The following Scripture passages are offered to aid beginning fellowships. The readings and commentary are offered as openings into dialogue about the subject or concept. And the concept behind the readings for Last Great Days is the true biblical "hell.".

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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.

The person conducting the services should read or assign to be read Numbers chapter 29, verses 35 though 38; followed by John chapter 7, verse 37 through chapter 10, verse 21.

Commentary: Three seasons a year all of Israel is to come before the Lord, bringing the temple to Christ as the chiral image of ancient Israel bringing all males to the temple three seasons a year … does that make sense, bringing the temple to Christ? Disciples are the temple of God (1 Cor 3:16–17; 2 Cor 6:16). Disciples are also the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27). Logic would then have it that the temple is the Body of Christ and thus disciples have to go nowhere on these three seasons a year. But disciples are the sons of God; they are not male or female, Jew nor Greek, free nor bond (Gal 3:28). So disciples are the new creatures that are born of spirit. They are not the tents of flesh in which these new creatures dwell. This, now, presents a problem of perception: the tent of flesh that remains Jew or Greek (physically circumcised or uncircumcised) and male or female is recognized in this world as the “disciple” because the new creature cannot be seen with eyes. Only when this new creature causes the tent of flesh to act as Jesus acted is this new creature detectable. And herein lays the problem Christendom has never well addressed: the person who professes to be one with Christ and who publicly does good works and who says all of the right things, but who doesn’t actually walk as Jesus walked, is accorded recognition as a “Christian.” But this person is not a Christian even though this person now defines Christendom for those who come behind the person.

The person who walks as a heathen is a heathen even if others call the person a Christian. Unfortunately, this person is usually articulate and convincing when he or she explains why future disciples do not have to actually walk as Jesus walked. Because this person has come in his or her own name even though coming claiming to be of Christ, this person is believed whereas Jesus is not. Nor is Paul, or John, or Peter, or James, or Matthew, Mark, Luke.

The problem of unbelief is severe enough that Christendom today is to the genuine disciple as Judaism was to Jesus, with these relationships existing as theological mirror images of one another.

What disciples have difficulty realizing is in Scripture disciples see the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and see the end with very little in between. In the Gospel of John, what is in between the beginning and the end is Jesus attending the Feasts, with the healing at the pool of Siloam (John chap 5) occurring at a spring feast and with Him attending the Feast of Booths [Sukkot] (John chaps 7–10:21), then the Feast of Dedication (John 10:22–42). By extrapolation, Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand occurs on the Sabbath preceding the Feasts of Weeks as kept by the Sadducees on the morrow after the weekly Sabbath during Unleavened Bread, and Jesus saying that He was the Bread of Life occurs on the High Day that will be called Pentecost (John chap 6). Although the preceding statement about when the five thousand are fed cannot be absolutely proved from Scripture, the statement is true based on the pattern of events that John recounts; so it will be treated as true. Additional support for the statement will come as additional understanding comes, something that has been repeatedly demonstrated over the past six years: reasonable declarative statements uttered by faith have been confirmed by an abundance of scriptural support after these declarations have been publicly made … every disciple, including those who are of Philadelphia, has to exercise faith so that to whom much has been given, more will be given, with this “more” coming in the form of spiritual things [knowledge of God principally] rather than in the physical things of this world.

Chapter 12 of the Gospel of John through the end of the gospel addresses what happened from the 9^th day of Abib through Calvary and the Resurrection of Christ Jesus; chapters 1 through 3 address the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, going back to when the creation of matter [mass] occurred. Chapter 4 addresses the inclusion of Gentiles who believe Jesus and come to Him by faith. So in John’s orderly presentation of theological events that bridge the period between the beginning of Jesus earthly ministry and the end, Jesus goes to Gentiles, tells them that the Father desires those who will worship Him in spirit and truth, and He heals the son of a man who believes the words of Jesus. Then the healing occurs at the pool of Siloam.

Gentiles who will worship the Father in spirit and truth will keep the Feasts of God, especially the last Great Day, when Jesus stood and cried out, “‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink’” (John 7:37). The rivers of living water about which Jesus spoke is, according to John, the spirit which the person was to receive but which had not yet been given when Jesus spoke … this spirit is not given to most of humanity until those who have died not knowing Jesus are resurrected in the great White Throne Judgement (Rev 20:11–15).

·       The Last Great Day or “the great day of the feast” represents the great White Throne Judgment when every person who was not drawn as firstfruits will be raised from the dead and will have life or death placed before the person.

·       On the great last day, every person will be raised as the two thieves (lawbreakers) were raised at Calvary with Jesus (Luke 23:32–43).

·       The last great day is not a hundred year period, but a short while in which most of the 50-plus billion people who have lived without knowing Jesus will seek to save their own lives, or will acknowledge that they were worthy of death, that Jesus is Lord, and will ask for remembrance.

What happens to infants who have died at or near birth is not well addressed in Scripture. And where Scripture doesn’t offer enough information to discuss an issue or a complexity, such discussion is best held in abeyance until additional revelation is given—and additional revelation will be given for the situation is one that must be addressed.

Between the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and the end lays the inclusion of Gentiles into Israel through circumcision of the heart rather than the flesh, and lays the three seasons or times of the year (Deut 16:16) when all of Israel is to appear before the Lord. Also between the beginning and the end lays one additional period, the Feast of Dedication when the temple of God is cleansed and dedicated. This Feast of Dedication celebrates the light (oil) from before the temple was polluted not running out [or being lost] before additional light (oil) is purified.

If the “Body of Christ” is substituted for “light,” what’s seen is that the remnant of the Church [of the Woman’s offspring] will not perish before the great harvest of firstfruits is brought to Christ in the second half of the Tribulation. The pollution of the temple is the great falling away, foreshadowed by Antiochus Epiphanes IV ordering that a statue of Zeus be set up in the Holy of holies and that a pig be sacrificed on the altar. Antiochus Epiphanes is a type of the man of perdition, the lawless one who comes by the workings of Satan during the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years of tribulation (cf. Matt 24:15; Dan 11:31; 2 Thess 2:3–10). The pollution of the temple against which the Maccabees fought [but not their actual fight] is a type of how the temple (remember, disciples are today the temple) will be polluted … in the second temple, the Holy of holies was without the Ark of the Covenant. It was empty or mostly so when Antiochus Epiphanes ordered the Grecian idol be placed in this most sacred space.

Today, what is inside of most Christians? What is in their most holy space?

From the 5^th through 1^st Centuries BCE, Israel professed to worship the Lord, but there was no Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of holies. The high priest could not make atonement for either himself or for Israel on Yom Kipporim. The Lord did not appear over the Mercy Seat in the Holy of holies—there was no Mercy Seat. Yom Kipporim became an elaborate ruse that satisfied the people, but did nothing for them. Likewise, today, Christians profess to worship Jesus, but because they refuse to walk as He did there is no indwelling of Jesus in them. They are not one with Him, either in unity or in numerical singularity. And because they will not walk as He walked, these disciples are “empty” inside as they maintain an elaborate ruse about worshiping Jesus and taking Jesus to the world.

Make no mistake: the Christian who refuses to walk as Jesus walked, who will not do those things that would cause the person to be identified as a Judaizer—this person walks alone, and is as deceitful as the high priest of Israel was on Yom Kipporim when he or she goes through the motions of sanctification, mouthing words without meaning, singing praise to the Lord that is not praise but personal condemnation for hypocrisy.

Who knew that the Holy of holies did not contain the Ark of the Covenant? Once those who returned from Babylon died, who in Israel knew other than the high priest? No one but the high priest went into the Holy of holies, and he only went in one day in a year. So did the Israelite who made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times a year know? Did even the typical Levite know? And the answer is, probably not.

Who knows today whether the spirit of Christ [pneuma Christou] dwells within this Christian or that one? Does the Christian know? Or is the Christian like typical Levites were for centuries, going through the motions of worship but without God being present? Does the typical Christian use Trinitarian theology as the lens through which he or she reads Scripture, not realizing that this theology is an elaborate ruse perpetrated on Christianity by the Adversary who intends to occupy the empty holy space within every disciple once the seven endtime years of tribulation begin?

Those disciples who are of the synagogue of Satan have been dealt a hand stacked against them. It really doesn’t matter what they do or what they say or what card they play, they will rebel against Christ unless they realize that they are now empty inside, yearning for what isn’t there, attempting to fill this empty space with praise music and the works of their hands. They look to be led by a spirit, but they refuse to walk as Jesus walked. The only spirit[s] they will follow is the Adversary, his ministers and ministering spirits. Yet because they follow each other, they feel reassured that they are on the right path even though they remain empty inside, wondering what it is about them that keeps them from experiencing the fullness of the spirit about which others talk.

Unwilling to leave the path they follow, most of Christendom seeks to fill the void within themselves with good and charitable works. They give out food baskets at Christmas, feed the homeless at Thanksgiving, help get out the vote, protest at abortion clinics, lobby to get biblical creationism into public school curricula and just say no drug and sex education into classrooms. Their hearts are in the right place, but their footsteps follow the wrong path. They need to take the beam that blinds them from their own eyes before they worry about helping the world that really isn’t much interested in receiving their help beyond eating a free meal.

Christ Jesus still has love for these hollow sheep that claim to be Christian but who have rejected Him. He wants them back in His fold, but He will not accept them until they begin to walk (or try to walk) as He walked. As long as they follow the Adversary, they are willing bondservants of the Adversary. Jesus could, of course, break their legs so that they follow no one, but that would not cause them to be one with Him. No, His only choice is deliver them to Satan so that they can “see” whom they follow, with this glimpse of the Adversary being enough to cost them their physical and possibly their spiritual lives. Nevertheless, this is His longstanding MO. This is what He will do once the Tribulation begins. And the oil that doesn’t run out is confirmation that a remnant of the Church will continue to give off light until the third part of humankind is one with Jesus (Zech 13:9).

The majority of humanity is not now in an ever-burning hell, roasting as if barbecued meat on a spit, seared by flames not hot enough to consume the person. They are, instead, dead in the grave. They are in Sheol, where Korah went alive (not that he would have been alive for long).

The inter-dimensional realm between the heaven above and this earth is Scripture’s bottomless pit, and Peter’s tartaros: this is the biblical “hell” that Christian theologians have used as a threat against parishioners for nearly two millennia, and without spiritual life (i.e., life having come from God) no one can enter this realm. So the person who has not been born of spirit as a son of God cannot go to “hell” but goes, instead, into the grave where he or she awaits resurrection in the great White Throne Judgment. Because the person not born of spirit has no life but that which came from the first Adam, the person cannot enter this inter-dimensional realm … this redundancy is used to stress the point that human beings are not born with immortal souls. It is the old serpent, Satan the devil, that would have Christendom believe the lie first told to Eve, “‘You will not surely die’” (Gen 3:4), when the Lord had promised Adam that if he ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil he would surely die (Gen 2:17).

Christianity is as simple as believing either God or the Adversary. The “Christian” who believes God will walk as Jesus walked, and will follow Paul as he followed Jesus. The Christian who believes the Adversary will walk in any or every way other than how Jesus walked.

Disciples as the temple of God will be polluted when the lawless one is revealed (2 Thess 2:3). This lawless one will be the man of perdition; he will be the abomination that defiles the temple; and he will declare himself God in a vain attempt to restore order in a chaotic world that reels under the sledgehammer blows of the second Passover liberation of Israel from bondage to indwelling sin and death, followed by a fourth of humankind being delivered into the hand of Death and by the sixth Trumpet Plague, leaving approximately a third of humanity still physically alive halfway through the seven endtime years of tribulation … no one alive today can really comprehend what so much death will do to the psyche of this third part of humankind.

The numbers are real—and beyond appreciation. Firstborns not covered by the blood of the Lamb of God (the Christian sacraments of bread and wine) will perish at the second Passover liberation of Israel. Numerically, this is about one third of humankind. Then one fourth of remaining humankind will be given over to Death (Rev 6:8), leaving about a half of all of pre-Tribulation humanity still alive [2/3 x ¾ = 6/12 or ½]. Then the sixth Trumpet plague and another third part of humankind is slain (Rev 9:15), leaving one third of pre-Tribulation humanity still alive [½ x 2/3 = 2/6 or 1/3]. This number would seem to agree with the prophet Zachariah records:

Awake, O sword, against my shepherd,

against the man who stands next to me,” declares the Lord of hosts.

“Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered;

I will turn my hand against the little ones.

In the whole land, declares the Lord,

two thirds shall be cut off and perish,

and one third shall be left alive.

And I will put this third into the fire,

and refine them as one refines silver,

and test them as gold is tested.

They will call upon my name,

and I will answer them.

I will say, “They are my people’;

and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.” (13:7–9)

Jesus said of Himself that He was this Shepherd who would be struck (Matt 26:31). The “sheep” are His disciples, and the “little ones” are all who can be His disciples.

Early in the tribulation, most of the ones who die without knowing Jesus will be resurrected in the great White Throne Judgment so they haven’t been “lost.” Rather, they will wait in their graves for a thousand years to pass before they live again. Everyone who has died without receiving a second life through a second birth will appear before God to be “judged” in this great Judgment. No one enters “hell” or “heaven” without first being born anew, or born of spirit—and most today who say they have been born of spirit are out of covenant with God. They do not walk as Jesus walked. They do not look like Jesus. And they are hollow inside as they continue to perpetrate a ruse upon those who come behind them. Simply put, they are liars.

For genuine disciples the sad part of the Last Great Day is realizing that Jesus would heal all who will come to him, and knowing that almost of all of Christendom will not come to him. The Pharisees said of Jesus that this man is not of God for He did not keep the Sabbath, referring to Jesus giving to a blind man sight the man never had (John chap 9). But the Sabbath is always a type of entering into God’s rest, which is a euphemistic expression for entering into God’s presence. And disciples enter into the Sabbath when they enter into the Father’s presence.

After the Jews cast out the formerly blind man, Jesus came to him and asked if he believed in the Son of Man (John 9:35). When the man worshiped Jesus (v. 38), Jesus said, “‘For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind’” (v. 39). Those Christians who claim to see, to have Jesus dwelling within them but who do not walk as Jesus walked, are blind. If they would repent, they would see. But because they will not repent, their guilt remains. They will be denied when judgments are revealed.

No one’s unconverted loved one or ones is today in an ever-burning hell … all such teachings are of the Adversary. But the one who would walk as Jesus walked will be in services somewhere today on this last great day of the Feast, even if the person is necessarily by him or herself because there is no one else. This person will, by keeping the day as a Sabbath, bring the temple to Christ Jesus.

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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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