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 famine and sword because of lawless ways.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of June 4, 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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Again the Lord said to me, “A conspiracy exists among the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear my words. They have gone after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant that I made with their fathers. Therefore, thus says the Lord, Behold, I am bringing disaster upon them that they cannot escape. Though they cry to me, I will not listen to them. Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry to the gods to whom they make offerings, but they cannot save them in the time of their trouble. For your gods have become as many as your cities, O Judah, and as many as the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up to shame, altars to make offerings to Baal. / Therefore do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer on their behalf, for I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their trouble. What right has my beloved in my house, when she has done many vile deeds? Can even sacrificial flesh avert your doom? Can you [Israel] then exult? The Lord once called you ‘a green olive tree, beautiful with good fruit.’ But with the roar of a great tempest he will set fire to it, and its branches will be consumed. The Lord of hosts, who planted you, has decreed disaster against you, because of the evil that the house of Israel and the house of Judah have done, provoking me to anger by making offerings to Baal.” (Jer 11:9–17 emphasis added)
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The Lord said to me: “Do not pray for the welfare of this people. Though they fast, I will not hear their cry, and though they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.” / Then I said: “Ah, Lord God, behold, the prophets say to them, ‘You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you assured peace in this place.’” And the Lord said to me: “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds. Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name although I did not send them, and who say, ‘Sword and famine shall not come upon this land’: By sword and famine those prophets shall be consumed. And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem, victims of famine and sword, with none to bury them—them, their wives, their sons, and their daughters. For I will pour out their evil upon them. (Jer 14:11–16 emphasis added)
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The writer of Hebrews records, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (13:8). Jude, the brother of James, wrote, “Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe” (v. 5). And John wrote, “All things were made through him [the Logos], and without him was not anything made that was made” (1:3), and John added, [And the Logos flesh became and tabernacled in/among us] (1:14) … the Theos [o logos] who created all things and who was with the Theon in the beginning (John 1:1) entered His creation as His only Son (John 3:16) and dwelt among humankind as the man Jesus the Nazarene, who changes naught but was the same yesterday, when He was [o logos], as He will be at the Second Advent when the judgments of Christians are revealed. And to deny that [o logos] is the Creator of all that has been made is to deny Christ Jesus—and the Christian who denies Christ, or that Christ Jesus as the [o logos] was the Creator of all things physical shall be denied by Christ before the Father.
When a Christian is denied by Christ, the Christian permanently loses salvation: this Christian cannot be redeemed for this Christian denied his [or her] Redeemer, and Christ will not redeem a person against the person’s will.
The Christian who denies that as [o logos] Christ Jesus created all things that have been made—and this includes most every Sabbatarian Christian who has swallowed the poisonous Sacred Names Heresy—is spiritually as Jerusalem was during the ministry of the prophet Jeremiah … faithful Christians are not to even pray for those Christians who have denied Jesus and who are therefore cut off from Christ and the Father through their own unbelief after having once known [tasted/sampled] the goodness of God.
Jerusalem goes from being a physical city in a physical Promised Land (i.e., the earthly city of Jerusalem located at the geographical coordinates of 31047'N 35013'E — coordinates found on this planet, the third from the sun) to being the heavenly Bride of Christ:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. … Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. (Rev 21:1–2, 9–11)
The temple goes from being the physical building constructed by Solomon to being the greater Christian Church (see 1 Cor 3:16–17; 2 Cor 6:16). Likewise, Jerusalem goes from being the physical city of David to being the glorified Christian Church.
With God, the movement is from physical to heavenly/spiritual; i.e., from the physical creation of which the Logos [o logos] is the Creator to the spiritual creation which the Father [God the Father] creates not from the lifelessness but from life that originates outside of this universe.
With God, the movement is from a physical nation of Israel (a nation that is outwardly circumcised) to a spiritual nation of Israel (the nation that is to be circumcised of heart) — but within the spiritual nation of Israel, the greater Christian Church, the movement is also from death to life both individually and collectively.
Every Christian who is truly born of God began life as a physically living but spiritually dead human being; began as a human infant conceived in the womb of the person’s mother and humanly born without indwelling eternal life in any form; began as earthly Jerusalem began, a physical city occupied and ruled by a people who were not of the Lord. The human infant who is born of a human woman is of this world and will never leave this world: a human person goes neither to heaven nor to an ever-burning hell, but dwells on this earth, and when he or she dies, this human person returns to this earth as dust (i.e., the foundational elements composing matter).
Earthly Jerusalem is important to Christ as the shadow and copy of His Bride, heavenly New Jerusalem, but not important as a geographical destination. Yet, in the conflict over the earthly city of Jerusalem can be seen the conflict for the Bride of Christ, with Moslem infidels and lawless Christians and denying Jews each representing forces within the greater Christian Church vying to be the Bride of Christ. The Medieval Crusades and the present warring between the modern State of Israel and the entirety of Islam as well as America’s attempt to nation-build in Iraq and Afghanistan—all form shadows and types of the ongoing spiritual battles for control of Christianity, battles being fought within the Christian Church. And as no peace talks can bring peace to the earthly city of Jerusalem, no compromising can bring peace to the greater Christian Church.
The powers-that-be that presently define what it is to be a Christian are compromisers as King Jehoiakim [formerly, Eliakim, the son of Josiah and the brother of Jehahaz) was, and as King Zedekiah [also a son of Josiah and brother of Jehoahaz, whom the people of the land made king when Josiah was killed — 2 Chron 36:1] … Jehoiakim was made king over Judah and Jerusalem by the king of Egypt, not by the people of the land, and Zedekiah was made king over Judah and Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, when Nebuchadnezzar bound Jehoiakim in chains and carried him away to Babylon.
Today, outside powers, not the Father and the Son, have selected the leaders of Christendom, those men and women who pray for Christians and who teach Christians to rebel against God and to worship the deities of their ancestors, all demons that disguise their own rebellion against God in the language of Christ and the Church. Instead of Christians loving God, believing God, living by His laws and commandments, while having love for their brothers and neighbors, Christian mock God, with Christian women praying with uncovered heads and with Christian men teaching their families to practice the lawless ways of their ancestors, with the most evident form of this lawlessness manifesting itself in neglect of the Sabbath commandment.
The above introduces the question of whether a genuine Christian—a person who has truly received a second breath of life, the breath of God [pneuma Theon]—should pray for those Christians representing greater Christendom.
Most Philadelphians have family members in greater Christendom, near and/or distant relatives who sincerely believe that despite the relative’s lawlessness the relative is a Christian and destined to go to heaven when the person dies physically. And how can a Philadelphian not pray for his or her brother or sister, mother or father, son or daughter? How can a Philadelphian not pray for the verbally abusive neighbor, or the police officer that patrols the neighborhood, or America’s military forces that are occupied in nation building in Islamic lands. Yet, Jeremiah is specifically told not to pray for the inhabits of Jerusalem, the outwardly circumcised Israelites that form the shadow and copy of the Bride of Christ.
It is easy to tell one Christian to pray for another Christian or to pray for the nation’s troops as the nation’s military is engaged in seeking and destroying enemy combatants. But if the Father and the Son will not hear those prayers because of, say, America’s lawless ways, then should these prayers be made? Or does the Philadelphian show contempt in praying for lawless Christians, those Christians who know what Scripture says and who have chosen to believe men and demons rather than Christ Jesus? Does the Philadelphian harm him or herself by praying for lawless Christianity? Should not the Philadelphian be praying for those who keep and have kept the message about the Endurance of Christ, that 1260 day period when the glorified Jesus has received the kingdom of this world as His to rule but has to wait while the Adversary devours those saints who refuse to be marked for death through the tattoo of the cross? Should Philadelphians not pray for those who do the work of being a Philadelphian today, when it is not the season for work to be done?
Every Philadelphian needs to ask him or herself whether the person’s prayers are being heard and answered. Some will say that, yes, they are. But some will, when being truly honest with God, have to say that, no, the person’s prayers are not answered.
The person who asks to be healed of an illness or an injury through a prayer of faith by a Philadelphian and who then experiences relief, but who after receiving relief returns to the idolatrous ways of his or her former life—such as returning to the Christian fellowship the person formerly attended—should expect to receive nothing further from the Father and the Son … if Jeremiah was commanded not to pray for the people of Jerusalem during the siege that would eventually result in the razing of the temple, with the razing of Solomon’s temple forming a shadow and type of the Adversary [the spiritual king of Babylon] devouring and trashing the Christian Church, then Philadelphians are not to pray for those Sabbatarian disciples who have the sampled the goodness of God and turned their backs to Christ Jesus.
But the number of Christians who have actually tasted the goodness of God is a very small percentage of greater Christendom, which leaves the vast majority of Christians as the ancient house of Israel [not Judah] was, a nation separated from the Sabbath and Sabbath observance and a nation carried away into captivity not by the spiritual king of Babylon, but by the spiritual king of Assyria, Death himself. So it is the lost ten tribes of Israel [the lost house of Israel, the northern kingdom of Samaria] that serves as the shadow and copy of greater Christendom today —
When Pharaoh Necho II (610–595 BCE) slew King Josiah in the Battle of Megiddo (609 BCE), again, the people of Judah took Jehoahaz, a son of Josiah, and made him their king, but losing a battle/war has repercussions: the people of Judah were no longer free to determine who would or wouldn’t rule over them. Just as greater Christendom is not free to determine who will or won’t rule over this dead Body of Christ—and hasn’t been free since at least the time of the Council of Nicea (ca. 325 CE)—the people of Jerusalem following the Battle of Megiddo were no longer free to chose their own king: Jehoahaz reigned for three months in Jerusalem, did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and Pharaoh Necho II put him in bonds at Riblah in the land of Hamath and laid upon the land a demand for tribute (2 Kings 23:31–33). It was then that Pharaoh Necho II made Eliakim king of Judah and Jerusalem, with Eliakim (again, the Pharaoh changed his name to Jehoiakim) heavily taxing the people of Judah and Jerusalem so that he could pay the tribute the Pharaoh demanded.
Jehoiakim was the puppet king of Pharaoh Necho II. He was, for a modern comparison, what Ngô Đình Dim was in the Republic of South Vietnam from 1955 to 1963. Jehoiakim was personally corrupt and the victim of national corruption.
But Egypt was no longer the only superpower in the region: at Carchemish in the summer of 605 BCE, the Pharaoh fought against the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar II (see Jer 46:2), and lost. And the king of Babylon then demanded loyalty from Jehoiakim, but Jehoiakim was made king by the Pharaoh and remained loyal to the Pharaoh.
The Chaldeans and bands of Syrians fought against Jehoiakim and Jehoiakim filled Jerusalem with innocent blood until he died prematurely and Jehoiachin his eighteen year old son reigned in his place, but Jehoiachin reigned only three months before Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem and Jehoiachin surrendered himself to the king of Babylon who took him prisoner and carried away the wealth and craftsmen of Judah and Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar then made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, king of Judah and Jerusalem, with Nebuchadnezzar changing Mattaniah’s name to Zedekiah.
How many times have the demonic kings of the South and of the North determined who would rule over greater Christendom? Has not the spiritual king of Babylon set his man in place to rule over all Christians?
To argue that Christ Jesus rules over Christianity is to argue a lie. The glorified Jesus will not rule over Christianity until the single kingdom of this world is given to Him halfway through the seven endtime years of tribulation. Until then, prayers for Christians and Christianity must be carefully considered before being made. A prayer is not a light and trivial thing, but is a serious matter that needs serious consideration before being made.
When a prayer is made asking that a particular Christian be healed of an injury or illness, the Christian needs to understand that he or she cannot return to doing things as the Christian did things before. If a Christian asks to have Jesus take upon Himself the person’s injuries or illness, then this Christian had better begin to walk as Jesus walked—and this means forsaking the fellowships of hypocrites and idolaters, the lawless and the filthy.
Because we live in a time similar to the days of Jeremiah—a time when the Christian Church will be razed because of its lawless ways—God will not hear prayers made for the nation, any Christian nation, or for the greater Church. Prayers need to be specific and limited to asking God to intervene in the affairs of believers. Within this context, there will be ample occasions to pray for those who truly love God and who willingly forsake all other deities for the Most High God, even though the person is today without knowledge. That is the prayer that can be made, that the person has his or her eyes opened and mind cleared so that the person can truly believe God and live by faith.
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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."