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 spiritual preparation.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of June 11, 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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I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. / For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (Rom 1:14–23 emphasis added)
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For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made—the essence of typological exegesis is that the invisible things of God and of sons of God are revealed through the things that have been made and that are made by sons of God … the visible, physical things of this world reveal the invisible, heavenly things of God and of sons of God.
It is the addition of and sons of God that has significance spring 2011; for it is not possible to physically determine (i.e., determine by observation or by measurement) who has been born of God through receiving a second breath of life, the breath of God [pneuma Theon]. The living inner self is not outwardly visible except through the actions of the outer self over time: a “snapshot” of the outer self is not a reliable aid in determining the existence or lack of existence of indwelling eternal (i.e., outside of time and space) life for perceived goodness does not correspondence to a person being a son of God as opposed to merely being a son of Adam [son of man].
Sons of God—the Apostle Paul wrote, “[F]or in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Gal 3:26)—have been born of God through having received an invisible, not-observable second breath of life, which gives to the physically living human person invisible (i.e., not physically discernible) life that didn’t originate in this world and is not of the first Adam, but rather comes via the last [second] Adam, Christ Jesus, whose spirit [pneuma Christos] serves as the indwelling vessel able to hold the breath of the Father that is real eternal life (again, life outside of space-time).
No person by short term observation or even via long term casual acquaintance can accurately discern whether another person has been born of God. What can be rather quickly discerned by those few individuals presently born of God, but born out of season—born of the Father before it is time for spiritual birth—is the absence of spiritual birth in a person. When a person has been truly born of God, the person will do those things that disclose the existence of indwelling spiritual life, with continued doing confirming the presence of indwelling heavenly life. More simply put, sons of God will live by the words of Christ Jesus, walking as Jesus walked, living as spiritual Judeans in this world, serving a different Lord than neighbors and family—the person who has truly been born of God will live in a solitary inner world that is not penetrable by the things of this world. The genuine son of God will not pursue the things of this world, nor yearn for the finer things of life, but will be content with whatever the son possesses, including the trials that test the patience and faith of this inner son of God.
When the Apostle John wrote, “Do not love the world or the things in the world” (1 John 2:15), the disciple Jesus loved (how John described himself) commanded future sons of God to put away the pursuit of the finer things of life and to be content dwelling under one’s own vine and fig tree (i.e., to be content dwelling in the disciple’s own garden).
John went on to write, “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (also 1 John 2:15) … if the love of the Father is not in the person, the person has not been born of God as a son in this era, a situation that will change following the Second Passover liberation of Israel and change again when the world is baptized in the divine breath of God (see Joel 2:28). Today, prior to the Second Passover, only those individuals who demonstrate that they love the Father and the Son to the extent that they spurn the world and its desires—“all this is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possession, is not from the Father but is from the world” (1 John 2:16) and its present prince—will be born of God and circumcised of heart and thereby be the temple of God and the Body of Christ, the body of the Son of Man.
In the course of Philadelphians preparing or not preparing for the possibility that the Second Passover liberation of Israel would occur on the second Passover of 2011, the inner selves of Philadelphians, each individually born of God as sons born out of season (i.e., before it is the time for birth), were made visible for man, angel, and God to see: how every Philadelphian prepared spiritually to be great or least in the kingdom of the heavens was outwardly discernable through whether the Philadelphian had waited until the last minute to physically set aside sustenance/foodstuffs equal to, say, what an ancient Hebrew would have set aside to last from one season to the next season—
The website for The Philadelphia Church regularly receives queries concerning spiritual matters, and usually answers these queries in a fairly prompt manner. Because of the number of queries received and the nature of the queries, the strengths and weaknesses of Philadelphians are disclosed in a none-public manner—and because of what John records in Revelation chapter 3 about Philadelphia, certain conclusions can be drawn about the entirety of the deceased Body of Christ as it slumbers in the grave, awaiting quickening at the Second Passover liberation of Israel. And the first thing that can be said is that the Body of Christ is not ready for Christ’s return but will be caught as unaware as the world in which it dwells. Sabbatarian Christians are not ready for the Second Passover liberation of Israel, and Philadelphians are not spiritually ready.
Why isn’t the Body of Christ ready?
· The Universal Church [Catholic Christendom] believes in realized eschatology, which holds that the Kingdom of God is presently here on earth; so the next thing to happen will be Christ Jesus’ return without seven years of tribulation or a thousand year long millennial reign by Christ Jesus.
· Most of Protestant Christendom believes in some form of a rapture that will have Christians physically escaping the seven endtime years of tribulation; so there is for them no need to prepare to survive physically the Affliction.
· Sabbatarian Christendom is divided between those who hold that these elite Christians will go to a physical place of safety where they will escape the ravages of the Affliction, or they will escape to heaven where they will miss the Affliction and the Millennium.
Of all of Christendom, principally only the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints [the Mormons] have made preparations to endure the collapse of this present world, and Latter Day Saints have made woefully inadequate plans; for in laying aside a year’s worth of emergency supplies, from foodstuffs to clothing and house wares, the preparation of Latter Day Saints will only make certain their rebellion against God on day 220 of the Affliction.
A year’s worth of emergency foodstuffs will not last a year, but will only last about seven months—or last long enough that Latter Day Saints will believe their “prophet” Joseph rather than believe either the two witnesses or Christ Jesus, and will thereby rebel against God on day 220 of the Affliction.
In the above is perhaps the reason why greater Christendom has not made any physical preparations for the soon-coming 1260 days of the Affliction, to be immediately followed by the 1260 days of the Endurance; for the making of preparations discloses spiritual preparation described by the Apostle Paul as growing in grace and knowledge. And because the Body of Christ is presently spiritually dead, the Body of Christ is spiritually prevented from growing in grace and knowledge. Hence, a Philadelphian would not expect to see Christians physically preparing to endure to the end of this age.
As Arians—the leading Arian denomination—Latter Day Saints have a purpose that is not enviable: they are to lead the rebellion against God in the Affliction. They are to prevail against Catholic Christendom, against Islam, and even against Sabbatarian Christendom, but they will prevail through clinging to the things of this world, especially the form of governance represented by the United States of America.
Humanity is in and is a demonstration that sons of God—human and angelic—cannot rule themselves despite the best arguments of the Adversary and the “help” afforded him by utilitarian Christendom: America’s founders were not men of God [who among them kept even the Sabbath, let alone walked as Jesus walked], but were men of this world, men who used God as a cause to justify doing good works. … Children cannot rule themselves. Servants do not rule themselves [they would not be servants if they ruled themselves, but masters]. All sons of God are today either young children or servants, regardless of whether the son of God is human or angelic. And as such, no son of God is lawfully entitled to rule himself, let alone able to do so. The one who believes that self-rule is desirable and possible is at best as a human two-year-old, too young to understand the gulf between adolescence and maturity but old enough to cause considerable mischief.
The human person who is an advocate for American constitutional governance—a person such as Glenn Beck—neither understands the things of God, nor the gap between man and God, nor good and evil; for “evil” is nothing more than unbelief (i.e., disbelief of God). Good is righteousness of the sort found in keeping the commandments and having love for friends and neighbor. Hence, the Christian who does not keep the commandments, all of them, including the Sabbath commandment, is not of God but is of the Adversary and is a son of the Adversary. Likewise, the Christian (and this especially concerns Sabbatarian Christendom where a genuine lack of godly love exists, with this lack of love masked in legalism) who doesn’t love his brother is of the Adversary—
Of every Christian, two things are required: (1) love for God that will cause the Christian to keep the commandments, and (2) love for brother and neighbor that will cause the Christian to apply the commandments in light and in darkness (i.e., when the Christian can be seen by others and when the Christian cannot be seen by others).
The Christian who will not keep the commandments, with the Sabbath commandment being the commandment most often neglected, does not have the love of the father in the Christian, but is of the Adversary. This Christian is either spiritually dead, or is in spiritual rebellion against God. Today, the Christian is spiritually dead (i.e., not yet born via the breath of God — pneuma Theon), but following the Second Passover liberation of Israel when all of Christendom will be filled with and empowered by the breath of God, the Christian who doesn’t keep the commandments, especially the Sabbath commandment, will be in rebellion against God and part of the Apostasy of day 220.
Because Latter Day Saints have prepared physically as their prophet (beginning in 1937) warned them to prepare, they will not repent and rethink/reconsider their relationship with God following the Second Passover of Israel, with this nation of Israel being the nation that is to be circumcised of heart. Instead, Latter Day Saints will cling tightly to the doctrines and covenants given to them by the demon Moroni, with the fellowship holding open the office of prophet for the false prophet who comes claiming to be the angel Joseph Smith.
Question: since physical preparation is of no real value to a son of God spiritually but does serve to disclose how the son of God prepares spiritually (i.e., discloses growth in grace and knowledge), what was revealed about each of you this spring? Did you find yourself purchasing foodstuffs at the last minute, trying to quickly make up for years of neglected preparation? If this spring were a dress rehearsal for the real thing, what did you realize about yourself?
No nation in the course of human history has been as richly blessed with natural wealth as the United States of America—and today, no nation in human history has been as great of a debtor nation as the United States … what happened to America’s wealth can be seen by a driving tour through the suburbs of America where the tourist will see homeowners on riding, self-mulching lawnmowers cutting acres of grass—
Why should God not require Americans to face famine when Americans mock the natural wealth of the nation by not utilizing the land under the individual person’s control to feed him or herself … no nation can afford riding, self-propelled lawnmowers. No nation can afford manicured lawns, sterile in their similarity. No nation can long afford the American way of life that has developed since World War II, and this includes the United States that went from being the richest nation the world had ever known to being the poorest nation, with its poverty about to catch its lifestyle and devour the people.
Philadelphians should, because they expect a Second Passover liberation of Israel to occur, be the people best prepared to endure the on-coming famines that will sweep the world, but this means more than hoarding foodstuffs: this means that Philadelphians will begin, if they haven’t already done so, to live in harmony with the land and the weather of this world. Philadelphians will live as sustainable lifestyles as possible. Back lawns will become mini-orchards and vegetable gardens, while front lawns will become herb gardens. Unless the Philadelphian plans on sustaining him or herself on grass as if the person were truly a sheep, then the grass needs to go; for acres or quarter acres of carefully mowed lawns is really an affront to God. A manicured lawn represents placing appearances before substance, as was the case with the former Worldwide Church of God which won awards for the mowed grass on its college campuses but taught that the saints would go to a physical place of safety where they would ride out the Affliction through divine protection, suffering none of the things about to befall the world without having done anything beforehand to prepare for tomorrow’s meals.
As Christianity represents a way of life that is observable and sustainable, those things that the Christian does in this world will be observable and sustainable and out-of-sync with neighbors and families: the Christian will not live or act as his [or her] unconverted neighbors live, and this extends outward to include even front lawns.
The Christian who is faithful in even little things will use what little soil the Christian has available to him [or her]—even a window box—to produce food and to prepare to endure when the governing structure of wherever the Christian finds himself [or herself] collapses, a given that cannot be escaped.
In the former Soviet Union, a dacha represented more than a summer house: its few square metres of land were where food could be privately grown in a socialist state. Berry bushes were crammed together, with plants being shared—seedlings and cuttings passed on to neighboring properties. Virtually every square centimetre was producing what couldn’t be purchased in the nation, either due to unavailability or due to prohibitive expense. And this would be appropriate preparation by Philadelphians who have been blessed with small urban lots; for preparing to endure to the end is more than hoarding foodstuffs, more than study of Scripture, more than having the best-looking lawn on the block. Preparing to endure to the end means learning to use the wealth (either in possessions and/or in knowledge) the person has been given to sustain the person during an extended period when the person cannot buy or sell.
Being prepared spiritually to endure to the end casts as its shadow being prepared physically to endure to the end—and no one can hoard that much grain, or set aside seven years’ worth of everything the person will need. Nor should the person make hoarding foodstuffs his or her goal. Rather, learning to grow/produce those things that are and will be needed for life with whatever the person has is the type of physical preparation that is appropriate, and is the type of preparation that forms the righteous shadow of valid spiritual preparation.
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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."