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 religious extremism.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath September 17, 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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If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Col 3:1–17)
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When Paul wrote to the holy ones at Colossae, telling these holy ones to set their minds on the things that are above and not on the things of this earth, the holy ones were not inclined to seek public office, nor were they really allowed to participate in politics. Colossae was part of the Roman Empire. The affairs of state were not shaped by democratic institutions, but by autocrats. The affairs of state were the domain of a political class, this class selected by intrigue and by familial relationships, with merit only receiving cursory consideration. And Christians, by the fact that their activities were no longer subject to friends and family (the subject of Col chap 2), had excluded themselves from consideration for public offices: they were now religious extremists in an empire suspicious of any sort of extremism.
Politics is the ultimate affair of this world. But Paul, in listing what is of this world, lists character traits that are earthy, saying that because of sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness that wrath of God is coming upon all of humankind …
Today, what seems to dominate the thoughts of Western nations? What are the dominate characteristics of modern Western life? Does not sexual immorality top a list of pleasures that has people being lovers of self more than lovers of God? Has not the entirety of Western culture become sexualized? Isn’t the sexual exploitation of children becoming much too common? Do not seemingly pious Christian women dress as public women? But is it not their right to dress as they choose? It is, isn’t it? And they choose not to cover their hair, and to barely cover breasts and groins. That is their right—as it is God’s right to bring His wrath upon this world.
That is what’s at stake: God bringing His wrath upon humankind. The God that the vast majority of the world’s population either mocks through lawlessness, or denies in classrooms and scientific journals—this God, the one who raised Jesus from the dead, has permitted the Adversary to demonstrate that self-rule, that democratic principles will not work, but will only lead to misery and death. But this same God has reserved to Himself the right to take dominion from the Adversary and to deliver the single kingdom of this world to the Son of Man in a continuation of the demonstration, a continuation that illustrates the difference between a theocracy governed by His law and adversarial democracy. And in a theocracy governed by His law, He will cause His law to be written on hearts and placed in minds so that no person can escape from truth. No person can then claim to be of Him and still practice sexual immorality—
Today, are not Christian pastors and teachers routinely caught in acts of sexual immorality? Do these acts of sexual immorality not confirm the obvious, that so-called Christian pastors and teachers are of the Adversary? If these Christians teachers were of God, they would have parishioners striving to keep the commandments of God as they, themselves, strive to keep the commandments. After all, did Jesus not say, “‘Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments [that are in the Law — from v. 17] and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven’” (Matt 5:19) … Christian pastors and teachers who would be great in the kingdom of the heavens [plural] will both keep the commandments and will teach others to keep the commandments.
Do they? Do Christian pastors and teachers keep the commandments? How many keep the Sabbath commandment? How many believe the writings of Moses? How many teach parishioners to eat bread of affliction on the First Unleavened or on the Feast of Unleavened Bread? How many teach parishioners to afflict their souls [to fast] on Yom Kipporim? Now, compare the number of Christian pastors and teachers that believe the writings of Moses and who hear the voice of Jesus against the number who teach parishioners that the Law has been abolished, that they (the parishioners) do not have to keep the commandments because Christ Jesus kept them … when it is acknowledged that Jesus kept the commandments, how is a Christian to walk as Jesus walked (1 John 2:6) and not strive to keep the commandments? How is a Christian to imitate Paul as Paul followed Jesus (1 Cor 11:1 et al) and not strive to keep the commandments? Remember, Paul said of himself that “‘Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar have I committed any offense’” (Acts 25:8).
How can a person who strives to keep the commandments commit acts of sexual immorality?
John wrote,
Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he [Jesus] appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin [no lawlessness]. 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)
No one born of God—no one who has truly been born again—will make a practice of sinning, of transgressing the commandments. But is this what’s seen in Christian orthodoxy? It isn’t, is it? What’s seen is a religious ideology devoted to rejecting the writings of Moses.
No born again Christian can make a practice of transgressing the commandments. Simply can’t happen. This isn’t to say that a born again Christian will not sin, but is to say that no born again Christian can continue to sin: the now-living inner self won’t allow the Christian to continue to transgress the commandments. The turmoil inside the born again Christian will cause the Christian to strive to keep the commandments, albeit not perfectly but doing better as the inner self grows in grace and knowledge so that after a couple of years the Christian will readily see the inner change in him or herself.
The born again Christian’s failures in doing what the Christian knows is right keeps the Christian humble … when you know to do right and find that you have failed to do what you know to do—this is the situation Paul addresses in Romans chapter 7—you realize just how far you still have to grow to measure up to the stature of Christ Jesus. It’s not possible to think more highly of yourself than you ought when you honestly measure yourself against Christ Jesus. All of us are far from where we ought to be, but all of us should see growth, progress, movement closer to being like Christ Jesus. And it is this journey of faith from Babylon, the kingdom of this world (the kingdom in which sexual immorality and impurity dominates), to Christ Jesus that begins far from Christ but ends in the glorified Christian forming part of heavenly Jerusalem, the Bride of Christ. This journey, like every other journey, begins with a small step, that of striving to keep the commandments.
As the born again Christian turns his or her back to the things of this world—to the finer things of life—the Christian has less and less interest in the politics of this world. The Christian goes from wanting to protest abortion clinics and from being truly angered by gay-rights’ parades to being quietly angered by all of the society in which he or she lives. The Christian knows that those who murder the unborn and those who parade in drag will bring about the wrath of God on this world, not because they are worse sinners than the pious Christian woman who chooses to dress as a public woman or worse sinners than unassuming Christian pastors who tell parishioners that they don’t have to keep the commandments, but because they are the easily discerned public face of the Adversary.
The Adversary has been a murderer from the beginning … a long-haired effeminate appearing male, the Adversary murders the spiritual unborn before they receive indwelling eternal life in the form of the breath of God [pneuma Theon], his victims being both the pious and the impious—
Is not sexual impurity publicly paraded through the streets of America’s largest cities? What are gay-rights about if not the right to publicly practice impurity?
Are not evil desires fueling a legal (prescription) and an illegal drug culture? Are not passions on display in street violence, in union actions, in a presidential campaign speech before the joint assembly of the House and Senate? Of course they are.
Character defects that were once hidden from public sight are no longer in closets, but are openly displayed and celebrated as expressions of diversity. Marriages have become strained relationships between equals, with no head and no body and no salvation in childbirth. Yet, a third of Americans, in particular, still claim that America is special to God because the nation is good … by what definition is America good? Because the United States of America spreads democratic ideals and democracy and equality between classes and ethnicities and the sexes around the world? Because America offers foreign aid and humanitarian assistance to various peoples? Certainly America as a nation now avoids spreading Christianity to peoples who are not interested in changing their fundamental ideology—and maybe that is good. But America also spreads its secular culture and open sexual immorality to all peoples.
Equality between men and women is an interesting concept, but equality is a concept that has produced spoiled fruit … the inner new self born of spirit as a son of God is neither male nor female, slave nor free, Jew nor Greek, but is a son, a younger brother to Christ Jesus, the Firstborn of many sons of the Most High. But the relationship between the inner new self and the fleshly body of the Christian is that of a husband and his wife, with the living inner new self being analogous to the husband and the fleshly body being analogous to the wife. The husband is the head of the union of man and wife as the inner new self should be the head of the Christian’s fleshly body, with this relationship extending upward so that Christ Jesus is the head of the inner new self that is a son of God as the husband is the head of his wife.
But equality between the sexes muddies the relationship between the inner new self and the Christian’s fleshly body as well as between Christ Jesus and the inner new self. Equality would have the desires of the flesh being the equal of the inner new self’s desire to keep the commandments; equality would have Christ Jesus being the equal of the inner new self, and this is not to be.
The woman will be saved in childbearing (1 Tim 2:15) as the Christian’s body will be saved when the natural body is raised as a spiritual body (1 Cor 15:44) … the woman is not her child, nor is the natural body the spiritual body. One leads to the other. But this process of change occurs first in the head, where the formerly dead inner self [the old man] is raised from death by the Father (John 5:21) from the Father drawing the person from this world (John 6:44) and giving to that person the earnest of His breath, thereby making alive the formerly dead inner self. As Adam was created before Eve, the dead inner self is given life before the flesh is glorified.
Democracy holds that there is an equality between peoples, between ethnicities, between the sexes … democracy would have the Adversary being the equal of the Most High God, and this is not and will never be the case. Likewise, the fleshly body is not the equal of the living inner self that is a son of God. The body is not the equal of its head—
Christianity is antidemocratic; for there are not many paths to salvation. There is one, and one only. And this path goes through Christ Jesus who must dwell in the form of His spirit, His breath of life in the person, with the breath of the Father being in Him. The formerly dead inner self could not be raised from death until Christ Jesus was glorified as the last Adam, the spiritual Adam … there could be no Eve until after Adam was created. There could be no Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27), no Christian Church, until the last Adam was glorified as its Head.
No politician in America or in any other Western democracy would be elected to public office if the politician denied the equality of the sexes … the living inner new self is neither male nor female but is as the angels are; thus, there is equality between the living inner selves. The living inner self as a son of God that dwells in a biologically female fleshly body has the same rights and authority in heaven as the living inner self that dwells in a biologically male body, but no living inner self has the rights and authority of Christ Jesus, the First of the firstfruits and the Head of the Body of Christ. A younger brother to Christ Jesus is not the equal of Christ Jesus even though both will be one with the other as the living inner self is one with the Christian’s fleshly body.
We know that politicians are not of God; for what politician does not lie once campaigning for a public office … what campaign promise has an elected official not broken? Even members of the so-called Tea Party who were elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2010 have softly compromised, voting to raise the U.S. debt ceiling so that the spending can continue: when a presidential candidate honestly calls Social Security what it is—if there were any monies in the so-called Social Security locked box Trust Fund, President Obama could not have threatened to not send out Social Security checks in August of this year—the presidential candidate is beaten about the head by fellow candidates. The threat not to send out Social Security checks in August is prime facie evident that the Trust Fund is a fraud, an empty promise filled with IOUs, not investments, that the Federal Government has to borrow money to satisfy.
What the so-called Tea Party Representative soon learns after being sworn into office is that the way of government in this world is the path of on-going compromise with principles. The Representative will eat his or her promises, word by word, each word tasting like crow feathers—
The Adversary remains the prince of this world, and will remain its prince until the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man, a one-time affair that occurs halfway through the seven endtime years of tribulation. Until then, until humanity arrives at the doubled day 1260, every person who participates in the governance of this world makes him or herself an agent of the Adversary, a partner with the Adversary in ruling the dominion he was given for the destruction of the flesh of human beings (for the murder of the unborn child the Woman was to bear). The elected official, the appointed official, the heir to a fiefdom—each is an agent of the Adversary. And while some of the Adversary’s agents are more honorable than others, all have their minds set on the things of this world, the things that are below, the base things of life, with far too many seeking to enrich themselves at the cost to them of their salvation.
Who is the elected official that will fight for the imposition of the Commandments in public life?
Muslim desire to be under sharia law should actually embarrass Christians and Jews, who should be equally compelled to be under Mosaic law … Christians are to walk as Jesus walked, and Jesus kept the laws of Moses which 1st-Century CE Pharisees were not doing (see John 7:19).
How can the word of Christ be in Christians if these Christians cannot publicly pray in the name of Christ Jesus? It is understandable why a Jew or a Muslim or an atheist omit Christ’s name when praying in the public arena, but it is unforgiveable for a Christian to omit Christ’s name … for a Christian to utter a public prayer, asking or thanking the Most High God for this or that, and for the Christian to not utter that prayer in the name of the Son is to deny the Son, and by publicly denying the Son, the Son will deny the Christian before the Father. And once denied by the Son, the Christian shall be cut off by the Father. The Christian will never enter the heavenly moment where the mount of assembly exists. He or she did not or does not want entrance enough to publicly humble him or herself by asking not in his or her own name, but in the name of the only glorified Son.
Yes, to publicly utter a prayer in the name of Christ Jesus is to humble oneself in this world, placing yourself in a subordinate position of Christ Jesus, acknowledging by your words that you do not of yourself have the authority to come before the Most High in your name but that you come in the name of your High Priest and Savior. To address God in a public place, asking His blessing on this or that, asking for His protection against water or wind, flooding or tornadoes, and to not ask in the name of Christ Jesus, the person asks the Adversary for his blessing, unwittingly calling the Adversary God, thus making the person who prays guilty of idolatry—
Is the above true? If Christ Jesus is the Head of His Body, the Church, would not the Body address its petitions to God in the name of its head? In a democracy, the woman can ask for civil redress or for public benefits in her own name—this would be akin to a Christian praying in his or her own name. And that is what happens today.
Why should a Christian be ashamed of publicly praying in the name of Christ Jesus? So what if a Muslim or a Jew is offended by mentioning Christ’s name? Is it better to offend Christ, to offend the Father, or to offend another human being? If offense is going to occur—and it will occur—the Christian will not be saved by a Muslim or a Jew or by another Christian. So perhaps the position of love is not to utter a prayer in public, but to pray in private, in secret, where only the Father and the Son hear what has been said.
Love binds believer to believer, and believer to the Father and the Son. And love is not a thing of this world, where lies are told and sexual immorality passes itself off as the new morality, the way of modern love … the world is condemned in the words of a song, If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with. No, don’t do that. For the words of the song reveal why God’s wrath will come suddenly upon all of humanity, including upon all of Christendom not covered by the Passover blood of the Lamb of God.
Most of Christendom in the Northern Hemisphere did not take the Passover sacraments of Bread and Wine—the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus—on the Passover this year, the dark portion of the 14th day of the first month, this month beginning with the first sighted new moon crescent following the spring equinox. Yet on Yom Kipporim, the entirety of the First Unleavened and the Feast of Unleavened Bread is compressed into a day, a day on which Christians will afflict their physical bodies by fasting (going without food and drink) from sunset to sunset … in the Southern Hemisphere, the Passover remains to be eaten. But in a month’s time, Christians everywhere will either have covered their sins by taking the Passover, thereby renewing the garment of Christ Jesus’ righteousness that covers them in the form of grace, or covered their sins by fasting on Yom Kipporim, or Christians will be publicly uncovered, spiritually naked before the Father and the Son, their only covering then being their righteousness since they will have rejected grace for this year. And their righteousness (or better, lack of righteousness) will get them killed when the Second Passover liberation of Israeloccurs. If the Second Passover occurs on the mirror image of the Passover (i.e., on the Last Great Day), no person can say that he or she wasn’t warned that the end of the age was at hand.
Over the years, one observation has been consistent: every Christian hears what needs to be said to the person from those least qualified to speak to the matter. The person who is an acknowledged sinner will warn the pious Christian to cease transgressing the Law. And the pious Christian, seeing the flaws in the one who warns him or her, can easily dismiss the warning that has come without apparent worldly authority. And this is how it must be; for the Christian must, by faith, by belief, choose the things that are from above over the things of this world. This choice must be made without the Christian feeling earthly intimidation; hence, it is from the person the Christian would dismiss as not genuine that the Christian initially hears the words of God. And this is consistent with Paul writing,
For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things. (1 Cor 4:9–13)
Would President Obama listen and learn-from one whom he regarded as the scum of the world? Would you? Unfortunately, the holy ones at Corinth didn’t learn what they should have from the Apostle Paul. And Christian orthodoxy today refuses to learn from those whom they regard as refuse, spiritual trash, scum. So greater Christendom will experience the wrath of God even though they [Christians] have been warned that the end of the age is at hand, that they need to repent, need to turn from their lawless ways and return to God.
What can be done? How can love be shown to those who reject that love? How can peace be made between Sabbatarians, who will not compromise the Sabbath or Sabbath-observance (and should not compromise the Sabbath), and Christian orthodoxy that weekly transgresses the Sabbath? In reality, such peace is not today possible. However, strange things happen when God sets His hand to intervene in the affairs of men: ones who have been enemies can extend their hand in fellowship, asking that their past offenses be forgotten. And the genuine Christian—the Sabbatarian who has love for his or her brother in Christ—will take that hand and welcome former enemies into fellowship, understanding beforehand that not all who seek peace are genuine but giving to all the opportunity to be one with the Sabbatarian and with Christ Jesus.
When a former enemy humbles him or herself and seeks peace with a person whom this enemy had regarded as the scum of the earth, the one who has been the enemy has killed something inside him or herself and is now in rebellion against the Adversary. This person—this former enemy--doesn’t yet realize the fight he or she is in; therefore, the former enemy needs encouragement, and doesn’t need to be reminded of his or her offenses. This person hasn’t forgotten what he or she did against the one with whom the former enemy now seeks peace. Let this person’s memories convict the person, not the Sabbatarian by his or her words.
The preceding will become an issue when the Second Passover liberation of Israel occurs.
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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."