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 not offending little ones.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of April 9, 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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Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. / Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble. (1 Cor 8:1–13 emphasis added)
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If knowledge of the Lord puffs up, then knowledge of Christ Jesus functions in the Christian in a manner analogous to how yeast functions in bread: a person without any knowledge would, then, be like unleavened bread, bread of affliction, representing the body/Body of Christ Jesus. A person with knowledge would, then—continuing the sacrament analogy—be like wine in the processes of working, with the finished product being the blood/life of Christ Jesus, who was complete in His knowledge of God but who did not know that He would die alone on the cross.
Taking the analogy of a Christian with knowledge, albeit incomplete knowledge, being like wine in which yeast is still doing its work—unfinished wine, or wine while its still red—what Paul writes about there being many gods & lords in heaven and on earth is germane to the sixth Trumpet Plague [the second woe]: “The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts” (Rev 9:20–21). Even after a third of then living humankind is killed, the remainder of humankind will not cease worshiping demons and the works of their hands. Nothing short of taking from human beings their present human natures will stop the peoples of this world from worshiping demons. Nothing short of taking from Christians their present forms of Christianity will stop Christians from worshiping the Adversary and calling him Christ—and this includes virtually all Sabbatarian Christians.
Not all of humankind possesses knowledge of Christ Jesus—this is obvious. But it wasn’t the world [pagans] that Paul referenced when he wrote, However, not all possess this knowledge. It was those who called themselves Christians. For some Christians, through former associations with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol. It wasn’t Greeks and other peoples then in Corinth that worshiped idols that ate food as really offered to an idol, but Christians converts who were without knowledge, but who were as unleavened bread, innocent, naïve, new in the faith, covered by Christ’s Jesus’ garment of righteousness; i.e., grace. It was these new Christians that converts with some knowledge of God were to take care not to offend, or cause to sin against Christ.
When Christians appear before the Lord to have their judgments revealed [not made], they will be of two sorts: (1) those who have no sin covered by grace, the state of the third part of humankind (from Zech 13:9) when born of God and born filled-with and empowered by the breath of God, and (2) those who sins were covered by grace and who grew in grace and knowledge and who let sin do its work of showing that transgressions of the Law were exceedingly sinful—sinful beyond measure (Rom 7:13)—and that the Law was spiritual and good. The first is as unleavened bread; the latter is as wine. The first were called last and became first through enduring to the end in faith; the latter were called first and became last through the process of growing in grace and knowledge so that they, too, might be called great in the kingdom of the heavens [the plural is correct].
The person who relaxes/breaks the least of the commandments is not the equivalent to unleavened bread, but will be least in the kingdom of the heavens (Matt 5:19). This is the person who, as a glorified son of God, will have to deal with human beings throughout the Millennium because of having relaxed a commandment the person didn’t believe was all that important, with the Sabbath commandment being for most the one that was relaxed. This son of God will learn the reason for not relaxing/breaking any of the commandments in a manner analogous to the owner of a puppy rubbing the pup’s nose in the mess the pup made.
Christians today who have been born of God—these Christians are few in number and all will be keeping the commandments to the best of their knowledge while exercising love for brother and neighbor—have knowledge of God and are inevitably puffed up by that knowledge so that they imagine themselves to be teachers when they have not been called to teach. No human person can have the use of the spirit of God for three and four decades, witnessing the rise of Sabbatarian Christendom and now its decline, without sincerely believing that he or she must do something to stem the ebbing tide of belief, not realizing that the ebb is necessary to show that all of humanity, even Sabbatarian Christendom, is far from God and can get no farther. Before the spiritual midnight hour can come, the hour when the Second Passover liberation of Christendom occurs, the vast majority of Sabbatarian Christians will have turned their backs to Christ Jesus, and will be facing east, the direction of the rising sun, where they will watch unfolding world events in this Arab Spring, fueled by the demonic King of Greece trampling the demonic kings of Persia.
Paul reminds Christians puffed-up with knowledge that food will not commend us to God: a Sabbatarian Christian is neither better off, nor worse off if he or she eats a pork chop … it isn’t “the eating” that condemns the Sabbatarian, but the lust for that which is not food for those who would be holy as God is holy (1 Pet 1:14–16; Lev 11:44). Cleans meats were delineated for Israel “‘to make a distinction between the unclean [what is common] and the clean’” (Lev 11:47), with that distinction—in an equivocated usage—making a distinction between Israel and the peoples of the nations.
It is commonly said that a person is what he or she eats: the person who eats swine and vermin, shellfish and catfish—all unclean meats—become what this person eats, spiritually defiled, an unclean or common person, a spiritual Gentile. Of course if this person began life as a Gentile, the person remains in the same state after professing that Jesus is Lord as before professing that Jesus is Lord: the person remains spiritually defiled, separated from Israel by the Christian’s lack of desire to be holy as God is holy. The Christian can want the indwelling of Jesus, can pray that Jesus comes to dwell within the person, but if this Christian doesn’t desire to walk as Jesus walked, meaning spurning those things that spiritually defile the person, this Christian remains a son-of-God wannabe.
Those things that are physical, such as eating clean meats or uttering the name of Christ Jesus in bastardized Hebrew, do not commend us to God, but become stumbling blocks to the weak. Placing any sort of emphasis on these physical things, whether that emphasis is positive or negative (e.g., condemning a brother because he or she smokes, a horrible addiction and something no Christian should do), results in the Christian injuring an infant son of God, or a potential son of God … the girl or woman who has had an abortion has committed murder, but is not condemned because of that murder—was the Apostle Paul condemned because he consented to Stephen’s murder? No, Paul was not condemned, and Paul was probably guilty of many more martyrdom’s than just Stephen’s. So the Christian woman who has had an abortion is neither better off nor worse off than Apostle Paul, who was used by Christ Jesus to do a mighty work. The Christian man who has killed many in combat is neither better off nor worse than Paul.
But the Christian woman who has not knowingly ever committed a sin, having attended Church every Sunday from her infancy, is worse off for her perceived righteousness; for she [or he] will not admit that she [or he] is a sinner that must repent, that must rethink how she [or he] worships God.
It is easy for Sin to do its work of showing that transgressions of the commandments are exceedingly sinful when these transgressions are great, such as murder, but Sin is not so easily seen when the transgressions seem small and minor, such as worshiping on Sunday, the day after the Sabbath, rather than on the Sabbath. And this difficulty in seeing small transgressions as significant transgressions will keep the vast majority of Christendom out of the kingdom.
When knowledge puffs up, making the Christian with knowledge like wine that is still fermenting, all of Sabbatarian Christendom, especially disciples in the Sabbatarian churches of God, must earnestly resist the natural urge to do Jesus’ job for Him … the Sabbatarian disciple who feels compelled to take his or her knowledge that Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath to the peoples of this world desires to do good work but instead sickens potential sons of God, causing these potential sons to puke out whatever knowledge of Christ Jesus they have ingested, with the evidence of such vomiting of knowledge having been seen when more than 100,000 Sabbatarians disappeared into the world following Little Joe’s gutting of the former Worldwide Church of God. The 100,000+ ex-Worldwiders not today in any Sabbatarian fellowship were baptized into the Body of Christ and were spiritual infants and were grievously harmed by Christians who possessed a little knowledge, just enough to cause them to be puffed up to where they considered themselves teachers and pastors when not one of them was truly called by God to the office that Herbert Armstrong appointed them: their ordinations came through Armstrong, not via a direct calling by Christ Jesus, and their paychecks were signed by Armstrong, not by the Most High God. They were Armstrong’s minions, his disciples, his lackeys, and they have caused tremendous harm to the Body of Christ, which is far larger than any of them ever imagined. All who identify themselves as Christians form the Corpse of Christ, the dead Body of Christ that will be returned to life at the Second Passover liberation of Israel, itself a second Israel, the nation that is to be circumcised of heart.
The Christian—Sabbatarian or otherwise—who wounds the consciences of infant sons of God or potential sons of God sins against Christ Jesus and can expect nothing from Christ when judgments are revealed. In mercy, Jesus will grant immortality to some Christians who have slain their infant brothers, with the Apostle Paul serving as the model for those who slew sons of God in innocence. But unless the Christian has equal or greater zeal for Jesus than what the Apostle Paul had after he was called by Jesus, the Christian cannot expect to see Paul in the kingdom, but can expect to find him or herself in the lake of fire.
It will be relatively easy for a Muslim—after having been beaten up by God for three and a half years then having the Torah written on hearts and placed in minds—to see him or herself as a sinner, a transgressor, and turn to God and begin to keep the commandments, especially the Sabbath, with the same zeal as he or she formerly persecuted the Jew or the Sabbatarian Christian. But it will not be easy for today’s Catholic or Baptist or Mormon, when the Torah is written on their hearts and placed inside them, to see themselves as sinners, transgressors, and turn to God and begin to keep the commandments: they have already convinced themselves that to keep the commandments is legalism, something to be spurned with all of one’s might. Therefore, few of today’s Christians will enter the kingdom. They will have been given the opportunity to be first, but they will not let Sin do its work in them. They will not flee Sin because of its sinfulness, but they will mingle the sacred with the profane and will dilute the poison of lawlessness until they deem this poison is safe for human consumption. But they will misjudge the harm that even a little sin can cause when the Body of Christ has been cleansed of all indwelling Sin and Death.
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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."