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 disciples are individually masculine but collectively feminine.
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Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of November 14, 2009
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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Last Sabbath’s reading closed with a brief discussion of indeterminate sex in embryos less than six weeks old. This Sabbath’s reading will be a continuation of the more general discussion of patriarchal culture within and without the Church, but no discussion of patriarchal culture can exclude the role that heterosexuality plays in affirming a cultural patriarchy. When masculinity is defined against femininity and females are the biological default sex, the evidence of which is found when men bare their chests—and when sons of God are like angels, neither marrying nor given in marriage (Matt 22:30)—then heterosexuality privileges masculinity, giving to biological males a “completeness” that otherwise would be lacking in two becoming one flesh. And this is evident in the language of Genesis: “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him’” (2:18). While Christendom usually assigns companionship as the primary reason for it not being good that man is alone, the text discloses in the name Eve that the reason for the creation of a helper or helpmate is the giving of life. Man alone cannot produce life. Coupling this self-evident realization to knowledge that the visible things of this world reveal the invisible things of God, it becomes evident that God also cannot reproduce Himself without a Helper or Helpmate; that while God can create angels and can give life to them, life similar to His own in that this life is in the supra-dimensional realm known as heaven, God needs a Helpmate to reproduce others like Him as Adam needed Eve before he could father “a son in his own likeness, after his image” (Gen 5:3) and as every man needs a women before the man can bring forth another like himself. The Bible is, now, the story of this Helpmate and of God fathering a Son and sons in His own likeness, after His image..
By himself, man is sterile; man is a living wonder but a one-shot wonder. A man alone on a desert island might well be able to feed himself and possibly clothe himself, but he cannot reproduce himself. And because in this world death is certain, when the lone man dies, there will be no more like him on the island. He is not complete. Adam either inside the garden of God or outside (where he was created — Gen 2:7, 15) was incomplete. He could have found companionship with a dog, but he could not reproduce himself in any manner other than through a helpmate who supplied what he lacked.
The language of Genesis 1:26–27 discloses both the presence of two and the need for two:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them. (emphasis added)
To be in the image of Elohim, man must be male and female. Thus, the Hebraic expression, YHWH your Elohim, deconstructs to the YH (Yah) + WH, together, form one God (deity) as Adam and Eve together were one flesh, with the reality of these two forming one “spirit” seen in the regular plural Elohim, the plural form of Eloah or Allah. The Apostle John addresses this relationship when he writes, “In the beginning was the Word [o logos], and the Word was with [the] God [ton Theon], and [Theos—]. He [this one] was in the beginning with [the] God. All things were made through him [this one], and without him [this one] was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1–3). … In Greek, definite nouns take definite articles, but a noun can “borrow” a definite article when both nouns represent the same object or person. Hence, in the third clause of the first sentence (verse 1), Theos— is without an article for it borrows the definite article as well as the case from the Logos—, whereas the one whom the Logos— was with is the God— ton Theon, God in the accusative case and with its own definite article.
John’s construction of the first three sentences of his gospel discloses that God and the Logos are both God, but they are not the same entity; for the Logos was with or of [pros] the God. They are one as Adam and Eve are one. They are not one as Adam alone was one.
Adam and Eve and their separate breaths do not form a trinity, an unexplainable triune humanity, but this is what lawless Christendom asks its followers to believe: Christianity contends that the God and the Logos and their separate pneuma—breath (two separate breaths, see Rom 8:9, 11 in Greek) form a trinity, an unexplainable triune deity, when nothing could be farther from the truth. Unless the Logos was the Helpmate of the God when this one created all things and unless the Logos entered His creation as His only Son (John 3:16; 1:14), humankind has no possible afterlife and no more chance of escaping death than that lone man on that otherwise deserted island has of fathering a son; for the Logos functions spiritually as Eve functioned physically, with humankind being as ova in Eve’s body.
Marriage isn’t for companionship or protection of the family although these things are important: marriage is for the reproduction of the species, with all sexual relationships outside of marriage producing a bastardized humanity, alienated from God and unable to enter into covenant with God to the third or fourth generation unless—and this is a big caveat for endtime disciples—the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man before these generations come to pass.
In the United States, same-sex marriage has become a political hot potato to which liberal Democrats are espoused although they are reluctant to eat this potato.
The momentary introduction of a male third party into a lesbian relationship can provide offspring within the lesbian relationship, but no such momentary introduction of a female third party into a male homosexual relationship will provide offspring within the relationship: the male homosexual relationship is biologically sterile, incapable of producing life. In a like manner, this relationship is spiritually sterile, incapable of bringing life (immortality) to sons of God engaged in such relationships; whereas the lesbian relationship can only produce physical life via adultery, which leads to death.
God will not be mocked. When the Lord told Moses that an Israelite male was not to lie with a male as with a woman, He did not provide any caveats for errant gender orientation or for unrighteousness having suppressed the truth or for a descent into unrighteousness that results in dishonorable passions. The Lord gave Israel one option: marry or abstain from engaging in sexual intercourse. There was no other course of action open to the Israelite male that did not require the death of the male or forced marriage. Therefore, the burden of proof concerning sexual intercourse outside of marriage fell not on the male but on the female, the default sex.
In what seems terribly unfair to endtime disciples, the Israelite woman had to submit to a test for adultery if “‘a spirit of jealousy’” came over her husband (Num chap 5). The man [husband] did not have to submit to any such test for adultery; nor did the man need evidence of adultery before compelling the woman to undergo humiliation. But the marriage relationship in ancient Israel formed the shadow and copy of Israel’s relationship with the Lord, a jealous God (Ex 34:14). It was Israel’s obligation (i.e., the obligation of Israelite males) to submit to tests for adultery when the Lord accused the nation of worshiping foreign gods and committing fornication with sticks and stones; for these tests for adultery were the only means by which Israel could save the nation’s life. The Lord’s accusation of unfaithfulness was enough to condemn the nation.
Understand, as the husband was the lord of his wife, the Lord [YHWH] was Lord of the husband, of all Israel, and as the wife had to submit to a test for adultery, Israel had to submit to “tests” for adultery—
The test for adultery was intended to humiliate.
Only by humbling itself before the Lord could Israel save itself when the prophets of the Lord, the voice of the Lord, accused the nation of being an adulterous wife (see Ezek chaps 16, 23 as examples).
If an endtime disciple cannot see or cannot accept that the marital relationship within ancient Israel formed the shadow and copy of Israel’s relationship with the Lord, then the Lord requiring that the woman submit to a test for adultery when her husband did not have to submit to any such test seems terribly unjust and will make no sense to the disciple.
Israel was not to require a test for adultery for God; Israel didn’t have that authority. Nor did a woman in ancient Israel; for it is the Adversary that brings railing accusations against the Most High. It is rebelling angels that bring accusations of adultery against the Most High, for these angels assumed that as firstborn sons of God they had the lawful right to inherit. But these angels were created to be ministering spirits as the Woman was created to be Adam’s helpmate. Hence, the relationship between these “ministering spirits” and the Son of Man is analogous to the relationship between ancient Israel and the Lord, and between a woman and her husband (not any other man but her father prior to marriage) in ancient Israel.
The woman was created by the Lord to be the helpmate of the man, who is not and cannot be complete of himself; for again, masculinity is defined against femininity and “female” is the default sex. No man is without a mother, and no man is a father without a woman (wife). Yet the Apostle Paul tells Timothy that the woman is to learn from her husband for “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (1 Tim 2:13).
Without bothering to lay a foundation firmly anchored in logic, Paul reaches across dimensions and inadvertently compares the Woman [Eve, and by extension, all wives] with fallen angels, who became transgressors through rebellion and who have desired to know the good news of Christ (1 Pet 1:12). Angels are to learn from the saints as the Woman/wife is to learn from her husband. And it is this hierarchal chain that Paul and Peter understood but endtime disciples have not:
1. The wife is to submit to her lord, her husband, as the husband is to submit to the Lord;
2. The wife is to learn from her husband as angels are to learn from Israel;
3. The inner new self that is the Christian disciple is to learn from the Lord as the wife is to learn from her husband;
4. The inner new self, like angels, is neither male or female, but the inner new self as a son of God (Gal 3:26; 4:6) holds a similar relationship with angelic sons of God as the husband holds with his wife;
5. Therefore, every human woman who is born of God holds a “lord-like” relationship with angelic sons of God that is analogous to the male/female relationship in ancient Israel, or the relationship Moses had with Israel.
When the husband represents the Lord as Moses was God to Israel (Ex 4:16), a woman’s accusation against her lord will be like Israel’s accusations against the Lord. This now places upon the man the responsibilities that the Apostle Paul discusses: “I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor 11:3). This hierarchal relationship pertains to the flesh and comes forward from the marriage relationship within ancient Israel; for the born of spirit son of God is neither male or female, Jew nor Greek. The penis and outward circumcision pertains to the flesh, not to the inner new creature that is the son of God: the inner new creature that is an heir will be circumcised of heart, for since the spirit was given when Jesus breathed on ten of His disciples and said, “‘Receive [breath holy]’” (John 20:22), Israel has been the nation that is circumcised of heart, not the nation circumcised in the flesh. (Note: in Greek there is no definite article attached to breath after Jesus breathed on His disciples, so translation of as “the Holy Spirit” is without merit and seems to be a deliberate attempt to deceive.)
Again, applying a discussion of gender to the Church has as its theological underpinning the concept that the visible reveals the invisible, with the visible Christian Church revealing the spiritual status of the invisible Church; i.e., the collective of inner new selves (natures) that forms the assembly built by Christ Jesus. However this discussion, even when presented with far too much redundancy to constitute good prose, will sail over the heads of many Sabbatarian disciples, which raises the question of why introduce the concept in a Sabbath reading. The why is simple: Philadelphians have too many of the same relationship problems that are seen in the world, and too many of the same questions pertaining to the role of women in this endtime era when it would be embarrassing to both the husband and the wife for the wife to call her husband, lord, or even, Mister. Nevertheless, the writer of Hebrews says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (13:8) … it isn’t Jesus that has changed over the past 1900 years; it is the culture in which endtime disciples dwell that differs from Hellenistic 1st-Century culture, or the culture of ancient Israel under the judges. The expectations of Christ remain the same, though.
Typological exegesis, however, is largely rejected by the few Sabbatarian disciples remaining from the last Elijah’s second attempt to breathe life into the corpse of Christ. This scattered handful of Sabbatarian disciples insist that Scripture cannot be typologically read with any significant degree of precision; that Scripture is composed of generalized truths that can be ascertained through assignment of literal meanings in almost every case, if these meanings can be ascertained. Thus, for these scattered and confused Sabbatarians, an earthly temple must be built in earthly Jerusalem before Christ Jesus can return. An earthly highway must be constructed from earthly Assyria [i.e., the modern nation of Germany, their bad metaphorical reading of Assyria] to earthly Egypt, with this highway passing through the modern State of Israel before Christ can return. These confused Sabbatarians have a host of “earthly” requirements that they have placed on Christ before He can return, but their ignorance is only a distraction within the overall plan of God that is proceeding as a human pregnancy proceeds, without asking or seeking permission from either the mother or the infant.
In his epistle to the Romans, Paul writes,
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Rom 1:18–32 emphasis added)
Unrighteousness suppresses the truth—Paul’s claim—and when the truth, which is evident to all by the things that have been made, has been suppressed by unrighteousness, human beings become fools, worshiping idols of all sorts, including the plaster statuary through which Catholic Christians direct their prayers we well as the Bible itself which is worshiped by Protestants but not believed by these disciples.
When these fools (i.e., Christians descended from unrighteous teachers that by their unrighteousness suppressed of the truth) follow the passions of their hearts, gender identities become theological victims, for God gives them over to debased minds. Yes, the man who is consumed with passion for another man as well as the woman who lies with another woman are fools cut off from God, worshiping instead the asexual prince of this world as if he were God … some “Christian” denominations have chosen to ordain gay priests and lesbian priestesses as if doing so were pleasing to God. In these denominations’ “enlightenment” and tolerance, they reveal the truth of what Paul, writing about the world and about paganism, wrote; for what could be known about the Father and the Son has been evident to Christians since the 1st-Century. It is evident today in knowledge of Wolffian and Muellerian ducts, and disciples being born of God as neither male nor female, great nor least … Jesus introduced the concept of disciples being great or least in the kingdom of the heavens in His sermon on the mount when He said,
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments 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 5:17–19 emphasis added)
As a human embryo prior to six weeks of age is neither male nor female, a disciple when initially born of God is neither great nor least. The disciple, however, determines whether this son of God will be great or least by what the disciple does when first called: if the disciple as workable clay submits to God, believing the writings of Moses and hearing the voice of Jesus, the disciple will be made into a vessel for honorable usage and will most likely be called great because the disciple will keep the commandments and teach others to do likewise. So when a disciple is first called and centered on the Master Potter’s wheel—when the disciple is no more spiritually mature than a six week old embryo is old—the disciple starts down the path to being called great in the kingdom or, as the default position, of being called least in the kingdom.
· Being called great in the kingdom of the heavens equates to development of the Wolffian duct in a human embryo.
· Being called great in the kingdom causes the disciple to be resurrected as part of the greater light that will rule the day, the light (i.e., heaven itself), as opposed to ruling the darkness (the creation) and human beings in the Millennium.
Paul did not have access to a microscope or to knowledge of Wolffian and Muellerian ducts. Although he had visited the third heaven and had seen things about which he couldn’t speak, he didn’t know much of what is presently everyday knowledge.
Do endtime disciples “read” too much into the things of this world revealing the things of God? The better question is, does unrighteousness suppress the truth? If it does; if God has given the ungodly and the unrighteous over to reprobate minds; if those with reprobate minds are fools who burn with passion for those of their same sex; if those with reprobate minds are filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, being gossips, slanders, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, faithless, ruthless, then Paul should be believed about the visible things of this world revealing the invisible things of God, including the Adversary’s rebellion against God.
Do those priests and priestesses that are in same sex relationships know God’s decree concerning such relationships?
The Lord spoke to Moses and said,
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord. … (Lev 18:1–5)
“You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness. And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor's wife and so make yourself unclean with her. You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion. (Lev 18:19–23 emphasis added)
And,
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying … “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. If a man lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is depravity; he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you. If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Lev 20:1, 10–16 emphasis added)
And,
A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God. (Deut 22:5)
The above seems fairly straight forward: unrighteousness suppresses the truth, and leads to generations of fools with debased minds, with some of these “fools” going even farther from God by lusting for members of their own sex. However—and this is where the Christian Church errs today—God judges the world, not disciples and not the Church. Paul writes,
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. (1 Cor 5:9–13 emphasis added)
Is it not those inside the church whom you [we] are to judge—we are to judge those inside the Church when it comes to matters of sexual immorality, idolatry, greed and swindling others. We are not to associate with anyone who bears the name of “brother” who is sexually immoral or guilty of greed, idolatry, habitual drunkenness or party-going. We are to judge such individuals as having debased minds, for unrighteousness within them has suppressed the truth. But we are not to judge those who are outsiders; we are not to judge those who do not identify themselves as Christians. We are free to do business with them, to eat with them, to associate with them. We do not condone what they do, but neither do we condemn them. And this is what the greater Christian Church does not seem capable of understanding. It doesn’t matter to a Christian that Congressman Barney Frank is gay or that he is a social spendthrift or that he is an advocate for political positions that will destroy the Republic: the United States federal government is not of God despite what many, many Christians believe. It derives its power from the Adversary: by design, it derives its power from the people, each of whom has been consigned to disobedience so that God could have mercy on all (Rom 11:32). It acknowledges a deity that has created all men; an assumption of deity is in the language of the Declaration of Independence. But when the people are serfs of the Adversary—serfs consigned to disobedience and actively practicing disobedience (e.g., transgression of the Sabbath commandment)—and when a government derives its power, its authority to rule, from these serfs of the Adversary, then the government will involuntarily serve as an agent of the Adversary, with this becoming readily apparent as humankind approaches the second Passover liberation of Israel.
When U.S. President Obama said that the United States is not a Christian country, he spoke the truth.
The Lord through Moses said,
Do not make yourselves [Israel] unclean by any of these things [sexual abominations], for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. So keep my charge never to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you, and never to make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God. (Lev 18:24–30)
Today, Israel is the Church. It isn’t the modern State of Israel. It isn’t the United States and the British Empire; it isn’t the English speaking people of this world. It is a nation composed of all who have by faith cleansed their hearts so that their hearts could be circumcised by spirit (Rom 2:25–29).
And the Christian Church has defiled itself spiritually in the same way that ancient Israel defiled itself physically—it is a stench in this world, an object of loathing, hissing. And if God were not true to His word, it would never see the light of day, a trite expression that aptly describes God in heaven.
Therefore, returning to the discussion of last Sabbath, the Christian Church is the world in miniature. It is endtime Israel, and it is covered by blotches, with gay priests being the least of its problems … if disciples cannot judge the Church, cannot utterly condemn gay priests and lesbian pastors, marking these individual for death in the lake of fire—disciples were given the authority to forgive or not forgive sin (see John 20:23)—then the greater problem isn’t gay priests but the cowardice of disciples, and no coward will enter the kingdom of God.
Within Sabbatarian Christendom, a subset within the visible Church, the same sort of cowardice is seen for far too many Sabbatarians, not wanting to judge a brother, continue to have fellowship with marked individuals, one of whom is Norman Scott Edwards, marked for having swindled his business partners (also Sabbatarian disciples) out of ownership positions in real property. These cowardly Sabbatarians, some of whom believe that the marking of Edwards was unjustified because Edwards hasn’t been found criminally guilty of fraud; these cowardly Sabbatarians, some of whom apparently believe they have been slandered because of their continued associations with Edwards; these cowardly Sabbatarians, some of whom know the truth concerning the matter that caused Edwards to be marked yet are too afraid of appearing “judgmental” to exercise the authority Jesus left with His disciples—the authority to withhold forgiveness of sin—form a layered shadow of tens of thousands of Christians who will not condemn gay priests.
The Lord through Moses said, “‘You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife; it is your father's nakedness’” (Lev 18:7–8 emphasis added).
The same passage that Paul used to rebuke the saints at Corinth that tacitly condoned a man living with his step-mother contains condemnation of a man lying with another man—and the same rebuke is appropriate. Even though this matter is not occurring within Philadelphia; even though absent physically from fellowships employing gay or lesbian priests or priestesses, let it be declared that judgment has been pronounced on those who defame the name of Christ and openly practice blasphemy against God: exercising the authority Jesus left with His disciples, a Christian who lays with a person of the same sex as a man would lay with a women shall not have his or her unbelief forgiven but shall be condemned because of this Christian’s unbelief.
But a Christian’s authority to condemn stops at the edge of the Church: the gay man or lesbian woman who does not profess to be a Christian has a judge, God Almighty. It is not a Christian’s prerogative to judge this person, who, when born of God, might well cease doing those things which would condemn a Christian to the lake of fire. Judgment is not now on this person, and if this person dies prior to being born of God, judgment will not be upon the person until the great White Throne Judgment, when the person will answer for what he or she did in the flesh. Therefore, as Paul told the saints at Corinth not to judge a matter until hidden things come to light (1 Cor 4:5), Christians are not to judge, not to condemn, those who in this world do what would not and will not be tolerated within the Church.
The unbelief of this world is reflected in the unbelief of the Christian Church and also reflected in the unbelief within Sabbatarian Christendom, with Sabbatarian Christianity as a subset of the greater Christian Church having within the same problems, the same weaknesses, the same strengths as seen within the greater Church and seen in the world … to visually see this set of relationships, imagine peeling an onion, with the onion representing the world. When several layers are peeled away, the onion still looks like an onion, only smaller. The greater Christian Church looks like the world, only smaller. So when additional layers of the onion are peeled away, the onion still looks like an onion (for the most part) although it is now considerably smaller. Sabbatarian Christianity looks like the greater Christian Church, for the most part, with most Sabbatarian Christians not keeping the High Sabbaths even though they are to appear three times a year before God as angels are commanded to present themselves before God.
The Church of God is now a subset within Sabbatarian Christendom—and as the core of an onion, when peeled down far enough, divides into two halves, Sabbatarian Christendom divides into those disciples who cover themselves with the righteousness of Christ Jesus through taking the Passover sacraments on the first Unleavened (i.e., the dark portion of the 14th of Abib), and those disciples who are as Esau was … Esau, the older son of promise, was hated [disrespected] by God before his birth.
The prophet Isaiah records,
Before she was in labor
she gave birth;
before her pain came upon her
she delivered a son.
Who has heard such a thing?
Who has seen such things?
Shall a land be born in one day?
Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment?
For as soon as Zion was in labor
she brought forth her children.
Shall I bring to the point of birth and not cause to bring forth?”
says the Lord;
“shall I, who cause to bring forth, shut the womb?”
says your God.(66:7–9)
In Scripture, Zion is a woman; the Church is a woman; and Israel is the firstborn spiritual son that is biologically second born and is represented by Zion in Scripture. In other words, disciples are individually masculine but collectively feminine.
The Adversary has used this spiritual gender-bending to deceive disciples that for whatever reason have gender orientations that differ from their bodies’ sexual assignment. Because these Christians are not now born of God (even though they think they are), the inner self or old “man” (old nature) is not able to heal itself from damage that causes the Christian to sincerely believe he or she was born the way the person mentally is. The person with a conflict between gender orientation and biological plumbing, when truly born of God, will find that as a bodily injury heals itself over time, leaving scar tissue or bone callus, the inner conflict will “heal itself” if the person doesn’t let the Adversary abort this healing process by returning the person to disobedience.
Because Christendom is presently the world in one-third scale, those things that will occur to Christians in the Tribulation (the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years) form the mirror image of what will occur to the remainder of humankind during the Endurance (the last 1260 days of these seven years). And the first realization is that Christians, with very few exceptions, are not now born of God but will be following the second Passover as the third part of humankind will be born of God when the world is baptized in the breath of God when the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man. Christians are today spiritually as the world will be during the Tribulation and especially late in the Tribulation; i.e., they know of Christ Jesus but they do not believe either the Father or the Son. But, again, they will be born empowered by or filled will spirit following the second Passover liberation of Israel.
The release of the four angels bound at the Euphrates and the death of a third of mankind (Rev 9:14, 18) shortly before Satan is cast from heaven on day 1260 is the reality of which the second Passover liberation of Israel is the time-linked shadow … Christendom’s many endtime false prophets will inevitably identify the second Passover slaughter of a third of humankind, all firstborns, as the sixth trumpet plague, which remains three and a half years in the future. Since this second Passover liberation precedes the seven endtime years by a short while (days), this liberation of Israel is not seen in Scripture. It is the shadow cast by the sixth trumpet plague just as today’s Christendom forms the shadow and type of the third part of humankind (Zech 13:8–9) that will be born of God when the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man (Rev 11:15–18; Dan 7:9–14).
And it will be from here that next Sabbath’s reading begins.
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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."