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 to quit worshiping demons.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of May 14, 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 first woe has passed; behold, two woes are still to come.
Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released to kill a third of mankind. The number of mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand; I heard their number. And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them: they wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire and of sulfur, and the heads of the horses were like lions' heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths. By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents with heads, and by means of them they wound. / 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 9:12–21 emphasis added)
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The vision of John the Revelator holds that at the end of the second woe—at the end of the two witnesses’ ministry—remaining humankind will still worship demons and the works of their hands. It isn’t that they then begin to worship demons, but that they have been along and they won’t quit—and this remaining portion of humanity is directly analogous to the greater Christian Church today, immediately before every Christian is baptized in the breath of God, thereby causing every Christian to be filled-with and empowered by the breath of God [pneuma Theon] (cf. Rom 6:23; Rom 8:9, 11 — read in Greek). But before the Second Passover liberation of Israel [i.e., before Christians are baptized in spirit], greater Christendom worships demons and the works of its many hands, with the American military being a common object of worship for many American Christians as evidenced by the celebration that has followed the execution of Osama bin Laden.
If greater Christendom—and American Christians in particular—worshiped the Father and the Son with the same zeal as they worship demons and things physical, greater Christendom would be the dominant sect of Judaism in the world today: Christians would keep the commandments, all of them, including the Sabbaths [weekly and annual] of God, and would not look or act like the nations of this world [Gentiles]. Christians would pay attention to what they eat so that they are holy like the Lord is holy (cf. 1 Pet 1:14–15; Lev 11:43–44); for the Lord brought Christians out from sin and death in a manner analogous to what the Lord says of Himself bringing outwardly circumcised Israel out from Egypt. But it wasn’t the outer self that was brought out from sin and death when the Father resurrected the inner self from death, its natural state, by giving the disciple a second breath of life —
Paul writes,
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. / Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. / So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Rom 7:7–25 emphasis added)
The natural state of every human person at physical birth is to have a dead inner self (see Matt 8:22), which like a dumb computer program causes the person to walk according to the flesh, doing those things that gratify and/or sustain the flesh … the life that the human person has comes from the first Adam, and comes via Elohim [singular in usage] laying over the man of mud and breathing into his nostrils (Gen 2:7). All human life has come from this onetime event, with the life that Eve had coming from Adam through the Lord taking a rib from Adam’s side with which He constructed Eve … Eve came from Adam, and gave life to all sons of Adam regardless of the person’s outward appearance, with all presently living sons of Adam coming through the bottleneck of being a son of righteousness, a son of Noah. Therefore, the Christian, the Jew, the Muslim, the Buddhist, the atheist—all are descendants of Noah and as such are sons of righteousness even though all worship demons and things physical and do not practice righteousness.
Because all living human persons have descended from Noah and are sons of righteousness, the potential for righteousness is in all peoples. But the potential of a person is seldom manifested by the person. The potential for greatness needs circumstances that create the opportunity for greatness to be manifested by the person: Abraham Lincoln would not be recognized as a great American president—and probably not elected president—if the nation’s founding father had better addressed the issue of human slavery in America’s founding documents. However, because the nation’s founders punted when the issue was in their hands, the firing on Fort Sumter occurred: seventy years of strife erupted in civil war on April 12, 1861, when the South Carolina militia fired its artillery pieces at the unfinished and undermanned fort.
Lincoln’s greatness needed the American civil war before it could be manifested, but Lincoln’s greatness was merely human greatness —
Every Christian, when born of God and born filled-will and empowered by the breath of God at the Second Passover, will be in the position of having spiritual greatness thrust upon the person … Jesus said,
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 5:17–20 emphasis added)
The commandments that Jesus references are the Law, the Torah, that will be written on hearts and placed in minds (Jer 31:33; Heb 8:10), under the New Covenant that will have these commandments moving from regulating the hands and bodies of outwardly circumcised Israelites to regulating the desires of hearts and the thoughts of minds of the inwardly circumcised Israelites. Christian greatness comes via keeping the commandments and teaching others to do likewise. It comes no other way. It doesn’t come through doing mighty works in the name of Jesus, in casting out many demons, in creating great edifices, in building mega-congregations, in founding denominations [schisms] within the Body of Christ. Rather, greatness comes through simply keeping the commandments and teaching others to do likewise.
But if the means of obtaining spiritual greatness is so plainly described and so apparently easy to obtain—what is difficult about keeping the commandments and teaching others to do likewise—then why does Jesus, in His Sermon on the Mount, also say,
Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And then will I declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (Matt 7:21–23)
A problem exists: there are and have been Christian leaders who refuse to do the will of God the Father, but rather, teach the doctrines of demons, the foremost of which is democratic rule where the people chose whether they will keep the commandments—and even when they choose to keep the commandments, they choose for themselves which commandments they will keep and how they will keep those commandments they accept.
To mingle the sacred with the profane is to eat the mingled fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil … those Christians who say, Lord, Lord, to Jesus but who then do mingled works of greatness through using Jesus’ name to teach infant sons of God to transgress the commandments condemn both themselves and the ones they have taught to the lake of fire: they are true murderers. John Hagee has personally killed more infant sons of God than Osama bin Laden indirectly killed Americans on 9/11, and pastors such as John Hagee—only one of multiple tens of thousands—are worthy of execution in the lake of fire.
But the anomian [Matt 7:23] such as John Hagee will not go quietly into the night and on into the lake of fire, but will go screaming, ranting about spiritual things of which he (or she) has no understanding, demanding that Jesus account for why He, Jesus, allowed Christendom to worship demons and physical things [such as how the tongue utters the name of Jesus] for 1,900+ years. Those super-apostles Paul addressed when he wrote, “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 11:13–15), are men such as John Hagee, or even the Pope … any Christian pastor or theologian that asks other men (or women) for support doesn’t work as Paul worked and is not of God but is of the Adversary; for a workman is worthy of his (or her) hire. If the workman has been called by God to pastor or minister to His, the Father’s, infant sons, then the Father will provide the needs of this workman, who will never have to burden other people through asking to receive tithes (to which the workman is entitled) or offerings.
The test of whether a Christian pastor or theologian works for God or for the Adversary is no more complicated than answering the question, does this person ask to receive support from those whom the person teaches or ministers? If the answer is, yes, then the person is not of God—and this includes the former Worldwide Church of God and its various splinters.
Men such as John Hagee don’t pretend to keep the commandments of God, but openly mock those who would walk as Jesus walked, calling such Christians Judaizers … did Jesus not walk as an observant Jew, keeping the Law and being without sin, without transgression, without unbelief? If Jesus dwells within the Christian, will this Christian not be as Paul was, who wrote: “I delight in the law of God, in my inner being” (Rom 7:22)? Does the Christian take delight in the law of God? If the Christian does, then he or she would strive to keep the commandments and would not even consider deliberately mingling the sacred [Christ] with the profane [the day of the invincible sun; the birthday of the invincible sun].
Any Christian pastor or theologian who would have Christians observing Christmas [December 25, this year, a Sunday] is of the Adversary and is in open rebellion against God, with the Pope in Rome and the man of perdition, an American Arian and not a Trinitarian, leading this rebellion and forming the two poles around which Christendom will rally when the Apostasy occurs.
For the Church of Rome, this year—2011—presents problems embedded in the third secret of Fátima … if there is to be alleged heresy found in the Roman Catholic clergy, possibly from the top down, with this heresy being a turning away from praying the rosary and appealing to the Queen of Heaven, this heresy will not be a move away from the Father and the Son, but a reputation of the demon worship that presently poses as Catholic dogma and a move toward walking as Jesus walked —
Prayers directed to Mary, incantations to the blessed virgin, praying the rosary—all are acts of demon worship that will cause Christians, once baptized in the breath of God and thereby filled with spirit, to openly rebel against God and as such condemn themselves to the lake of fire.
Paul wrote,
Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thess 2:1–12 emphasis added)
Once the Second Passover occurs, the Christian who does not love the truth—the Christian who would be so defiant toward the Father and the Son as to pray the rosary, or to direct a prayer to the Queen of Heaven, the alleged mother of god—will come under a strong delusion so that this Christian will continue to believe what is false and thereby not be able to escape condemnation. The Christian cannot repent because the Christian will, when under this strong delusion, sincerely believe he or she is right and has no need of repentance.
Consider for a moment—and let us assume that the Second Passover liberation of Israel will occur this year on the second Passover, or on Thursday of this coming week—when biological and legal firstborns suddenly perish in a day, approximately 2.3 billion people or a third part of humankind, the Pope as a legal firstborn will be among those that perish. The succeeding pope will, most likely (considering that he will be baptized in spirit and have the Torah written on his heart and placed in his mind), move away from making prayers to the Queen of Heaven, the blessed virgin, and will temporarily cease worshiping demons … and the particular demon that appeared to three Portuguese youths, Lucia Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto starting on 13 May 1917, as well as the demon that appeared to Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa in a remote area near the Japanese city of Akita in 1973, apparently like[s] being worshiped, its or their ego stroked by many prayers being made to the demon [probably a single demon, a Marian apparition that lives outside of time]. So it would be in this demon’s interest to keep Christians worshiping this fallen angelic son of God rather than the Most High God, and how better to keep its ego stroked than to warn Roman Catholics beforehand that they should not neglect praying to this demon even after the Second Passover liberation of Israel and the repentance of the then-reigning hierarchy of the Roman Church, a repentance that will not last.
Prayers made to anyone other than the Most High God, the Father, are false prayers. Prayers made to Christ Jesus are inappropriate prayers; for the glorified Jesus is the High Priest of circumcised-of-heart Israel, not the God of Christians. Jesus is the First of the firstfruits, the First of the firstborn sons of the Father. He is worthy of worship, but He is not the Father—and Christians are to worship the Father. They are never to offer prayers to the Queen of Heaven. Let this demon stroke his own ego.
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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."