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 Sabbatarians' perceived lack of love.
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Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of April 17, 2010
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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And it shall come to pass afterward,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
Even on the male and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit.
And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls. / For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land, and have cast lots for my people, and have traded a boy for a prostitute, and have sold a girl for wine and have drunk it.
What are you to me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you paying me back for something? If you are paying me back, I will return your payment on your own head swiftly and speedily. For you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried my rich treasures into your temples. You have sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks in order to remove them far from their own border. Behold, I will stir them up from the place to which you have sold them, and I will return your payment on your own head. I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a nation far away, for the Lord has spoken. (Joel 2:28–3:8)
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Peter, on that day of Pentecost following Calvary, addressed the men of Judea and all who dwelt in Jerusalem, quoting Joel, declaring, “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my spirit [apo mou tou pneumatos the breath of me] on all flesh’” (Acts 2:17) … although Peter thought what Joel had revealed had come to pass, Peter was wrong. What Joel revealed isn’t what happened. All flesh means all flesh as water was poured out on all flesh in the days of Noah. So what the Lord told the prophet Joel hasn’t yet happened. The last days were not upon Peter though he thought they were.
But Peter was only wrong in that he confused the shadow for a reality that lay in the distant future: when Peter identified the emersion of disciples in what sounded “like a mighty rushing wind” that “filled the entire house” (Acts 2:2), Peter didn’t then realize what happened on this day of Pentecost was not the reality of the divine breath of God being poured out on all flesh, but was only the physically discernable shadow (the audio and visible shadow) of Christ Jesus baptizing the world in spirit and in fire (Matt 3:11), two baptisms, separated by the thousand years of the Millennium, with these two baptisms casting one shadow. For when all flesh is baptized in the breath of God as all flesh was baptized in water in Noah’s day, all of humankind will be filled with the breath of the Father and empowered by this breath so that sin and death will no longer dwell within the fleshly members of human beings. A person will live! And if this person takes judgment upon him or herself in the Endurance through baptism by water (which is unto the death of the flesh) or by dying in faith, this person will be glorified when Christ Jesus returns. If the person doesn’t take judgment onto him or herself, the person, unless killed from an outside cause or by an outside agent, will live physically for the thousand years of the Millennium. Either way, once a person is baptized in the breath of God, the person who endures to the end, whether that end is at the Second Advent or in the great White Throne Judgment, shall live. And this is the good news that must be proclaimed to the world as a witness to all nations before the end comes (Matt 24:13–14): the person who endures to the end shall be saved (also Matt 10:22)
There are many Sabbatarian Christians who, with unconcealed distain, look askance at this endtime good news. They cannot accept the importance of such a simplistic gospel; they want the endtime good news to be some towering proclamation about the dynamics of the soon-coming kingdom of God, and about how they will be kings and priests, or kingly priests in a world ruling government headquartered in earthly Jerusalem. They certainly don’t want to hear that because they had no love for their fellow Christians, they won’t even be in the kingdom. They will reason with themselves: Have they not kept the commandments, and everything Herbert W. Armstrong, or Ellen G. White said? Have they not faithfully tithed? Have they not turned out at work parties; have they not set up chairs, and even spent a while cleaning the bathrooms? What haven’t they done? They volunteered to help with Pathfinders, with YOU. They have distributed many copies of The Great Controversy, or of the Good News magazine. They have done everything “right.” So how is it that they will not come before God as princes? Of course they’ll come before God as princes, for they aren’t self-righteous as Job was. They have been tested, and they are the survivors, the ones who have held fast to what Ellen G. White taught; held fast to what Herbert W. Armstrong taught. They haven’t changed as much as a single iota of what White taught; of what Armstrong taught.
The above is true: most Sabbatarian disciples are theological fossils. They hold fast to what a teacher of God taught in the 19th-Century, or in the 20th-Century. They haven’t grown any for thirty, forty, fifty or more years. And without new growth, a tree bears no fruit. They bear no fruit, and in the case with most Sabbatarians, God cut them away from the Root of Righteousness long ago because they bore no fruit (John 15:2). They are, in type, Sadducees and Pharisees. In their striving for perfection, they lost sight of God, who shrunk in their teachings to be the size of their apostle; to be their size. They no longer perceived themselves as small children, most of an equivalent age to a human child of less than three years. They were/are working out their own salvation, taking the kingdom by force, challenging God as if they were/are undisciplined two year olds.
The endtime gospel that must be delivered to all the world begins with, because in the last days, God will pour His divine breath out on all flesh, thereby filling every person with spirit, every person will be born of God and born liberated from indwelling sin and death—and because every person will be born of God and born filled with spirit, all who endure to the end shall be saved.
The above is, indeed, a simple message about righteousness and about what happens when the greater Christian Church rebels against God and the third part of humankind (Zech 13:7–9), none of whom are today Christian, is filled with spirit when dominion over the single kingdom of this world is taken from the four kings and the little horn and given to the Son of Man. There is nothing complicated about enduring in faith when genuine disciples cannot buy or sell. What’s complicated about being shut out of Adversarial economics? And would it be good news that a person doesn’t have to buy or sell but only has to endure in faith to survive day by day? … Those Christians who dismiss the endtime gospel as a light and trivial thing have not endured days at a time without being able to buy or sell.
Is it self evident that all endure to the end shall be saved?
When Satan and his angels are cast from heaven (Rev 12:7–10) and come claiming to be the Messiah; when the portion of humankind not killed in the sixth Trumpet Plague will not give up worshiping demons (Rev 9:20); when humankind worships the demon called Death even after this beast is dealt a mortal wound (Rev 13:4), what is simplistic about the third part of humankind (from Zech 13:7–9) rebelling against the Antichrist 250 days into the Endurance even though this means that this third part of humanity cannot buy and sell for the next 1010 days, but must live by faith, trusting in God to supply their needs? Who is the person today who truly lives by faith, keeping the commandments and the person’s faith in Jesus day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, all the time under threat of death. It is ignorantly simplistic to say that living by faith is simple. Yes, living by faith seems simple. Just get up in the morning and trust that God will supply food that isn’t there, clothing that isn’t falling apart, shelter that affords some protection from the elements—sure sounds simple. Now do this tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and the day after the day after tomorrow for almost three years. How simple is not knowing what a person will eat tomorrow? The widow of Zarephath went through this test, but Scripture doesn’t record how she spent the hours between when she last visited the mostly empty jar of flour and jug of oil and when she returned to the jar and the jug to again make the last of the flour and the last of the oil into three small cakes.
After years of there being a little flour in the jar and the jug of oil not running out, the widow was still skeptical about why Elijah was there; for when her son died (lost his breath), she challenged Elijah, “‘What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son’” (1 Kings 17:18 emphasis added).
What did she mean, to bring my sin to remembrance? Was there a question of legitimacy concerning her son? Traditional rabbinical teaching holds that the lad was the prophet Jonah. Jesus said he would give only one sign that He was from heaven, the sign of Jonah (Matt 12:39–40; 16:4), but as has been seen, the sign of Jonah is more inclusive than has been traditionally taught. Jesus will build His Church on the sign of Jonah, the movement of breath from physical to spiritual—from physical breath entering a person through the nose and mouth to the breath of God entering a person’s heart and mind as this divine breath in the visible form of a dove lit on and remained with Jesus. But throughout Jesus’ ministry, the Jews held Jesus’ parentage against Him, and apparently there was an issue concerning the parentage of the widow of Zarephath’s son.
There is an issue concerning the parentage of the greater Christian Church—
As Sabbatarian Christendom has questioned the authenticity of the greater Christian Church—of those Christians who worship on Sunday, and who are by their rejection of the law the seed of the Adversary—Sabbatarians have spoken of, and treated Sunday-keeping Christians as second class Christians, mockingly referring to them as “Churchianity.” Sabbatarians have had similar contempt for Sunday-keepers as Pharisees had for uncircumcised Gentiles. And indeed, because Sunday-keeping Christians have made no journey of faith to heavenly Jerusalem, they have not cleansed their hearts by faith; their hearts are not circumcised. They are, in comparison to Sabbatarians, truly as uncircumcised Gentiles were to outwardly circumcised Sadducees and Pharisees.
But neither uncircumcised Gentiles nor outwardly circumcised Jews were born of God … neither Sabbatarian Christendom nor the greater Christian Church is today filled with spirit and thereby liberated from indwelling sin and death. Both are spiritually as Greeks and Jews were physically in earthly Jerusalem when Jesus entered the city on the 10th day of Abib in the common year AD 31 as the selected Passover Lamb of God.
The simple endtime gospel that all who endure to the end shall be saved carries imbedded in it knowledge of the Second Passover liberation of Israel—
As neither Gentiles nor Jews truly believed that Jesus would be raised from the dead—on the High Sabbath, Pharisees went to Pilate and asked that the Roman place a guard on the tomb so that Jesus’ disciples would not steal away His body and tell people that He has risen from the dead, that “‘the last fraud [would] be worse than the first’” (Matt 27:64)—neither the greater Christian Church nor Sabbatarian Christendom believes that there will truly be a Second Passover liberation of Israel, a liberation that will occur on the second Passover and will see the lives of uncovered firstborns lost as the lives of uncovered firstborns of man and beast were lost in Egypt.
The entirety of the Christian era fits into the first six hours of one long night that began at Calvary and will end when what the prophet Joel proclaims comes to pass; will end when the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man.
As the Jews, both Pharisees and Sadducees (with very few exceptions), did not believe Jesus in the 1st-Century about either His parentage or about His resurrection, Sabbatarian Christendom, both Adventists and Church of God (again with very few exceptions), will not believe in the 21st-Century a message about the Second Passover liberation of Israel, now the Christian Church. But this is simply the way things must be: Sabbatarians will “question” whether 8th-day Christians are truly of God when the greater Christian Church is filled with, and empowered by spirit at the Second Passover. And yes, following the Second Passover, Sabbatarian Christendom will have similar problems with former 8th-day Christians as the elder son (the modern continuation of the 1st-Century CE sect of the Nazarenes) had when the prodigal younger son (Christianity after the Nicene Creed was adopted) returned home (Luke 15:11–32) … what the father told his angry older son pertains to what the Father will say to Sabbatarians: “‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It is fitting to celebrate and be glad, for your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found’” (v. 32). The greater Christian Church is today dead and lost. These Christians not only slop hogs, but eat the slop and the hogs. No one gives them anything. But they will temporarily come to their senses when they are baptized in the divine breath of God so that the law is written on their hearts and placed in their minds, and they will come home long enough to taste of the goodness of God before they return to sin because they did not (do not) love the truth.
After the Second Passover, the greater Christian Church will not long remain obedient to God; thus, the world will be baptized in spirit (i.e., the breath of God) and the third part of humankind will be as the children of Israel were, the grown children who entered into the Promised Land. As Joel records, “‘And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved’” (2:32); or as Jesus said, “‘But the one who endures to the end will be saved’” (Matt 24:13); or as Paul wrote when addressing the Moab covenant,
For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” / How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (Rom 10:12–17)
Unless a person has been sent by the Father and the Son, the person does not preach the endtime gospel of Christ but another message that will not benefit either Sabbatarian Christendom or the greater Christian Church; for the one who hears will not hear the words of Christ. And this has been a reoccurring problem within Christendom, for many are the pastors and teachers who have not been sent by the Father and the Son but have come claiming to be sent. The ministry has been, for a very long time, an honored profession, but only because these pastors and teachers utter what the world wants to hear. Genuine teachers would be as poorly received as Jesus was received, and for the same reasons.
The work of Philadelphia, the one “church” within the seven named churches that keeps Jesus’ word about the Endurance—the one church that is truly the brother and partner of John (Rev 1:9)—is to prepare the third part of humankind to rebel against the Adversary (used metonymically) 250 days after the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man. But none of this third part is today Christian; no one in this third part is reading or listening. And even if the endtime gospel was accidentally heard by this third part, it wouldn’t be believed.
So why does Philadelphia continue to beat its head against lifeless stones that are not interested in hearing anything Philadelphia has to say? Why indeed?
Within the Sabbatarian community, someone has to say, yes, today’s 8th-day Christians are, because of their lawlessness, the offspring of the Adversary, but these same Christians, regardless of whether Catholic, Baptist, Mormon, or some obscure no-name sect, will be individually and collectively filled with spirit when liberated from indwelling sin and death at the Second Passover. Someone has to have enough love for these naïve [as Adam was naïve] sons of God that questions about parentage are laid aside, and help is given them so that they can orient themselves in a new but brief era, the 1260 day long Affliction that will be followed by its mirror image, the equally brief 1260 day long Endurance. Someone has to celebrate that these sons of God have finally come home, even if not to stay long.
The world is full of bastards … if the widow of Zarephath had said nothing about bringing her sin to remembrance when her son died the obvious comparison to David and his son by Bathsheba would not be evident. But because of what she said, and because tradition holds that the lad was Jonah, and because Pharisees continually held Jesus’ birth against Him [“‘We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God’” — John 8:41], and because 8th-day Christendom is today seed of the Adversary, the comparisons are unavoidable: when the second Passover occurs, 8th-day Christians will be genuinely born of God and born filled with spirit. They will be “faking” nothing. They will not suddenly seek to get right with God because of the Second Passover slaughter of uncovered firstborns as it will seem. They will be what they are not today; they will be the real McCoy. But again, sadly, because of their lack of love for their brothers, Sabbatarian Christians will not accept them as genuine, and by their rejection of them, Sabbatarians will significantly contribute to greater Christendom’s rebellion against God on day 220 of the Affliction.
It will be today’s Sabbatarians who finally disclose what has been known all along: by their lack of love, they too (with very few exceptions) show that they are the seed of the Adversary.
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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."