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 shepherds and sheep.
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 chapter 10.
Commentary: A few points to note before beginning: (1) all who
came before Jesus were hirelings, or servants. (2) The good shepherd sacrifices
himself for the sheep. (3) The good shepherd has more than one fold of sheep,
but these folds will be brought together to be one flock with one shepherd. (4)
The good shepherd knows his sheep and they hear his voice; the sheep do not
follow other voices.
What can be extrapolated from Jesus’
discourse on Him being the good shepherd is that He has one Body, but many
churches within that one Body that must be brought together to function as one
church; that these many churches all hear His voice and do not follow other
voices; that the Levitical priesthood was a hireling that did not own the flock
and would not lay down its life for the flock. What also can be extrapolated is
that the sheep transcend the period when they are herded by hirelings and
continue together under Christ Jesus:
*
The person reading should now read
Ezekiel chapter 34.
Commentary: The Levitical priesthood left
Today, salvation is individual. The Holy Spirit has
not been poured out on all flesh—the natures of the great predators have
not been changed (Isa 11:6-9) as they will be when the Holy Spirit is poured
out on all flesh—and disciples can know with certainty that the Holy
Spirit was not poured out on all flesh when the first disciples were
“filled” or “empowered” by Spirit (Acts chap 2) for when
everyone has been born of Spirit [what it means to have received the Holy
Spirit], everyone will “Know God” (Jer 31:34; Heb 8:11).
The above needs developed: when the Holy Spirit is
poured out on all flesh no one will have to teach another to Know the Lord; for all of humankind will
be of the single nation promised to the patriarch Abraham. If the laws of God
are written on hearts and minds, then every person will be under these inner
commandments and will know the will of God and have the mind of Christ. No
longer will anyone be a son of disobedience for the prince of this world [i.e.,
the prince of disobedience] will have been cast from heaven and will be bound
in a bottomless pit. Therefore, since the many
of this world (the vast majority of humankind) need today to be taught to Know the Lord, the justification for the
multitude of worldwide ministries, whereas under the new covenant none will
need to be taught to Know the Lord,
the new covenant has not been implemented except on an individual basis with
the very few who keep the commandments of God by faith. And the only reliable
test of whether the person has been truly born of Spirit is whether the person
is hostile to God, not submitting to God’s law and absolutely unable to
submit (Rom 8:7).
A person who inwardly remains a son of disobedience
has not been born of Spirit. Sin retains dominion over this person, who might
well want to please God but who will not (again, indeed cannot because sin
still has dominion over this person) submit to God’s law. This person
will, of necessity, break the law of God—and the person who breaks one
commandment has broken the law (Jas 2:10). Inevitably, the commandment the
person regards as least will be broken. Usually this is the Sabbath commandment,
but not always. It can be any commandment, but the commandment against coveting
runs second to breaking the Sabbath commandment, with the other commandments
vying for the distinction of being considered least by those who are of the
synagogue of Satan, that collective of disciples who claim to have been born of
Spirit but who lie, for they have not been so born.
This need to be emphasized: the Sabbath keeping
disciple who covets the possessions or power of others [the man who builds
himself a million dollar home with tithe moneys] or who uses deceit as a
business tactic, by his or her acts discloses that he or she has not been truly
born of Spirit but is a fraud, a member of the synagogue of Satan. Plus, the
collecting of tithes is theologically problematic, for all disciples are
spiritual Levites (the royal priesthood of God – 1 Pet 2:9) and Levites
did not pay each other tithes. So while Paul writes that a workman is entitled
to be supported (1 Cor 9:3-12), he also writes that he took no support from the
saints at Corinth to undermine false apostles and deceitful workmen who claimed
to work on the same terms as he, Paul, worked (2 Cor 11:7-15). What Paul did
was to establish a test by which disciples can determine whether a minister is
genuine or false. The one who teaches is worthy of being supported, but if this
one who teaches insists upon being supported, he [or she] is false. The onus of
support falls entirely on those who are being taught to supply the needs of the
one who teaches. Therefore, the person who collects tithes has no right to
these moneys which can only appropriately be used for ministry and not for
personal support even in the form of wages paid. And this is biblical
understanding that has come to The
Philadelphia Church since 2003. Disciples are under an obligation to
support locally those who teach them, but not to tithe to those who
teach. Even the argument that those who teach form the
Again, under the new covenant, all will Know the Lord so there will be no need
to teach. The priesthood will again offer sacrifices to God, for Christ Jesus
as King of kings and Lord of lords will not be the high priest of
On the night that Jesus was betrayed, He said,
“‘I tell you [His disciples] I will not drink of this fruit of the
vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s
kingdom’” (Matt 26:29) … the cup that was His blood poured
out for the forgiveness of sins was drank by Christ once, not many times. When
He drinks again, He will not drink His blood. He will not bear the sins of
Christ Jesus will have revealed the judgments of
His sheep (1 Cor 4:5) when He drinks again of the fruit of the vine, a euphemistic expression that can include
wine or grape juice but that pertains to Him being the living vine and
glorified disciples being His fruit.
The prophet Ezekiel addresses these judgments: the
Lord God [YHWH Elohim] will judge
between sheep and sheep, between rams and male goats (34:17)—
*
The person reading should now read
Matthew chapter 25, verses 31 through 46.
Commentary: When Christ returns as the Messiah He will, as a
shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, separate peoples, but [here is the
caveat] only those peoples whom the Father has raised from the dead or have
been born of Spirit. That portion of humankind that died before the Holy Spirit
was poured out on all flesh halfway through the seven endtime years of
tribulation, and died without either receiving the promise of inheriting
eternal life or having been born of Spirit—that portion which corresponds
to the wheat harvest of ancient Judean hillsides—will be resurrected
during the great White Throne Judgment. So the Son of Man will gather all
nations to Him for the Holy Spirit has been poured out on all flesh for the
previous three and a half years; all will be born of Spirit. And those who
endured to the end [enduring means not having taken the mark of the beast]
shall be saved; shall be numbered among the sheep on His right hand.
The sheep on Christ’s right will have fed the
hungry when buying and selling required taking the mark of the beast. They will
have, by faith, trusted God to supply what they could not purchase, and then,
by faith, they will have given to those who were hungry what they had received
from God.
In this pre-tribulation era, physical hunger is not
a worldwide problem; famines are localized. But the world is starving
spiritually. The hungry are those who need taught the rudimentary precepts of
the law. They need more than a global satellite system (GPS) receiver to locate
God. They need the way made straight as John the Baptist made straight the way of
the Lord; they need another John the Baptist, someone who will condemn the
hypocrites and all unrighteousness. They need to feed the lean sheep and push
aside the fat sheep (Ezek 34:20). They will be, themselves, sheep, but they
must be as rams able to drive from the water the sheep who have muddied the
stream and who have trodden down the pasture they could not eat … cattle
ranchers in the Intermountain West go to great trouble to keep elk off their
winter haystacks. These ranchers do not begrudge the elk the hay they eat when
snow has driven them down from the high country. What these ranchers cannot
tolerate is the elk standing in the middle of the hay stack, pissing and
defecating on winter feed that now will not be eaten by any animal. And so it
has been with the vast majority of evangelists (and especially televangelists) for
two millennia: they have polluted the gospel of Christ with borrowed paganism;
have soiled the garment of Christ with their greed; have starved the saints;
and have taught newly born sons of God to commit spiritual suicide. Yes, Christ
will judge between sheep and sheep. He will rescue His flock. He will set David
over them as His shepherd, and He will make the sheep dwell securely in a land
that has gone to brambles and briars, thorns and thistles.
From the mid point of the Tribulation on, the sheep
will be under the new covenant: they will all Know the Lord. But right now, those human beings who come to God,
regardless of whether they are physically circumcised or uncircumcised, come
without having first cleansed their hearts by a spiritual journey of faith
equivalent to Abraham’s physical journey of faith from
Christ has already revealed how He will judge the
fat sheep who trampled the gospel of God and taught [teach] lambs to transgress
the commandments: regardless of the great works they have done or do in His
name, He will deny knowing them when they appear before Him (Matt 7:21-23).
They will be the goats on His left hand, for they obtained their treasure in
this world. They used guilt-extorted moneys to build for themselves great
houses. They desired to live as kings on this earth, and many of them have. All
of them, however, will be condemned for not feeding the sheep good pasture,
good hay, first-cut alfalfa, but instead, feeding the sheep straw and sawdust,
prophetic understandings that have Rome as the fourth beast, the legs of iron,
the king of the North. They had no water to give those who were thirsty for
knowledge of God, so they mixed honey with gall and had the lambs drink this
swill from the pages of many correspondence lessons and study booklets. They do
not teach the lambs to clothe themselves with the mantle of Christ’s
righteousness. Instead, they lie to the lambs, saying that because Jesus
fulfilled the Law and the Prophets the lambs need to neither keep the Law nor
believe the Prophets. So the lambs become prey for eagles and coyotes, bears
and wolves, televangelists and talk radio. The thoughts of the lambs are turned
away from God and turned back to this world and its prince, who then feeds the
lambs with conspiracies that have the Tri-Lateralists about to implement one
rule government. The prince of this world uses the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion to poison the lambs as if
these Protocols were cyanide
“coyote-getters,” poisoned pellets left by rancher and trappers
left to kill whatever eats their bait. And the bait used by the prince of this
world tastes sweet in the mouth: it satisfies the appetites of the belly and
loins, but it takes the lambs’ focus off God and off trying to please
God, and puts the lambs’ focus on those things that are passing away.
The fat sheep grew fat at the expense of disciples
who scrimped to send “headquarters” a few dollars more each month,
even if sending these few dollars meant going without food themselves, or
leaving utility bills unpaid in hopes that next month would be better …
the abuses are too numerous to be mentioned here. These abuses have been
documented, and these abuses have spiritually slain far more lambs than were
drawn to Christ by how those few extra dollars were spent. Where is love for
the flock expressed in physically fleecing the flock while spiritually starving
these same lambs?
Yes, Christ Jesus will judge between sheep and
sheep—and every sheep needs to understand that he or she is not the
shepherd, but only another member of the scattered flock. Thus, every sheep is
his brother’s keeper.
*
The person conducting the Sabbath service should close services with two hymns, or psalms, followed by a prayer asking God’s dismissal.
* * * * *
"Scripture
quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright ©
2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by
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