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 God's provision.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of March 19, 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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The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. As it is written,
“He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever.”
He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission flowing from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others, while they long for you and pray for you, because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift! (2 Cor 9:6–15 emphasis added)
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This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God. / I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? / Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you! For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things. / I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. (1 Cor 4:1–14 emphasis added)
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The riches of God and of this world are received so as to be given to others: the person who receives wealth is a conduit through which this wealth, whether knowledge of the mysteries of God or possession of tangible goods, can be shared for sufficiency in all things includes giving what has been received. … According to Paul, he and those with him were like the scum of the earth, laboring with their hands but not being physically blessed with good homes and fine clothes and the finer things in life. Rather, it was the laity that has sufficiency in all things at all times, which initially seems odd except for the laity—like the ministry—being conduits through which those things that have been given are conveyed.
There is a concept that isn’t coming through the translation, and that concept pertains to the things of this world and especially the finer things tethering the person to this world—the ministry as well as the laity is not to be tethered to this world through the accumulation of things and especially through the desires of the flesh and pride in possessions. John writes, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
Paul says about himself and about those with him, We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things. The writer of Hebrews says, “Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth” (11:36–38) … the person clad in skin garments and dwelling in caves, destitute and afflicted, would not seem to have sufficiency in all things; yet the world was not worthy of the person. So there is no hard link between righteousness and material wealth unless there is a negative link. Thus, it is what the translation doesn’t make plain that needs to be explored.
The man called by God to speak the Lord’s words has his reward in heaven so all this man needs in this world is enough to maintain physical life until the job for which he has been called is completed. He needs nothing more, including the honor and esteem of this world. He doesn’t need to drive a Buick; he doesn’t need to wear a suit, or to live in a house that honors God—what sort of house would that be? This person needs nothing more than to believe God and faithfully execute the task to which the person has been called. And the ministry of greater Christendom has been and continues to be unfaithful through either not believing God, or through remaining tethered to this world by inner desires to have the finer things of this world.
The person who would serve God as a minister or a pastor will serve by giving to others those things which he [or rarely, she] has been given by God. These will not be things obtained from a theological seminary, things that keep Christendom shackled to death—and this person will give, and give more, and give until there is nothing left to give, and this person will not ask for payment nor will this person place a burden on those who receive; for salvation doesn’t come with a price that can be paid by the Christian laity. Thus, the ministry that is of God works on the same terms as the Apostle Paul worked, laboring with hands to be like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things, laboring to give and not take, receiving support only from those who choose to support.
Pause for a moment and consider which television evangelist would continue to proclaim the good news of Christ Jesus if no one supported the evangelist—which one would be able to continue proclaiming the good news of Christ Jesus without asking for support either publicly or privately? And if none could continue to proclaim the good news of Christ Jesus, then which one is of God? Which one works as Paul worked? Which one will, when destitute and reduced to dwelling in caves and wearing home-tanned buckskin garments, continue to faithfully proclaim the good news of Christ Jesus?
Paul wrote,
Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge; indeed, in every way we have made this plain to you in all things. / Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because I preached God's gospel to you free of charge? I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need. So I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way. As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia. And why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do! / And what I do I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. (2 Cor 11:5–15 emphasis added)
Paul’s super-apostles delivered spell-binding oratory, but they didn’t know God or know the will of God. They thought they did; they thought Paul was false. And some of them would have known the Scriptures as they had received them, but they didn’t understand what they had received. Nor could they untangle the screwed up translation of translations they had received from their unfaithful ancestors. They were tied in a theological Gordian Knot and they were without a sword, but oh, could they preach Christ and Christ crucified!
A commercial fisherman doesn’t usually work for wages, but works for a share of the profit when the catch is sold. In the longline Alaskan halibut or cod fishery of the early and mid 20th-Century, the boat received 51% of the profit, and the crew received 49%, divided into seven shares of seven percent each, with deckhands working for partial shares until they proved themselves. A half-share deckhand worked for three and a half percent of the profit the vessel earned for the season, with boat groceries, gear, and breakdowns coming out of the gross before there was any profit: if the vessel didn’t earn a profit, there were no wages for the season.
How many televangelists will preach Christ and Christ crucified, not asking for any support, while subsidizing the television broadcast out of his or her own pocket? If the evangelist will not work on these terms, the evangelist isn’t of God, but is of this world and by extension, is of the Adversary.
The Apostle Paul, by not asking for support, established the basis for determining whether a ministry is of God or of men; for a workman is worthy of his hire. However, the ministry that is of God has not been hired by parishioners, or by television viewers, or by other men and women. Rather, the ministry has been “hired” by the Most High God and His Christ. It is God who supplies the needs of the person whom God has chosen to do a work for Him, and God will usually, but not always, work through other people to supply the needs of those whom God has hired/called to do a work for the Father and the Son. And by working through other people, God gives to the ones who support the person God has called to a job that same reward as the one called receives. Therefore, the person truly hired/called by God to a work and those who, by faith, support this person receive the same reward: there is no distinction.
It takes perhaps greater faith to support a ministry that works as Paul works than it does to work as Paul worked; for Paul was called to his ministry through a means that was truly unforgettable. Paul knew what had occurred to him on the road to Damascus. There was no faith involved in Paul receiving his sight and beginning to proclaim Christ and Christ crucified. He could not deny what had occurred, and apparently his ongoing eye problems served as an ever present reminder of what had happened. However, those who supported Paul did so by faith—
The saints at Corinth should have been supporting the Apostle Paul, but it was saints from Macedonia who actually supplied Paul’s needs while Paul preached at Corinth. These holy ones from Macedonia would share in Paul’s reward [salvation, itself, is a gift that cannot be earned]; whereas the saints at Corinth would not.
The saints at Corinth were consumers. They produced nothing but trials and headaches: “I have been a fool! You forced me to it, for I ought to have been commended by you. For I was not at all inferior to these super-apostles, even though I am nothing” (2 Cor 12:11).
The ministries of Philadelphia can usually pass for the scum of this world; for in not asking for support, little is received. Yet because the ministries of Philadelphia do not burden those that these ministries teach, God is able to communicate directly with them as the Lord could initially communicate with the children of Israel in the Promised Land through giving or withholding the early and the latter rains (Deut 11:13–17). When the ministries of Philadelphia desire to do this or that and there is no moneys received that can be used for the intended project, the project isn’t done for God has chosen not to support it. At other times and for other purposes, support is received and a project is done. But when a ministry seeks support from other men, the ministry seeks to circumvent the will of the Lord …
Many Sabbatarians pastors in Asia and in Africa cannot comprehend a ministry that doesn’t ask for support. They cannot comprehend trusting God to provide for them: it is sad to say that these Sabbatarians pastors manifest what can derogatively be called slave mentally, for circumstances usually outside of themselves have turned them into beggars that think as beggars think, not asking God for support and then waiting for that support, but asking other men as if they worked for these other men, not God. They do not behave as if they trust God. They claim to be doing a work for God. They say those things that would indicate that they work for God, but they act as if they are of the Adversary. They do not behave as free men (and women) behave, trusting God to supply their needs. They behave as dependent children, the product of theological colonialism; yet they are old enough to stand on their own feet and walk uprightly as men walk.
Usually the ministry in Asia or in Africa that seeks support tells of all of the good work the ministry does, its evangelistic efforts, its orphanage, how it is being harassed by Muslim or Hindu neighbors, not realizing that if the ministry were truly of God, the Lord would ensure the support of the ministry to the extent that the Lord wants the ministry to do the work it is doing … if God doesn’t want a ministry to conduct an evangelistic campaign, God will not supply the money for that evangelistic campaign. If the ministry proceeds on faith, trusting God to supply its needs for the campaign when that campaign is not of God, the ministry will encounter financial difficulties, and will come running to its American partners in the faith, begging for money to complete the good work for the Lord that the ministry has undertaken.
What part of No does the ministry not understand?
If a Sabbatarian pastor in southeastern Kenya, desiring to do a good work for God, schedules an evangelistic campaign, stepping out on faith, trusting God to supply what the pastor lacks—and if the money isn’t there when it comes time to pay the bills, the pastor has blasphemed God, besmirching God, causing Sabbatarians to stink in the eyes of their neighbors, and the pastor inevitably aligns himself with an American ministry that is of the Adversary, but a ministry that can assist with the bills … the ministry that is not supported by God will always falsely teach the doctrines of Christ Jesus.
Why would God support additional false teaching? He won’t! So the ministry in India or in Pakistan or in Kenya that does not like what God says to the ministry will go, hat in hand, to other men seeking the support God has withheld from the ministry.
If a ministry in India, seeing need—seeing many orphaned children—desires to do a work for God and begins an orphanage; if a ministry in Kenya, seeing orphaned children, begins an orphanage; and if there is no money for the orphanage (if God doesn’t support the orphanage) the ministry needs to get out of the orphanage business, not neglecting those children that the orphanage has already agreed to support but ceasing evangelistic tours and whatever else the ministry does until the children are grown and are able to support themselves. Besides, what is the ministry that requests help from other men teaching in its orphanage? How to beg? Certainly feeding and sheltering children without the means to care for themselves is a good work, but if the person has been called by God to do this work, then God will supply the means for the work to be done. If the person simply works because he or she sees suffering and wants to do something about the suffering, the person has a good heart and is to be commended, but the person is foolish, not weighing the costs of providing for orphaned children before undertaking their care … what will this person do when the Second Passover liberation of Israel occurs and uncovered firstborns suddenly perish in a day? Not a few perish, but worldwide, 2.3 billion—one of every three individuals, but in Russia, Western Europe, and even in the United States, one of every two individuals, with two of every three or three of every four perishing in China. The great nations of this world will be reduced to gaunt skeletons of themselves. And the hungry children that a Kenyan orphanage has been feeding will receive no more help from the United States: the children that relied upon the charity of an American family or ministry will die from starvation whereas the children in the orphanage that provided for itself will continue to be poorly fed but alive. Thus, the American ministry that has strived to support hungry children in various parts of the world has done a good work, but will have condemned these dependent children to a drawn-out death after the Second Passover occurs.
Before a person engages in a work for God, the person needs to weigh the costs and determine beforehand whether God truly wants the person to be doing this work, or whether the desire to do the good work comes from the person’s heart alone. If the latter is the case, then undertaking the good work will become the vocation of the person to the exclusion of all other vocations.
The above needs to be untangled: when a person sees a hungry child, or a neglected puppy dog [not that there is a comparison], the person’s heart is touched and the person wants to help the child or the animal. That is just the way the natural mind responds to genuine need in helpless living creatures. If the mind responds in any other way, the person suffers emotional damage that is probably irreparable. Therefore, the person will take in and care-for the helpless to the best of the person’s abilities, and this is as it should be. But at some point, the person has no more ability to care-for the helpless. Then the person is faced with the very difficult choice of either seeking additional support from other people, or leaving the helpless to an inevitable death: if the person takes in the helpless when the person has no ability to care-for the helpless, does the person serve the helpless? And the answer is, NO! But this question will be faced by a great many human beings immediately after the Second Passover liberation of Israel. For the problem of need will be far worse than the problems presently encountered in India or in Kenya.
Before the kingdom of this world is taken from the Adversary and given to the Son of Man, human beings will come to hate Death in a way that they presently cannot even imagine. Their emotions will be wrenched, twisted, plowed under as they come to hate themselves and everything for which they presently stand. They will jettison their present ideologies and pass through the simple desire to just survive, just get through today; their hearts will desire to do good, but they will have no ability to do good. Their own hunger will seem to be a small thing compared to the hunger they see all around them. And there will be nothing they can do about their own hunger or about the hunger of those they desire to help. They will truly be helpless and feel helpless. And they will still be five more years to go before Christ Jesus returns.
When Allied soldiers liberated Nazi concentration camps in the last months of World War II, the corpses of Jews and Slavs who had starved to death will not be forgotten. The deputy sheriff who visits the farm that has not been able to feed its livestock over the winter doesn’t soon forget the sight of starved animals. And the world in the Millennium will not forget the sight of starved humanity in the Affliction, the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years of tribulation.
Latter Day Saints have been instructed to have on hand a year’s worth of what they will need to survive, and the Mormon Church is prepared to leverage food into discipleship. But one year’s worth of food will not last even that one year: what has been stored will last just long enough for Latter Day Saints to, in unison, rebel against God on day 220 of the Affliction and thereby condemn themselves to the lake of fire. And today, Glenn Beck in encouraging people to prepare for what is certain to come sets those who listen to him up for condemnation. Yes, Christians should prepare, but the person who has prepared is less likely to rethink [repent] how he or she worships God than the person who is not prepared. And when all of Christendom, except for those represented by Moses and Joshua, are far from God, it is absolutely essential that Christians collectively rethink their relationship with God during the first 220 days of the Affliction.
The heinousness of all variant forms of the Rapture lays in the idea of escaping from the trials of the Tribulation, whether escaping to a physical place of safety as taught for the former Worldwide Church of God, or escaping by being bodily raptured to heaven. There will be no escape. But because belief in the Rapture has caused Christians to make no preparation for the seven endtime years of turmoil that will be unlike in intensity any that has previously come upon humankind, these Christians will perish physically when they might have lived if they had believed the seven years of warnings that preceded the Second Passover liberation of Israel. And if the Second Passover were to occur this year, a very real probability, there probably is not time enough to make preparations beyond considering how will the person supply him or herself and his or her family with the basic necessities of life [food, water, shelter] in a world in which the disciple has no ability to buy and sell, not for one year, but for seven years, meaning that food storage isn’t a complete answer but a temporary means to transition into food self-sufficiency through individual sustainable agriculture à la the Amish.
Christians are not today mentally prepared for what is certain to come, and come soon. Christians pray for, Thy kingdom come (Matt 6:10), without any comprehension of what they pray-for. They have not considered what Jesus referenced when He said, “‘For it is written, “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered”’” (Matt 26:31); for the remainder of this passage for which Jesus established its beginning date [the night of the Preparation Day for the first High Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread] says,
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.” (Zech 13:7–9 emphasis added)
The numbers work this way: one part of three shall be cut off at the Second Passover liberation of Israel, the nation to be circumcised of heart. Of approximately 7 billion human being alive today, this one part of three, all natural or legal firstborns, will represent about 2.3 billion human beings. Then of the two parts of humankind remaining alive, a fourth part will be given over to death (Rev 6:8) over the next three years: 2/3(7 billion) x ¾ = 3.5 billion. Then, shortly before the kingdom of this world is taken from the four demonic kings and the little horn (Dan 7:9–14; Rev 11:15–18) when the Seventh Trumpet Plague of the Seventh Seal comes upon humanity, the second woe occurs [i.e., the Sixth Trumpet Plague] and a third part of remaining humankind is killed: the math holds, 2/3(7 B) x ¾ x 2/3 = 2.3 billion human beings are still alive when the Endurance, the last 1260 days of the seven endtime years, begins … in a period of 1260 days, 4.7 billion people will die physically—and no one alive today is mentally prepared for death on this scale.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution and the use of cheap energy to put additional land into agricultural crops, and then cheap fertilizer to increase cereal grain production beyond anything previously imaginable, the world population was somewhat stable at about 1.5 billion. The tremendous increase in world population over the past 300 years has come about to give opportunity to a great many more human beings to be sons of God: the number of human beings that enter the Endurance, when the world is baptized in the breath of God (Joel 2:28; Matt 3:12) and every person will be born of God and born filled-with and empowered by the breath of God, will be greater than the traditional (and presently sustainable) population of the earth. Indeed, God wants firstborn sons—and He is willing for many human beings to die physically so that He can obtained more sons than the Adversary has anticipated.
But, in giving more human beings a chance to believe Him, God is also prepared for starvation to occur on a scale previously unimaginable. God knows that war will kill many more human beings than anyone today really expects. And God will kill more human beings than any Christian will today believe.
The liberated Holocaust survivors foreshadow those human beings that will physically live into the Endurance, when another three and a half years remain before the Messiah comes and the Adversary is bound for a thousand years. And Christians will escape nothing, not something they want to hear but something that is true.
Since spring 2003, Philadelphia has been warning that a Second Passover liberation of Israel will occur, a liberation foreshadowed by Israel’s exodus from Egypt in the days of Moses. Yet after a decade, few Christians really believe that a Second Passover liberation of Israel will occur. Most simply cannot imagine God slaying, or permitting the slaying of two of three parts of humankind. That is not the God they worship, and this is true. The deity they worship, however, isn’t the Lord of hosts (from Zech 13:7) that commanded the sword to strike His Shepherd, Christ Jesus.
The end of the age and the return of Christ Jesus cannot be as it was in the days of Noah (Matt 24:37; Luke 17:26) if the sign of Noah comes after seven endtime years of tribulation … either the seven endtime years of tribulation will not amount to much—not enough to be recognized as the Tribulation—or the sign of Noah occurs at the beginning of these seven years that then begin the countdown to Christ’s certain return 2520 days later. And the argument here is that when the seven endtime years begin, the day of Christ’s return will be known by all who believe God. The argument here is also that the seven endtime years will be unlike any previous time in human history. These years cannot be mistaken for any other period.
The words of Jeremiah were difficult to accept when the armies of Nebuchadnezzar surrounded Jerusalem and food became scarce inside the polis’ walls. Even Jeremiah didn’t understand why he was commanded to buy a field during the seize:
After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, I prayed to the Lord, saying: “Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you. You show steadfast love to thousands, but you repay the guilt of fathers to their children after them, O great and mighty God, whose name is the Lord of hosts, great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of man, rewarding each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds. You have shown signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, and to this day in Israel and among all mankind, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day. You brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and outstretched arm, and with great terror. And you gave them this land, which you swore to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey. And they entered and took possession of it. But they did not obey your voice or walk in your law. They did nothing of all you commanded them to do. Therefore you have made all this disaster come upon them. Behold, the siege mounds have come up to the city to take it, and because of sword and famine and pestilence the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it. What you spoke has come to pass, and behold, you see it. Yet you, O Lord God, have said to me, ‘Buy the field for money and get witnesses’—though the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.” (Jer 32:16–25 emphasis added)
Israel—two nations, one outwardly circumcised and biologically descended from Abraham through Isaac, Jacob and Jacob’s twelve sons, and the other circumcised of heart and spiritually descended through Christ Jesus and the twelve apostles, with Paul replacing Judas Iscariot—has been unfaithful to the Most High God, and today, does not obey His voice or walk in His Law. The American Christian sees need in India or in Kenya and desires to help alleviate this need and therefore contributes a little of his or her resources, but this Christian does not see the spiritual neediness of him or herself or neighbors so he or she does nothing to assist famished sons of God, many of whom have already perished for want of spiritual milk … there has been an ongoing famine of the word of God that has left the greater Christian Church spiritually looking like Jews in Auschwitz II-Birkenau during the war years.
Throughout Herbert W. Armstrong’s ministry there was a continual warning of a soon-coming famine of the Word when no work could be done: what Armstrong never understood was that the famine of the Word was then in existence and had been since the end of the 1st-Century—and would continue in existence until the Second Passover liberation of Israel from indwelling sin and death, with liberation coming through filling Christians with the breath of God so that the Law of God would be written on hearts and placed in minds according to the terms of the New Covenant, implemented at the Second Passover on the second Passover.
Judaism has done nothing that the Lord through Moses commanded the nation to do … how does a thigh bone or a chicken neck in a Seder service on the night of the 15th of Aviv satisfy Moses commanding Israel to take a lamb without blemish, a male of the first year, and pen this lamb on the 10th day of the first month and sacrifice this lamb at even on the 14th day, roasting this lamb whole with fire? No Seder service satisfies Moses. Now, how does taking communion weekly or quarterly or annually satisfy taking the Passover sacraments of unleavened bread and wine on the night that Jesus was betrayed, the dark portion of the 14th of Aviv? It doesn’t! Not this year or any year. So, leaving previous years aside, this year a few Sabbatarian Christians will take the Passover sacraments on the dark portion of the 14th of Aviv (Sunday night, April 17th), perhaps as many as 20,000, with most of these Sabbatarian Christians coming from the spiritually dead splinters of Armstrong’s former ministry, but of these few thousand Sabbatarian Christians who will take the Passover sacraments on the night Jesus was betrayed (1 Cor 11:23), not even a few hundred are prepared for the Second Passover liberation of Israel … Christians simply refuse to believe the Lord:
The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me? Therefore, thus says the Lord: Behold, I am giving this city [Jerusalem] into the hands of the Chaldeans and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he shall capture it. The Chaldeans who are fighting against this city shall come and set this city on fire and burn it, with the houses on whose roofs offerings have been made to Baal and drink offerings have been poured out to other gods, to provoke me to anger. For the children of Israel and the children of Judah have done nothing but evil in my sight from their youth. The children of Israel have done nothing but provoke me to anger by the work of their hands, declares the Lord. This city has aroused my anger and wrath, from the day it was built to this day, so that I will remove it from my sight because of all the evil of the children of Israel and the children of Judah that they did to provoke me to anger—their kings and their officials, their priests and their prophets, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They have turned to me their back and not their face. And though I have taught them persistently, they have not listened to receive instruction. They set up their abominations in the house that is called by my name, to defile it. They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.” (Jer 32:26–35 emphasis added)
The visible, physical things of this world reveal and precede the invisible things of God (cf. Rom 1:20; 1 Cor 15:46). Earthly Jerusalem is a shadow and type of heavenly Jerusalem, and what happened in earthly Jerusalem also happened in heavenly Jerusalem, where Christian pastors and theologians offered up the firstborn sons of God to Molech, causing them to perish in Gehenna, the lake of fire, not something that the Lord intended but the certain outcome of rebellion against God by Christians turning their backs to God, which is what worshiping on the first day of the week is.
Now therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city [Jerusalem] of which you say, “It is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by sword, by famine, and by pestilence”: Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul. / For thus says the Lord: Just as I have brought all this great disaster upon this people, so I will bring upon them all the good that I promise them. Fields shall be bought in this land of which you are saying, “It is a desolation, without man or beast; it is given into the hand of the Chaldeans.” Fields shall be bought for money, and deeds shall be signed and sealed and witnessed, in the land of Benjamin, in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, in the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the Shephelah, and in the cities of the Negeb; for I will restore their fortunes, declares the Lord. (Jer 32:36–44 emphasis added)
It will be the third part of humankind (from Zech 13;9) that the Lord plants in heavenly Jerusalem and that shall there be His people. And none of this third part is today Christian.
How hungry did the beasts—the livestock—in earthly Jerusalem get when the city was surrounded by the armies of the king of Babylon? That is how hungry the fleshly bodies of Christians will be during the Affliction, when heavenly Jerusalem is surrounded by the armies of the spiritual king of Babylon (from Isa 14:4). And most Christians have done nothing to prepare.
The Apostle Paul disclosed a reality that all genuine Christians will experience during the Affliction: genuine Christians will be the scum of this world, the dregs of humanity; for they will not strive to restore the governance of this world to the Adversary and his representatives, but will stand by and watch the world continue to fall into ungovernable chaos. It will be the Glenn Becks of this world who strive to restore the institutions of the Adversary such as the representational democracy America’s founding fathers created, not the two witnesses who will repeatedly testify that this world cannot and should not be saved. It will be those “Christians” who support the Adversary that will strive to restore law and order, and the institutions of governance prior to the doubled day 1260 halfway through the seven endtime years. Genuine disciples, feeling compassion towards those who are without hope and without food, will share what they have, and will be slain by those whom they help. But that is how it must be, for not even those Christians who prove to be genuine will, today, believe 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."