The Philadelphia Church

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 retrocausality.

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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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Jerusalem’s priests teach for a price—cannot the same be said about Christian ministers? Will any pastor of a mega-church or of a mega-denomination teach Sabbath after Sabbath without pay? Which of these pastors doesn’t teach for a price? Which one works as the Apostle Paul worked (2 Cor 11:7–15), placing no burden on those who are taught?

Last Sabbath’s reading began with, “The men of Judah form the left hand enantiomer [mirror image, as the left hand is the non-symmetrical mirror image of the right hand] of the Christian Church, with these men of Judah being delivered into captivity when the hedge the Lord had placed around them was broken down, with life in slavery in this physical realm equating to being physically alive but being dead spiritually [i.e., Israel in slavery to Pharaoh is the type and shadow—left hand enantiomer—of Christians who have not been born of God]. And the men of Judah were bluntly warned that the Lord expected them—and had expected them—to bring forth justice and righteousness as the reasonable fruits of the Lord’s planting of His firstborn son in the Promised Land.”

If the men of Judah are a shadow and type of Christians, with shadow and type not simply used as a “foreshadowing,” then what Christians spiritually did in the 1^st-Century and now do in the 21^st-Century determines what ancient Israel did physically before and after the Exodus as well in the Promised Land under the judges and the kings.

A shadow occurs simultaneously with the object casting the shadow; shadows are time-linked with the entity or object that blocks the source of light causing the shadow. In the physical realm that is observable and measurable, the Christian Church—circumcised of heart Israel—cannot cast as its shadow the actions of ancient Israel. There is no simultaneousness of occurrence. But “time” and “space” are mostly synonymous expressions for space-time, the fourth dimension that occurs as part of the creation along with length, breath, and height. Thus, time was created when matter came into existence … before a sudden creation that is rightly and wrongly identified as the Big Bang, there was no space and no time. There was nothing physical, nothing that possessed mass. Yet the essence of Christianity [as well as Judaism and Islam] is that God existed, and that God created all that now exists. But God existed in heaven, so in the expression that God created all that is lies the declarative claim that heaven is timeless (without time). Therefore, a shadow cast by an object or entity in heaven (i.e., a shadow cast by an entity blocking the Light that is God) is not time-linked in this world; for the object or entity blocking the Light (as well as the Light itself) is not of this world or from this world. Thus, the shadow cast by this object or entity cannot be of this world and will not lie on the soil [ground/topography] of this world as the shadow of a standing man lies on the soil on which he stands. And therein is where literalists stymie themselves when it comes to understanding Scripture for literalists will inevitably claim that human beings are born with immortal souls when this is simply not the case.

Eternal life is the gift of God in Christ Jesus (Rom 6:23). Human beings did not possess indwelling eternal life (or life in the heavenly realm) prior to the resurrected Christ Jesus being a accepted by the Father and then on that same day breathing of ten of His disciples and saying, Receive the holy breath (John 20:22), a second breath of life analogous to the breath of life that came from the Father [pneuma Theon], appearing in the form of a dove, and lit-on and remained with Jesus (Matt 3:16). And apart from receiving a second breath of life through being foreknown by the Father, predestined, called, and justified (Rom 8:30) in the era, no human being has indwelling eternal life for this second breath of life would consume the person if it were not held in a “vessel” that has also come from heaven, this vessel being the glorified Jesus in the form of the “spirit of Christ [pneuma Christos]” (Rom 8:9).

To have life that is not physical, not mortal, requires that this life exist outside of time where the presence of life and the absence of life cannot simultaneously occur within the living entity; thus, in heaven, all entities possessing life possess immortal life. But every entity within the creation is subject to death for life that exists at this moment in space-time can cease to exist in the next moment as space-time continues to expand with the passage of time: as there is more space, there is more time, with the decay of dark matter and dark energy fueling the expansion of space so that apparent creation of additional time with the passage of time doesn’t come from a dilution of space density and doesn’t transgress laws pertaining to the conservation of matter. Thus, it can be postulated that the decay of dark matter and energy occurs at the rate at which space expands, with this decay being responsible for the acceleration rather than deceleration of observable galaxies as the creation ages … as the universe expands (i.e., moves farther away from the point of the Big Bang), the initial energy of the Bang should fade and galaxies should begin to slow, but what is now observable is that galaxies continue to accelerate away from each other contrary to expectations, a phenomenon that has called into question the basic assumptions of Physics and a phenomenon that will lead to uniting theologians and scientists.

When Jesus breathed on ten of His disciples thereby directly transferring to them a second breath of life—a breath of life that gave to them life in the heavenly realm (i.e., life outside of time)—the inner selves of these ten disciples were made alive and became able to cast shadows in the heavenly realm as in a manner analogous to how angels are able to cast such shadows. But therein lays the problem: shadows come from obstructing light. To cast a shadow in the heavenly realm where the light source is God requires that the object or entity casting the shadows blocks God, which is only possible if God permits this blockage.

The relationship between heaven and the creation isn’t easily understandable except through the presence and absence of time … where is heaven in relationship to any set of geographical coordinates? Heaven is in the same place: it surrounds space-time, infiltrates space-time, co-exists with space-time, but isn’t space-time as a cancerous tumor is of a person but isn’t the person and will actually kill the person if it isn’t checked.

If heaven were to be compared to a living entity such as a human being, space-time would exist as a cancer in the living organism, with this cancer taking its life from the organism as a parasitic growth: the four known forces [strong, weak, electro-magnetic, and gravitational] derive from a common force, and matter is composed of these four known forces locked together into strings or some similar form. Thus, from a common force that is not physically describable has come all that has been created. If this common force is a basic energy unit within heaven then from heaven has come all that is, with “bits” of heaven composing even the feathers of sparrows, why Jesus said that not one of them will fall to the ground without the Father knowing about it (Matt 10:29); for whatever happens within the creation is “felt” within heaven when heaven is perceived to be a living organism.

Most Christians are comfortable with the spiritual milk Paul delivered to those whom he called infants (see 1 Cor 3:1–3; Heb 5:11–14) … infants don’t want to drive the family car, but teens do as well as most adolescents. But before human parents permit their child to drive, the child will have matured to where the child is able to control the speed and power of an automobile. And so it is with God: before a Christian receives use of the power of God, the Christian will have matured through having “their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Heb 5:14). Thus, as Christians mature beyond infancy, they will use Paul as the foundation for the house of God; they will build upon what Paul wrote, not simply continue to repeat what Paul wrote as if they were parrots capable of mimicking words, even appropriate words, and tearing up crumbled pages of The Christian Science Monitor to amuse commercial fishermen seated around a kitchen table on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula.

The underlying construct of Philadelphian typological exegesis is retrocausality: the events of a later time in history affects what has happened earlier, with this backward-causation allowing an effect to occur before its cause. In Physics, retro-causation is usually seen in thought experiments involving time travel, because in this known physical world “causes” precede “events,” or reversed, effects follow causes. But the things of God are not of this known world: once a person receives a second breath of life, the divine breath of the Father [pneuma Theon] that gives life to the inner person, a breath of life that cannot be seen or measured in this world, the inner person casts a shadow in a manner made visible by the outer person blocking “light” in this known world. The inner person “blocks” the light of God because of indwelling sin, and the shadow cast by this inner person lays to the side of the inner person away from God, who awaits the glorification of His firstborn sons.

If the passage of time were portrayed as an “x” axis continuum in an “x/y” graph, God would stand above the intersection of the “x” and “y” axes, with the intersection of the “x” and “y” axes occurring when the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man (Dan 7:9–14; Rev 11:15). Thus, everything that happens in heaven happens without any passage of time, but everything that happens in this world occurs somewhere along the “x” axis.

Shadows cast by disciples in the 1^st-Century “fell” on the mental topography of physical Israelites in antiquity. Likewise, shadows cast by disciples in the 21^st-Century “fall” on the mental landscape of ancient physical Israelites, the firstborn son of God (Ex 4:22), and not on all of humanity. Yes, the shadow cast by the firstfruits, of whom the man Jesus of Nazareth was First, lays on the mental topography of the Lord’s firstborn son. But Jesus was without sin; therefore, Jesus did not and could not cast a shadow. He did not block the Light that was God; He was Light. But disciples, as Paul discovered, continue to have indwelling sin and death in their members. 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)

It isn’t Paul delight in the law of God that blocks the Light that is God, but the law of sin in his members that causes him to do the very things he hates. This indwelling law of sin and death blocks the Light and causes Paul to cast a shadow onto the mental topography of the physical firstborn son of God (i.e., ancient Israel). But Paul also writes, “Now you are the Body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Cor 12:27); thus, Paul, like every other disciple, is individually and collectively the Body of Christ. In Paul is represented every Christian. Hence, every Christian truly born of God—until the Second Passover liberation of Israel—casts a shadow over the mental topography of ancient Israelites. No disciple prior to the Second Passover can avoid blocking the Light that is God. Therefore, ancient Israel, acting upon the absence of God in its mental landscape, would not in Egypt put away the detestable things upon which their eyes feasted “‘nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt’” (Ezek 20:8). The Lord gave to these ancient Israelites His statutes and rules “‘by which, if a person does them, he shall live’” (v. 11). But giving the commandments to these ancient Israelites brought sin to life as it did for Paul (Rom 7:8–9), and once alive, sin devoured these ancient Israelites as Paul says it did him (v. 10).

The Lord gave Israel His Sabbaths “‘as a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them’” (Ezek 20:12), with the giving of the Sabbath coming through the giving of manna, the bread of heaven (Ex chap 16).

The Lord told Ezekiel, “‘But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They did not walk in my statutes but rejected my rules, by which, if a person does them, he shall live; and my Sabbaths they greatly profaned. … Moreover, I swore to them in the wilderness that I would not bring them into the land that I had given them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the most glorious of all lands, because they rejected my rules and did not walk in my statutes, and profaned my Sabbaths; for their heart went after their idols. Nevertheless, my eye spared them, and I did not destroy them or make a full end of them in the wilderness’” (Ezek 20:13, 15–17).

Could the Lord have justifiably destroyed the nation of Israel that profaned His Sabbaths and rejected His statutes if the shadow of Christians blocked the Light that is God from entering the minds of this ancient nation? No, not really. And He didn’t destroy the nation although He did not let that nation enter into His rest; for this nation of Israel was as Pharaoh was when the Lord hardened his heart. Again, Paul writes about the Lord, “So then He has mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens whomever He wills” (Rom 9:18); for if the Lord had only hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and had never hardened anyone else’s heart, Paul’s statement would be too expansive to represent truth.

The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart was necessary so that Pharaoh could serve as a shadow and copy (a type) of the prince of this world, the present king of Babylon (from Isa 14:4). Unless the Lord permitted the hardening of ancient Israel’s heart so that this nation could serve as a type of the Christian Church, with the Lord having allowed this hardening through the absence of Light in their thoughts, the ancient nation of Israel, most likely, would not have rebelled against God at Sinai then again in the wilderness of Paran after this nation witnessed its national liberation through the supernatural destruction of Egypt.

What prevented Israel from believing God? What caused Moses to send forth the twelve spies that would seem to be the shadow and type of ten endtime Christian leaders and of the two witnesses, with the ten Christian leaders being the miry clay that will not long cleave to the iron of the ten toes? Was ancient Israel so used to seeing miracles while the nation was a slave people in Egypt that those things the Lord did wasn’t enough to make lifetime impressions?

Paul writes,

Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. … / Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. (2 Cor 3:12–16 emphasis added)

Who hardened their minds? Did Paul use hyperbole to describe natural Israel’s inability to understand the things of God? Or were these natural Israelites of Paul’s day, of King Josiah’s day, of Samuel’s day unable to gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end because their minds were hardened from outside themselves; i.e., not of their doing?

Endtime humans assume their thoughts are their personal possessions; however, the essence of Scripture holds that thoughts originate from outside the person and are the property of the Adversary for as long as the person remains a son of disobedience. Again, this concept of a person’s thoughts not originating from within the person is at the core of what Paul writes when he says, “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’ So then He has mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens whomever He wills” (Rom 9:17–18). If, then, God can harden the heart of whomever He wills so that the person acts against the person’s best interests—as in the case of Pharaoh—all thoughts of the person do not originate from within the person for at least some thoughts originate outside the person in a supra-dimension known metonymically as heaven.

Now adding to God hardening whomever He wills, Paul also writes, “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that He may have mercy on all” (Rom 11:32), and he writes,

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Eph 2:1–3)

If God consigned all human beings to disobedience and to the prince of the power of the air so that all humans would live in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, then the desires of the body and of the mind are of the prince of the power of the air, the present prince of this world. And John writes, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world.” (1 John 2:15–16 emphasis added). Thus, it is not correct to say that desires of the flesh or the passions of the flesh are not from the Father, but are from the prince of the power of the air, meaning that as God can hardened hearts by causing the person to act upon thoughts that God has placed in the person’s mind, the present prince of this world causes human beings not born of God to desire the things of the flesh, such as food, sex, children/families, wealth, political power in this world … the trout angler who desires to cast flies to rainbows in Alaska in May and June and to cuts in Montana in July and to browns in Wyoming in August and to steelhead in Idaho in September before heading south to fish in New Zealand or Chile or Argentina until there are bright winter run steelhead in Oregon’s Nestucca River in late March desires a good thing by this world’s values. But while the Lord made trout, the desire to pursue trout with a flyrod as a vocation comes from this world and love for the things of this world. This desire does not come from God although many will attribute such a desire to being a longing to get close to God in the nature the Lord created. But the Christian has to understanding that the Christian gets close through keeping the Sabbath when the inner person born of God enters into the presence of God as natural Israel’s on the Sabbath came to the temple, or when away from the temple, to the synagogue. Yes, the inner son of God has a presence in heaven continually, for this is where this son of God has life, but this inner son of God has superseded the old man or former inner self so the inner son of God still has all the work to do that the old self had to do in choosing justice and practicing righteousness when the older person goes about working six days a week and resting from his or her labors on the seventh day.

As disciples approach when the single kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man, shadows of endtime disciples shorten until they fall within the person. A person sees the physical manifestation of this shortening when the noonday sun casts the shadow of the person at his or her feet. In retrocausality, the visible lawlessness of ancient Israelites stems from the inner lawlessness of born of God Israelites [Christians], with shadows ceasing to be cast when the spiritual Body of Christ died from loss of its divine breath—without life in the heavenly realm, Christians can cast no shadow in this realm. Thus, for the centuries between when the Body spiritually died with the death of the Apostle John [ca 100–02 CE] and when the count for the seventy weeks began with the last Elijah’s first attempt to breathe life back into the Church [approx 1528 CE], Christian lawlessness had no effect on ancient Israelites for Christians were without indwelling eternal life. But when life is returned to the Body of Christ, even though temporarily (after the type of the son of the widow of Zarephath), Christians again cast shadows of their indwelling lawlessness onto the mental topography of ancient Israel, again the physical firstborn son of God (Ex 4:22).

But when, in the near future, life is returned to the Church through every Christian being filled-with and empowered by the breath of God [pneuma Theon] following the Second Passover liberation of Israel, the Son of Man will have been revealed. Time will be short. And the shadow of the endtime lawlessness of the inner self will not fall on ancient Israelites, but will fall within the person, with this falling within the person representing the Apostasy or great falling away.

Because it is the shadow of the inner self’s lawlessness that causes the Christian in the Affliction to practice lawlessness as ancient Israelites boldly practiced their lawlessness, God will harden the hearts of these Christians, the reality expressed by Paul:

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 2:9–12 emphasis added)

When the lawless one, the man of perdition, is revealed on day 220 of the Affliction, the newly liberated [from indwelling sin and death] Christians who follow this seductive human being possessed by Satan will have their minds hardened so that they cannot believe the truth but will believe what is false. They will still have indwelling eternal life so these rebelling Christians will cast their shadows backward over the mental topography of ancient Israel, with their rebellion in the great Apostasy seen in Israel’s rebellion in the wilderness of Paran when Israel sought to kill Moses and Aaron, Joshua and Caleb.

Before the end of the age, with God as light high on the “y” axis of an “x/y” graph, those things that block the light of God will cast a shadow away from God, with lawlessness in spiritual sons of God, angelic and human, casting shadows that fall on the mental topography of physical sons of God, with the concealed (in this world) lawless of these spiritual sons of God manifested in the acts and deeds [the lawlessness] of these physical sons of God [natural Israel].

As the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh so that Pharaoh could serve as a type and shadow of the spiritual king of Babylon, just as Nebuchadnezzar served as a later type and shadow of this spiritual king of Babylon, the Lord “liberated” His firstborn son (Ex 4:22) from the hand of Pharaoh by bringing destruction upon Egypt. This physical liberation of the Lord’s firstborn son forms the shadow and type of the spiritual liberation of God’s firstborn son from indwelling sin and death.

Moses was not reared as a Hebrew slave to Pharaoh but in Pharaoh’s own house, and this Moses came down from the land of the Midianites as a physical shadow and type of the Logos, who was theos and was with ton Theon in the beginning (from John 1:1) and who entered His creation (v. 3) as His only Son (John 3:16), the man Jesus of Nazareth (John 1:14). This Moses led Israel out from Egypt as a shadow and type of Christ Jesus, the First of the firstfruits, leading the firstborn sons of God out from sin and death and into life.

But a shadow is not the reality that casts the shadow. Retrocausality doesn’t occur in this world, but in that portion of heaven found in the Abyss. It is the spiritual lawlessness of Christians that is manifested in the physical lawlessness of ancient Israel; it isn’t the lawlessness of Christians in this world that is projected onto ancient Israelites, for the outward lawless of Christians is covered by grace, the mantle of Christ Jesus’ righteousness. Rather, it is the lawlessness of the inner new self, a son of God that is projected backward onto the mental topography of ancient Israel. It is the lawlessness of this inner self that the glorified Jesus “bears” in the heavenly realm in a manner foreshadowed by the Azazel goat having the sins of Israel read over its head then led off into the wilderness by the hand of a fit man. And when judgments are revealed upon Christ’s return, those sins that the glorified Jesus has been bearing will either be given to the Adversary, their rightful owner, or to the son of the Adversary, the one who committed these transgressions—and this is the application of what John writes,

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. (1 John 3:4–10 emphasis added)

The Christian who makes a practice of transgressing the law is inwardly a son of the Adversary, and when judgments are revealed, this son of the Adversary will receive back his sins and will be cast into the lake of fire.

The flesh perishes and returns to being the elements of this earth. When a son of God is resurrected from death, the Son will either cause the perishable flesh to put on immortality (and thereby cease being flesh), or the Son to whom all judgment has been given will deny knowing the person (Matt 7:21–23). Either way, the Father made alive the inner self of this person through giving to the person a second breath of life; i.e., inner fire contained in the indwelling of Christ Jesus.

For the person who has not yet been born of God (i.e., received a second breath of life), Christian typology is nothing more than a religious thought experiment in retrocausality. But introduction of this reality will be enough for the person to grasp what has happened when uncovered firstborns die suddenly and unexplainably at the Second Passover as the reality of the firstborn of beasts dying in Egypt when the death angel passed over the land. The inner self of uncovered Christians will die invisibly (because the inner self is invisible) as the firstborn of the Adversary dies … the spiritual first king of the king of Greece will be suddenly broken (Dan 8:8) because he is the firstborn of the Adversary [i.e., first convert].

The Abyss comes from a rent in the fabric of heaven, a realm or dimension or living entity without time (i.e., outside of time). Eternal life is life outside of time in the realm known as heaven. And without time, life in heaven is as a cell having life in the human body … in a dance of oneness that could by earlier generations only be imagined, endtime disciples will be one with the Father and the Son once the Affliction begins. If, however, endtime disciples commit blasphemy against the spirit after being liberated from sin and death by being filled with spirit, the short shadow of their lawlessness then cast will fall within themselves and not backwards onto spiritually lifeless natural Israel, the falling of this short shadow within themselves will cause those who had indwelling eternal life to lose that life.

The spiritually dead will live through receiving a second breath of life, and the spiritually living will die when they take sin back inside themselves because of retrocausality; because in taking sin back inside themselves, they spiritually killed themselves before they were born. The grandfather paradox­—with both the Father and the Son having to give life to a son of God before the person enters the heavenly realm, the parallel dimension that is the escape to the grandfather paradox is this present, known world.

In this present, known world in which time cannot be as well explained as it was seemingly but inadequately explained a century and a half ago, retrocausality is the domain of philosophers. But justice and righteousness is not—

The prophet Micah addresses the heads of Jacob and the rulers of Israel, and he asks if it isn’t their responsibility to know justice, with justice forming the social or communal shadow and type of individual righteousness? These heads of the nation will call upon the Lord, but the Lord will not hear them because they figuratively devour those Israelites under them; they despise justice. And these ancient heads of Israel form a shadow and type of Christian leaders who stand in the pulpits of mega-churches and of mega-denominations as they publicly pray loudly, railing against the injustices in this world, railing against abortion and gay marriages and abandonment of the modern State of Israel. They rail with vigor, but all the while, they defiantly mock the Father and the Son in their prayers. Yes, they stand in the pulpits of their Christian Churches on Sunday and rail against the lawlessness of the world’s sons of disobedience when they themselves practice lawlessness thereby transforming themselves into hypocrites of the same order and type as were 1^st-Century Pharisees who had the law but didn’t keep it and were forever condemned. About these Pharisees, Jesus said to His disciples, “‘For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven’” (Matt 5:20). Thus, the Christian pastor who doesn’t humbly walk uprightly before the Lord, coming before the Lord on the Sabbath and on the three appointed seasons of the year, mocks Christ Jesus and makes His death a small and trivial thing.

Understand, the Christian pastor, because of the day [Sunday] on which he or she attempts to force his or her way into God’s presence, rejects Christ and elevates the person by the person’s actions. Such pastors seek to come before God as the reality of the Wave Sheaf Offering; they seek to be the first of the firstfruits, not by their hollow words but by coming together on Sunday when they mingle the sacred [Christ] with the profane [the day of the sun] to create a foul concoction that spiritually tears the skin from off the Lord’s people and their flesh from off their bones, … and flays their skin from off them, and breaks their bones in pieces and chops them up like meat in a pot, like flesh in a cauldron. This “Sunday concoction” of sacred and profane, following the Second Passover liberation of Israel, will condemn Christians to the lake of fire—and today’s Christians have been setup to rebel against God 220 days after their Second Passover liberation.

Among many small minded Sabbatarians, the great apostasy about which Paul wrote to the Thessalonians (2 Thess 2:3) occurred in the decade after Herbert W. Armstrong died; among many Evangelicals, this great apostasy occurred in the 4^th and 5^th Centuries when the Christian Church married the Roman emperor and became a secular organization. But the great apostasy really has not yet occurred, for the Church as the Body of Christ was crucified with Christ Jesus, and died with Christ Jesus when the Apostle John died [ca 100–102 CE] and hung dead on the cross [ca 100 CE to 325 CE] as Christ Jesus hung dead on the cross from the 9^th-hour until just before sunset of the Preparation Day. This Corpse of Christ was then buried at the Council of Nicea by spiritually lifeless disciples as the earthly body of Christ Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. And as the earthly body of the man Jesus would suffer no corruption but would be resurrected to life after the third day, the gates of Hades will not prevail over the spiritual Body of Christ which will suffer no corruption when it is resurrected to life after the third day of the spiritual creation week. … In order for the great apostasy to occur, Israel must first be circumcised-of-heart and must be under the New Covenant, which will have the Torah written on hearts and placed in minds so that all of Israel Knows the Lord. There will be no need for Christian ministry when Israel comes under the New Covenant and all things are restored. Again, all will Know the Lord. Therefore, all things have not yet been restored, and will not be restored until the Second Passover liberation of Israel, when every Christian, regardless of creed or sect, will be filled-with and empowered by the divine breath of God and thus liberated from indwelling sin and death.

The Second Passover liberation of Israel must come before the great apostasy can occur—and using next year as an example year, if the second Passover liberation of Israel were to occur on the Second Passover, then the great apostasy would occur 220 days later, or on Christmas day, a Sunday. And the apostasy occurs through liberated Christians mingling the sacred [Christ] and the profane [the Invincible Day of the Sun] as the first Eve ate the mingled fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Therefore, considering that the Second Passover liberation of Israel has not yet occurred, the earliest the great apostasy could occur is Christmas Day 2011. And anyone who has this great apostasy already occurring is without understanding, discernment, and knowledge. No exceptions, regardless of whether the person is a false teacher of Israel in the United States or whether the person is a lay member living in Cameroon, Central Africa.

Are the leaders of Israel, now the nation that should be circumcised-of-heart but isn’t, truly responsible for knowing what justice is and for executing justice? Have Christian pastors both in the Sabbatarian Church and in the greater visible Church devoured the flocks of God, flaying their skin from off them, and breaking their bones in pieces and chopping them up like meat in a pot, like flesh in a cauldron? Or are the italicized clauses hyperbole? Do Christian pastors truly prey upon the flocks of God, figuratively devouring the flocks through hating the good and loving the evil?

Will Christian pastors attempt to stop a disciple from keeping the commandments of God, claiming that keeping the commandments is legalism? Yes, Christian pastors do.

God requires that His sons “do justice” and “love kindness” and “walk humbly” with the Lord (Micah 6:8), and to do justice requires keeping the commandments as the outward manifestation of love for God, and love for neighbor and for brother. To love kindness is manifested in extending to neighbor and brother the same mercy that the son of God wants from the Father, and to walk humbly before God comes through confessing transgressions of the law to God and then proceeding to walk uprightly and carefully and to the best of the Christian’s ability as a faithful son of God, and not as a transgressor.

But today is the 3^rd of July, the Sabbath of a weekend of American patriotic fervor. And what has a message about walking uprightly before the Lord, practicing justice and righteousness, to do with the 4^th; for from pulpits across America, passive or active sedition will be preached today in patriotic sermons about how Divine Providence brought the United States of America into existence as a land of religious freedom where acceptance of diversity is an elevated value. But does God accept religious diversity?

Well, does the Lord accept religious diversity? Is the way to God a many-spoke wheel? Or is the way a narrow path that few disciples find, a path that demands the execution of justice and righteousness?

When Israel in Egypt rebelled against the Lord before the nation’s liberation from slavery to Pharaoh, Israel’s rebellion occurred through Israel not listening to the Lord and not casting away the detestable things upon which the nation’s eyes feasted … when Israel was a slave nation in Egypt, sin still lay dead for the law was not yet given: because the law was not given, sin was not counted against Israel (Rom 5:13), thus the nation was under natural grace. But this natural grace ended when the Lord brought Israel out from Egypt and gave the nation His statutes and made known to them His “‘rules, by which, if a person does them, he shall live’” (Ezek 20:11). At Mount Sinai, sin was made alive.

Sin, once made alive at Mount Sinai, devoured the people that Moses brought out from Egypt: at Sinai, sin deceived Israel, and killed the nation, the meaning of natural Israel not kindling a fire on the Sabbath (Ex 35:3). Because of Israel’s rebellion against the Lord, none of natural Israel could have indwelling eternal life until the Logos, who was theos and who was with ton Theon in the beginning (John 1:1), came from heaven as His only Son (John 3:16), the man Jesus of Nazareth (John 1:14).

The Christian Church in this present era, as the reality of Israel in Egypt, has rebelled against God through not listening to His voice and not casting away the detestable things that seem so right to endtime Christians, ministry and laity. These Christians are spiritually dead as natural Israel in Egypt was a slave nation. If Christians were truly born of God, the Mormon and the Baptist, the Jehovah Witness and the Lutheran, the Seventh Day Adventist and the Roman Catholic, the Mennonite and the Armstrongite would be of one Body and of one spirit. There would be no division within this Body, for divisions [schisms] exist so that those disciples who are genuine may be recognized (1 Cor 11:19). A division within Christendom separates the genuine from the false, but a division among false disciples doesn’t suddenly make the false genuine. Splintering of false brethren leads to many false factions, with most of these factions falling under the rubric of the mystery of lawlessness that will inevitably have these false factions assembling on Sunday as they attempt to take the kingdom of God by force.

Genuine Christians assemble before God on the weekly Sabbath. In prayer, they come before God every day as they put on the mantle of Christ Jesus’ righteousness, the reality of ancient Israel daily [daily sacrifice], but bodily they come before God on His appointed feast days, with the weekly Sabbath being the first of these feast days (see Lev chap 23). It is those Christians who are spiritually as Israel was physically when this ancient nation rebelled against the Lord while the nation was still in Egypt (see Ezek 20:8) that will not believe the writings of Moses and therefore cannot hear the words [voice] of Christ Jesus (John 5:46–47). Oh, these rebellious Christians claim that they are not ashamed of the gospel [good news] of Christ, but if they were not truly ashamed of the gospel they would keep the Sabbath … they don’t keep the Sabbath because they are concerned about what their friends and relatives will think of them. They don’t want to be identified as crazy or as a religious kook. Their vanity prevents them from obeying God so they flock to mega-churches and to mega-denominations that are accepted in this world and by this world and its prince, the spiritual king of Babylon.

The problem that confronts the Sabbatarian Church is its refusal to take the Passover after the example Jesus established … the first Passover of Jesus’ ministry, when He initially cleansed the temple (John 2:13–22), and the last Passover of His ministry, when He again cleansed the temple, occurred on years when rabbinical Judaism’s calculated calendar [which was not in existence] would have begun the sacred year before the equinox. Thus, in a year like 2010 when rabbinical Judaism’s calendar starts the year before the equinox, Christ Jesus “cleanses” the temple—the Church is the temple (1 Cor 3:16–17; 2 Cor 6:16)—through the calendar, for no Sabbatarian Christian who took the Passover sacraments on the dark portion of the 14^th of Nissan on Judaism’s calendar took the Passover after the example Jesus left with His disciples. None of these Sabbatarians covered their sins. So if these Sabbatarians were truly born of God, they have now been driven from the temple as if they were livestock for the temple was cleansed in anticipation of the Second Passover liberation of Israel. And it will again be cleansed in 2013 and in 2018.

Unfortunately, Christians look at the outside of other Christians and cannot see directly whether the other Christian has been born of God; thus, appearances in this world are deceiving. … As the prince of this world, Satan isn’t in the habit of blessing those Christians who are truly born of God unless these Christians spurn God and become bastard sons of the Adversary by returning to lawlessness; i.e., by returning to being slaves to sin.

The great apostasy was foreshadowed by Israel’s rebellion against the Lord in the wilderness of Paran: except for Moses and Aaron, Joshua and Caleb, Israel wanted to return to Egypt (Num 14:2–4). And 220 days after the Second Passover liberation of Israel, when Christians of every creed and sect will be filled with spirit, all of Christendom except for the two witnesses (the spiritual equivalent to Moses and Aaron) and the seven named churches (the spiritual equivalent to Joshua) and one undefined unit of every other sect (the spiritual equivalent to Caleb) will rebel against the Lord and take sin back inside themselves. They will, by their unbelief, be cut off from God, who sends over then a strong delusion so that they will continue to believe what is false in order that they may be condemned to the lake of fire (2 Thess 2:10–12). They will have committed blasphemy against the spirit of God that liberated them from indwelling sin and death.

If Christians are the Body of Christ (Paul’s claim — 1 Cor 12:27), then Christians are also the Body of the Son of Man, with Christ Jesus being the uncovered Head of this clothed Body. Therefore, when the Son of Man is revealed [apokalyptetai —disrobed] (Luke 17:30), the garment of Christ [i.e., the garment of Christ’s righteousness] (from Gal 3:27) will be stripped away. Grace will end. Just as natural grace ended for natural Israel when the law was given at Sinai, spiritual grace will end when all Christians are filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God so that the law [Torah] will be written on hearts and placed in minds. And just as Israel rebelled at Sinai so that this nation could not have life in God’s presence, Christians will rebel against God and will have their newly-received, indwelling life condemned to the lake of fire. These lawless Christians will neither enter bodily into the Millennium, nor enter spiritually into the kingdom of God. Rather, they will perish spiritually and physically when Christ Jesus returns as the Messiah. And they will perish because of their unbelief.

But unbelief is not today confined to the greater Christian Church: it is also evident in the Sabbatarian Church, which is chocked full of idolaters, disciples who hold to the teachings of Ellen G. White, or to the teachings of Herbert W. Armstrong, idolizing White as more than a prophet and Armstrong as God’s essential endtime man.

No human being other than Jesus of Nazareth, who came from heaven and returned to heaven, is essential.

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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."

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