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 belief.

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Possible songs include the following hymns:
Holy, Holy, Holy
We Praise Thee O God, Our Redeemer
Savior Like A Shepherd Lead Us
Blest and Happy Is He
Love Divine, All Loves Excelling

Weekly Readings

For the Sabbath of June 24, 2006

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.

The person conducting the service should read or assign to be read John chapters 8 & 9.

Commentary: Who caused the man to be blind? Jesus said the man was blind so that the works of God might be displayed in the man (9:3)…the man was blind from birth for the expressed purpose of being used as words from the Father, uttered by Jesus through His act of healing the man. And again (as in chapter 5), the healing was on the Sabbath, revealing that the work of Jesus and the unspoken words of the Father, which humankind consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32) cannot hear, are about giving relief to the oppressed, with the ultimate expression of this relief being crossing dimensions and entering the heavenly realm.

Sin separates man from God, but not how this concept is usually taught through using the example of Adam and Eve eating forbidden fruit in the garden. After losing his “covering” of obedience and realizing that both he and Eve were naked, Adam with the woman attempted to hide from Elohim [singular in usage], but his nakedness and his sin did not separate him from Elohim, who sought the two of them and found them. Again, humankind cannot hide, even behind sin, from God, who does the separating at His discretion—Elohim did the separating when They [plural usage in Gen 3:22] decided that the man and the woman had to be driven from the garden before Adam and his wife ate of the Tree of Life. Elohim [singular] consigned the man and the woman to disobedience by driving humankind from the garden of God, and barring reentry. Therefore, it is humankind’s consignment to disobedience that separates man from God.

Earlier translations of the Greek original into English use the word “concluded” for consigned. The meaning is the same: God gave humankind over to the Adversary, that old serpent Satan the devil, as bondservants for the destruction of the flesh without sin being reckoned to these bondservants. And because God did the separating, the giving of humankind over to the Adversary, God will pay the ransom price demanded by the Adversary for humankind’s release—humankind will be recovered from disobedience through paying a price, the death of the firstborn son of God, Head and Body, in this physical world.

As has been stated before, the problem with prophecy is what is revealed. The ancient nation of Israel did not want to hear Jeremiah’s message that Jerusalem would be delivered into the hands of Babylon; that only by surrendering to Nebuchadnezzar could the inhabitants of the polis save their lives. The many prophets of the temple told the people that their God would not do that to His holy nation, that their God would deliver Jerusalem from the sword. But these prophets were not sent by God—and their God was the Adversary, a liar and a murderer from the beginning. Likewise, modern Christianity, foreshadowed by the ancient polis of Jerusalem, would rather believe servants of the Adversary, coming to the Christian laity as disguised ministers of righteousness (2 Co 11:14-15), than one sent by God; for the laity has been assured that the God of the New Testament is loving and compassionate, and not like the harsh, stern God of ancient Israel. The laity has been assured that Jesus paid the righteous requirement of the law so that they, as spiritual Gentiles, can continue living in sin, transgressing the commandments of God and teaching others to not only relax but to transgress the least of the commandments (Matt 5:19). But their teachers and pastors are liars: the Logos came as His Son made in the likeness of sinful flesh as the acceptable sin offering for those whom the Father draws from this world [and from their consignment to disobedience]. He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law—that sin should be reckoned against the sinner—might be fulfilled in disciples who walk according to the Spirit. And while these infant sons of God learned to walk uprightly before man and God, Jesus covered them with the garment of His righteousness, a garment that will be removed when the Son of Man is revealed (Luke 17:30).

Prophecy reveals that Grace ends when the seven endtime years of tribulation begin. Grace ends because disciples will be filled or empowered by the Holy Spirit, and thereby liberated from the law of sin and death that presently continues to dwell in the flesh. The new creature, born from above, born of Spirit, is liberated from sin and death with spiritual birth, but the tent of flesh in which this new creature, an actual son of God, dwells remains under the righteous requirement of the law. Hence, death remains dwelling in the flesh—if a disciple has not been or is not killed from an outside cause, the disciple has or will [if not liberated] die from so-called natural causes for the righteous requirement of the law will be fulfilled in every individual the Father has drawn from his or her consignment to disobedience.

Jesus’ death at Calvary paid the ransom price for the flesh of firstfruits, who with being born of Spirit also have life in the heavenly realm where they can also commit sin, the penalty for which is the second death. Being born again means, literally, receiving a second life in the same tent of flesh. The first life is to be crucified with Christ, but crucifixion doesn’t kill instantly but through the prolonged process of suffocation. Therefore, for a while, both the old man and the new spiritual creature dwell in the same tent of flesh—and the longer the old man lives, the more likely he is to corrupt the new creature. Thus, in the true reality of the Oedipus story, every born anew son of God dwelling in the tent of flesh of the old man must kill that old creature before that old man persuades the new creature to live as a spiritual Gentile rather than as a spiritual Judean.

Therefore, the teachings of so-called Christian leaders have caused most Christians to believe that the student is greater than his or her Teacher, and the servants are greater than their Master. These Christian leaders work hard to convince the laity that because Jesus kept the commandments of God, neither they nor the laity have to keep the commandments. But Jesus said that it was enough for the student to be like his or her teacher, and for servants to be like their master (Matt 10:24-25). Jesus said not to think that He came to abolish the Law and the Prophets (Matt 5:17). Jesus said the disciple who would be great in the kingdom of heaven would keep the commandments and would teach others to do likewise (v. 19). Jesus further said that the person who doesn’t hear and believe Moses would not hear and believe Him (John 5:46-47 & Luke 16:31). So the old creature, born into sin and for all of his or her life consigned to disobedience, must quickly die on the cross, but too often never dies in the many that are called (Matt 22:14). Hence, few are chosen. And this should be a frightening scenario for the disciple who habitually practices lawlessness through, say, attempting to enter God’s rest on the 8^th-day.

Whereas the present crop of Christians’ leaders have ably pointed out that God by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as a sin offering, condemned sin in the flesh (Rom 8:3), these leaders neglected to say why Theos (from John 1:1-2) came as His Son, His only (John 3:16)—the reason why the Logos, who was Theos, entered His creation as the man Jesus of Nazareth was, again, so “the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us [disciples]” (Rom 8:4). And what is the righteous requirement of the Law? It certainly isn’t to live as the disciple formerly lived when consigned to disobedience and when a subject to the prince of the power of the air’s broadcast of disobedience. Yet this seems to be the essence of Dispensationalists’ gospel of iniquity.

· The righteous requirement of the Law has sin [lawlessness — from 1 John 3:4] being counted as sin, and reckoned against the sinner.

· The garment of Jesus’ righteousness, like a cloak as bright as the sun’s brilliance, covers the Body of the Son of Man until Zion brings forth her children in a day (Isa 66:8).

· This garment of Grace will be laid aside to reveal all of the Son of Man on that day when Zion brings forth her children, two sons, one hated because of his lawlessness while still in the womb, lawlessness that will not be counted against this son until his birth.

· The other son is loved, but this son will be slain by his bloody brother.

· So a third son will be born to Zion when Satan is cast from heaven—and this son only has to endure to the end to be saved (Matt 24:13).

Natural grace covers the son of disobedience so that sin is not counted as sin through his or her consignment to disobedience: as a bondservant of the Adversary, the son of disobedience’s sin is reckoned to the Adversary, the son’s master. No person can serve two masters. Until the son of disobedience was/is ransomed from the Adversary, the son remains the Adversary’s servant, regardless of whether this son of disobedience represents himself as a sinner or as a great religious teacher as the Pharisees were. And here is where understanding of a mystery of God enters discussions about belief: until Jesus’ death at Calvary, no ransom price had been paid for the liberation of any son of disobedience. Jesus needed no ransom price paid for Him, for He came down from heaven (He was not of this world where all of humankind had been consigned to disobedience), and He had defeated the Adversary in a one-on-one confrontation. So Jesus was never a bondservant of the Adversary. His death could, therefore, pay the ransom price of those individuals whom the Father would draw from the world and give to Jesus as disciples and servants. The righteous requirement of the Law still required death for every transgression of the Law. Thus, Jesus “covered” His disciples [as in placing a garment or a mantle over the person] with His righteousness. And this covering is, by definition, Grace.

When a human being has been drawn by the Father from the world, the person becomes fully responsible for his or her every violation of the Law—the person is no longer covered by Satan through the person being a son of disobedience. Therefore, because this person remains in a world subject to Satan’s broadcast of disobedience, the person as an infant son of God would not long survive before he or she sinned and was subject to immediate death. Hence, the glorified Jesus covers the infant son of God with His righteousness, which the infant son puts on a garment in the same way that ancient Israel covered itself through the daily, the morning and evening sacrifice.

Because Jesus had not been sacrificed at Calvary, the scribes and the Pharisees could not have been ransomed sons of God, but had to still be sons of disobedience, consigned to the Adversary for the destruction of the flesh (1 Co 5:5) so that when born anew in the resurrection their [newly received] spiritual life might be saved. So what Jesus said to them was absolutely correct, but has been so poorly understood that the Adversary, as a disguised angel of light, has passed his servants off as ministers of righteousness (2 Co 11:13-15). Yes, Christian ministers who teach sons of God a gospel of lawlessness are themselves servants of their father, Satan, the devil. They have not been ransomed from disobedience, but have been planted in the fields of God as tares, where they have bred more tares, until the fields of God are fields of tares, meeting in many fellowships on the 8^th day, assembling together to brand as “legalists” genuine disciples. Yet, a little grain still grows in these fields—and the task of The Philadelphia Church is to recover as many of these scattered stalks as possible, while delivering to the untilled hillsides the good news that all who endure to shall be saved (again, Matt 24:13-14), that these untilled hillsides will yield the majority of the endtime harvest of firstfruits, that these untilled hillsides will be born anew when the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh (Joel 2:28), immersing the world in a baptism of Spirit (Matt 3:11), with a baptism of fire to follow after the thousand years.

The scribes and the Pharisees of Jesus’ day serve as spiritually lifeless shadows not of the tares, who remain sons of disobedience without the Holy Spirit even though they pose as servants of God, but of false ministers and false apostles and false prophets within the spiritual nation of Israel who do have the Holy Spirit and who have been called by God to be endtime sons of destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled. It is these endtime sons of destruction that have crept into the churches of God for the purpose of betraying brethren, for delivering genuine brethren up in the tribulation, for causing many to fall away, for causing one brother to hate another brother, for leading many astray (Matt 24:9-12 et al). And because these false teachers and prophets seem to be genuine, thereby deceiving those who do not believe that they can be deceived, these false brethren have, like rotten eggs, risen to the baptized surface of the churches of God. Their lives stink, but that stench remains contained in a calcified shell usually titled Pastor General. But as with all rotten eggs, sooner or later they crack—the modern historic record of Sabbatarian Christianity.

False shepherds devour the sheep instead of healing the injured and recovering the lost. False shepherds inevitably blame others for sin for what they, themselves, are guilty of doing.

Because of the accepted teachings of the sons of disobedience who were then the leaders of Israel, even Jesus’ disciples assumed that the blindness from birth of the man Jesus healed was the result of sin. But Jesus said not so: Jesus said that neither the man nor his parents had sinned, but that the man was blind so that the works of God might be displayed (John 9:3). Jesus then went on to say that the works of God would be done while it was still day, that night was coming when no one can work (v. 4). Hold it! Stop right here: Jesus was the light of men (John 1:4). Day ended at Calvary. Night is now here when no one can work. Why, then, do Christians wonder why no healings occur as when Jesus was here. Jesus said His disciples would do greater works than His, but these works won’t be done while night is here. They will be done when the light of men returns, when “day” is again here. They will be done during the second half of the seven endtime years of tribulation, when the third part of humanity (Zech 13:9) becomes the harvest of firstfruits.

The so-called healings of televangelists where the healed fall backwards are not works of God, but are the work of the prince of disobedience, who postures as an angel of light. When God is involved, the person who falls will fall forward, not backwards—and did the blind man fall at all? No. The blind man went as one sent to deliver a message to those who claimed they could see. And so it was when the Father spoke through the works of Christ Jesus.

If the man Jesus healed had been blind from birth for the expressed purpose of being an instrument of God, then every genuine disciple is also an instrument of God, with all that has happened to the person being not only for the person’s good but being used as a work of Jesus through which the voice of the Father is heard. The ramifications [and realities] of Jesus’ statement should humble every “Christian,” for Judas Iscariot was also a person called to fulfill Scripture (John 17:12).

All of the firstfruits have been called to fulfill Scripture, with endtime disciples called to be either of the hated son or of the loved son; the false son or the son predestined to glory. Two sons were born to Isaac, who preferred Esau over Jacob because Isaac ate of Esau’s wild game (Gen 25:28). And a student should pause here to ask, Why did Isaac prefer wild game? Isaac was the son of promise whom Abraham took up on the mountain to offer as sacrifice to God. A wild ram was sacrificed instead even though Abraham and apparently Isaac were willing for the patriarch to kill his son. The answer to this question might not be immediately evident, but the question has an answer that will look back to what happened on the mountain.

So as two sons were born of promise to Isaac, two sons will be born to the last Adam when the seven endtime years of tribulation begin. One son will claim to see, but will see nothing although he will harvest many souls for the Cross. He will be as a wild ram, a son of disobedience still consigned to the Adversary. He will be the seed of that tare planted by the Adversary (Matt 13:24-30), while the other son, having been healed through spiritual birth, will see, and will profess the greatness of the Christ to a generation foreknown and predestined to be the great harvest of firstfruits after this son is slain by his brother, as Cain slew righteous Abel. Thus, many disciples are called to vision, but few are chosen to actually see God (Matt 22:14). Few will hear the words of Jesus and believe the One who sent Him (John 5:24). Most will hear Augustine, or Luther, or Calvin, or Darby, or any of thousands who teach a lawless gospel to infant sons of God, who, like the blind man, have been “healed” of lawlessness as a testimony of the Father, uttered through Christ Jesus.

Again, all transgressions of the law (i.e., lawlessness) is sin (1 John 3:4), the wages of which is death (Rom 6:23). Thus, every violation of the laws of God requires a death, an overlooked reality within and without the Christian Church. Therefore, the condition of natural grace—where no sin is reckoned to the person—requires that the person be consigned to the Adversary, who, with accepting the consigned, has responsibility for the person’s lawlessness, and will pay with his life for the person’s [as well as for his own] lawlessness (Ezek 28:18-19). But the Adversary will be cast from heaven halfway through the seven endtime years. He will then not be able to pay in that heavenly realm for the sins of the third part of humanity, born of Spirit when the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh. Thus, those disciples who have taken the mark of the beast unto themselves and who have life in the heavenly realm will become the ransom price paid in this realm for the third part of humanity. Yes, the firstborn son of God—the spiritual Cain—will die in the lake of fire with the sins that belong to Satan in that realm. These sins will be given to this lawless son.

Because God has consigned every person to disobedience (Rom 11:32), removal of a person from this consigned state requires that a ransom price must be paid, just as the release of Medieval Christian soldiers captured by Islamic armies required paying a ransom. And Jesus’ death at Calvary paid the ransom price of every disciple consigned to disobedience. Now, the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled by the disciple (Rom 8:4), for the disciple no longer belongs [as in being a bondservant] to the Adversary; the disciple has been purchased for an exceedingly dear price. And to fulfill the righteous requirement of the Law, disciples, with only the exception of a spiritual Joshua and a spiritual Caleb [the remnant of Rev 12:17], will die as Jesus died. Genuine disciples will die in the flesh during the first half of the seven endtime years. False disciples will die spiritually, thereby saving their flesh until the end of the Tribulation for the Christ to kill when He returns as King of kings and Lord of lords. They, together [genuine and false disciples], will give their lives as ransom for the third part of humanity (Isa 43:3-4), which will become endtime Israel, the single nation promised to Abraham (Gen 12:2) that is a multitude of nations (Gen 17:4).

When the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh, thereby changing even the animal natures of the great predators (Isa 11:6-9), all of humanity will have life in the heavenly realm where no ransom has yet been paid, a situation that will have changed when Satan is cast into the lake of fire after the thousand years. But to fulfill the righteous requirement of the law, the hated son of promise [i.e., the false shepherd, apostles and prophets] that were never of Israel will be condemned to the lake of fire before the loved son is “harvested.” The hated son will be given as the ransom for the loved son in the heavenly realm.

This is enough for one day. The problem with prophecy is, again, in what is reveals—and what is revealed has the majority of the present day Christianity being called as drawn vessels of God that are intended for dishonorable usage. This majority has been drawn from the world to become the ransom price paid in the heavenly realm for the endtime harvest of firstfruits, born of Spirit when or immediately after Satan is cast from heaven.…A problem here exists for the greater Christian Church: if Jesus’ death at Calvary ransomed the disciple from disobedience, future lawlessness by the person ransomed requires a death—and Jesus will not be crucified a second time. Grace is not unmerited pardon of the disciple’s sins, for prior to being drawn from the world, the Adversary paid, or would pay [depending upon perspective] with his life for the disciple’s sins. But if the Adversary is confined within the physical creation and can not again enter the heavenly realm, and if the Adversary will not be cast into the lake of fire until after the thousand years, then the deaths required by the righteous requirements of the Law can only be paid by those disciples who bear the mark of the beast. Thus, all of Christendom that takes onto hands and into minds the tattoo of the Cross once the Tribulation begins will die a second death in the heavenly realm when Christ returns. These “Christians” are thrown into the lake of fire to fulfill prophecy—and this is a prophecy that is as hard to deliver as it is to hear.

You, who attempt to enter God’s rest on the following day as the ancient nation of Israel so attempted in the wilderness of Paran (Num 14:40-41) have been purchased for a price (brought with the precious blood of Jesus) to die in the lake of fire as the “sin” offering made in the heavenly realm. Beg God to grant you repentance before it is too late. Beg God to allow you to keep the commandments of God as you attempt to walk uprightly before Him under the garments of Christ’s righteousness. Beg God to allow you to keep His Sabbaths, and to enter into His rest as He commands. For if your arrogance is such that you will not beg God to change you from a vessel destined for dishonorable usage to a vessel to be used for honorable use, you are without hope despite what you presently believe.

Satan is every disciple’s accuser, but he doesn’t accuse his own, for their actions are the result of his broadcast of disobedience (Eph 2:3). Only when God draws a person from the world, thereby separating the person from the Adversary, does Satan bring accusations against the person. But as the person was formerly covered by Satan’s disobedience, the called disciple is covered by the garment of Christ Jesus’ righteousness until the Son of Man is revealed. Then, every disciple will be covered by only his or her obedience to God—and obedience to God means keeping all of the commandments, including the Sabbath commandment.

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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