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 living life in a different context.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of October 29, 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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And He [Jesus] strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one [that He was the Christ], saying, "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised." And He said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God."
Now about eight days after these sayings He took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. And as He was praying, the appearance of His face was altered, and His clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were talking with Him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of His departure, which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep, but when they became fully awake they saw His glory and the two men who stood with Him. And as the men were parting from Him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah"—not knowing what he said. As he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!"
And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.
On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met Him. And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, "Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth, and shatters him, and will hardly leave him. And I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not." (Luke 9:21–40 emphasis added)
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1.
A Christian (someone who follows Jesus, who comes after Jesus) must deny him or herself and not seek the finer things of this world, the glory and honor of this world; must not seek to save his or her physical life, whether through extraordinary medical intervention or through betraying neighbor or brother. Rather, the Christian who is willing to lose his or her life so that neighbor and brother might live—this Christian will be saved, if the Christian is not ashamed of Jesus, is not ashamed to keep the commandments and live as an outwardly uncircumcised Judean.
Being ashamed of Jesus is the most pervasive problem with the greater Christian Church; for while professing that Jesus is Lord, Christians collectively are embarrassed by the Commandments, ashamed to appear to be different from their neighbors, their former friends, their family members. Christians collectively are ashamed of the anti-family, anti-establishment, anti-transaction message that Christ Jesus delivered during His ministry—delivered in direct address and through His actions. For Jesus said,
So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matt 10:32–39 emphasis added)
Christians collectively are ashamed to admit that their Savior came to instigate a passive rebellion against the status quo; came to bring a sword, not peace; came to destroy the works of the prince of this world (1 John 3:8). Instead, Christians pronounce Jesus as the Prince of Peace, and so He will be when the overthrow of the works of the Adversary have been completed and the single kingdom of this world has been delivered to the Son of Man. But He is not today bringing peace to this world; rather, He is setting father against son and mother against daughter—the inner self of the person who has been truly born of God against the fleshly body in which this inner self dwells … yes, Jesus came to set a person against him or herself, with the rebellion against the present prince of this world beginning inside the born of God Christian; beginning small, with spiritual infants struggling against the desires of the flesh, the desires of the tents/tabernacles in which these infant sons of God temporarily dwell as they grow to their majority, the day when judgments will be revealed.
Collectively, Christians are too ashamed of Jesus to walk as He walked, to live in this world as an outwardly uncircumcised Judean, believing the writings of Moses and imitating Jesus—doing what Jesus, an observant Jew, would do. Rather, Christians collectively reveal their embarrassment by doing whatever they can to not be like Jesus while still appearing as pious Christians in this world. They eat ham on Easter as a sign that they are not Jews, not like Jesus, instead of taking the Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the dark portion of the 14th day of Aviv … today, no natural Jew [no Observant Jew] is going to take the Passover sacraments on the dark portion of the 14th, so simply keeping the Passover in the manner that Jesus instructed His disciples, in the manner the Apostle Paul instructed the holy ones at Corinth will separate Christian from Jew. But to eat ham and to keep Easter—this person mocks Christ Jesus and is a spiritual bastard, professing that God is the person’s Father, but worshiping the Adversary as the person’s lord.
And why would a Christian celebrate Easter when remembrance of the Resurrection of Christ is commanded by Moses?
Speak [Moses] to the people of Israel and say to them, These are the appointed feasts of the LORD that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts. Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work. It is a Sabbath to the LORD in all your dwelling places.
These are the appointed feasts of the LORD, the holy convocations, which you shall proclaim at the time appointed for them. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight, is the LORD's Passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work. But you shall present a food offering to the LORD for seven days. On the seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work. And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest, and he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, so that you may be accepted. On the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. And on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb a year old without blemish as a burnt offering to the LORD. … And you shall eat neither bread nor grain parched or fresh until this same day, until you have brought the offering of your God: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the LORD. You shall bring from your dwelling places two loaves of bread to be waved, made of two tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour, and they shall be baked with leaven, as firstfruits to the LORD. … And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits as a wave offering before the LORD, with the two lambs. They shall be holy to the LORD for the priest. And you shall make proclamation on the same day. You shall hold a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work. It is a statute forever in all your dwelling places throughout your generations. (Lev 23:2–21 emphasis added)
Christ Jesus is the First of the firstfruits of the harvest of this earth, and glorified Christians in the Wedding Feast constitute the remainder of the firstfruits, with all who are resurrected and judged worthy in the great White Throne Judgment forming the main crop grain harvest of the world, with the resurrection of firstfruits occurring at the beginning of the Millennium, and with the great White Throne Judgment occurring at the end of the Millennium, actually, after the short while (1260 days) when the Adversary is loosed from being bound in the Abyss, this short while occurring at the end or after the 1000 years.
The First to be glorified—to be waved before God and accepted—is Christ Jesus, who needed no refining, no being beaten into fine flour that cannot bring forth additional life if planted. Hence, in the Wave Sheaf Offering is remembrance of Christ Jesus’ resurrection and acceptance by God on the fourth day of the seven days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread …
When leavening [yeast] represents sin as it does during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and with Christ Jesus buried in the heart of the earth for the first three days of the Feast [the 15th, 16th, & 17th of Aviv], the symbolism holds that no human person was without sin until Jesus was resurrected from death approximately 15 hours before He ascended to the Father at the hour of the Wave Sheaf Offering [about 9:00 am on the 18th of Aviv], with the unaccounted-for hours from the beginning of the 18th day to the hour of the Wave Sheaf Offering representing in symbolism His earthly ministry and the First Unleavened, the entirety of the Christian era when Jesus works in this world as High Priest without being visible to human eyes. From the hour of His acceptance by the Father to the last day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread and on through the forty days He was with His disciples (see Acts 1:3)—in one pattern, or model—Jesus symbolically represents the harvest [glorification of firstfruits on the last High Day of Unleavened Bread], and the beginning of His millennial reign, with Pentecost [the Feast of Weeks] representing the great White Throne Judgment, when all of humanity that didn’t appear before God as firstfruits will appear to give an accounting of themselves, followed immediately by the baptism of this world in fire as will occur with the coming of the new heavens and new earth.
However, a second model or pattern is also symbolically represented; for there are two harvests of this world, the early harvest and the latter harvest, but only one set of signs to reveal both harvests. Therefore, the set of signs forming the Holy Days, the High Sabbaths of God, is like the sign of a red sky that Jesus cited to those who were seeking to trap Him: the set of signs represented by the High Sabbaths is context-specific. For the person truly born of God prior to when judgments of firstfruits are revealed [not made], the Wave Sheaf Offering represents the giving of the spirit on the day that the resurrected Jesus was accepted by the Father (see John 20:22), with the entirety of the era when human sons of God are covered by Christ’s righteousness [grace] represented by the First Unleavened, the Preparation Day for the first High Day of Unleavened Bread, and with the first three and a half days of the seven days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread representing the 1260 day-long Affliction and the last three and a half days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread representing the 1260 day-long Endurance of Christ.
One sign, two contexts … this is true for the sign of Jonah, and this is true for the High Sabbaths of the Lord, with the Sabbath and Sabbath-observance being held in common with both contexts.
· If a person is born of God through receiving a second breath of life, the breath of God [pneuma Theon] in the breath of Christ [pneuma Christos], either before the Affliction begins, or when the Affliction begins, or when the Endurance begins, the person will be numbered among the firstfruits—
· If the person has physically died prior to being born of God, the person is not numbered among the firstfruits, written with two caveats: the person who claimed to be of Christ even though not born of God has taken judgment upon him or herself, and the righteous person of old, upon demonstrated obedience to God, has taken judgment upon him or herself.
· The person under judgment lives in a context that differs from the person not under judgment:
· The person under judgment while he or she lives/lived physically will have that judgment revealed when Christ Jesus returns as King of kings and Lord of lords;
· The person not under judgment will have his or her judgment made in the great White Throne Judgment after the 1000 years.
For the person under judgment today or in the future when all who profess that Jesus is Lord will be filled-with and empowered by the breath of God, or when (1260 days later) the spirit of Christ is poured out on all flesh after the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man, the set of signs that the High Sabbaths represent will have the Feast of Unleavened Bread being the shadow and type of the seven endtime years of tribulation. But those human persons who died without professing that Jesus is Lord before receiving a second breath of life will know little or nothing of these seven endtime years, and is not and cannot be numbered among the firstfruits of God. This person has or will live his or her life in a different context than the person who Knows the Lord, or who claimed to Know the Lord.
And in the preceding paragraph is the most important mystery of Christ: a Christian is to live his or her life in a differing context from the non-Christian. The Christian who lives as a Gentile is a spiritual bastard. This Christian judges him or herself unworthy to enter the kingdom of the heavens—and he or she will not enter, but will, instead, perish in the lake of fire.
The Christian who is ashamed of Jesus will not walk as Jesus walked: this Christian will profess that Jesus is Lord with his or her mouth, but will deny Jesus by the person’s actions, thereby making the words that come from the person’s mouth the source of the person’s defilement.
When Peter, John, and James entered the cloud that came over them, they did not climb Mount Sinai but they did the same source of climbing as Moses did when Moses entered the cloud that sat atop Mount Sinai; they did what Elijah did when he lodged in a cave atop Mount Horeb, the mount of God. They entered into the presence of God. They became like Moses, like Elijah, like Jesus, Himself, but without fasting for forty days and forty nights. They did not have to afflict their souls [their fleshly bodies], but they had to sleep—for in their sleep, they transcended time, with their sleep representing their physical deaths and being awakened from sleep forming a type of being resurrected to life.
All of Philadelphia lives in a differing context from the remainder of Christendom; for Philadelphia is destined to be pillars in the temple of God; i.e., to stand on the foundation Paul laid, the foundation that is Christ Jesus, and to reach upward to the endtime harvest of firstfruits, with the returned Christ forming the capstone of the temple.
But Philadelphia is only one of seven named endtime churches, all of which will be part of the harvest of firstfruits. So the Philadelphian should not think of him or herself more highly than he or she should, but by simply being of Philadelphia, the son of God has declared to the world that he or she is not ashamed of Christ Jesus, is not ashamed to walk as Jesus walked in this world, is not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, is not ashamed to live as an outwardly uncircumcised Judean in an anti-Semitic world.
There will be no ham on the tables of Philadelphians; nor will there be Christmas presents under a tree, or a display of Easter finery. Rather, the fields from which the firstfruits will be harvested have been planted; so Philadelphians have little to do but watch the tillers develop on the stalks that sprout from the seed sown now that one harvest season is over and another is about to begin. But in watching the growth that is inevitable, there will be anxious moments as new stalks are stressed by the prince of this world.
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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."