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 the Feast of Trumpets is the plan of God
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High Sabbath Readings
For services on Trumpets, October 10, 2010
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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The person conducting the services should read or assign to be read Leviticus chapter 23, verses 23 through 25, followed by Numbers chapter 29, verses 1 through 6, and Hebrews chapter 8, verses 1 through 7.
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Commentary: The above passages were cited in last year’s Trumpets reading; for the High Sabbaths are not a time to bring forth new information, but for preaching the meat of the gospel in due season. However, when generations of disciples have mistaken spiritual tofu for meat and have argued about whether clabber is solid food or even fit food for Christians because of how strong it is, then there is no possibility that these Christians can chew flank steak, poor man’s meat that’s available from an underfunded and understaffed endtime ministry.
There is a quiet war being fought within Sabbatarian Christendom over whether disciples should be alarmed (have anxious thoughts) about the present state of world affairs: the United States of America is spending itself into bankruptcy as Progressive politicians are implementing Marxist reforms. Iran will soon, barring imaginative intervention by the modern State of Israel or by the United States, possess a nuclear weapon that it intends to use to bring about the chaos necessary to hasten the coming or revealing of Shi‘as’ Mahdi, the final Imam of the Twelve Imams, the Imam that has been in hiding since the 9th-Century CE, an odd claim based upon occultation (ghaybat). Of course, if a nation could obtain uranium from the same source as Russia has supplied to Iran, a discrete nuclear strike could be made to appear as an internal Iranian nuclear accident that would force Russia and China to join with Western nations to halt Iran’s enrichment program. Otherwise, the die has been cast: Middle East nuclear war is certain, a war which the modern State of Israel, even if it wins, cannot survive.
Political chaos brought about by irresponsible demands of labor unions is threatening Greece, Spain, and Portugal, and this chaos will likely soon affect Britain, Ireland, and a host of other European countries that have promised too much and taxed citizens too heavily and now are threatening to renege on the socialist promises made to citizens over the past century. Nuclear armed North Korea has militarily provoked South Korea. China has temporarily bottled its civil unrest in sugar-glass prosperity, and Japan is implementing austerity measures as fundamentalist Islam continues its war to install Sharia law in every nation.
But Jesus told His disciples that they should not be alarmed by wars and rumors of war (Matt 24:6)—
When humankind can get no farther from the Light of God; when humankind arrives at a spiritual midnight hour, the Second Passover liberation of Israel (the nation circumcised-of-heart) will occur. Then, in a reality foreshadowed by the death angel passing through all the land of Egypt a time, times, and half a time ago, all firstborns of man and of God not covered by the blood of Christ will be given as the ransom price paid to the Adversary for the liberation of the greater Christian Church from indwelling sin and disobedience. A third part of humankind, again all firstborns, will perish in a day, with the artificial selection of only firstborns disclosing that these deaths are of God and are not happenstance or coincidental or from natural causes.
The above is easy to write and easy to read, but the reality is that as “there was not a house where someone was not dead” in Egypt (Ex 12:30) at the first Passover, there will be very few houses worldwide in which there is not one or more dead when the Second Passover liberation of Israel occurs: the dead will number a mind-numbing 2.3 billion. When the death toll from a natural disaster numbers a few hundred thousand, the world is barely able to handle the loss of life: what will the world do with two billion dead? Burying the dead will absorb the world’s remaining strength and resources.
Should a Sabbatarian Christian have anxious thoughts about the very real possibility of American President Barack Hussein Obama suspending civil liberties and declaring marshal law and making himself into a dictator for the protection of the people? After all, if the American electorate sends a fiscally conservative set of representatives to Congress, and if these legislators do what they have promised, then the real possibility exists that Obama will do what President Clinton did in shutting down the Federal government. Then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich backed down, but a new Speaker elected with a mandate to reign-in Federal spending will not back down—and Social Security checks and Food Stamps must go out; so in the best interests of the people, a mostly bloodless coup will occur and a dictatorship-of-the-people will seem necessary. With hardly a shot fired, Americans will lose their precious freedom because it was not precious-enough for them to not-elect politicians promising political candy to the electorate.
Christians have already been devoured by wolves in sheep clothing … what Christian pastor works on the same terms as the Apostle Paul worked?
Paul wrote,
I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge; indeed, in every way we have made this plain to you in all things. / Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because I preached God's gospel to you free of charge? I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need. So I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way. (2 Cor 11:1–9 emphasis added)
Paul was entitled to support from those whom he taught:
This is my [Paul’s] defense to those who would examine me. Do we not have the right to eat and drink? Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk? / Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same? For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop. If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more? / Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. / But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. (1 Cor 9:3–15)
The person who is taught is under command to support the person who does the teaching, but the one who teaches has no right to ask-for or demand this support. It is spiritual wolves that as super-apostles ask for support. It is deceitful workmen who are the servants of the Adversary that pass collection plates or harangue congregations for increased donations—and what are the established practices of the splintered Sabbatarian churches of God? Are not those practices to take up collections on High Sabbaths? Does not the passing of a collection plate produce in a disciple the response to give? Is not the passing of a collection plate a subtle but effective “burdening” of Believers? Yes, it is. And the pastor or teacher, regardless of his or her sincerity, who passes a collection plate or who asks for support has all of the reward that he or she will receive for the work that the person does.
An offering must be freely given; for the offering and the giving of the offering is a matter between God and the giver. There is no room in this relationship for a pastor or even a super-apostle
Inevitably, the super-apostles of the Sabbatarian churches of God attempt to frighten those saints whom they teach with scary wars and rumors of wars; i.e., the things of this world, physical things, physical events … who isn’t concerned about collapsing economies and national fiscal meltdowns? Who isn’t concerned about runaway inflation, melting polar icecaps [if true], genetically engineered plant varieties, food that isn’t food? Who isn’t concerned about terror attacks, empty gas pumps, electrical blackouts, crumbling bridges, mass rioting in urban areas? But return now to the sudden death of 2.3 billion firstborns in the Second Passover liberation of Israel: just how important are wars and rumors of wars when the saint holds the testimony of Jesus, the spirit of prophecy? How important is a bunch of thugs, lead by the son of a blacksmith, in Iran? They are not very important. Nor are any of those things which Sabbatarian super-apostles use to keep themselves ensconced in a lifestyle unlike that of the Apostle Paul, who wrote of himself,
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 emphasis added)
The Roman Church has used fear to keep moneys flowing into its coffers for centuries, and the Sabbatarian churches of God have likewise used fear of worldly events to keep the money coming in. But under the leadership of American President Reagan, the world seemed a lot less frightening, and the centralized authority in Sabbatarian church of God fellowships melted away. Saints were less fearful, and less willing to submit to a man; thus, faithful saints went to their deaths while spiritual babes continued on, fellowshipping with the lawless and with the deceitful where they were routinely sheared by trusted wolves … a wolf is not a sheepdog even if claims it is.
The Second Passover liberation of Israel, with the death of a third of humankind, is merely the first of several hard body blows that God will deliver to spiritual Babylon, blows that knock Babylon down before the kingdom of this world is taken from the four kings and the little horn and given to the Son of Man. Social infrastructures will be destroyed. Another 2.3 billion people will die (over a billion die in the sixth Trumpet Plague alone) before the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man. There will be little or no food production for at least two years. And Sabbatarians will be hunted and killed as if they were the cause of all of this destruction … compared to what is soon to occur, Jesus’ disciples have no cause to be alarmed by wars and rumors of wars. As Noah in his age had no anxious thoughts about wars and rumors of wars; about nation rising up against nation and kingdom against kingdom; about famines and earthquakes and natural catastrophes, endtime saints need not be concerned about those things that trouble others. Simply knowing and believing that a Second Passover liberation of Israel is certain to occur should be enough to cause saints to be as diligent in seeking righteousness as Noah was, and to be as diligent in getting their own houses in order as Noah was in building the Ark.
American Christians are alarmed by the Marxism of Barack Hussein Obama, but while they are occupied with tea parties and getting-out-the-vote, they journey farther and farther away from God. When they get down on their knees and pray for the deliverance of the United States of America from the fiscal insanity that seems intended to bring about the collapse of representational democracy in America, they actually pray against God and His Christ; they are actually in rebellion against God. In their sincerity to serve God, they make themselves into agents of the Adversary, whose governance of this world has failed and must fail—
The United States of America has not demonstrated that it has the will to endure a long and protracted war. It has the ability, when angry, to ruthlessly annihilate adversaries, but as a people, Americans do not hold their anger for long. They are quick to forgive and forget. As long as America’s antagonist doesn’t greatly provoke the nation, Americans will declare a pause in the fighting a victory, pack up and go home, where its isolationist tendencies manifest themselves in commodity markets and crop forecasts and now, nanotechnology that the nation will use against the next adversary to provoke national anger.
Certainly there is cause for American Christians to be concerned about national debt and crippling entitlement programs and a green agenda that began exporting American manufacturing jobs to third world countries forty years ago. But these Christians are not turning to God when they turn to the ballot box to throw out a Democratic political majority that is green on the outside and red to its core. The answer to America’s problems, and by extension, to the world’s problems isn’t to be found in political parties, or to be found in prayers to restore honor, faith, charity when these prayers are not accompanied by sincere repentance and immediate obedience that will have the person who is on his or her knees begin to keep the commandments—all of them, including the Sabbath commandment—from the moment the prayer is made. The answer to America’s problems cannot be found in playing games with God, promising obedience to Him, then going out and attending church on Sunday morning. Why bother praying; why bother promising obedience? Sunday is not the Sabbath, but the day after the Sabbath (John 20:1; Luke 24:1 — read the passages in Greek). And if there is no intention to read and believe the words of Moses, how can the person expect to hear the voice of Jesus, or to be heard by Jesus?
Jesus told Jews seeking to kill Him,
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? (John 5:39–47 emphasis added)
Elsewhere He said,
And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me. (John 12:44–50 emphasis added)
Eternal life cannot be found in the Scriptures except as the Scriptures bear witness about Jesus: unless a person believes the writings of Moses, the prerequisite for hearing and believing the words of Jesus, the person will not hear Jesus’ words and will not believe the One who sent Him and will not pass from death to life without coming under condemnation (John 5:24). Rather, the person will reject Jesus, whom the person doesn’t know, and will be judged and condemned by the word [message] Jesus left with His disciples. It is all just this simple: read and believe Moses, hear and believe the words of Jesus, and make a journey of faith from spiritual Babylon, the kingdom of this world, to heavenly Jerusalem, where no one votes; where they are no political parties; where sons of God clothe themselves in the garment of obedience.
The “saints” are those disciples who keep the commandments and their faith in Jesus (Rev 14:12). Thus, every Christian who practices lawlessness—who deliberately transgresses the commandments—is not of the Father and the Son, but of the Adversary (1 John 3:4–10).
The Feast of Trumpets is a day of solemn rest, a holy convocation (Lev 23:24). The Israelite is not to do any ordinary work, and is to present a food offering to the Lord (v. 25). … How many Sabbatarian Christians are, today, resting from ordinary work? A few dozen? Perhaps a few hundred? There are not many. Most either ate the leavening of Judaism, which Jesus warned his disciples not to do (Matt 16:6–12), or neglected the High Sabbath altogether.
As a High Day, the blowing of trumpets [the Feast of Trumpets] represents the beginning of the sacred year—
In his vision, John records the glorified Jesus saying, “‘Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end’” (Rev 22:12–13) … Jesus is both the beginning of the sacred year and the end of that sacred year, with this one sacred year including both the early harvest of this world, the harvest of firstfruits [represented by the barley harvest in ancient Judea], and the later, main-crop wheat harvest in the great White Throne Judgment.
For three-quarters of a century, Sabbatarian disciples have kept the Feast of Trumpets as a memorial of the Second Advent, when the trumpets of war warn the world that “‘the Lord will come in fire, / and his chariots like the whirlwind, / to render his anger in fury, / and his rebuke with flames of fire. / For by fire will the Lord enter into judgment, / and by his sword, with all flesh; / and those slain by the Lord shall be many’” (Isa 66:15–16). But the Sabbaths of God, from the weekly Sabbath to the High Sabbaths focus on one event, the liberation of Israel:
· Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. … You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. (Deut 5:12–13, 15)
· Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. … You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt. (Deut 16:1, 3)
· You shall count seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain. Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand … . You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes. (Deut 16:9–10, 12)
· And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, On the fifteenth day of this seventh month and for seven days is the Feast of Booths to the Lord. On the first day shall be a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work. For seven days you shall present food offerings to the Lord. On the eighth day you shall hold a holy convocation and present a food offering to the Lord. It is a solemn assembly; you shall not do any ordinary work. … You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” (Lev 23:33–36, 42–43)
· Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths. They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed. (Deut 16:16)
The weekly Sabbath commemorates the liberation of Israel, with this liberation initiated with the creation: “‘For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy’” (Ex 20:11). Israel is, on the Sabbath, to remember it was a slave nation and it was liberated from bondage, with this liberation foreknown from the foundations of the universe, for the creation of the universe “liberated” the garment of obedience from the dark closet of unbelief.
Once iniquity was found in an anointed cherub (Ezek 28:15), unbelief created gridlock in the heavenly realm, with this unbelief forming the model for Korah’s rebellion (Num chap 16). And as the Lord consumed the rebels, the Lord dealt with the rebelling anoint cherub:
Then Moses rose and went to Dathan and Abiram, and the elders of Israel followed him. And he spoke to the congregation, saying, “Depart, please, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest you be swept away with all their sins.” So they got away from the dwelling of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. And Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the door of their tents, together with their wives, their sons, and their little ones. And Moses said, “Hereby you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, and that it has not been of my own accord. If these men die as all men die, or if they are visited by the fate of all mankind, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord creates something new, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these men have despised the Lord.” / And as soon as he had finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split apart. And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods. So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly. (Num 16:25–33)
When unbelief was found in an anointed cherub, who spoke to the Most High as Korah spoke to Moses, a rift opened in the fabric of heaven and that lawless anointed cherub and his rebelling angels descended alive into the bottomless pit created by the rift, with the universe and all that is in it then being created in the open rift. And as the split in the earth closed upon Korah and his friends, the rift will close, the reason John writes, “And the world is passing away along with its desires” (1 John 2:17).
As Noah, a righteous man, was chosen in his generation to live; as Abraham, a faithful man, was chosen in his generation to know the Lord; as Moses, a meek man, was chosen to lead the firstborn son of God out from slavery, Israel as a nation was chosen to be the first people liberated from indwelling unbelief … sons of God dwelling in fleshly tents and subjected to ongoing change can, when subjected to a mental topography of rebellion, rebel against unbelief and begin to believe God, with rebellion against rebellion producing raw obedience that is then sculpted by Christ Jesus into assorted vessels of honor.
Returning to Sabbatarian super-apostles that are really servants of unrighteousness, the teacher of Israel who finds Rome, the Roman Empire, the Roman Church, or the Pope in the visions of Daniel is false and has added unscriptural text to Scripture. The super-apostle who encourages Christians to vote is as Korah was. The super-apostle who uses the events of this world to frighten Christians is false and without spiritual understanding. The super-apostle who asks for tithes and offerings is false and serves the Adversary; for the servants of the Lord have no need to ask other men for support. They do not work for men, but for the Lord. And it is the Lord that they ask for the support they need to continue doing a work for Him.
Who is left? What minister is left standing? Certainly none in the splintered churches of God that have come from the former Worldwide Church of God … again, why would a saint be concerned about wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and famines when the saint knows that, shortly, the Second Passover liberation of Israel will occur, and a third part of humanity [all firstborns] will be dead in a day?
How did Moses respond to the Lord telling him, “‘Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely’” (Ex 11:1)? Moses knew what this plague was:
[To Pharaoh, Moses said], “Thus says the Lord: About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle. There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egyp t, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again. But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. And all these your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me, saying, ‘Get out, you and all the people who follow you.’ And after that I will go out.” And he [Moses] went out from Pharaoh in hot anger. (Ex 11:4–8)
The servants of Satan disguised as ministers of righteousness (from 2 Cor 11:14–15) will no more believe servants of the Lord than Pharaoh believed Moses: super-apostles and deceitful workmen of every flavor will not believe that a second Passover liberation of Israel will occur. They will not believe that the Lord will again give the lives of men as ransom for Israel, now a nation circumcised of heart. Thus, they are concerned about the nonsensical babble of a blacksmith’s son in Iran. They are concerned about Socialists reforging the world, reforming a creation to fits Socialist tastes as if the sea of humanity were frozen yogurt to be scooped into sugar cones and served to friends. They are concerned that inflation will strip them of their wealth; they are concerned about images and appearances and the surface of things. They are concerned about what is not truly important; they are bastard sons of God. Their father is the Adversary, and their mother is a prostitute, selling her Christian favors to whomever has the political coinage necessary to interest her. And there is no condemnation short of the lake of fire that is strong enough to hold them in check.
A single year bringing two harvests of God began with the creation of Adam on “the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens” (Gen 2:4 — also Gen 1:1) … Adam and Eve are not the man and woman created on the sixth day of a creation week in which Christ Jesus was the Light of Day One (2 Cor 4:6). The great White Throne Judgment occurs on the sixth day; the resurrection of firstfruits occurs of the fourth day. Humankind is presently dwelling in the dark portion of the third day, bringing forth fruit when it isn’t yet the season for fruit. It won’t be the season for fruit until the Second Passover liberation of Israel from indwelling sin and death.
Christ Jesus is the beginning and the end, the light of Day One and the Light of heavenly Jerusalem. In his vision, John records, “And the city [New Jerusalem] has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Rev 21:23). But how many of those Sabbatarian super-apostles actually believe Christ? How many believe that Jesus is the light of Day One, and that the first Adam was created in darkness and at the beginning of Day One? How many believe that Day One ended at Calvary? It did. The dark portion of the second day began on the 14th day of Abib in the 31st year of the Common Era—and there is nothing good about this short second day that ended ten days before Pentecost that year.
The blowing of trumpets [the Feast of Trumpets] heralds the coming year, but doesn’t herald the coming year for the dead [those human beings not yet born of spirit] but for the living. The coming of the year was of no importance to the first Adam. It is, however, of importance to those who have descended from the second Adam; hence, it is for them a holy convocation.
Whereas the world, on this day, worries about a nuclear-armed Iran and about national fiscal deficits greater than the total wealth of the nation, the saints of The Philadelphia Church rejoice in sadness, knowing that a Second Passover liberation of Israel will soon occur and knowing that they can do nothing to get friends and family to believe that God would claim as His own the lives of firstborns that should have been consecrated [dedicated to Him and redeemed for a price] at birth. They celebrate the day, but they are also reminded the liberation comes with a high personal price. There is no Philadelphian who has not spiritually and/or physically lost friends or family.
Whereas Sabbatarian super-apostles study world events in search of the king of the North and the king of the South, fitting Arab nations into the rubric of the king of the South and European nations into their rubric for the king of the North, those who are of Philadelphia quietly and humbly rejoice in the sure knowledge that they are being molded into vessels of righteousness well able to hold the tears of the saints that are certain to fall. … There is no reason to be concerned about wars and rumors of wars when the fall of Babylon is nearly at hand. Once this fall begins with a hard blow below the belt—the breaking of the first horn, the great king of the king of Greece (the king that appears as an erect penis on the humanoid image of Babylon)—the number of dead will be too great to mourn. There will be work that has to be done. What mourning that will get done occurs now, when there is still some hope others will join with Philadelphia to do a great work for the Lord with very few resources.
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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."