Christendom: Matthew’s Jesus, when He tells His disciples that all authority has been given Him, also tells His disciples to make disciples of all nations; for all peoples will then be the people of God. Prior to when all authority is given to the Son of Man, all authority belongs to the Adversary. No one can come to Christ Jesus unless the Father draws the person from this world (again, John 6:44, 65). There is no plan, no divine intent to deliver universal salvation to humanity during the period when God has delivered humanity to the Adversary for the destruction of the flesh … there is no equality of power between God and the Adversary: Satan and Christ Jesus do not wrestle for the souls of men in a manner analogous to two schoolboys behind the gym. There is no great controversy. To say there is discloses the person’s lack of spiritual understanding—
Whenever the Father wishes, He can end the Adversary’s reign as the present prince of this world, the prince of the power of the air. There is nothing the Adversary can do to prevent God from stripping his dominion over living creatures from him; there is nothing he can do to prevent being cast into space-time where he will perish through fire coming from his belly to utterly consume him.
The end of the Adversary’s administration of [reign over] the single kingdom of this world and the beginning of the Son of Man’s administration occurs on the doubled-day 1260, halfway through the seven endtime years of tribulation, these seven years forming the transition between this present age and the Millennium, the Thousand Year long reign of the glorified Messiah. Thus, the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years [2520 days] represents the fall of spiritual Babylon; the collapse of the present economies and cultures of this world. The second 1260 day period marks the beginning of the reign of the Son of Man, with God using the Adversary to compel those persons who desire to serve Him to abandon transactional economies, thereby introducing a worldwide land Sabbath that is the Millennium. These two 1260 day long periods are non-symmetrical mirror images of one another: they are chiral enantiomorphs on a single time-plane, but they are dissimilar images in the timelessness of the heavenly realm. Their asymmetricity is seen in the man of perdition (the lawless one of 2 Thess 2:3) in the Affliction, the first 1260 day period, being a human person possessed by the Adversary; whereas the man of perdition’s counterpart in the Endurance, the last 1260 day period, will be the true Antichrist, the Adversary cast into space-time and given the mind of a man. In the Affliction, the lawless one will be a physical man with the thoughts and character of the Adversary. In the Endurance, the Antichrist will be a demonic archangel who has been given the mind of a man, with the mind of man preventing him from escaping imprisonment in space-time … because the fleshly body of a human person possesses “mass,” the human person cannot escape from space-time [the creation], the justification of Paul writing, “I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable” (1 Cor 15:50 emphasis added). The mind of a man knows that he cannot escape from space-time. Star-Trek’s warp-drive was the production of a force field around the space ship, then the collapsing of the field in front of the spaceship thereby producing a vacuum in space-time that permitted the spaceship to travel faster than the speed of light by entering into where space-time temporarily didn’t exist. So while the mind of a man can plot escape from space-time and from time dilation, man cannot execute this escape. When the Adversary is cast into space-time and given the mind of man, he will not be able to execute an escape.
Disciples are to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I [Jesus] have commanded you in the Endurance in Jesus, when the Son of Man possesses all authority in heaven and on earth. Again, this will be the last 1260 days of the seven endtime years. Until then, those who would strive to make disciples of all nations actually teach disciples to rebel against God, not to observe all that Jesus commanded His disciples.
The Adversary deceives all nations and all peoples, and this includes all of greater Christendom: even a Philadelphian is deceived by the Adversary to the extent that the Philadelphian doesn’t think the thoughts of Christ Jesus … the Christian truly born of God has the mind of Christ—
There are Christians not of The Philadelphia Church who identify themselves as “Philadelphians,” but when pressed they will tell you that they are not born of spirit. They are merely begotten. At least they are somewhat honest in their dishonesty: they are not born of spirit, and they are utterly without spiritual understanding, and they actively work to make disciples of all nations. They do Christ Jesus more harm than good; for in the message they teach, they commit blasphemy against both the Father and the Son. But their blasphemy will be forgiven them. The blasphemy that will not be forgiven is against the spirit of God, and by them denying that they are born of spirit when they are not born of spirit, they do not yet commit blasphemy against the spirit. The Christian who claims to be born of spirit when he or she remains a son of disobedience will commit blasphemy against the spirit when this Christian is filled with spirit following the Second Passover liberation of Israel. And this should scare the Christian, but doesn’t because of the damage that has been done to the person through sons of disobedience making “Christian” disciples of all nations.
Paul writes,
Was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached? If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized. (1 Cor 14:36–38 emphasis added)
What Paul wrote is a command of the Lord:
For God shows no partiality. 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. (Rom 2:11–13)
According to Paul, it will be the doers of the Law who will be justified—and this is not the gospel [good news] that has been taught by sons of disobedience who have gone forth to make disciples of all nations, these converts becoming Christians that remain sons of disobedience deceived into believing that they are saved. And this is sad.
It would have been better for no converts to have been made.
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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."