Ronald Weinland

In the series of these last few posts, we have focused upon the subject of righteous judgment. It was stated that we are judged by what we see   know and understand   at any moment in time. That is why we are to discern and judge every matter in life by the present truth.

Until God revealed in 1974 that Pentecost was to be observed on a Sunday, God’s people were judged by what God had revealed to them before that additional truth about Pentecost was given. The timing for when this portion of truth was revealed was totally in God’s control. Therefore, up to that change in 1974, God’s people were to assemble on a Monday, and they were judged by their response and obedience to what they knew to that moment in time.

This example teaches us much about how and why God works with us as He does (much of which we have already covered). This also teaches a great deal about how God’s government works in our lives through the leadership He has established to be upon His apostles and prophets. God has chosen to construct His Church through this exact structure. It is by this way that He is creating Elohim in all who will receive God’s government and God’s way of revealing truth to them through these offices He has established: “And (we) are (being) built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone, In whom all the building is fitly framed together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (Eph. 2:20-21).

Candidly, there is no other structure whereby God leads and directs His Church. That is why what has happened in the 600 plus splinter groups that have formed out of the Apostasy and scattering of the Church after 1994 is so absurd. Only one can be God’s Church through whom He works. By definition and teaching, anything else could not be God’s structure of government, as it would oppose God’s order of unity and singleness of teaching and belief among His people. There cannot be any who are “on their own,” who are not led by an apostle; for that is simply how God works in His Church: “Now you are the Body of Christ, and members in particular. God has set (word used for order and position in government) some in the Church: first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers…” (1 Cor. 12:27-28).

So the identity of God’s Church and where He is working is a most basic truth. This has so much to do with the first great truth that is attributed to being reestablished (restored) in God’s Church through Herbert W. Armstrong   the truth of God’s “government.” God tries and tests His Church to manifest those who do and those who do not judge this truth about government righteously. God expects everyone to judge themselves and “their” own group or organization by this most basic truth about His government.

Greatest Proof of God’s True Church:
During the Feast of Tabernacles in 2005, God mightily separated His Church from all other scattered groups who formed due to the Apostasy. God did this through the 21st Truth that is attributed as being revealed to the Church of God - Preparing for the Kingdom of God through me. No other scattered group believes this truth!

The 21^st Truth states, “God the Father is Yahweh Elohim and He alone has eternally existed. The teaching that Jesus Christ had always existed is a holdover from the teaching of traditional Christianity of the Trinity. There is only one Almighty God who has eternal existence” (“The 57 Truths of God”).

The purpose for covering this truth in this post is to illuminate more fully that it is this truth above all others revealed after the Apostasy that proves where God’s true Church is and through whom God is working as His apostle to this end-time. It is this truth that fully established the identity of God’s Church! No other group or organization from the Apostasy believes or teaches this great truth. It was after God restored this most powerful truth yet, to His Church, that He began to inspire the writing of the book 2008   God’s Final Witness.

The identity and greatest proof of God’s true Church through the end-time and up to Christ’s return can only be received by those to whom God gives it. Once God has revealed such a “present truth,” then each to whom it was revealed is judged individually by their own judgment of where God is working and their judgment of this specific truth. For those who have left and have been removed from the fellowship in God’s true Church, their judgment rests on this truth alone. Anyone who truly judges righteously must judge whether they believe this 21st Truth (42nd overall). If a person believes this truth and separates themselves from God’s Church (PKG), then they multiply the judgment against themselves because they know no one else believes or teaches this truth. Only God’s true Church does!

Do you grasp the magnitude and importance of this great truth being taught and believed by only one scattered group of people?

It now needs to be pointed out that there is also another reason of great importance to this truth being revealed when it was. Toward the end of Sardis, only three great truths remained when Herbert W. Armstrong was called to restore truth to the Church during Philadelphia. Satan and the demonic realm had the world so deceived and confused by this time that the Church was nearly dead, but God began to raise up a new era through Mr. Armstrong. Truth that Satan had worked so hard to destroy was being restored and revived within the era of Philadelphia.

One of the greatest blows that Satan ever dealt to the truth was when he began to deceive the world about God Himself. This was done in 325 AD through the Nicene Council and the establishment of the doctrine of the Trinity. It wasn’t until that Feast of 2005 that this false doctrine was finally fully removed from having any influence upon God’s Church   the Church of God - PKG.

The restoration of this great truth (21st Truth) removed Satan’s last and greatest deception. This lie was having a strong influence upon distorting the truth to God’s Church about God’s eternal majesty and the profound importance of Christ’s beginning in human life as our Passover. The timing of this revelation of truth is so important to events that followed, as this freed God’s Church to accelerated spiritual growth, insight, and highly empowered faith. This played a great role in thrusting God’s Church into a most unique time of God’s final witness.

It has often been told to God’s people that they should go back often and review all the truths God has given us. Indeed, the greatest and most profound for God’s Church in this end-time is that 21st Truth. God’s truths are our power and strength. It is the truth that sets us free. It is by the word of truth that we are begotten. It is by the word of truth that we grow, AND it is by this one great truth that God’s people should have the greatest boldness, faith, confidence, and strength of where God’s true Church is today   of where God is working and leading His people. There is no other place to go for God’s truth that is being taught by God’s ministry Sabbath-to-Sabbath and post-to-post.

God’s Preparation Complete:
Once God had fully reestablished His Church by Pentecost of 1998, He began preparing it for the final witness He would establish for the “cause” or “controversy” of Zion.

Most of the truth that God began to give the Church had to do with the Apostasy and the first three Seals of Revelation that had been opened. These truths were new to the Church, as they had to do with prophecy that had just been fulfilled in this end-time. However, the first great truth that was “restored” since being given many centuries earlier is one that was lost shortly after it had been revealed to the apostle, John. There was no scattered group who understood or taught this truth, and although there is one that has since attempted to address it, it is still far away from grasping it. This truth that was “restored” is the 14th Truth (35th overall).

This truth states, “We understand that Jesus Christ is ‘continually coming’ in the flesh of those who are in the Church of God” (“The 57 Truths of God”). This of course has to do with John 14 and other similar verses in 1 John 4 and 2 John that the scattered Churches misapply to a past or future literal coming of Jesus Christ to this earth. This is the first great truth that was restored in the Church of God - PKG that powerfully separated it from all others. To this point in time, it was the most important truth revealed to PKG that testified and identified where God was working and through whom.

We have already covered what God revealed seven truths later in the 21st Truth (42nd overall), which was the greatest proof of all of the true identity of His Church. This was later followed by another truth, the 50th Truth, which tried and tested God’s Church in a very great way as to each person’s faithfulness to follow where God leads. It was this truth that launched God’s Church into the time of God’s final 3 1/2 years of witness to this world, about this world. This was also preparing the Church for the year (God’s prophetic day for the Church) that would follow that 3 1/2 years of God’s own witness that He would establish in the righteous avenging of His Church over the “cause” of Zion.

In addition to all the awesome truths God gave His people, He began to call large numbers into His Church through 2007 and 2008. More would be called, but by the time God’s final witness would begin, the Church had been prepared for an awesomely unique experience of God’s creative power to bring “transformation” to its greatest pinnacle yet.

God molded and fashioned events, as well as their timing, so that the Church would be made to stand through 4 1/2 years of one of the most extraordinary periods ever experienced by God’s people.

God’s Work:
After healing a man on the Sabbath day and being condemned by the Jews for doing it at that time, Jesus gave them a simple reply: “My Father has been working until now and I have been working” (Jn. 5:17). During that time, God and Christ were working to establish a “witness” of Jesus being the Passover and Messiah of all mankind. That witness was recorded in scripture for the sake of the Church that would follow, for God’s great work is about the creation of Elohim. After 2,000 years and seven different eras of God’s Church, the Church had now been prepared for another important time of witness.

God and Christ worked with a remnant of the Church following the Apostasy to prepare it for an important battle in time. Though we still do not understand the full meaning of the dates and timing of all that followed that period of 4 1/2 years, God is continuing to reveal more to us, as He always has. God’s Church seeks to judge by the present truth to any moment in time, and if all will do so righteously, they will then live accordingly   in faith, as this is how we are judged.

The Church had no real concept of the great falling away (Apostasy) that would come upon it before December of 1994. Once it did come, however, the Church (brethren and ministry) was to judge righteously what had happened. There were basic issues at hand that had to be addressed. Were we God’s Church? If we were God’s Church, then how could it be experiencing what it did after December 17, 1994? This led many to see more deeply than ever that the organization (WCG) was not the Church, but that the Church was the spiritual Body of Christ. This had not fully sunk into everyone in the Church even though Herbert W. Armstrong made the point several times before he died in 1986.

So what had happened to the spiritual Body of Christ? The answer should have been clear, but it wasn’t because of the “spiritual condition” of the Church being lukewarm and so spiritually weak. As God blessed some to be awakened from that spiritual sluggishness and sleep, answers began to be made manifest (revealed) and obvious. God’s Church had been scattered; spiritual famine was growing and widespread. An apostasy had occurred; the identity of the man of sin who was the son of perdition for the end-time had been made manifest. However, most of the scattered Body could neither humble themselves enough to acknowledge the Apostasy nor admit their true spiritual state, for to do so would be to acknowledge they were Laodicean. Such people would not judge “righteous judgment” concerning the identity of God’s Church, the present truth, or the actual conditions and events that had occurred. Yet God taught people in His remnant Church how to judge such matters righteously so that they could have much more truth revealed to them.

Now is a time that this kind of judgment is required of God’s people again, just as it was when God allowed and gave way for the Apostasy to be manifested in His own Church. We are to be judging through what God has given His Church to experience, through the present truth, and through the actual events and conditions that have already occurred. If we know this is God’s Church, then we can continue in righteous judgment. If one does not know this and is not deeply convicted of such truth, then they will judge from their “own beliefs” and views as “they see it” (just as how it happened after the Apostasy). That is why basic understanding that should be gleaned from the 35th, 42nd, and 50th Truth are so important to the identity of God’s true Church and with who it is through whom God is working in the continuing process of the creation of Elohim. It is also important to know that the 49th Truth (about the Seven Thunders being revealed) will yet drive that point home to God’s Church that was scattered after the Apostasy.

God Establishes the Truth & Reveals Error:
As it has previously been covered in this series of posts, the Church was tried and tested in God’s present truth throughout 2008. God was establishing those things that would be needed so that the Church could experience what He had been preparing it to fulfill through the 4 1/2 years that ended May 19th of 2013. Daniel’s 1335 days about the 144,000 being sealed was revealed. Christ returning on Pentecost rather than Trumpets was established. In the midst of all this, God had already revealed who His two end-time witnesses were and that 2008 would be the beginning of His final witness. We just didn’t know what it all meant, but we did judge according to the present truth as God had molded and fashioned this within us.

This refinement in judgment and understanding of how we are judged in the present truth had not been given to Herbert W. Armstrong; however, God did use Mr. Armstrong’s experience to establish that understanding and revelation for us in this end-time. Upon addressing the significance of 19-year time cycles in God’s work and the commission God had given him and the Church, Mr. Armstrong addressed some very important points. He explained how he was not a prophet. He also explained some matters concerning the booklet entitled, 1975 in Prophecy.

It would be good at this juncture to quote some of what Mr. Armstrong wrote in his “Personal” in “Tomorrows World” magazine of February 1972 (the “Personal” is available on the Church site under Mr. Armstrong’s publications). There are several excerpts that will be in quotes in this section of the post, and I will also make some added comments along the way.

“Let me ask you this question. Do you know of any large, established, well-recognized professing Christian denomination which has publicly confessed it had been wrong in what it had been teaching, and which they corrected the error, and turned to the truth?”

In Mr. Armstrong’s day, this could only be asked of the difference between God’s Church and all those of traditional Christianity. Today, however, it should be asked of all who were scattered after the Apostasy, but it is not. Yet every truth revealed in the Church of God - PKG since the 21st Truth revealed through Mr. Armstrong has revealed error in the Church.

The 22nd Truth revealed that we did have an apostasy. To deny this was to deny God’s Church. We were beginning to admit the error of failing to acknowledge what God had prophesied would happen in His Church in the end-time. This then led to the acknowledgement of many other truths related to the Apostasy and God’s Church that were to become manifest during the prophesied end-time. These all in turn revealed error we needed to correct.

The 33rd Truth was the first that revealed error that had existed before the Apostasy. That truth was about the reality that there was no literal physical place of safety. We now accepted the clear truth of scripture that “Petra” was always about God being our place of safety, just as He is likened to our high tower, defense, shield, fortress, etc., as in Psalms 18. Indeed, God is our rock, our Petra.

After the era of Philadelphia and on into the end-time after the Apostasy, we did not focus or expound upon the “errors” when God revealed new truth to us. Instead, we simply focused on the revelation of truth as a matter of positive change and greater spiritual growth that God was giving. In reality, we were also actually acknowledging error. We were addressing change and new truth in this manner largely due to a continuing growth in spiritual maturity within God’s Church and of being led to see that God is in charge of what we are able to see at any moment in time. The revelation of truth is in His control just as it is of when He gives us more truth, and when He gives us more we indeed have less error because He is leading us more and more into the light and farther and farther from the darkness. Seeing truth is not a result of our own ability nor of intellect, but fully of God. Over the past year, God has helped to begin expressing this process as a matter of the “present truth” since He is the one who progressively reveals His truth to His people. We simply have to make the choice to accept and follow it or not.

Let’s continue now with excerpts from that “Personal” of Mr. Armstrong: “But are they all perfect and correct in what they teach? If so why do not any two agree in all points of doctrine? The reason is simply that they do teach errors which they are afraid to confess, for fear they would lose members.”

“Thus they have educated the people to suppose that if any leader, any church, and work of God can be found to have been in error in any point, they cannot be trusted. To confess and correct error is to be branded a false prophet!”

Today this kind of scrutiny is even greater upon God’s Church because God has given me to declare that I am both His prophet and His apostle to His Church in this end-time. As a prophet, God has given me a great deal to declare about what will happen in the Thunders and Trumpets of Revelation that lead up to the coming of Jesus Christ. As an apostle, I have worked with what God has revealed up to any moment in time and have taught His Church accordingly within those parameters of judgment.

At the beginning of the 1335 days, there was anticipation of great “physical” tribulation beginning that would come upon the world. Thunders increased and the stage was fully set for the financial collapse of the United States and the world economy, but God’s time for that has not yet come. The Church had been wrong about the basic period of 3 1/2 years being about physical destruction. That will still come, but within a different time frame than what we have previously believed.

May 27, 2012, was not the date of Christ’s return and neither was May 19, 2013. Those dates are prophetically important and great events did occur within those periods of time, but they were not Christ’s literal return. That is obvious. So as we did after the Apostasy, we seek to judge what we have experienced by the present truth, and as we do, God will reveal more, just as He has done before, for He uses this process in a powerful way to more deeply convict us of truth He reveals when He chooses to do so.

We know who we are   we are God’s Church, and the truths God has revealed testify to that truth. No other group or organization teaches and believes all of the 57 Truths.

So yes, we too have had error. I have had error. But God is leading us into greater truth and spiritual maturity. God has not only allowed error to exist in His Church through time, but He has also designed and planned it so. Such a statement likely would baffle and bewilder most who are not in our fellowship, but the lesson of Pentecost 1974 should cause righteous reflection and honesty about God’s power to lead His own Church.

We will continue again with the “Personal” excerpts from Mr. Armstrong’s writing: “You may ask, do I, then, feel that we in this Work are full of errors, misleading the people. Most emphatically no! We have not had to correct error many times. But each time we have corrected error, we have had one fewer error left. If we knew of any error still remaining, now, we would change it! If and when we find one in the future, we shall correct it! The one who follows that principle is the most free from error!”

This was indeed what was done later in 1974 with the revelation that Pentecost was to be observed on a Sunday and not a Monday.

“So confessing such an error is one of the surest proofs to identify the people through whom the living Christ is working   and whom he is using!”

God Prepared Us:
Through all the experiences and revelation of truth God had given His remnant Church and the inspiration for two important books to be written, the small core of this remnant group had now been prepared by God to enter its final preparation for what was to follow. The years of 2007 and most of 2008 were the years for this final preparation through trying and testing, as well as giving rapid growth. This history has been covered in this series of posts.

We finally arrived at a date that we thought we fully understood concerning a “final countdown” to Christ’s return. It was the Feast of Trumpets of September 30, 2008. Indeed, the countdown of 1335 days did begin then, but we did not grasp where it was leading. Even though I wrote the book 2008 - God’s Final Witness, I did not grasp the magnitude or importance of that witness.

In the beginning, because of our belief about 3 1/2 years of tribulation, there were “expectations” that were very much ingrained in our thinking that would be changed about what was to happen in the world and when. As we moved farther and farther into that 3 1/2 year period and it was evident that the 2nd Trumpet had not yet occurred, God began to reveal that the experience of this period of time was focused upon a “witness” and not about end-time tribulation. That understanding has continued to grow even until now.

God had prepared us for the experience of this period of time. What was it all about? What was it that we had been prepared to experience?

We have used this period of 3 1/2 years rather loosely to sometimes include the period of the 1335 days and the 1290 days. Much is simply a matter of semantics as long as we grasp the context, but the reality is that these days are fully tied together. The literal period of 3 1/2 years that started when the two witnesses began to fulfill a large part of their roll was preceded by these two periods of time. These two important events would thrust the Church into a new and important era to God’s planning and purpose being fulfilled before all the Trumpets should be manifest and His Son’s return to establish God’s Kingdom to rule this world.

[In the next post we will continue with what God has revealed about this period of time and the importance of the 1335 days of Daniel.]

As I was reviewing Pt. 1 of the last post in order to pick up the flow and continue from where I left off, it struck me even more deeply how and why God reveals His plan and purpose as He does. It is difficult for us, with such a limited human capacity, to grasp much about the concept of “time,” which in turn contains knowledge that can teach much more about God and His incredible greatness.

Today, I turned 64. That seems like a long time, and for human life, it is getting close to the basic time God has allotted us to live   70 years. But in reality, it is so incredibly short and in no way can be compared to or even worthy to be compared to what God actually offers us in everlasting life. We cannot begin to grasp that concept of time.

In past sermons, the subject of our inability to grasp the magnitude of God’s physical creation has been addressed and also the concept of time in reference to it all. How can we grasp the size of our own sun, which would take over 100 earths placed side by side to reach through its diameter? How can we grasp the magnitude of power that created VY Canis Majoris of which it would take over 235,000 earths placed side by side to reach through it? Now just consider a factor of “time” that the human mind has absolutely no ability to truly grasp concerning the size of this universe that God Almighty created and sustains. Of the guestimated number of stars in the universe, how long do you think it would take you to visit them all if you could do so at the rate of one million per second? It would take you over 8 trillion years!

The point of all this is that into eons of time God will still be revealing new truth   new knowledge and understanding to us. That process will never end. That is how great God is! As it was stated in Pt. 1, “God has been revealing truth to mankind for 6,000 years in a progressive manner AS His plan is unfolding.” But this is already what God has been doing from the beginning from eons ago revealing new truth and new knowledge, ever since He first created angelic beings in a spirit world. He has now been revealing truth for millions of years, as He first began doing in the spirit realm.

This has much to do with how and why God tries and tests those whom He calls by progressively revealing His plan and purpose in the manner that He does. Through this process God can transform the natural way we think (the carnal way) if we faithfully and continually yield to that process of Him molding His “revelatory thought” (logos - His word), His mind, and His character within us.

It was millions of years ago when a being named Lucifer recoiled at a truth God came to reveal to the angelic realm as part of His continual progressive revelation to them. That truth was about His plan and purpose that was being worked out at that time concerning why He was going to create the earth in the unique manner that He was. At this specific moment in time, God revealed His plan to create a spiritual family above that of the angels   the Family of God   Elohim. Lucifer rejected this “new truth.” It was just like what happened to a few in the early Church who rejected the truth that the gospel should go to the gentiles. These few simply did not agree and chose to believe instead that “their” God would not require such a thing, concluding that this must not be of God. This is also like some in the Church in the past couple of years who rejected the truth of God’s removal of the “curse” from women that has existed since the beginning, or not believing that a woman should ever be ordained into the ministry. Such individuals concluded that this is not of God because “their” God would not do such a thing.

Progressive revelation of new truth that then becomes our “present truth” is sometimes rejected by God’s own people whom He has called. There have been a few who rejected what God gave as His prophetic day “for the Church,” from Pentecost of 2012 to Pentecost of 2013. These few believe they are right and that this cannot then be from God. Often times, such carnal thinking just simply rejects what it does not like, therefore, individuals must then go about to justify their thinking by twisting scripture to fit their disapproval or they seek to find some “perceived” fault in the new truth or in the one teaching it. This happened often throughout Herbert W. Armstrong’s ministry that spanned more than half a century.

Rejection of the “present truth” is not new, but began eons ago with one of the three most majestic of created angelic beings   Lucifer. Trials, testing, and transformation (molding) of the human mind are essential and absolute necessities of life (requirements) for any to enter Elohim. God will not allow a mind that does not fully agree with Him, as with what happened with Lucifer, to remain in His family in the Church, as such cannot be allowed to become Elohim.

Formulating Righteous Judgment:
Toward the end of the last post, the following statement was made: “Righteous decisions come from basing our judgment of every matter in life by God’s revealed truth to that moment in time.” This statement was made concerning how the early Church was confronted with a great change in regards to the fact that God was now working directly with gentiles. This example was compared to the present in how some have responded to women being freed from the “curse” and even of how God was now going to begin working through women as part of His ministry.

Changes God reveals as part of His plan and purpose (as part of progressive revelation) can and do put people to the test­    to see how one thinks and makes judgments in life. A person will either be in agreement with God in doctrine, truth, and prophecy He has revealed to them through His apostles and prophets, or they will not. This is simple and plain knowledge that one should grasp from the beginning of their calling. All righteous judgment that a person can make is based on what they are able to receive of God’s very word (revelatory thought) and then their application of it to life and other revealed truths, rather than relying on their own reasoning to form judgments.

During Philadelphia, there was only one way to come into the Church of God and to receive spiritual knowledge of the 21 Truths that the Church was built upon during that period of time. That one way was through what God revealed and restored to His Church through a single human being   God’s apostle at the time   Herbert W. Armstrong. There was NO other way for one to enter God’s Church or to have a relationship with God.

Once people came into God’s true Church, they entered into judgment and were then being judged by their own judgments   whether such were righteous and based upon God’s word or not. God has given us one gigantic example to drive this very point home. This example was designed by God to mold   to transform   His Church as part of His ongoing creation within the Church at that time. That example was also designed by God to teach us now in this time. It is the example in the change and correction to the actual date for the observance of Pentecost during the era of Philadelphia. We have addressed this before, but as Herbert W. Armstrong often went back to teaching upon the foundational knowledge of the “two trees,” there is much more to grasp and more to be built upon in this incredible teaching example that God has given His Church concerning a change that took place in the observance of Pentecost.

After this change had taken place in God’s Church, people did not truly grasp what they had experienced or the true ramifications of what it all meant. For nearly four decades, God’s Church observed Pentecost on the wrong day. When counting for Pentecost, the belief at that time was that it should always be observed on a Monday. In 1973, this subject matter came to Mr. Armstrong’s attention. It was such a serious and important matter that he had the subject thoroughly studied and discussed. It took nearly a year for him to be led to the spiritual conclusion (given by God) that the Church had been wrong and that Pentecost would always fall on a Sunday (the first day of the week). So by Pentecost of 1974, a change was made as God had revealed a new and “present truth” concerning the correct day of the week upon which is would always be observed.

It was a great test and trial for God’s people during this moment in God’s Church in the era of Philadelphia, when a year of study and discussion into this took place amongst the leadership. Nothing of this magnitude had yet been confronted during Philadelphia. Mr. Armstrong wanted to be most certain of God’s guidance in this matter and he knew the final decision on this would have to come through him and he did not take this responsibility lightly before God. Much can be learned from what happened through this period of time.

Before this change, the “present truth” was that Pentecost was to always be observed on a Monday. But where did understanding of Pentecost originate for the Church during Philadelphia? It began when God revealed and restored the truth to Herbert W. Armstrong that the annual Holy Days (annual Sabbaths) should be observed just as the command to observe and keep the weekly Sabbath. Once the truth concerning the observance of the annual Sabbaths were given by (through) God’s apostle to the Church, then those in the Church at that time had to change their thinking in how to properly worship and obey God. Those in the Church were judged by God on each individual’s acceptance of this “present truth” and their judgment to then change in accordance to it or not.

A few decades after God had originally restored the observance of His annual Holy Days, He then revealed that one of those annual Sabbaths had been observed on the wrong day. It threw many brethren (but overall a small percentage) and several ministers (including evangelists) into a tailspin that eventually led to their leaving the organization of the Worldwide Church of God. However, before these people ever made such a move to leave, they had already made judgments, decisions, and choices that had removed them from God’s Church   away from any ongoing relationship and fellowship with God and Christ.

So what happened? To understand, it is important to know and understand that God could have given Herbert W. Armstrong the correct timing of Pentecost when He first revealed to him that the annual Sabbaths were a required observance for His Church. It was always in God’s control to reveal what He did concerning these commanded observances and it was only in His control to hold back the knowledge   the truth   of the correct day of the week for observing Pentecost.

Why would God do such a thing? God desires to mold, create, and transform our mind into a new one   a new heart   that is spiritually motivated in nature rather than carnally (selfishly) motivated by itself. God works with those whom He has called who will humbly yield themselves to such a process because they want that kind of change in their life. If at some stage of development a person veers off due to pride then it must be made manifest (revealed) who they are. In this manner, the Body of Christ can be sobered and stirred to greater spiritual watchfulness. God knows the heart and mind of everyone as to whether they are of a spirit, at any moment in time, to continue in His ways or not. Rather than just removing such a person by some quick means, God’s righteous judgment in such a matter is that if a person (for whatever reason) moves away from Him and will not change (repent) then this choice must be made manifest as a true witness to others. It is also to make it clear to the individual that this was their own decision to sever their relationship.

Trials and tests designed by God are part of his molding   transforming   process that is likened to heating precious metal to a point that the dross (impurities) are brought to the surface so that they can be clearly seen for what they are. God does this in each individual’s life, and as it happens, that person must then address the impurities and repent (change their thinking, which changes life’s actions) so that the impurities can be removed. If a person will not face such impurities honestly and faithfully with the spiritual desire to repent and have them removed, then God will use trials and tests to bring any and all who remain impure to the surface so they can be seen and removed from the Body.

God states some of this very process in Deuteronomy: “All the commandments which I command you this day (all truth God gives of His ways to any moment in time   the present truth) shall you observe to do (to live by and make judgments accordingly), that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Eternal promised unto your fathers (so that one can continue to increase spiritually in life and be blessed to receive all that God has called them to receive). You shall remember all the way (to not forget any truths of God’s ways that He has revealed to them from the beginning and forward from that time) which the Eternal your God led you these forty years in the wilderness (in whatever time we have been blessed to be led by God as He continues to lead us in a progressive manner   ever revealing more truth of His ways to us), to humble you (through test and trials), to prove you (again, through tests and trials), to know (for all to know) what was in your heart, whether you would keep my commandments (laws, truths, ways), or not” (Deut. 8:1-2).

Important Lesson:
So what can be learned from this example of Pentecost having been observed for so long on the wrong day of the week? By bringing this test upon everyone in His Church, God had prepared a means to further advance the process of a continuing creation through the necessary transformation of the mind. This process is always ongoing and the work to produce this change is accomplished by God’s spirit   by His and His Son’s direct participation, and there is NO other way. As part of the spiritual transformation in “this phase” of development (creation) of Elohim, each person must experience trials and tests along with all the other means God has made available for spiritual development and growth. Direct trials and tests from God help speed up and more deeply strengthen spiritual change that produces far greater faith and Godly character in those who faithfully yield and respond to this process.

In this example of Pentecost, people in God’s Church were confronted with choices and judgments that they would be forced to make in response to this new revelation that was given as a trial and test upon everyone. For the majority of the Church, there wasn’t much of a trial in that year of 1974. The Church was drawing near to the end of Philadelphia, but it did not yet begin to be entrenched by the spirit of Laodicea. That spirit of Laodicea began to develop and grow speedily a few years later. So a relatively strong Church spiritually at this time could quickly see what God revealed through Mr. Armstrong. For others, it became a trial that separated them fully from the fellowship of God’s Church.

God used this test upon His Church to clean up the Body of Christ. It was after the manner of John 15, where it describes Christ as the true vine and God as the husbandman (vine dresser). All of the vine is described as needing to be pruned, which all of those in the Church did experience at that time, but others who were resisting God’s spiritual creation in them were not producing fruit and were as branches that needed to be removed and separated from the vine.

Two primary groups emerged that had to be separated from all fellowship with God’s Church. One group of ministers along with other members left, using the “reasoning” (excuse and justification in judgment) that God was not working through Herbert W. Armstrong since he had been wrong about the date of Pentecost. These individuals deluded themselves into believing God was now working through (or with) them. After a short time, some of these went so far as to begin once again (as they had before being called) believing that Sunday was an acceptable day of worship.

The other group rejected the new truth and chose to hold to a Monday observance of Pentecost. They concluded that Mr. Armstrong was in such error that God must have quit working with Him and was now working with and leading them to hold onto what they had always believed about a Monday Pentecost. Through time, these dissolved, dwindled into nothingness, and even died. This is akin to some over the past couple of years who have come to a point where they believe I have left the truth because of new truth God has revealed to and through me. So they conclude that they will hold onto what was given to them from the beginning (like the Monday Pentecost group did, which most seem to think was all that had ever been delivered to Mr. Armstrong by the time he died).

If those now are being “true” to themselves and others, this means that they must then reject that there was an apostasy, just as the other scattered groups. They must reject that there was a “man of sin” revealed or that the Church was spewed out of God’s mouth. They must reject that the era of Philadelphia ended with Mr. Armstrong. They must reject that Jesus Christ had a beginning in life once he was born of human birth, and they must return to believing that he has eternally existed as all the other scattered groups believe. To do otherwise is to clearly live a great lie to themselves and to others. If they choose to judge for themselves which of the 36 additional truths they will accept or reject, then they are acknowledging that truth has been revealed through me that has not been revealed through any others. Again, to do this would be to live a great lie to themselves and to others.

There are many lessons that can be learned from the experience of this example regarding Pentecost in 1974, and some of that is being covered in these series of posts. As we continue, it is needful that we always remember that such trying and testing from God, as in how it occurred in this example concerning Pentecost, is of major importance to the transformation process of creation in this current age and in the development of this phase of Elohim (for those who will be among the 144,000 and for those who are being prepared for responsibilities in the future). God used a period of nearly half a century to confirm and fully establish 18 great truths in His Church. We should be in awe to grasp the significance of 36 additional truths that have been confirmed and established within only 15 years. God’s Church has been incredibly blessed to have experienced such a thing.

Again, it is so deeply important to learn from all this that only God can reveal His truth to us. It is fully within His own will and purpose what He reveals, doesn’t reveal, and when He will do it. Mr. Armstrong had no ability or choice as to what God revealed about Pentecost or when He revealed it. Mr. Armstrong did not determine by his own study or intellect what was truth and doctrine that was to be taught in God’s Church. God had to reveal it to him, though He did so as Mr. Armstrong studied, God had to lead and reveal such things all along the way. So it is basic to understand how God reveals truth to His Church. It is and always has been through His apostles and prophets and by no other way.

February 2, 2008, Sermon:
We will now return to that sermon given on February 2, 2008, that was entitled, “The 144,000 Are Sealed!” Earlier, I mentioned some of what I said in the very beginning of that sermon. At that time I did not know that God had made me an apostle to His Church back on Pentecost of 1998. All that I grasped was that God was working with me as a prophet, but I didn’t fully comprehend how. There was no one to teach me about the job and function of a prophet in God’s ministry. This was because there was no such position used by God through Philadelphia or on into Laodicea until the time God placed me into that position.

We have gone through a lot of background that led up to this period in time in 2008 so that we can better grasp how God had been working in His Church at that specific time and why. The Church was being prepared for what it would experience during the prophesied end-times given through Daniel. The content of this sermon was that God had just revealed to me the meaning of the 1335 days being about the sealing of the 144,000. That is the context of my introductory statements in that sermon that I gave as an apostle, though I did not understand that at the time.

With understanding it in this context, it is incredible what was said after I gave the title to that sermon: “God gave to me that this was that day! I did not know all that I would be given for this day until yesterday   last night.” The rest of that paragraph will be quoted shortly, but first these two sentences need to be addressed.

What God gave to me, as a prophet, was to know that the 1335 days of Daniel were about the sealing of the 144,000. That was it! That day in February seemed very important due to the process of judging by the truths we had to this moment in time (present truth). The first truth that was part of this judgment was what God had revealed to me, as a prophet, being that 2008 was the beginning of His final witness to this world. It was just a prophetic fact. Secondly, we believed at that moment in time that Christ would return on a Feast of Trumpets. Thirdly, the other truth we had at that time was that the period of God’s final witness would be for 1260 days as stated concerning the time God’s two witnesses would establish that final witness.

As an apostle and minister to God’s Church, it was my responsibility to preach and teach about this to God’s people. Based on how God had trained me to exercise judgment with all truth we had to that moment in time, I concluded that God was revealing to us that on that specific day in February of 2008 that the 144,000 had been sealed. I was wrong. Yet if God had desired to do so, He could have revealed that it was not on that specific day that the sealing had occurred. God had only revealed that the meaning of the 1335 days was about the sealing of the 144,000. I drew the wrong conclusion from what was revealed, as I only understood part of what was being revealed.

God chose to reveal later when the 1335 days would actually begin, which was in late 2008, once He revealed that Christ was going to return on Pentecost and not on Trumpets. This whole experience was designed for the Church by God as a trial and test, just as the example of Pentecost 1974 was also designed by God as a trial and test for His people then.

Now, it is good to read the rest of that paragraph that was quoted from that sermon: “As I sat down and read about the number of days of Daniel (these 1335 days), I pondered and got out my calculator. I wanted to see proof! Today, you want to see proof. But for the order of days, from one point to another, there is none!”

It was obvious by every kind of calculation that nothing fit into any areas of meaning that might be contained in any of God’s Holy Days. However, once God revealed Christ would return on a Pentecost, everything changed!

With that new and present truth and the revelation of truth that 2008 was the beginning of God’s final witness to mankind, those dates did fall into place in a mathematically and awesomely unique cyclical manner (per calendar dates over years and years of annual Holy Days). That primary date that now fell into place was September 30, 2008   the Feast of Trumpets. That was simply incredible and awesomely inspiring to see.

We have truly lived through incredible times as we have lived extraordinary experiences as God was preparing us to live through the years of “final witness” and on into these times we are now living in.

(As more has now been given with this post, this series will now have to be expanded into Pt. 3 that will come next week.)

This new post will be delivered in two parts, as there is too much to cover in a single post. God continues to reveal more understanding and clarity to all that we have experienced over the past 4 1/2 years in the Church and in the world. We are living through the most intense prophetic times of all human history, yet the world is totally oblivious to what is taking place. Even the scattered body from the apostasy is in deep darkness to the realities of what God is working out at this time.

Nearly a third of the Bible contains prophecy and the overwhelming majority of it is about this end-time. We have been living through it, and the closer we come to the return of Jesus Christ as the world’s Messiah, the more intense the fulfillment of prophetic events will become. We have learned and are still learning that much of that which is prophetic for this end-time is about God’s own Church first. These events are completely unseen by the world. Yet the major events to occur next and take place in the world will be clearly seen by all. We have already seen most of what has been prophesied about the Church, and we will see all that has been prophesied about the world.

As a result of all that we have now experienced over the past 4 1/2 years, God is now revealing more about what and why we have experienced things as we have. There is more to understand about Daniel’s prophecies and about the awesomeness of prophetic events that we have just finished living through. To fully explain all this, this post is being divided into two parts. Most of this post will be the background and basis for understanding what God is now more fully revealing to us as we move from Pentecost to Pentecost   until Jesus Christ returns.

Learning From A Personal Experience:
Shortly after I became baptized into the Church of God, I moved to Wichita, Kansas, for a few months so I could get away from the pulls of my previous friends and the kind of party life I had been living in college up through age 19. After being baptized right after the summer of 1969, I returned to college to begin my senior year, but as I started back, I quickly dropped out because I knew I had to get away again from that past environment. It was then that I decided to head out to another city in Kansas to find a job and not return to college until I knew I was strong enough to refuse my past.

Right away, I found work and a place to live. Each Sabbath I met with a congregation of the Worldwide Church of God that numbered over 500 people. That in itself was an incredible experience for me, since I had gone through high school in a town of only about 100 people. It was there in Wichita that I was invited to join a unique speaking club that Herbert W. Armstrong had established for the men in the Church who wanted to improve themselves through such an opportunity. The club was fashioned after the manner of other speaking clubs, self-improvement clubs, and the Rotary Clubs, but was designed to the special needs of God’s Church at that time. There were 12 speeches that one could give before being able to graduate from the club. There were also many other speaking opportunities, including discussion of topics relating to world news events, family life, scripture, and doctrine.

This Spokesman Club was highly intimidating to a very pride-filled young man at that time, especially when faced with 29 other men (30 max to a club) from all walks of life whom I did not yet know and some of which who would have the responsibility to critique my speaking. The first speech was called an “Ice Breaker” where you were to stand up in front of the group for five to seven minutes and tell them about your life. When it was my turn to stand and give my speech, I was so nervous, petrified, and scared by the experience that my mouth was so dry that at times my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I did manage to make it through the speech; however, one of the things that stuck out in my mind at that time was how I felt concerning what I could tell about myself. I didn’t think there was anything interesting, outstanding, or important that I could share with them. Instead, I felt it would be rather ordinary and boring.

When I look back at that experience now, I think of how much more could have been said and the excitement with which it could have been told. As we live our life, it seems that most of that time we seem to think it is very ordinary and that there isn’t anything outstanding one could share with others if we were in such an environment to do so. Yet, we often respond differently to hearing from others and have often been inspired by someone telling us about their calling.

As we grow spiritually, we come to see more fully the extra ordinary lives God has blessed us to experience in His calling. We come to grasp how rare such an experience has been over the past 6,000 years of all humanity. We become more excited about how blessed we have been to experience how God has brought us to where we are in the transformation of our mind since being called. We often marvel at all the wealth of knowledge about God and His plan He has given us, along with the understanding and wisdom we have been blessed to receive from it. We come to see more and more how deprived and in bondage this world is to ignorance and confusion about God.

The process of how we change and grow in faith, character, conviction, truth, greater love and caring for others, along with the understanding and wisdom we develop over time is not ordinary by any means, but involves the extraordinary experience of the very life of the One Eternal Self-Existing God and His Son dwelling in us. Sometimes that can begin to be taken for granted and seen as ordinary, and that is a very dangerous mindset. Taking such a thing for granted can happen if a person begins to forget the awesomeness of their calling and of how God has taught them His truth.

I’ve related all this to you because we do not yet grasp the magnitude of what God’s Church has experienced over the past 4 1/2 years, but God is revealing just that to us. It has been difficult and a great struggle at times, especially over the past year and a half. That 4 1/2 years was not designed by God to be easy, especially over that short time, with the level of difficulty increasing the farther we moved into that period of time. Through a highly sped-up process crammed into a shortened period of time, God’s Church has experienced a level of learning, testing, trying, molding, and change that has often taken a life time for others in the past to have experienced.

That which we experience in God’s Church once we are called will either make us or break us, and that is by our own choices that we must make in response to God’s offer to make (create) something truly great within us. There have been all kinds of intense trials and testing we have experienced throughout this period of time, but this is beautifully unique to God’s Church at this very end-time.

There has NEVER been a time like this one for God’s people. We are clearly told that all of God’s people have had to go through great tribulation to enter into God’s Kingdom, yet this past 4 1/2 years has been designed to be a unique witness to God’s great power to create Elohim. God has been doing this (creating Elohim) for 6,000 years with the 144,000, but this period is a “unique witness” of a progressive process through time, until now, of His creating power in His quest for Zion   in His work concerning the controversy of Zion.

So, what are some of your experiences that have raised some doubt, question, or angst over the past 4 1/2 years concerning how God has lead you, through His Church, and what have you been taught   or what have you learned as a result? These are the very things that have either made individuals far more spiritually mature or have led to their own spiritual destruction   all as a matter of personal, individual choices.

God’s Work:
When we are first called, we simply do not grasp the magnitude and importance of a most unique calling God has given us. As we develop spiritually, we begin to see the importance and greatness of being called by the Eternal God himself. We can then begin to increasingly grow in gratitude and thankfulness the more we see how awesomely blessed we actually are. It is in this manner that we will come to grasp far more deeply what we have now experienced over the past 4 1/2 years of God’s extraordinary work that He has been doing in His Church during that time. Within this post, only a glimpse into this great process will begin to be made, and as we continue to mature we will far more fully come to grasp just how great and awesomely unique this experience has been. This will happen precisely in the same manner as to how we are able to grow to more deeply grasp the magnitude and opportunity of our original calling.

So, how can we come to more deeply grasp this experience and its importance in God’s plan just before His Son is set up as King of kings? God tells us! He is sharing with us what He has done, and we will increase in our ability to see how exciting an experience we have lived in a very meaningful phase of God’s great controversy over Zion.

Eight Months Previous:
Before we begin to focus on our experience over the past 4 1/2 years and those things that God wants us to see more clearly concerning His work in the Church, we are going to back up a little farther to the beginning of February of 2008. It was at this time that the stage began to be set for where God was leading us. At that time, there were important things God was revealing that we needed to learn, but He did not reveal everything all at once. Why? God could have, but there is an important purpose to why He didn’t. Such is designed to try and test our obedience and faithfulness to God in the way He leads us.

As we approached February of 2008, the book 2008  God’s Final Witness was just beginning to really grow in distribution. At this point in time, we believed Jesus Christ was going to return in the fall of 2011 at the time of the Feast of Trumpets, however, in some sermons before and after this, I stated that there was still a period of six to nine months that were not fully clear as of yet, concerning all this timing   there was still something missing. Although I was given to know this, I did not yet understand what it meant.

Starting on Pentecost in 2008, God began revealing more. The timing of everything was about to change as God began to reveal the importance of the timing of the wave loaves being of the same kind of importance as the timing of the Wave Sheaf that Jesus Christ fulfilled perfectly according to God’s time.

It was conveyed to me that the importance of this knowledge and the change it would have upon our understanding of timing should be covered in the sermon that would be given on Trumpets that year. This was exciting as it now fit into “timing sequences” that did fit into specific important dates, whereas before, it didn’t. This will be covered more when we begin to focus on the 1335 days in Daniel.

Therefore, well before we even entered the 3 1/2 years of witness, this change in dates was causing a stir, questioning, and great doubt in the minds of too many in God’s Church, so God gave us mercy and revealed important lessons that needed to be learned at that time, before entering the age of the “final witness.” In His mercy, God conveyed to me the importance for the sermon that was designed for Trumpets to then be given early in June instead. That sermon was given early, along with correction God gave concerning such attitudes of doubt and resistance to how He was leading His Church. If that sermon had not been given early, God revealed that there would be many who would not have spiritually survived to Trumpets. But God was preparing the Church for an important period of time that it was about to enter.

So in that sermon, God revealed that Christ was not going to return on a Feast of Trumpets, but on a Pentecost. This timing was critical to God’s plan concerning the fulfillment of the wave loaves being offered up before God that pictured His acceptance of the 144,000. This was of the same importance as the acceptance of the wave sheaf during the Days of Unleavened Bread that Jesus Christ fulfilled. We then changed the dates of our previous understanding of timing as soon as God revealed the truth of this matter of Christ returning on a Pentecost. As a result of this understanding, the beginning of the 3 1/2 years of witness was pushed back by nearly 8 months to the end, rather than at the beginning, of 2008.

As of February 2, 2008, we were at a point where we believed that the beginning of Daniel’s 1335-day prophecy had just begun. As we continue on, some may get a little lost in all the dates that will be mentioned, but the dates are not so important compared to the “big picture” contained in this complete story and what we can and are to learn from it.

Two Means by Which God Has Led His Church:
As I continue to explain some of this recent history, there is something of real importance I need to share with you because it is only in recent days that I have come to more deeply understand this process. This involves two issues of how God has been working through me. The more you see how God has been working to reveal prophecy and how God has been teaching His Church, the more you will come to appreciate the way in which God has led us.

As we were moving through the 3 1/2 years of witness, things were not happening on a level of what we had anticipated for this period. There came a point during this time, due to this anticipation not materializing and our not yet having seen the events of the Second Trumpet come to pass, that I shared my personal conviction in the matter. There were many outsiders who were trying to find fault and error in what God’s Church was teaching and they were ridiculing this matter of the events of the Trumpets not occurring. I then stated that if nothing were to come to pass in what was written in the book that I would acknowledge I was not a prophet and I would go before God and throw myself before His mercy seat in repentance and desire for guidance. Yet I believed that what was written in the book was given by God. I did not consider the “if” a reality.

Some time after this, I came to an even deeper conviction regarding my relationship with God and Christ, and I shared this with the Church. It was that even if I was not a prophet, although I still fully believed that I was, I undoubtedly was an apostle. The evidence was contained in all the truths God had given through me. God was strengthening me in my role and the commission He had given to me. God revealed to me and convicted me even more deeply that I was not only a prophet, but more importantly, I was an apostle to His end-time Church.

As a result of these events and God’s convicting power, He has led me to more clearly understand how he has been working in and through me. There is a different function and way that God works through a prophet and an apostle. Their job and function is not the same. The only one I can compare this to is the apostle, John. John was an apostle first and foremost. Later in life God used him as a prophet through whom He gave the Book of Revelation. John clearly saw the distinction through what he experienced. He knew from the beginning that he had been chosen as an apostle.

This was nothing like my experience. There was never a time before all this that I would have remotely considered myself an apostle. That would be one of the furthest things from my mind, as I know I would have considered such a thing a horrible presumption. Even when the time came when writing the first book that God was revealing to me that I was to declare I was His prophet for the end-time, I resisted for quite some time and somewhat argued with God over it.

Yet from the moment God had reestablished His remnant Church on Pentecost of 1998, God was using me as His apostle to the Church. However, He kept my eyes closed to that until the later portion of those 3 1/2 years of witness. It was then that I announced it to the Church, as being clearly evidenced by all the truths God had now given through me. So I began by seeing first that I was a prophet, when I was actually an apostle well before that time.

The purpose for mentioning all this is because I function differently depending on which role God has given me to do at any moment in time. The function and work of each is different. This is something that I am only now finally coming to clearly see and understand. It is something that God has to give in order to see it, and He is now doing so.

Although I wrote the book 2008   God’s Final Witness, I have not understood all that is written. God inspired me to write about prophetic events, but as with so many of the prophets, I have not understood all that He has given. In God’s time and according to His purpose that He is working out, He reveals more and more about the prophetic events He has inspired to be recorded.

It is because of this that I do not always know or understand what God has given me that is prophetic. Then as an apostle and minister, I have taught about these things God has revealed through me as a prophet. A prophet’s job (function) is not like that of an apostle. A prophet simply writes or speaks what God has given him and he does not expound or elaborate on it; however, an apostle does teach and expound on truth, doctrine, and prophecy to the Church.

Herbert W. Armstrong expounded upon truth concerning prophecy about the modern day nations of Israel, as God had given him knowledge of who they were. God gave him the “Key of David” (Rev. 3:7), which was about the identity of these nations and the identity of the monarchy that has descended from King David to this time and is still upheld as having some rule in Ephraim (United Kingdom). Many of the teachings during that era of Philadelphia about prophetic events for the end-time were centered upon knowledge of the identity of the modern day nations of Israel. Those teachings were based upon what was known to that point in time of the “present truth” Mr. Armstrong had.

God’s apostle, Paul, knew of the prophecies and promise of Jesus Christ’s return as the Messiah and he spoke in the context of that happening in his lifetime. Yet later, God revealed to him that it would be farther in the future.

This gives some context to better understand how God has been working in His Church. There are people who have rejoiced in what they believe proves I am not a prophet as a result of some things I have stated in sermons. Yet these individuals have no understanding of the job and function of a prophet or an apostle. Candidly, these same people would reject me as either anyway without any so-called “proof.” It obviously doesn’t really matter what others think or believe about such things, but what does matter is that God’s people know and understand the differences. Such understanding leads to a better grasp and appreciation of how God is working in His Church.

Back to February 2008:
On the first Sabbath of February of 2008, I gave a sermon entitled, “The 144,000 Are Sealed!” This sermon was given and based upon what God had just revealed to me about timing in Daniel’s prophecy about the 1335 days. Even now, God is revealing more that we have not known. These things that were revealed back then, and those things that are now being revealed in greater detail, were done so as a function of being God’s prophet.

However, the sermon I gave on that day was fully about my job as an apostle. These differences are being pointed out so you can come to see more clearly how God has been leading His Church and why He has also allowed us to conclude things that were not fully correct   primarily in timing. By design and by purpose the apostle, Paul, was allowed to believe Jesus Christ was returning in his lifetime. As an aside, what do you think some of that purpose was?

The subject of that sermon was about the sealing of the 144,000, which was based on what God was then revealing concerning the meaning of the 1335 days in Daniel. This revelation was given to me as a prophet. It was simple fact! It was the revelation of the meaning of the 1335 days that revealed the sealing of the 144,000 in the Book of Revelation.

However, my speaking (preaching) and teaching in the sermon was in the function of an apostle. As an apostle, I based what was given in the sermon on what was given prophetically about the meaning of the 1335-day prophecy and the “present truth” we had at that time. That present truth we had was that Jesus Christ would return on a Feast of Trumpets. An additional present truth was that God had revealed that His final witness was to begin in 2008, which was revealed as a simple fact as a function of a prophet.

There are some direct statements I made in that sermon, as an apostle, that were not correct   not for February 2, 2008. It was stated, “This is given by revelation only and by no other means. Let me say this another way. This is given by prophetic revelation and by no other means.”

Indeed, what was revealed to me concerning Daniel’s 1335 days being about the sealing of the 144,000 was a prophetic revelation given to a prophet. It was simple fact. However, as an apostle whose responsibility it was to preach about this was based on what knowledge we had in the Church to that moment in time   the present truth. This revelation of Daniel’s 1335 days being about the 144,000 being sealed was given to me on that Friday evening before the sermon was to be given the following day. My conclusion was based on the belief of Christ returning on Trumpets of 2011 and the fact (prophetically revealed) that 2008 was the year God’s final witness would begin. My conclusion was wrong.

This example is being given to show there is purpose to the process God uses to lead His people and different means by which He does so.

Faith and Righteous Judgment:
God does not give us all truth that there is to know and we do not have the capacity to receive it anyway. We will ever be growing in that. God has been revealing truth to mankind for 6,000 years in a progressive manner AS His plan is unfolding. This has been often pointed out over the past few years, as it must become deeply engrained in us. This in itself is an important truth that aids in sharpening righteous judgment and works to build stronger faith.

We are judged by what we see   know and understand   at any moment in time. Abraham and Sarah were judged by what God had given to them to know up until that time in God’s unfolding plan. They did not have the teachings Christ gave his disciples and they did not have what was later added as God gave even more through the early apostles that were to be recorded in the New Testament. They did not have what is written in the books of the Kings, nor in Psalms and Proverbs, or what the prophets recorded.

Abraham and Sarah were judged first and foremost by their desire and willingness to live by a “basic way of life” that was founded upon two basic relationships in life   love toward God and love toward fellow man. They sought to live by the laws God had given them regarding how to love both. This is the most important part of one’s spiritual life. If God’s laws about how to have a right relationship toward others and toward God are not what regulates our behavior, then all the rest of the knowledge, understanding and prophetic revelation God can give would have no meaning and purpose whatever (1 Cor. 13).

Although Abraham and Sarah did not have the slightest fraction of all the vastness of knowledge and understanding of God’s greater plan and purpose for mankind that we have available to us today, they will be very great in the Kingdom of God. This knowledge alone should stir people to examine how they live toward and treat their fellow man.

God’s desire in us is to transform our minds so we can become Elohim. He desires to mold righteous judgment into our thinking   the mind becoming capable of formulating right conclusions and making righteous decisions. Righteous decisions come from basing our judgment of every matter in life by God’s revealed truth to that moment in time. So God tries and tests us by how He leads us and by what He has revealed up to any specific moment in time.

There are different examples of this in the early Church. One important example early on that was difficult for some to receive, was God’s revelation that the gospel was to now go to the gentiles. This was new and it was a great change being required in the thinking of most. This put the Church to the test to see if all would continue to follow how God was leading them. The response from each person would determine if they had the ability to judge various situations in a righteous manner involving the gentiles   according to that new truth God had revealed to them.

This example can be likened today to what God has revealed to His Church about true freedom that is being restored to women by removing them from the kind of bondage they have been experiencing in the world for the past 6,000 years. In the Church now and in the Millennium that is coming, women are not second-class citizens who can be treated as inferior by men or looked upon by men as being in subjection to them. Such subjection would only be the case if it were on a spiritual plane when the need to administer God’s government might arise. In like fashion, there will be women who may also need to administer God’s government toward a man who in turn should be in subjection to God in such a case. In the Church now and into the future, God is removing the “curse” that started in the beginning due to the sins of Adam and Eve.

Some in the Church are still battling this and being tried by it, although this truth began to be delivered to the Church more than two years ago. This affects how husbands sometimes “think” it is permissible to treat a woman in a controlling manner as though they are in subjection to such demands or in how they might speak in a commanding manner when they have no right to do so. Not only is there no right to do so, but it is also sin. Even a few (a very few) men in God’s ministry are dealing with this new and “present truth” in how they are responding to a woman who is over them in the administration of the government of God in the Church. In some cases, there is more than one woman over them as a matter of God’s spiritual government. The one whom a few are having a difficulty with is ordained a prophet, as Deborah was a prophet. These few must fight this battle (if it is one for them), just as some in the early Church had to fight their wrong thinking concerning the gentiles. A person must change in their thinking as God reveals more truth to them in order for them to come into greater unity and oneness with Him. Such changes of new revelation of truth often test and try people as to their faithfulness to God and their willingness to follow when, where, and how He leads.

So as God reveals more to us we have to address changes in how we think if we desire to truly judge matters of life in a righteous manner   according to the ways, standards, truths, and righteousness of God’s word. We cannot serve God if we rely on our own ability to discern right and wrong, righteousness and unrighteousness, truth and error. After all, that has been the problem from the beginning.

[The rest of “Extraordinary 4 1/2 Years” will be in Pt. 2 next week.]

Since God has revealed it is not yet time for His Son to return, there are areas of our websites that must be updated to reflect what God is revealing. As I was beginning to rewrite some of this and more thoroughly explain some areas that need to be addressed, it struck me that I should first write a post. This post will explain some of those matters that will be addressed on our websites, but those issues are going to have to wait a while because it is more expedient that the Church receive this information first without having to search for it. This post is also very timely to Pentecost.

You should find it exciting as we address several issues because it is as a result of all that we have experienced (witnessed) that God is now revealing more to us. As we go through these things that God is clarifying and magnifying for us, try to consider how God has used our experience(s) to increase our ability to more fully grasp why and how we have been molded as we have. Experience can be an incredibly powerful teacher, and God is using this to reveal greater understanding. This process, that would have taken many years and has now been shortened dramatically, has brought about understanding with deep spiritual insight and a much greater measure of faith.

There are always those who find fault and seek to discredit God’s servants, and undoubtedly, some will also foolishly recount their misunderstanding of “no man knows the day or the hour” of Christ’s return. They would still be wrong. God is not at this time giving me a specific year to announce, but He will. Yet for the Church, He wouldn’t even need to give that specific date now, as the Church will know well in advance when Christ is coming   to the “day” and to the “hour” because of truths God has revealed to the church.

Someone was recently heard saying, “Why does he (me) have to set dates?” The simple answer is that it has been God’s will. All prophecy will come to pass, but it may also change along the way in both timing and magnitude if God reveals He has changed it or has not yet revealed all the truth in a matter. Not everything that God says in matters of prophecy for the future is written in stone, for God can and does change His mind, and when God does so He also reveals that to (through) His prophets.

There are Biblical accounts of those who have prayed and even fasted before God in order to seek Him and ask that He change an event that was to come to pass (prophecy). Isaiah told King Hezekiah that he was to get his house in order because he was about to die. After Hezekiah sought God in prayer, God told Isaiah to return to Hezekiah and tell him that he would be given 15 more years of life. Yet it later states that Hezekiah did not render according to that benefit that God had shown him. Instead, Hezekiah’s heart became lifted up with pride and God then sent the prophets Isaiah and Micah to tell of the destruction He was then going to bring upon Judah and Jerusalem. “Not withstanding Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Eternal did not come upon them (Judah and Jerusalem) in the days of Hezekiah” (2 Chr. 32:26).

Another well-known account is that of Jonah who was sent to Nineveh to tell them God was going to destroy them within 40 days for all their evil, but the people repented and fasted before God. “God saw their works that they turned from their evil way and God changed His mind of the destruction that He had said He would do unto them, and He did not” (Jonah 3:10).

As God molds His way of life within those who desire that and if they yield to that process then who is it that can stand before the Eternal God and tell Him what He can give or cannot give unto His own Church? Can God change what (or to a degree of what) He says through His prophets? Whenever God changes, or reveals a specific purpose, or a greater truth in any matter, especially about prophecy, He will reveal it through His apostles and/or prophets. That is exactly how God has always led and worked with His Church. Truth, however, never changes, but it is clarified and magnified to God’s people as He leads His people farther and farther out of error and into greater unity and oneness with His word   His truth.

Having said all this, if the exact year of Christ’s return is not given before hand, it will most assuredly be known once the events of the Second Trumpet occur and are made manifest to the entire world. Then the exact day and hour will be known as God has revealed it through two great truths concerning this matter. First, it is that Christ will return on the Day of Pentecost. So God’s Church is still moving forward, just as we did last year, from Pentecost to Pentecost.

The second great truth regarding this matter, which will be discussed more in this post, is that there are two periods of time with the same name   “The Day of the Lord.” We, as God’s Church, have just finished experiencing the first one, and the one that follows is the one in which the Second Trumpet will become physically manifest, with that “Day of the Lord” then ending with the Seventh Trumpet on the beginning of Pentecost. That will be according to Jerusalem time, and not only will that exact day be known well in advance, but the hour and the very minute.

Sealing of the 144,000:
As a result of all that we have experienced in this past year, God is now clarifying more concerning the 1335-day count in the Book of Daniel. He could not have revealed more than what we were given leading up to the Feast of Trumpets on September 30, 2008 because of what the church would first have to “experience” in his creation process.  At this time, God gave us to know that the count and the sealing of the 144,000 began on this day. So God is now giving us more. Pay close attention to what you now read as God is clarifying much about this account.

The Feast of Trumpets 2008 was the day for the beginning of the final sealing for those who would be included in the final count of the 144,000 who will come with Jesus Christ to set up the reign of the Kingdom of God on earth. The 144,000 will reign with Jesus Christ, and the reign of Satan will no longer exist over the earth.

This process of sealing all those remaining who would be added in order to fulfill the complete count of 144,000 began on that Trumpets of 2008, but was not completed until Pentecost of 2012. Some were sealed on that day of Trumpets 2008, while others were sealed throughout the following 1335 days, including the very last day. During that period of time and into the period of “final witness,” some would still be tried and tested to determine the final individuals who were yet to be added to this specific count of those who would reign with Christ.

Throughout this period of time, as individuals were tried and tested, some were sealed, and others were judged that they would continue living (physically) on into the Millennium to continue serving God during that time. Yet a few others were judged that they should not live into the Millennium due to their response to God regarding those trials and tests. These will be among the 7,000 “mentioned by name” who are not to enter that new age as described in Revelation.

This period of 1335 days ended on Pentecost 2012. That day was a momentous time in God’s great plan and so much so that we (God’s Church) had believed this would be the day of Christ’s return, but God had more that He was going to perform and reveal that must first be fulfilled. God’s Church has always believed Jesus Christ would return at the end of the 3 1/2 years spoken of in the Book of Daniel and at the end of the corresponding time of God’s two witnesses. God had not yet revealed that there was more to follow that must first be fulfilled before Christ’s coming.

Pentecost 2012 was indeed a momentous day in God’s great plan because it revealed a process that had now become complete in the first great phase of God’s “new creation” of fulfilling His work of preparing 144,000 people over a 6,000 year period of time. All these people through time had now been made ready to reign in the Millennium. The completion of this process of all who have been made ready to reign with Christ and have waited in faith for the promise of God’s Kingdom are spoken of in the Book of Daniel. By the day of Pentecost of 2012, all 144,000 had been sealed and God’s Kingdom had been made ready to reign. “Blessed is he who waits and comes to the thousand three hundred and thirty fifth day” (Dan. 12:12).

However, before the day of Christ’s reign with the 144,000 can come, there are two other great periods of timing in God’s plan that must first be fulfilled. These events are referred to by the same name   the Day of the Lord. Both are “prophetic days” that are an actual year in length and both run from an annual holy day of Pentecost to the following Pentecost.

The first “Day of the Lord” was from Pentecost of 2012 to the Pentecost of May 19, 2013. This prophetic day was all about God’s Church and not about the world. We (God’s Church) had first believed that this Day of the Lord was about the world, which would mean that upon its completion, Jesus Christ would return. We believed that Christ would return after the 1335 days of Daniel’s prophecy and after the related period of the “final witness” of God’s two witnesses. But on that day of Pentecost (May 27, 2012), God revealed to His Church that we had entered a new period of time called the “Day of the Lord.”

At that time, God did not reveal that there were two separate days of the prophetic Day of the Lord. Since God’s Church had no such knowledge of another prophetic day with the same name that was about the Church, we believed it was the one about the world, which was the only one we knew anything about. We knew that the “Day of the Lord” about this world would end with Christ’s return. So God’s Church believed that the prophetic Day of the Lord from Pentecost of 2012 to Pentecost of 2013 was about God’s final judgment on this world. Before that “day” was over, God revealed that this particular Day of the Lord was about His Church and that the one about the world was yet to follow. It is at the end of the prophetic day concerning this world that Christ will return.

The Church’s Day of the Lord:
The “day” following the 1335 days of Daniel’s prophecy is the first of two “prophetic days” that are each an actual year in time. This first day that is about God’s Church is also referred to in prophecy as the “year of recompense (retribution)” and as the “day of the Lord’s (Eternal’s) vengeance.” Yet these same terms are used far more often in reference to God’s relationship with this world and only a very few instances relate to God’s relationship to the Church.

Because of this, the use of these terms are indeed a two-edged sword, for one concerns God’s judgment in His relationship with the world and His punishment that is the result of that judgment. In the case of the world, the Day of the Lord (Eternal) is about God’s retribution, recompense, and vengeance upon unrepentant mankind in the year it is executed.

These same terms, although used only a few times in this context, are in regards to God’s relationship with His Church and His judgment to recompense and avenge (translated as vengeance, but also carries the definition of avenge) His people. The word translated as recompense means retribution, as to repay in the sense of “punishment” for evil that has been done, or to “reward” for good that has been done. In this case concerning God’s Church, this involves both consequences, depending upon whom it was that was judged.

In the “Day of the Eternal” that was about God’s Church from Pentecost of 2012 to Pentecost of 2013, the judgment of God had been “executed” upon God’s Church. In this case, it was primarily to give “reward” to His people (to be received both now and in the future) for the good being done (through God in them). This period of the execution of God’s judgment followed 3 1/2 years of witness the Church lived, which reflected 6,000 years of man’s response and attitude toward God. That spiritual response to God is primarily revealed in the treatment of God’s own people by the world. It should also be noted, as it has always been through time, that not all who have been called can stand in such times of opposition against themselves. They choose the easy way of self instead of yielding to God to live his way of life. That inability to fully yield to God continuing in them always reflects one’s true relationship with God, as it is only through Him that each person can stand.

So how was this first prophetic day a blessing and reward to God’s people? In the thinking of the world and of Satan, it is ironic, but it is by going through great trials of adversity and refining through fire (trial) that we can actually grow faster spiritually and be tried and proven in greater (growing) faith. This process has been covered in recent posts. We were blessed and rewarded beyond measure because of what we experienced in the time of witness and of our holding to God’s truth. As a whole, we have been made many times stronger and blessed (rewarded) with greater spiritual character, strength, and resolve that was molded (created) in us. This does not account for how God will reward His people once the Millennium has been established, which is far beyond what we can know at this time. Those things (future rewards) have now been set if we simply continue in the faith.

Hidden in the midst of scriptures about God’s judgment to come upon this world and the punishment He will unleash upon it is a verse that is dual in fulfillment, as one leads to the fulfillment of the other. It is a progressive revelation similar to the revelations given in Joel that are all about the complete fulfillment of the “Day of the Lord.” Although focusing on the final prophetic day that ushers in the age of God’s Kingdom on earth, these verses in Joel are even referred to on Pentecost in 31 AD as being partially fulfilled in the beginning process that was being experienced at that time by God’s spirit being poured out upon all flesh. It was not yet happening upon all flesh, but was leading to that time as a progressive and continuing process of God’s new creation of Elohim.

This scripture being mentioned that has remained hidden and is dual in fulfillment is in the midst of the Book of Isaiah: “For it is the day of the Lord’s vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion” (Is. 34:8). Although this verse has been quoted in the past, it has only been partially grasped. God is now revealing its duality.

The “day” of the Lord’s vengeance is both a simple statement that it is God’s “time” to avenge His people as well as a “time” to pour out vengeance upon the world for rejecting Him and His people. It speaks of a year of “recompenses,” as it is about a literal year of recompense for His Church that followed their experience of living the “final witness” to this world   about this world. It is also about a literal year of recompense that will follow that is upon this world. That year of recompense for the world is for the evil it has lived by always rejecting God and is the result of God’s final judgment based on 6,000 years of human history and magnified with final judgment in the time of the final witness of 3 1/2 years.

Controversy of Zion:
Judgment carried out (executed) upon God’s Church in the year of recompense and vengeance from God was based on the final witness of 3 1/2 years that God’s people lived. It is about God’s ability to create Zion   to live in His people in order to transform them into Elohim. It is a battle that has been waged for so long as Satan and the demonic world first rebelled over the news of Zion   God’s future creation   Elohim. That battle over the controversy of Zion has also been waged with mankind for the past 6,000 years and has now become fully established by mature testimony over 3 1/2 years of God’s final witness, which also includes the final sealing of the 144,000.

The sequence of events have now been more fully illuminated to God’s people concerning Christ’s coming, revealing God’s work and purpose for doing everything as He has. God could not reveal everything about specific timing before hand as it would not have produced the same results of transformation and the production (creation) of strong standing faith as it has. If we had known in the beginning of the 1335 days what we do now, it would not have produced what it did and most would not have survived spiritually to this day. Instead, the spirit of Laodicea would have been awakened, come to life, and would have destroyed most in God’s church.

What is next? We have experienced the 3 1/2 years of God’s final witness upon which God’s final judgment regarding the Church and the world is based. That judgment is being carried out as He is avenging Himself upon Satan and the demonic world. God’s ability to avenge was manifested through infallible truth that has been revealed through Satan’s failure to destroy the Church over the five-month period when he was given power to deliver torment upon it. This also revealed God’s great power to create Elohim at a time of strong adversarial attacks in this continuing controversy over Zion. This was also an avenging victory against what Satan had done during the apostasy. The apostasy took place in God’s Church because it was weak through sin and not as a direct result of Satan’s power and ability of his own. This first “Day of the Lord” ended on Pentecost of 2013.

So what is next? The second (last) “Day of the Eternal” will follow. This will be God’s time to execute His final judgment of vengeance and recompense on a pride-filled world as well as binding Satan and the demonic world for 1,000 years. “For the day of the Eternal of hosts will be upon everyone who is proud and lofty (self-elevated), and upon everyone who is lifted up, and they shall be brought low” (Is. 2:12). As mentioned before, we look to the physical manifestation of the Second Trumpet which will reveal that final time. God has given us incredibly important dates in time (though we haven’t been given all understanding of them before they occurred) and every one of them has been prophetic in fulfillment about bringing His Kingdom to reign on this earth and about the day of Christ’s coming.

As we go forward, God will continue to reveal more as He magnifies and clarifies what He is working in and through our lives. Just as it has already partly been covered in this post, there is no need to now give the “year” of Christ’s coming. We do know the day and the hour and we may even know the year. But just as it was in the beginning before our “final witness” actually began when we were not to discuss or reveal the second witness, this too is not to be given. Most in the Church knew who that witness was because God had revealed it plainly to them by His spirit and what had been given through sermons to that time that were inspired by Him.

In a very short time, God will more fully reveal why He is not making the “year” public as the controversy of Zion is still being waged. As God’s Church moves forward, we are still moving from Pentecost to Pentecost.

Over the past few posts, God has been preparing us for this one. There are things we have been given that have helped us to focus upon where God is leading us and to give us better understanding of what and why we have experienced such a strong spiritual assault (far, far greater than the norm) over a five month period of time. This knowledge has also opened a door so that we can more clearly see that God is giving us more understanding in regards to the Thunders and Trumpets of Revelation.

It is not an easy process for us to learn in such a manner (through suffering), but there is great purpose in how and why God reveals these things to us in the manner He does. We have touched upon some of these reasons in the last few posts. What is most important to understand more deeply is how God is trying and refining us individually and as a body. For those who will yield themselves to this process, God is molding a maturing faith, godly character, conviction, and spiritual strength within us. It is like the example of refining gold mentioned in the last post. We are tried and tested in fire and the impurities will then rise to the surface in those conditions. When this happens in our life individually, we can then see the dross and we are to work at getting rid of it, for it is impure and not to remain in us. This process heavily involves repentance and the exercising of humility, whereby we can grow even more. God also uses this process to purify the Body of Christ in order to remove what He has tried and tested in fire that will not humble itself before Him, but has instead become lifted up with pride and self-justification for not following His way.

Another purpose for God revealing things to us as He does is because of what He is working out in order to bring Satan and the demons to a time of great judgment upon them, and because of the spiritual wars that are part of this process that include strategies and timing that are critical in great wars.

There is yet another great purpose God is working out in how he is revealing truth to us. The example of our experiences through such suffering will benefit those who live in the Millennium and in the Great White Throne time period because they will be taught this lesson and be able to learn through it. As a result of our experiences, people living during those periods of time will be given clearer insight into God’s transforming power that works in human life. They will be given a better understanding of the process that works to produce a strong and mature faith in one’s life and they will be given greater help in their conversion process apart from the kind of trying through fire that those in Satan’s age of influence over mankind have had to endure.

Matured Faith:
As with the example of Job that was covered in the last post, Satan and the demonic world have had an open door to torment and harass God’s Church in their pursuit to separate all whom they could from God. Yet God’s Church has grown strong in His love toward one another (love waxing hot) and individual faith has been rapidly matured by God’s own power to create His “new creation”   Elohim   in a continuing progressive manner and purpose He has been working out. We are very blessed to be experiencing (living) this heightened progressive phase of His creative power at work that has been constructed (built) to be what it is today and where it is at this point that is concluding 6,000 years of God’s building process (progressive process).

We are awesomely blessed to be experiencing this time when this process for accelerated growth and rapidly maturing faith has been put to work in God’s end-time Church. We have been blessed to live a greatly enhanced stage of development (creation) toward the end of 6,000 years of construction just before entering the Millennium when God’s continuing creation of Elohim will be brought to its fullest and most mature stage yet, far greater than even now.

This brings us to the matter of God’s timing within His creating process, where the focus is Elohim and how it is most perfectly created. Yet, an adverse part of this process is reminiscent of clay arguing with the potter. In one example in Isaiah, God speaks of those who go through the motions of religion and approach Him (His House   His people) and speak as though they are at one with God, yet their heart becomes removed from following His way and is instead turned to human reasoning and intellect. It no longer remembers how God molded and lead them through faith and that it was not by what a person “thinks” (reasons) they can see and/or prove by their own ability.

How do such people remove themselves from God and turn their heart from following God by faith? “Woe to those who seek deep to hide their counsel from the Eternal, and their works are in the dark, and they say ‘Who sees us?’ (by their true activities) and ‘Who knows us?’” (Is. 29:15). In other words, they change. They begin to be more secretive in slyly seeking out others who will listen to their reasoning and their interpretations of God’s ways. If they do not find audience with some whom they approach, they will leave them alone (ignore or evade encounters with them) and continue to seek out others while they hide themselves (their true motives and true actions) from discovery.

Why some eventually remove themselves from following God and turn their heart in another direction is because of the age-old reasons and motivations that have remained the same; if such things take root in the heart, the mind will turn inward and away from God. Satan began his course of moving away from God by letting jealousy and pride grow in his reasoning. The same is true throughout the history of the Church as well. Jealousy of others, especially in areas of ordinations, has led to the fall of many such people who turn away. If people begin to judge unrighteous judgment and fail to see God leading His Church, then jealousy can become too over-powering for them, especially when Satan and demons are constantly searching out such attitudes to infect.

This kind of jealousy just in ordinations alone and the accompanying personal misjudgment by such people is something I have witnessed throughout my years in Worldwide. I’m not speaking of a few times I’ve witnessed this, but of dozens upon multiple dozens of times. In thinking of some who recently have harbored such jealousy over another person who was raised to a senior elder, they judged that I had been in error for allowing such a thing and that I really didn’t know this person and their past as I should have. Wow! It is amazing when people lift up themselves and cease to see the magnitude and evil of their own sins and unrighteous judgment of others whom God had long forgiven, just as He had done concerning their own sins. At some point in the future, this matter of God having so many in the Church to be ordained will likely be addressed further, although we were already told why   and that will yet come to pass. However, there has also been another purpose in timing with the number of people ordained. It was for the very reason (at this stage of the end-time) to try and test the Church in a powerful way. There were other ways of testing as well, but this one tends to bring unrepented dross to the surface quickly.

This process spoken of in Isaiah 29 of people who “remove” themselves from God and of their heart turning farther from Him has been the age old way of self deception, pride, and of turning away from what God had before so freely given them. They turn from the truth God called them to and/or had given them along the way after being called. “Surely your turning things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay (such will believe they have come to “see” something God has given to them instead of how they had received everything in the past), but can the work say to him who made it, ‘He did not make me,’ or can the thing that has been framed (molded, fashioned, constructed) say to him who framed it, ‘He has no understanding?’” (Is. 29:16).

God is saying in Isaiah that by turning from what He called them to (His true Church) and from where they were being fashioned (in His true Church), that although they seek to find fault with the organization or the leadership where God is working, they are actually arguing with God Himself and the means by which He is leading and fashioning His creation   Elohim. Some believe they have found fault or error with what “they believe” is unfulfilled prophecy in Thunders and Trumpets, but in doing so they no longer choose to be led by faith in all that they should have proven (by what they could have and should have lived through personal experience) to themselves of where and how God was leading them.

The object of pointing all this out is that God does not lead through human intellect and reasoning, but through spiritual revelation of living faith. The revelation of God’s will, purpose, and truth is fully in God’s control and timing   not in any of us   not in God’s prophets or apostle either. This reminds me of Ezekiel who was given much prophesy concerning the future captivity of Israel. The people mocked him and considered him a false prophet because their human reasoning was centered on what they could “see” in that Israel was already in captivity. Everyone is tried and tested often as to their oneness and unity with God. Some will seek to hold to what God has placed before them, for they see the great value and treasure it is, and have chosen to always fight for it until God’s will and purpose in them is completed. However, some will choose otherwise as has recently happened to a few and even tonight, when another has followed suit as part of this same group.

My own focus and maturity over this subject, of people choosing to leave, has grown even more as we have come to this moment in time. It has often been stated that there will be those who turn from God all the way up to Christ’s coming, and I have come to greater peace in this process as well, although it does carry certain regret (of the wrong choices of others) and sorrow for those who turn away, but I know that God will still visit them at some future time and give opportunity then of repentance that they have failed to choose now.

As for God’s Church, we must always continue to press forward and to focus on one another in a deeply caring and maturing fellowship (in God’s love being lived more richly toward one another), for what we live toward one another and toward God is the most important part of our spiritual life. We are a family   God’s Family, and we must reflect that in how we live toward one another.

It is my hope that all will choose to continue moving forward once May 19th has come and gone and Christ has not yet returned. That is the thrust of this post, for I believe God is showing us we have much to do before Christ returns and that this world has much to suffer before that day. Christ will return on a Pentecost, and we will move from Pentecost to Pentecost looking and waiting for his coming. Be patient, for all will become clearer as we move forward. There is much to give and only so much can be organized and delivered in each post. Some may not be able to do so   to continue forward. I feel badly for any who would make such a choice, but I can only answer for myself before God what I will do. Hopefully, those who choose to leave will be very few and become less and less as we move forward. Most all of you have already chosen to continue past that date because you are living by a faith that God has matured within the Body of Christ to bring us to this day and that which is yet before us.

This news may be deeply disappointing, as it is for me, for I hate this world and the ways of spiritual Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon. This world so needs God’s Kingdom, but it must come in God’s perfect time and it must fulfill His perfect purpose. As we do move forward, we will become more and more filled with excitement for how we will now be able to better serve in preparation of the Kingdom in God’s preparation for this world, for as of now we have largely been made ready as the primary structure of the Church that is to press forward! Now, a greater work is in front of us!

Know Our History:
As God was reestablishing His Church after the Apostasy, He led us to understand what our focus and work would entail by the additional description He inspired to be in our name   the Church of God - Preparing for the Kingdom of God. Since the time we were fully reestablished on Pentecost of 1998, we have been living that preparation. That is what God is doing. We are His vessels through which that preparation and work is being done.

In the beginning, God was awakening a core group, basically, a tithe of the tithe of the third of the Church that was scattered. Our focus during that phase of preparation was to reach out to and preach (and witness) to those who were scattered. There was no focus to reach out to the world as we were too puny, and more importantly, God was not calling people out of the world, but He was primarily working to mold and refine a core remnant.

The next phase began with a gradual change as a result of the first book that was written, as God was beginning to slowly shift our focus more toward a work He was going to do in the world in preparation of His coming Kingdom. All along the way, we have sought to follow where God was leading us because we did not know where to go. Then we came to 2005, and a much greater shift in the direction God was leading us, as the focus began turning more fully toward a work to be done regarding the world. It was in the middle of that year of 2005 that God began to inspire the knowledge for the need of a second book to be written. This was going to be much different from the first book and written in a far different manner. In the first book, God made it clear what needed to be covered in the chapters well before they were written. In the second one, I did not know the beginning from the end and was only given what was to be written as I was writing.

The timing for writing this second book was delayed, however, since I had a triple bypass in August and then a recovery that forced me to slow down for a time. As I was toward the end of recovery, the focus then became the sermons that needed to be prepared for the Feast of Tabernacles. Amazingly so, it was at this Feast that God brought the Church forward in a very great way   farther out of spiritual Egypt and Babylon, just as He led His Church throughout the era of Philadelphia through Herbert W. Armstrong. However, during that era there was one part of the false doctrine of the Trinity from which the Church had not yet been freed. It was during this entire Feast of 2005 that God chose to reveal Himself and His great glory more fully to His people by clearly revealing that He alone has eternal self-existing life. God revealed that He alone is Yahweh Elohim and that His Son had no prior existence to his human birth.

Knowing our history is important for where we are now, for if all do not see God leading His only Church for great purpose in this end-time, then such a person is not grounded spiritually and can easily be led away. It was in this Feast of 2005 that God chose to reveal such clear and great truth, as this separated any doubt concerning all who were scattered from the Apostasy as to where God had established His name once again and through whom He would finish it in this final age of the end-time. For those who have recently left, where do they go? To what group do they go to follow God and be taught by Him from Sabbath to Sabbath? Of all who were scattered, who knows this great truth that clearly identifies where God is? Or are some so presumptuous to believe that God is now working through them to finish His end-time work? Have such questions been asked and answered? If they have not then everything has been thrown away that God so graciously gave.

The building, establishing, and maturing of a Church   a body of people in God’s Church   does not happen over night. The greater the commission and work to be done, the longer it will take to perform it through human instruments. Even with an almost unimaginable and seemingly unsustainable growth rate of 30 % per year, the era of Philadelphia took several decades to get it to where God was going to do great work through Herbert W. Armstrong in taking the gospel into all the world.

After all that God has done in bringing His Church to this time and clearly revealing by numerous truths revealed to it up through 2005, with the most powerful revelation given in that year at that Feast, all who have been called are without excuse to deny where and with whom God is working. So does one go all the way back to the era of Philadelphia to be fed because they do not see God’s Church anywhere? If God’s Church is not out there, then there is no God, for God said it would endure to the end   that nothing could destroy it.

Prophecy:
Then God inspired 2008   God’s Final Witness to be written. Before this book was written, following God as He led us was easier   much easier than now. The truths revealed after the Apostasy and up through 2005 were revealed as matters of reality (truth) where evidence from the past existed, and then God revealed what had been fulfilled. This included all those things written about the Apostasy, the man of sin, God’s people being scattered, the stones of the temple all cast down, the Church being spewed out of God’s mouth, etc. This also included prophecy about a Messiah and his birth, life, then death, followed by immortal life as the first of the firstfruits of God’s “new creation.”

All these truths that were revealed, with God’s Church following Him as they were revealed, were much easier to receive spiritually than to follow spiritually in those things that concern prophecy that were yet to be fulfilled. Since 2005, and especially since 2008, the truths God gave His Church required a greater faith   a maturing faith   as it was no longer a matter of having things revealed that were founded in prophecy that had already been fulfilled, but now God was revealing truth contained in prophecy that was to happen in the future. It is for this reason God has molded and fashioned us through many different experiences since 2008 that we have now been brought to this time so that we are able to be led by God on a greater spiritual plane and through a matured faith that God has molded, fashioned, and constructed within us. We follow God and turn to the left or to the right quickly. We fight on and push forward with greater boldness and confidence, for we more fully know who we are   we know and live God’s Church.

Following God as He leads, through His work of fulfilling prophecy, is fully a matter of faith   not by evidence of what you can see physically   humanly. AND there has never been a time remotely like this in which a body of people has been led through so many prophetic events being fulfilled   and the greatest are yet still to come. Now we have been made ready to do that work that is before us.

People often have some funny ideas about a prophet concerning what they can do or know. There are “expectations” of a prophet that often times are not real. People are much quicker to judge and then condemn as false when things do not happen as they “think” they understand it should, but this should come as no surprise to God’s people because none of it has been meant to be easily understood, but as that which must be spiritually revealed. Then in God’s perfect time (which we will always come to see and understand) the physical manifestation and fulfillment will come to pass and only God’s own people will hold fast in faith to what has been prophesied.

I follow God where He leads. I don’t know the turns until we are there and only God through Christ reveals them. As an example that was recently mentioned about a GPS, we follow a spiritual one that is always true   always right. If there is a problem, it is only with us in our following it.

Since I wrote the second book, I believe there are probably many who think or believe that I know everything about what is written. I don’t! It is prophetic, and most of it has not yet come to pass concerning physical fulfillment. We have learned much about a spiritual fulfillment as with the 3 1/2 years of witness from God to mankind and their response. That witness is a final one and it is upon this that God places His final judgment that is to come upon mankind.

As with all prophets who wrote many prophetic things, like Daniel who declared he did not understand what he wrote but wanted to know, a prophet simply writes or speaks what is given from God. That is basically what I have done in the writing of that book. The apostle John did not know nor understand the vast majority of what he wrote in the Book of Revelation. As John’s counterpart, I have been given more about the meaning and eventual fulfillment of much of that prophesy he recorded, especially within the context of this modern age. Much has been fulfilled in the Seals of Revelation as God has revealed that the first five seals were fully about events fulfilled in the Church   events of the past. The Sixth Seal was the beginning of a transition of events within the Church that were to begin moving more and more toward the world, but the Church would always be in the midst of it all.

Since the end of 2008, we have been living by a faith that God was rapidly constructing and strengthening in us. I do not know all the events that must take place (prophetic and yet to be fulfilled) that are revealed in the Trumpets of Revelation, and not even in the Thunders, which have only partially been fulfilled. God is clearly revealing that there is much more to come.

Where We Are:
So where are we? As that question is posed, I cannot help but think of the timing that has worked out so meticulously to this time and of the mathematical probabilities for so many periods of counting that fit so precisely. This is so far past being a coincidence or a matter of chance that it becomes akin to the foolishness of the mathematical probabilities for evolution to be true. Since the day the First Seal was opened on Dec. 17, 1994, numerous periods of “count” have so perfectly fallen into place. It is with this that I think of all that the Church has been through where Satan has exercised such power against God’s Church since the Apostasy to this time when his reign of terror and torment was concluded at the end of a five month period of time. All this fits into what God has allowed him, even with his signature of the multiple of thirteen that we have addressed in the past. How fitting that the counting will now continue without any identity of Satan in it.

God’s work is simply awesome! It becomes more and more exciting the farther we go forward. There is much yet to come and the majority of prophetic events covered in 2008   God’s Final Witness are yet to come to pass, and even greater events that have not yet been mentioned.

So where are we? We are at the end of the Day of the Eternal, but not fully what we anticipated in that Day, but instead about a time that has been about God’s Church and not about this world. As we go forward, we will become more in awe of sermons God inspired from the beginning of this prophetic day and forward. God told us much, but we could not yet digest it all. This prophetic day has defined God’s Church. This Day is ending with a people who have been made to stand, having been matured in faith, molded and fashioned by God and His Son during His Day, for His people.

There is indeed more than one prophetic “Day of the Eternal” for this end-time. There will be another   the one we thought would usher in God’s Kingdom. That year will come, but God has not revealed when it will be, but when it does come we will know it and the world will see it. It is as the description of the Second Trumpet, for when that happens we will know exactly where we are in those physical prophetic events that are to unfold.

So how much time do we have? I don’t know and will not know it until God gives it. God has shown we do have a focus for timing and it is from Pentecost to Pentecost. Could it be over in the following year? Yes, and if it is, we do not have too long to wait before the effects of the Second Trumpet are seen because God is also clearly letting us know that will be more time for the events to be completed between the Second Trumpet and the time God intervenes on a Pentecost with the Seventh Trumpet. This cannot be fulfilled in just a few weeks or a couple of months. We may have several years before us, but know that the longer it is, then the greater the work God will be doing through us. God simply has not shown at this time how much more there is or how great that work will become, but it is to be more time and a greater work through us. These things may be given to us soon. We just have to look to God and wait upon Him to reveal these matters to us in His time.

If it is a few or several years more, the reality is that some of you will die in the faith. So we are to plan ahead, year by year as we go from Pentecost to Pentecost, and forward looking as well so that we can be prepared for a longer period of two, three, or even more years.

This world is on the verge of a world war that can commence at any time, but it can also be held back. We must be flexible, always on guard spiritually, and ready to move in whatever direction God leads. Right now we need to exercise some patience, for it will take time for God to work through me to give you answers to questions that are there. Answers will come   they always have   but in God’s timing as well. Hopefully all of you recognize a difference between this year and last year. God led us into His prophetic day for us and gave us a focus for that year to come   from Pentecost to Pentecost. He let us know by a post on the Sabbath of May 26th that there was more in front of us. Then this was quickly followed by a sermon that revealed even more. This year, especially within our unique condition and organizational structure, God has been preparing us over the last few posts for this post. I wasn’t sure that was the case, but had suspicion that it was, and now looking back it is obvious. We are even being told a little more in advance (than last year) that we have more before us and perhaps quite a bit more. It all depends upon how much work is before us.

It is my hope that next Pentecost we will see the return of Jesus Christ. If it is, we will not be uncertain for long because God is letting us know that what He will perform and allow to come upon mankind will not happen over one day, one week, or even over a few months, but will instead be experienced longer by mankind because it is the only way to bring the measure of despair and humility to mankind that they must experience, that which is necessary before God’s Kingdom can be established.

Fifth Trumpet:
An elder asked a good question about the post that spoke of what had occurred in the Church as a result of the Fifth Trumpet and the five month period we have just experienced. This person was unclear about what was being said about the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Trumpets as well. It is a good question as statements in that post were made without any explanation at all. The truth is I couldn’t give more, but only gave what was being given to me as I wrote that post. I did not understand it fully either, but knew that it was what I was to give. I knew it was the truth, but I did not understand it all either. God is now giving more, and more will be given in future posts about other matters such as the Day of the Eternal and other similar areas where questions will naturally occur and where we have desire to see more. God will give more as He leads us, but only when He determines to do so.

It needs to be stated first that we do not know when (the actual timing) the Trumpets of Revelation are blown. This was mentioned in a recent post that if it were God’s purpose He could have had them blown at the very beginning. They could have blown together at the same time, or one right after the other, or at other intervals of time, but we do not know. Anyone who “thinks” they know or believe that they have figured it out is incredibly foolish, for this can only be known by direct revelation from God. Who is the prophet to whom this has been revealed? I know of two who have not had this revealed to them as of yet, and I know of no other prophets who live.

Candidly, what can be known is what God has given to His Church to this moment in time. People can tend to look at these trumpets as only physical fulfillment that happen at the moment each trumpet is blown. As it has been pointed out, that is not so. Before this is over, you will come to clearly see that there is also some overlapping in these events. Over a period of time, God has been leading us to come to see that the Fifth Trumpet is not about a single great physical event that involves Germany and a United Europe taking the United States into captivity in a literal sense as having full control over the U.S. and then capturing hoards of people and placing them in prisons and concentration camps.

This trumpet is the most difficult to see because it is the only one that involves spiritual revelation of events that involve God’s Church, and those events had to be fulfilled at a specific moment in time apart from the actual physical affects that will yet come as a result of the blowing of all the trumpets. God has not revealed everything about this Fifth Trumpet, but has given us a much clearer picture now that we understand that Satan and the demons were given free reign to torment God’s Church for five months. This should now be easier to see and understand. It is much like the Church knowing very little about the Apostasy before it actually came and with no indication of when it might occur specifically in time. God was unable to reveal very much because it was to try, test, and become judgment upon God’s Church. In a similar manner, we could not be given to know what was to come upon us during that five-month period of time or it would not have produced the witness and result that it did. It would not have been “just” to reveal anything about it in advance for it to accomplish what God had given Satan to do. We simply could not be given this knowledge in advance anymore than what happened before the Apostasy and nothing more could be given in advance about it, for then it would not have been true and just either.

Suffice it to say that the first phase   a spiritual one   the only spiritual one within any trumpet   was laid out within the Fifth Trumpet. This was only to be revealed to Satan and the demons just before they were given way to attack God’s Church through a specified period of time. There is also a duality in this trumpet fulfillment that is tied directly to Satan and the entire demon army. It is also described as a woe   the First Woe.

Satan was highly unsuccessful in his attack upon God’s Church because of what God had fashioned and matured within us. There is no more that applies to God’s Church from any of the trumpets except for collateral effects that may be experienced from the physical fulfillment of the trumpets. However, there is a duality of torment that will also be upon the scattered nations of Israel that Satan and the demonic world will inflict upon. It will involve Europe and it will involve war. There will be another fulfillment of five months wherein Satan and the demons will wreck havoc and torment upon these nations.

God also revealed long ago that the effects of this Fifth Trumpet would also be used to bring about a great change within the Church of God that was scattered after the Apostasy. It will have much to do with the 63,000 whom God will bring back. As I write this I know that God is giving us much insight concerning this trumpet, but far from all. I know we understand that, and some of its purpose, so be patient and be thankful that our Father who loves us so very much is giving us what He is.

So when will the physical events of this trumpet come to pass? We don’t know and we are not to know until they have begun. We have survived a spiritual “woe” upon the Church and have done so in great victory (the word “overcome” quoted so often in the N.T. is from the Greek word “conquer”) because of what God has molded and fashioned within us   all to God’s glory for what He has given us to conquer. The world will not fair so well when the physical phase of this woe is unleashed. That phase   the physical fulfillment of the Fifth Trumpet   will not occur until after the 2nd, then 3rd, then 4th Trumpet effects have become physically manifest.

The Church of God - PKG presses forward. “The wars are not over!” as was stated in the post “One War is Over and Another is About to Begin.” War in this world is coming. It is not long into the future, but it is not this week either. We will wait upon God to lead us and reveal to us what we need when we need it. One of the greatest spiritual assaults ever waged is now over, but the war itself will continue. Satan and the demons will now turn more of their attention upon this world. Although the power of these beings against us has been greatly diminished in power and strength, because God and Christ dwell more fully in us, they will still seek out that which becomes weak. Don’t let up in battle and don’t let down spiritually by slipping into a lukewarm and sluggish spirit. We must fight ever more determined as we press forward to the Pentecost of Christ’s coming.

As I write this, as of this moment (the weekly Sabbath), we are two weeks away from Pentecost 2013. Today, we as God’s people are being blessed to receive another sermon, to hear what God has inspired to be given to further mold and fashion us, to help our thinking come into closer unity, oneness, and likeness with His word (logos - His mind, His revelatory thought), and all of this within the realm of God’s creating power to transform our minds.

What cost, what price could you place upon this creating process? God has already shown the value He has placed upon our transformation, and it came at great sacrifice. It began with God sacrificing peace for over vast millennia upon vast millennia by allowing an angelic rebellion within the spirit realm. This was followed by another great sacrifice in this present age of man by the torture and killing of His own Son, who lived a righteous life, and thereby became our Passover and our High Priest. The Eternal’s sacrifice for our sake has been beyond what we can begin to grasp or fully appreciate, and He has had great patience for His greatest work yet of creation   Elohim (the Family of God). What is our cost and our sacrifice in comparison? It is so very small.

It is relatively easy for the human mind to magnify the suffering in life that we experience, and although all suffering is distasteful and at times seemingly impossible to bare, the reality is we can bare it, but how we bare it determines what we become, even in God’s Church.

In the last post, I said I did not know if it might be my last in this age, but here is another one   another blessing we can receive from God as we willingly participate in God’s creation into Elohim through the continuing process of the transforming of our mind. Much of that transforming process is delivered in large part through sermons, posts, and other communicated information that God gives to us. The end result of such transformation is truly glorious, awesome, and far beyond our ability to fully comprehend, but what we do see is so incredibly exciting and inspiring.

There are times, probably far more than most (just as a simple reality), I have felt great weight and concern for God’s people concerning the day of Christ’s coming and of his standing once more on the Mount of Olives. But then God helps me bring that “into check” and proper focus by giving me to know that His love is so very much greater and mine is so very, very, very small in comparison and that His people are fully in His power to deliver. Just thinking about how we could even have such pressing concerns or weight sounds so foolish when we see it in this proper perspective, but we are still very human indeed. Christ also makes it clear that he will carry that which we simply cannot and that by such faith and understanding, our weight is not heavy at all.

The reason I mention all this is because we are two weeks from Pentecost 2013 and no physical consequences of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Trumpets have yet been made manifest. To the normal human mind this can carry great weight and concern, especially if we consider May 27th of last year; but we are to put it into a proper perspective of what God is doing, along with the knowledge that God is in full control. So with that perspective and no burden of weight to carry, today I still wait and I look for those things to become manifested from those Trumpets before Christ’s coming. It is with this that I must pause and explain what I have been blessed to see over the past few weeks that has given me greater peace and a growing excitement on a spiritual plane that is beyond anything (in maturity) I have experienced in the past. Just as a few have written and stated the inspiration they have received recently as they have recalled Herbert W. Armstrong stating, “When it is all said and done, we win.” He explained how he had good news because he had read the book (the Bible) to the end and it says (paraphrasing the Bible) “we win.” It is within this context that I am going to explain the excitement and inspiration I have in terms relating to where we now are in time.

Observing Patterns:
Our senior evangelist, Johnny, recently referred to “patterns” in the sermon he gave. There are patterns we can observe and learn from concerning how God is working in the Church and in the world. After the apostasy, this matter of patterns had a lot to do with how God worked with us to teach and lead us as a remnant of His people.

Over the past few posts, God has given me much greater insight into His creation process at work in His Church through the time of His final 3 1/2 year witness (living testimony) and His judgment concerning this world and the Church that was scattered. In this end-time, we have learned much more about God than we already knew or fully understood, and God has given us more of both (knowledge and greater understanding). As the Church, we have lived a strong revelation of the Seventh Thunder, but the world hasn’t yet experienced this.

As we focus on what we have gone through during this time of witness and then this additional prophetic Day of the Eternal, there are patterns and truth (reality) we can draw upon to see and learn much more, for we have been living what God has given to His Church. Before this period of time of the final witness even began for God’s Church, God began drawing larger numbers into it to become part of His work and witness in this final time of the Day of the Eternal, as well as being part of the witness (living it) of those first 3 1/2 years. Over this period of time, God was going to do something new (a special witness) and mold (build and fashion) something new that has not existed in the same manner or to the same degree as in the past. Look at our recent history.

Although we have not fully understood it, it was given to us from God that we had come to the end of Laodicea once we had come to the time that the 3 1/2 years of final witness were to be fulfilled. God revealed that we had entered a different time for God’s Church, not one identified as one of the seven eras, but one that would be part of God’s final witness. It really is so awesome when you see it! What did God do?

The remnant out of Laodicea   those brought to repentance from that era   remained small and of similar size for years, even as there were continuously those who would leave and others who would come. Then something changed. God began to stir up interest in a book entitled, 2008-God’s Final Witness, and through that process God began to draw larger numbers to live into that time of 3 1/2 years of witness and still more were called once it had begun. We grew so fast that in our current state of organization (at that time) we were overwhelmed and began to address needed changes that led to a much stronger means of caring for God’s Church, including those who were being called to participate in a powerful witness about this age of mankind.

God enabled us, as a very small group, to be able to send out approximately 750,000 books into almost every country of the world, with another 1,500,000 books downloaded from our website, which have all been translated from English into six other languages. We cannot know the number of people who have read these books, but it was all about God’s witness and a matter of His work. God could have chosen a much smaller number to be sufficient for that portion of His witness (testimony), but this is what He did. It is God’s work.

As only God does the calling, one can look at the numbers of those called at any time to see what God is doing. Over the past few decades, this pattern reveals much about specific moments in time and reveals much about what God is working out at that time. We are to learn from such things. One can learn a great deal about how God was building the Church through the time of Mr. Armstrong that gave real encouragement and strength to him as His apostle by God giving growth to the Church at the rate of 30 % per year through His calling. That is an incredible rate of growth to experience in an organization over such a long period of time. God was doing a great work that was to go out into all the world in a powerful manner and that was accomplished by the kind of financial strength that was given to Mr. Armstrong to accomplish God’s purpose of Mat. 24:14.

Then this pattern changed throughout Laodicea as there were great fluctuating changes that occurred at different times (of which there is not time to go into that now). Just before we entered the time of the final 3 1/2 years of witness, and then increasing even more toward the beginning of that period of time, there is a pattern that reveals God had strong purpose for increasing our numbers in a manner of giving incredible growth in size, and then just as abruptly God decreased that pace dramatically by calling fewer and fewer the closer we came to the end of this 3 1/2 year period. There are awesome things to be gleaned from all of this, but the primary one is to recognize and remember that only God the Father does the calling, and it is evidence of that which establishes a pattern from which we can learn much as is being covered in some of this post.

Inspiring Witness:
So what occurred in the lives of those who have yielded to God’s calling through that time of witness? As you step back and look at it with the focus on that aspect, it is beautifully inspiring. As a prelude to the new age of the Kingdom of God reigning on earth, God is revealing as a witness concerning His Church what He has molded, fashioned, and built within His Church at this unique time when 6,000 years is being brought to a close. It is a witness against Satan and the demonic world, and in contrast, it is a witness to the glory, power, majesty, and creative excellence of God Almighty. This is so powerful and awesome because this witness has occurred at a time when Satan’s deceptions upon the world in the form of spiritual Assyria, spiritual Egypt, and spiritual Babylon have reached their pinnacle of evil influence over this world. Now, Satan’s way   his system   is starting to implode upon itself, while God’s way   and the witness of it   has become so very spiritually strong in His people that they are now filled with great faith on a scale and in a manner never before revealed within the Church.

I have witnessed   we have witnessed   maturity and spiritual strength living in a physical spirit begotten people on a level not seen before in God’s Church. Though we have been blessed to witness it and to have been living it, it is not something to be lifted up by, but to be humbled to know we have been so blessed to experience such power at work in the Church   in us   for this is the fruit and result of Christ and His Father’s work in the Church.

What is being said here? There has never been a time in history where people have been given so much spiritual insight as they are now, nor over such an incredibly short space of time. Not only are the tools available to quickly and easily dispense such a large amount of knowledge from God, but never before has so much spiritual knowledge (truth) been available to God’s people. God’s plan being carried out through progressive revelation has been to bring the Church to this time and prepare us for the most incredible time of all   the time for the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth and a new age for mankind in the Millennium.

At this end-time, Satan has been lifted up with some of his greatest pride ever as he believed he had dealt a powerful death blow to God’s Church from the time of the apostasy. However, this has only been a service to us since that time, and it will only serve over the next 1,100 years to strengthen God’s people due to the lessons that have been magnified as a result of the apostasy. One of the greatest lessons is that a person who is begotten of God’s own spirit can be easily lifted up with pride by the vastness of the wealth of knowledge God gives His people, and those spiritual riches can be mistakenly thought of as coming from self. Another powerful lesson that is magnified by the apostasy is that no one can let down spiritually, become lukewarm, and then expect that God will continue dwelling in them. There is no meaningful commitment in a spirit that is lukewarm about their calling, and God cannot and will not dwell within, nor work His new creation in such a person’s life. These are great lessons not grasped before the apostasy occurred, but now carry great meaning and motivation for God’s people.

God’s remnant Church has learned these lessons well. As a result, by the means God has used to magnify a singular unified message to His people with a vastness of truth never before revealed on such a level, God has refined His people through fire that has been unique to this end-time through the very truths He has revealed. Over this period of such a short time of witness, God has more quickly fashioned and produced a powerful living faith through His spirit working in us. As it was with the apostasy, Satan believed he would destroy us, especially over this period during the past five months, when he and his demonic army were allowed to have power to wreck havoc, pain, and torment upon God’s people. Why would our Father who loves us so very much allow, and not just allow, but open the door for Satan, giving His permission to do this to His own people? To understand this is to become even stronger in faith and gratitude for living at this time to witness (to live) this to God’s great purpose. As for Satan, as always, he does not get it. He does not understand the power of spiritual faith that God can mold and fashion in the mind of those with whom he is transforming.

The Witness of Our Life:
Can you grasp the sheer awesomeness of what we have been blessed to live? How much more could be stacked against a people so that they could so easily be scorned, ridiculed, and mocked by the world, so easily scorned by God’s Church that was scattered after the apostasy, and so easily scorned by Satan himself? Even before we entered the time of our “witness,” it was openly declared who the two end-time witnesses were. This revelation alone painted a giant target on ourselves because this sounds so outrageous and preposterous to others. Yet that was minor compared to the fact that one was a woman, and then secondly, that they were husband and wife. In the eyes of others, how “far out” does that sound? Then before it had actually begun, God revealed the truth that Jesus Christ would be returning on Pentecost instead of on the Feast of Trumpets as we had believed, and it was then announced that all our timing was now pushed forward by about eight months. God could have revealed this well before, but for the very purpose of what He was working out concerning His Church, He revealed it later.

God’s people will follow Him wherever and however He leads them, and all this is a matter of our living by faith and truth that God reveals to us.

We could list many other things that are seemingly preposterous to others about what we believe (as with women ordinations), what we have taught and followed, but you should get the point of all this by now. Yet there is one more thing that needs to be added. The “topping on the cake” or the crescendo to all of this is that the one leading this group is in prison, having been convicted of purposely evading the payment of taxes to his government, which is so very untrue, and those items picked out to prove the case were twisted, untrue, and conjured up to paint a picture that was also false. This has happened throughout time to God’s servants and even to His own Son. So yes, we have been made an easy target for the Church that was scattered, for this world, and for Satan himself. But that is exactly what God has purposed in order to reveal the Seventh Thunder in a manner that will, in God’s time, shake this earth!

Considering what has taken place over these past five months with Satan attacking God’s own Church, and that God gave him free reign to do this to the people He loves so dearly, reminds me of God’s conversation with Satan when He said to him, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one who fears God, and eschews evil?” (Job 1:8). God then allowed Satan to move against Job in a very devastating manner.

What did this matter of God allowing Satan to attack Job accomplish? It produced deep spiritual conversion, understanding, and living faith that Job had not known before. The same has been accomplished in an even more powerful way within the Church. This account about Job established a story that carries incredible lessons and spiritual inspiration that can be received from it. And we are still learning because what has been allowed to be upon us has produced much, much more in the lives of many, and this has established a powerful witness to the glory and power of God due to His producing and fashioning such a creation within His begotten Family   minds that have been transformed that have lived incredibly strong faith and have exercised such focus of purpose to fulfill God’s will against the strongest of adversities, mockery, and attacks from Satan and his demons over such a long period of time. What happened to Job has happened to the Church in a much greater way and for a far greater purpose.

As I am writing this, I am truly moved as I consider the product of what God has created because I have never witnessed such a powerful thing in God’s Church to this time. It is a testament to God’s power to mold and fashion each of us in such an awesome way. During the apostasy the Church had grown horribly weak spiritually and was so very lukewarm that God spewed out the entirety of the Church and ceased to dwell in it. The Church had become an easy target for Satan and the demonic world. This time, over the past 5 months, it appeared to Satan (from his viewpoint), as it did to all who have mocked and ridiculed God’s Church, that we were easy targets and would be defeated, but none of these grasp the level of faith, perseverance, and steadfastness that God had molded and built into His people. Candidly, God’s people are strong in faith, as this past period of five months now testifies. It is from the work of God and Jesus Christ! Over the past couple of months, the cards and letters I’ve received echo that faith in such a powerful way, as so many have shared their personal experiences of strong trials and attacks while on the other hand relating the incredible ways in which this has made them so much stronger.

Just stop and consider how people in the Church went through great adversity as they approached May 27th and then moved forward through that time and on into another year   the Day of the Eternal. Then in your own life, consider the changes that have taken place that have made you stronger, bolder in confidence, and more deeply determined to fight on to live God’s way of life in God’s Church   not to some specific date, but throughout your life. We have gone through great fire and testing over this period of time that has made us what we have become and has produced in us a much stronger faith and boldness in God’s way   in His truth. We have grown to shrug off what the world thinks of us and are far more concerned with what God thinks. We are a family   God’s Family   that He has chosen, molded, and refined.

Less Than Two Weeks:
Today, as I continue to write this post, it is now two weeks to Pentecost. In the back of my mind I have had concern about how well God’s Church would do if there is more that will be revealed to us (more to learn and have molded in us) if Christ does not return on this Pentecost. Today, I am not concerned, but I am bolder, more confident than ever, and filled with the strongest faith yet concerning God’s perfect creation that He is working in His Church. We live by “what is” and we do not panic and we do not fear the “what if’s.” We know we are on the road to Pentecost and that Christ will return on Pentecost   “a” Pentecost   whatever Pentecost God so determines. My hope is that it is still this Pentecost of 2013, but I also know we could be given more from God   much more   that we do not yet have.

I also know that whatever God gives us and whenever He gives it that it is what is best for us and it is what is true, as we are ever growing in greater truth the more God reveals to us. He is the Creator and He molds and fashions us according to His perfect will. Even as Christ said, “My sheep hear my voice and they follow me.” I hear his voice and am following him as I always have (by God’s grace, favor, and design), and I have the peace to know that everyone who is beside me is doing the same thing. In contrast to that, I also know that those who are not beside me will be as those who have recently left and no longer hear Christ’s voice. We can only fight for this way of life by our own individual choice and determination before God, and we cannot give it to anyone else, but we are so incredibly thankful for all the others who make the same choice and continually press forward in the same Family together. That is where our peace is. If someone chooses otherwise, then I feel badly for their choice and I know they will pay a horrible price in this world for such a choice, but I do not need to carry any of that for them because I cannot.

What I see today in God’s Church truly moves me and excites me so much so that whether Christ comes now or later, God’s people have awesome times before them. God has not only strengthened His Church with powerful faith, but He has refined it by making the gold more pure by removing the dross   both done in the same refining fire! We have grown in much greater faith, unity, and purpose of spirit, unlike that which led to the apostasy as the love of many was waxing cold. The love of many today is waxing hot. We are so blessed to have gone through such refining fire and to have become such a strong Family! I find it difficult to explain in words how grateful I am to have seen this in God’s Church, to understand it, and to be a part of it with each of you.

Brethren, it is easy for the natural carnal spirit that seeks self justification to find fault with prophecy and those things written in 2008   God’s Final Witness. All prophecy is written in such a way that it lends itself to being picked apart with human reasoning, but it is from God and it is based first upon that which is spiritual and only God can reveal what it means, just as with all truths that God must reveal to the human mind by the power of His spirit. All prophecy will come to pass in exactly the way God purposes to fulfill it, and it will come to pass in His time. We learn from that process as we do in the revelation of all truth. We have lived the 3 1/2 years of witness God gave for His two witnesses to establish in that final witness. Is our job over (of the two witnesses)? Not yet. How long will it go? My hope and present belief is it will continue up to May 19th, as far as living in this physical life, but on that day our work will certainly continue on in greater purpose and power, regardless of being human or spirit.

The Prophetic Day:
We have also lived in a prophetic Day of the Eternal. It is my hope that there is only one such prophetic day in scripture that must be fulfilled, but I also know there can be more if that is God’s will and purpose that He is working out. As with God revealing the meaning and identity of Melchizedek during the Feast of Tabernacles in 2005, I now have even bolder confidence and inspired faith that if there is more work before us, God will show what it is.

The world can easily move into WWIII before May 19th, requiring God’s intervention to prevent mankind from self-destruction. I still watch (physically and spiritually) and wait upon God to fulfill His word and His promise of Christ’s coming. For the sake of this world that is held captive and is in bondage to Satan’s ways, I hope and pray Christ returns this Pentecost of 2013. If it is not, we will go forward and God will reveal far more to us about the greater purpose He has as to what we are to live.

God has brought us to this time. Whatever comes to pass, God has prepared us for it. We are strong in faith, of good courage, and we are Family.

As I begin writing this post, there are two things that really stand out in my mind that would be good to consider in order to build upon what needs to be addressed later in this post. Before I begin to explain these two matters there are a couple of things that came to mind today as I was thinking about the last post and recent events that have led into seeing the need to address these in greater detail. Once these items have been addressed, we will move into the primary purpose of this post that reveals much about how we believe and live what God has given us.

The first initial thought to be built upon is that I wonder if this might be the last post I write in this age. The point being is that I really don’t know, but I move forward following God wherever and through whatever He leads me.

As our senior evangelist, Johnny, mentioned in his last sermon about following God: “Either we believe this is God’s Church and God is leading this Church or we want to go back to Egypt. But most in God’s church, from what I am hearing, are more resolved than they ever have been. It’s what I hear. They understand that this is God’s Church and they understand that it is the Great God of this universe and His Son Jesus Christ who is leading and building His Church, and that we are on God’s time. God lets us see what He wants us to see at the time and God does reserve the right to tell us to turn right or turn left, and it should be our desire to follow God.”

This paragraph that has been quoted from Johnny’s sermon is a sermon in itself, and in actuality is the sermon he gave, and yet there is so much more. The spirit of this quote will be drawn upon to explain why the thought that “this might be the last post I write in this age” is there. This is said solely for the value of the true thoughts and feeling I have at this moment that is based upon what I believe and am therefore living.

There is no thought of “going back to Egypt,” or going off in some other direction than the one I believe God is leading us in. Over this past week, there are a handful of people who have decided they can no longer follow in the same direction. Although I obviously believe they have made a horrible choice, I have absolutely no ill will toward them nor look down upon them in any way. Each person alone is accountable before God for the choices he or she makes. I can only answer for my own self and my choices. Let me put this into a bit of a current perspective.

Questions and Doubt:
Over the past couple of weeks, there are a couple of statements that have been made by others that have been passed along to me. One statement that has been made by more than one person revolves around their stated concern that things I have written and spoken about have not come to pass, which has led to the conclusion, or doubt, of whether I am a prophet or even the one through whom Jesus Christ is leading His Body   the Church of God.

As it has been stated in varying ways at various times, I cannot give to them what is in my mind   in my spirit. I can, and do, only act upon what I believe God gives to me. So what is it that has not come to pass? Perhaps such people are primarily speaking of the fact that there has not yet been a physical manifestation of the blowing of the Second, Third, and Fourth Trumpet. Perhaps such people feel that the Fifth Thunder should be far more manifest in it fulfillment at this time.

Candidly, each person must ask and answer such things themselves before God. All I can do is go by my own personal experience and belief as I strive to always continue moving forward, following God where I believe He leads me through a process of spiritual discernment. Though it will make this a longer post, I believe it is good at this time to consolidate some of my own personal experiences as a recorded witness of the process that has brought me (and so many of you reading this) to this moment in time and why we are moving forward in the present truth with less than three weeks remaining to the coming of the King of kings.

Before I explain some of that personal experience, there is one more statement that has been brought to my attention and needs to accompany all of this. Paraphrasing a statement made by someone I’ve known for many years, a question was asked about why I hadn’t yet declared that I was not a prophet when I had clearly stated I would if the prophecies did not come to pass. This individual may believe, or wonder if, we are not well past the time that all prophesies should have been fulfilled and I should have therefore made such a conciliatory and surrendering statement. However, there is a great problem with that ever happening and that will likely be to the disgruntlement and anger of some. The reason for this not happening will be mentioned as we continue through this post, and it should be noted that I have not been living my life by being concerned about the approval of others, but of God.

To quickly shed light upon the statement I made at that time, one would need to know what I was addressing in my own life at that moment. As a matter of truth in spirit and openness to the Church and to God, I stated what was at the heart and core of my attitude (my spirit) and belief which was that if things did not come to pass as stated about prophetic events and if that is what God revealed (that I was not His prophet), then I would acknowledge it. More than that, I would seek repentance and throw myself down before the Mercy Seat of God, for I would desire to quickly change and do exactly what God revealed I should to make things right for complete reconciliation because I know (believe) I serve a very merciful and loving God.

It was not long after I had expressed such sentiment and conviction to the Church about what I would do in such an instance that God revealed to me that I was more than a prophet; I was an apostle, which was evidenced by the fruit of the remnant Church which was scattered around the world and evidenced by the truth (truth which was not prophetic in nature) He had established in the Church through me, which can only be done through an apostle. Some short time after that experience, God strengthened me further in powerful confidence and faith that I was indeed His prophet as well as His apostle. I live by what I believe. That is what God has molded in me, and I can live by no other way.

Personal Experience:
Having said what has been stated thus far about my own convictions that are a matter of my spirit that is begotten and growing in maturity in the spirit of God, I will share a small portion of that which has molded me and made me who I am today. Again, it is so very pronounced in my mind what I stated earlier, “that I cannot give to others what is in my spirit.” For I believe what has been molded, fashioned, and transformed in my spirit is by the working of God and His Son Jesus Christ. So as a matter of my own personal conviction, I must follow where I believe God leads me.

The experiences that are personal to me in my relationship and conviction toward God are far too numerous to mention in a post, but there are certain high points that stand out for me. The first was in my original calling when I knew, without study or previous Biblical knowledge, that the seventh day of the week (Saturday) was God’s Sabbath, and upon hearing about it, I was changed   convicted to keep it. At that time, at the age of 19 (turning 20 in just a few days), I was far from being religious and had no care or concern about learning anything about God. The seeing and knowing that Sabbath truth at the moment of hearing it was an immediate conviction and revelation in the mind, the working of God’s spirit I did not understand at the time, but I did experience it.

It should be stated at this point that I’m describing a process that works in all people who are called by God as He reveals truth (His word) to them. This truth I was just describing about the Sabbath came from a couple of booklets that had been written by God’s apostle at that time, Herbert W. Armstrong. Upon hearing or reading such truth that originates from God’s ministry, God communicates the knowing (the seeing) to the mind. What we read or hear in such cases is suddenly clear and simple to see, whereas without God’s spirit opening our mind to see, we wouldn’t.  As I go through these personal experiences, it needs to be understood that most of these are a matter of God working with me in order to fulfill in me at that time or at a later time the role of His end-time prophet and apostle. Sometimes there are people who believe God is revealing something new, different, or special to them other than what is given first to His Church   the leadership of His Church. That is not true. That would only cause division and confusion (opposition) in unity of the truth that He gives to His Church in only one way. Such would be fully contrary to God’s spirit of unity, harmony, and order in His Church. There is a great difference in how God reveals (communicates) truth to the mind of those whom He calls and who become members in the Body of Christ   the Church   and in how God works to reveal truth to prophets and apostles.

Continuing on with that experience of first being called and first seeing the Sabbath, that which had not been there in knowledge or belief before was suddenly in my mind. Within the same hour, the knowledge of the identity of the scattered nations of Israel was also clear in my mind. It was an experience of seeing and absolute knowing that was just there, as I later learned was spiritual in that God simply communicated to my mind (spirit) by His spirit. To each person called by God, such experience is personal and teaches what should always be remembered and never forgotten   that only God can communicate truth to the mind. You cannot   CAN NEVER   come to any truth in the mind but by the power of God’s spirit that gives it by direct revelation/communication.

We will come back to this most important matter about our calling later in this post, for we are to embrace this lesson (this truth), hold it dear, and to never forget it, which is the very thing people fail to remember when they stray from following where God leads.

One of the most important events in my life after that, which drove this truth far more deeply into me of how God communicates truth to us, was in specific knowledge God gave to me in the early 1980’s when I first was in the ministry. There are verses in John 14 and in 1st and 2nd John, that quote Christ saying, “I will come again” and as John spoke in a related matter, “Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.” As with the experience of when I was first called, I knew that these verses were not speaking of a future return of Jesus Christ nor of anything having to do with him having lived in human flesh. The only thing believed in God’s Church at that time (and continuing on to the apostasy) was that this was about Christ’s second coming in John 14. In 1st and 2nd John the expression of “Christ is come in the flesh” was interpreted as having to do with the belief that Jesus had eternally existed, but had emptied himself of godly life and power in order to live in a fleshly (physical) body and die for the sins of mankind.

Yet as when I was first called, I knew that something had to be missing here in the translation of this from Greek. It is not that I knew it because I was educated in the Greek language or Greek grammar, but God simply gave me to know back then in the early 1980’s that this was about Jesus Christ coming into and dwelling in human life through the power of God’s spirit as he said he and His Father would do. It was this same knowing that was simply in the mind without any other proof. It was nearly 12 years later when I came across a book written by a Greek scholar who had translated all the words of the New Testament from the Greek language into English and had identified every word by its proper use in Greek grammar. Sure enough, the words were not past tense nor future tense in these verses, but were akin to what would be described in English grammar as “present progressive,” meaning that it was speaking of action that was currently happening (present tense) and would continue on (progressive tense) as a constant process from that point forward. This was speaking of Jesus Christ who through the power of the holy spirit would come into our life (in the mind) and continue dwelling (abiding, living) in us (except during any period of separation due to unrepented sin).

This was a most profound and undeniable experience that strengthened me mightily in confidence, faith, and conviction within God’s ministry. The next example, a great lesson having a strong impact on me in knowing that God is the only one who can place truth into our mind by communicating it on a spiritual plane, was a series of truths that Christ gave me regarding truth about the apostasy, the man of sin, the identity of the stones of the temple, God spewing out the Church and separating it from His indwelling, the prophesied massive scattering of the Church, etc. These truths were a matter once again of absolute knowing when they were given. These were not received from others, nor believed by others, who were of the Church, and these were not learned through study or personal insight, but in every case it was the same as with my original experience when called. It was simply an absolute knowing in spiritual discernment that I knew was communicated to my spirit (my mind) from God through His spirit.

Following the experience of God revealing so many truths related to the apostasy and having had the experience of God blessing me to do that which would have been the farthest from my mind to ever even consider, let alone my aversion at the time to writing, I wrote a book. Then, after a triple bypass in August of 2005, God brought me to one of the most powerful experiences yet of His communicating His word to me in my begotten and transforming spirit. In preparation for the Feast of Tabernacles, God was revealing truth from a large portion of scripture about how He alone has eternally existed and that Jesus Christ had not eternally existed. Although the Church went through more than half a century of having truth restored to it through God’s apostle at that time, Herbert W. Armstrong, the church believed through the era of Philadelphia that Christ had eternally existed.

It is so simple, but people often have a difficult time remembering and internalizing the most basic truth about how we learn and know truth. God has to give it! He must communicate it from His spirit to ours. There is absolutely no other way to know the truths of God on a spiritual plane. Yes, there are pieces of truth that the carnal mind can come to about very basic physical knowledge. This is true in most religions calling themselves Christian, but it is not of God. One church has built its name upon the simple physical acceptance of the true meaning of the Greek word that is translated as baptize, which they know simply means to “immerse” in water and not to sprinkle with water as most others believe. Another church has built its name upon the acceptance of what they see on a physical level (through physical reasoning and intellect) that the Sabbath of God is on the seventh day of the week.

Such examples are plentiful, but none of this was revealed as spiritual knowledge from God and from His spirit to theirs. It is only physical in nature. Yet the more that a person embraces and seeks to obey God in simple straight forward instruction, even on a physical plane, the more their life will be blessed; but this does not involve a spiritual relationship with God as a result of His calling.

Only God can communicate spiritual knowledge and understanding as He does through His Son Jesus Christ. It cannot   CAN NEVER   be received by human intellect, for such is limited (restricted) strictly to a physical plane with the ability to reason and know (learn). Herbert W. Armstrong was not given the ability to see that Jesus Christ had not eternally existed and that his origin of life began with a human birth from a physical mother, Mary, and who had been begotten at conception by a spiritual Father, God Almighty. It is God alone who chooses how and when He reveals spiritual knowledge. It was not a fault of Herbert W. Armstrong that he did not know this truth, nor did it diminish him in any way as God’s apostle, but it was simply God’s knowledge to give when He chose to do so. No one can judge God in such matters, although many have judged His servant Herbert W. Armstrong over such things, as with the subject of Pentecost.

As I was being given a large amount of revelation in scripture on this subject in preparation of the Feast of 2005, I was being strengthened in a phenomenal way with this continuing and maturing experience of God communicating to my spirit His truth in these matters. I had learned long before this time that there was no other way to know such things. It was with this spiritual strength God was flooding upon me that I had such confidence and knowing that one more subject would have to be addressed in the Feast sermons, but that the knowledge of it would not be given to me until sometime during the Feast. It was about the subject of Melchizedek. By the Last Great Day, God had communicated it fully to me.

Spiritual knowledge   spiritual truth   can only be communicated by God’s spirit to our spirit. Anything else is only physically discerned knowledge. A person can read truth on our websites and grasp a limited perception about God’s plan and truth that is before them, but they cannot internalize it and cannot know it spiritually unless God gives it. Such a person can never be in full agreement with God or His Church because they are simply unable to do so solely on a plane of physical reasoning. Not only that, but even a person who has been called of God and given ability to see what is spiritual in God’s word can lose that ability to see spiritually unless God is continually dwelling in them. That is why sin must be repented of quickly because sin cuts one off from that spiritual life and spiritual insight dwelling in them. If it isn’t there then the ability to see, believe, and even have the choice to live by it is gone on a spiritual plane. Once this happens a person may choose to continue eating only clean foods, but it is a physical thing without any spiritual perception or insight at all. The same is true about tithing or observing a Sabbath day. Some in the world do those things as a physical matter, but not as a result of God abiding in them   communicating from His spirit to their spirit on a continual, ongoing basis. If that process of continual indwelling ends, a person will begin to lose what they have, for it is God’s.

My Transformation:
These are some of the major experiences I have had of God communicating His word from His spirit to mine. All such experiences are the things that have been transforming my mind   changing the very way I think and have chosen to live. I know deeply who I am and what God has called me to as His prophet and His apostle in this end-time. I cannot give this to anyone, because it is only for God and His Son to give. That which has been molded in me is fairly well complete. I know I am His prophet, though I do not know all prophecy. I only have that which God has given me.

For this very reason, because of all these experiences and the truth given to me that I have mentioned, I will continue to move forward following where God and His Son lead me. As was mentioned in another post, “We do not live by ‘what if’s,’ but by ‘what is.’” By the time you read this, there will be less than three weeks to Pentecost. The reality is that whether Jesus Christ comes on that day or not, I will be living by “what is” at that time and I will be following God wherever He leads me. If at that time I am in a spirit body, I will follow Him. If I am still in a physical body, I will follow wherever He leads, and I know that at some point in time, even if it isn’t immediate as it was on May 26th of last year, it will come and we will know what God wants us to know at any moment in time.

It is through all we experience in our ongoing relationship with God that we are ever being transformed from physical to spiritual. That process is not easy, especially for those with whom God is molding, fashioning, and creating for great purpose in some of the primary structure of His Temple   of His Kingdom. Those called now to be in His Kingdom at the start of its reign on earth and those called now to live on into that millennial period have been chosen for a great purpose and an awesome opportunity in life.

Past Two Sabbaths:
Two Sabbaths ago an urgent Church-wide fast was called. We recognized we were in the midst of a great spiritual war that was being waged. Our desire was that God and His Son dwell more fully within us because we are convicted of the verse quoted in that post which called for that fast: “You are of God, little children, and have overcome (Gk.- conquered) them because greater is He (God Almighty and Jesus Christ) who is in you, than he (Satan and his demons) that is in the world” (1 Jn. 4:4).

On the Sabbath of this fast two weeks ago, our senior evangelist, Johnny, gave a powerfully inspired sermon about the purpose of our fast and of the spiritual war that was being waged. On that day God also inspired the post, “A Rapidly Approaching Pentecost.” The revelation within this post reminds me of the time when Daniel was fasting toward the end of the Jewish captivity while they were in Babylon. It was at this time that God gave him understanding of the seventy years prophecy concerning the occupation of Jerusalem and that this time had now been fulfilled and it was time for them to begin to return. In like manner, God revealed to us that we have been living through the First Woe of Revelation which is about Satan and his demonic army who were given five whole months to wage war against God’s people. God revealed that the fierceness of that war was nearing its end and He strengthened us with understanding so that we could grasp why we were experiencing such intensity of battle throughout the Church.

Satan and his demons desired more than anything else to be able to wage such a great spiritual battle against God’s people. They desired it far above waging battle on an already deceived world. Although the time these beings were given to wage great warfare against God’s people would end at the completion of five months, God’s people are always to remain on guard because these beings will still seek out those who let down spiritually, for that is power they always have if God is not fully dwelling in us (1 Jn. 4:4) in order for us to continue steadfast.

Before this past Sabbath, God inspired another powerful sermon by another evangelist, Terry. That sermon so perfectly fits with what happened since the fast and the last post, yet it was prerecorded and given before the Sabbath and before other events came to light toward the end of the week and over this weekend. The devastation of this First Woe was minute (small) in comparison to the time of the apostasy when it was relatively easy and quick for the demonic world to so successfully attack and decimate God’s Church at that time. Although the devastation was minimal in this great spiritual war, never-the-less, it was very painful, as it always is when any fall from following God in His Church. There have been a handful that have fallen, which included three who were senior elders, one elder and one who was an associate elder. As with all who leave, I deeply look forward to the time they come back into fellowship in spirit and in truth.

The good news now is that this five-month battle has ended and God’s Church has been defined. This great army of demonic spirit beings are now turning their wrath toward this world. One great war is over and the last one is about to begin. We have lived through a time of great trouble that was cast upon the Church, and now that time of trouble is ready to be cast upon the world.

Indeed, we have lived at the prophetic moment in time when Michael, the great prince who stands for the children of God, has stood fast along with an angelic army to wage war along side of us. We should take great courage to know what has been fulfilled and each persons’ part in it, as God has made us to stand.

Sackcloth:
In the beginning of this post, I mentioned that there were two things that stood out in my mind as I began to write. One point has been clearly built upon concerning moving forward and following God wherever and through whatever He leads us. Though I have sought to follow God in such a manner, I have not always liked it. Candidly, I have had at times the greatest dislike for the experience (while it was happening) when it has hurt the most. That is because the process of transformation hurts as we suffer through those things that work to mold and fashion the mind into greater unity and oneness with God.

I highly disliked the experience of the apostasy. I highly disliked the many occasions when those with whom I have walked to God’s House side by side have left our fellowship. I have highly disliked many occasions of wearing sackcloth when attacked by so many. And I highly dislike my current environment. Although I have highly disliked the times of suffering and pain, I have loved the fruit of what has been produced from such affliction because the power of God’s spirit dwelling in me is what has transformed me into who I am today, and I would not trade any hardship for that which God has blessed me with of Himself, dwelling more fully in my being, in ever growing oneness of mind and spirit.

The second thing that I referred to at the beginning has already been addressed in this post as to a powerful truth in our life. Everything   EVERYTHING   that is true comes only from God. Faith comes from God. Agape comes from God. Truth we receive and are even able to believe (exactly as I’ve described by the personal experiences I have mentioned) is communicated to us by God. He actually gives us the capacity to believe, for that is spiritual. Then we must choose to want to live by what we are given the capacity to believe. The ability to live that belief is faith, and it all comes from God.

A senior elder who has left our fellowship made a comment about going back to basics and proving those things to himself (paraphrasing the thrust of the conversation). He did not understand my reply and thought that I didn’t really understand what he was saying. People have not understood what God has said when He tells us to prove all things. That can be taken to mean that we somehow have the capacity and ability to “prove” scriptural interpretation or understand by our own ability what is written in scripture. We have no such power! Yes, we are to study God’s word so we can become more familiar with what is written, but we do not have the capacity to make a determination of whether something is true or not when it comes to the meaning of what we study.

By studying the 57 Truths, we can be more knowledgeable of what they are and far stronger in remembering or recalling them. The same is true about scripture. In this example of studying the 57 Truths, study of itself does not mean we know them to be true through any intellectual ability we might have even if we memorized them and could repeat them word for word. The only way we know they are true (all of them) is by the spirit of God that communicates that truth   that knowing   into our mind (our spirit).

Proving all things that are of God is a matter of putting them into practice as a way of life to live. It is as the example of “proving oxen.” It is to put them to the test to see what they can accomplish (produce). We are to prove through living God’s truth (after it has already been revealed to us) that it works to produce fullness of life, peace, good fruit, and blessings of life.

So if someone believes they can “go back” and prove things like the Sabbath, the Holy Days, God’s government (Truth #1 listed as given through Herbert W. Armstrong), etc., then they don’t grasp what they are saying. This 1st Truth concerning God’s government is not a matter of one’s ability to prove it. It is a matter of revelation and faith that God gives, communicating it from His spirit to ours. You may believe that the Sabbaths of God can easily be proven. Not so! To know them as God has given them is spiritual and a matter of faith. That is why so many who are no longer part of God’s Church, who are scattered and cut off from God’s spirit cannot agree on true matters concerning the weekly Sabbath observance, Passover, Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, Trumpets, etc. These are all matters of faith (God given) and are spiritual. You cannot prove them of yourself. Every truth is a matter of faith and what we can see spiritually   given only by God.

Everything that we have the capacity to believe, that is true and of God, comes only from God and we can only see it and know it by God’s spirit dwelling in us and His communicating it to us by His spirit. If we truly grasp this then we have the potential for great wisdom, for that too is of God. If one can grasp and truly believe that everything they know and see that is true comes only by the revelation (communication) of God’s spirit to our spirit, then we can better see ourselves.

This portion of the post was the product of the second item that stood out in my mind as I began to write. It is the fact that we are so small, but God is creating that which will be great. Being small in our own eyes is a priceless gift from God. It is true humility to be able to see and deeply believe that you are small (not of anything said in shallow words, but that which is in spirit and in truth).

I’ve commented in the past that wearing sackcloth itches. It often itches because wearing true humility doesn’t go well with the human mind, because it is uncomfortable. Now that would be a great thing to prove. Prove humility! Learn to wear it always because it is in that state that the greatest work of transforming can thrive. That is the state in which God can produce more in us as we more perfectly yield to His molding, fashioning, and creating a new life in us.

So strive to wear sackcloth always. It is truly vogue for the children of God to do so.

As I begin writing this post on the Sabbath, I am nearing the end of a Church-wide fast. We have focused on our individual need to repent of sin, and we have also taken the next step of seeking to be shown more sin within ourselves    that we do not readily see. Our desire as God’s people is to get rid of all leaven and to become more fully humbled in order to grow in greater unity and oneness with God’s perfect way   with God. We understand that growing in unity is a life long process of which we must continually embrace and submit to.

Our way of life includes a continual process that enables us to grow spiritually closer to God by His revealing sin to us and our choosing to continually repent as He reveals it. Our evangelist in Australia, Wayne, gave a sermon last Sabbath, entitled, “A Way of Life.” It would be good to quote part of what was addressed in that sermon, as it speaks of the importance of seeking out God’s favor (especially as we did in fasting) to see sin of which we are blind.

This is the quote from that sermon: “If we don’t see sin or spiritual faults, how can we choose to change? So how can we choose to repent if we don’t see it? If we think we’re right and God doesn’t reveal sin to us, we’ll just continue on with that sin for the rest of our life. God must correct man’s thinking to bring him to Elohim.”

Although we always use Isaiah 58 as our guide in fasting, as each of us seeks repentance and greater harmony and oneness in spirit with God, this fast has also had another important focus. It is not only that we desire to have God and Jesus Christ dwelling more fully within us in order to stand stronger against an evil spirit world, it has also been for the purpose of seeking God that He would remove more and more of the power of Satan and the demonic world to the day that they are spiritually bound for 1,000 years. The removal of Satan and the demons will help fulfill, in a most powerful way, the result for mankind that is pictured spiritually in Isaiah 58.

We are now just a few weeks away from Pentecost and of our hope in the return of Jesus as the ruling Messiah   the Christ. There is much to be fulfilled and a very short time for it to happen. For “what is” now, as always, we press forward and battle against that which fights against God. In the present truth, we are focused on the fulfillment of Pentecost on its grandest scale yet.

In the last post, a spiritual world war was addressed that revealed our need for this Church-wide fast. With the added important focus we had for this fast concerning an evil spirit world, there is more clarification that God has now given regarding our past and current understanding of the Trumpets of Revelation. This reminds me of a recent post where it covered that the ongoing revelations of God to His Church is likened to a puzzle where pieces are continually being added that clarify and more fully picture for us what God is working out. As with any puzzle, sometimes we find ourselves fitting a piece (or pieces) in the wrong place when God reveals truth to us and He does not reveal everything of that truth in some specific aspects. It is a process of ever moving closer to God in truth as we follow the “present truth” He has revealed to that moment in time. This process is also used by God to test and mold His people. It is like the important example of Herbert W. Armstrong’s life where God revealed to him the truth of the holy days, including Pentecost, but it was nearly 40 years later before God revealed the correct time to observe it.

This example of fitting some pieces in the wrong place as God is revealing truth, has been especially true over the past few years where timing has been a factor. This was true about when the job of the two witnesses began. Who they were was true, but He then revealed that the timing for their job was to begin later. Though we knew the countdown for Christ’s return had begun, we did not know God’s timing would alter that count until He revealed Christ would return on a Pentecost and not on Trumpets. As we came to Pentecost 2012, we had to address timing again as we entered the “Day of the Eternal.” Once again, the picture of what God was doing became clearer as some pieces of the puzzle were simply not yet fitted to the puzzle or had been placed in the wrong area. Such things are fully in God’s control as to how much truth He gives and when he chooses to give it.

For the sake of this world and for the sake of God’s people who have been fighting a long and draining battle, we are prayerfully at a time now where no more important pieces are out of place. Yet again, this process of how God reveals truth does show much about the means by which God has led His Church and through which God has tested and refined (by fire) us. Regardless of what is before us, we do move forward and never give up the fight.

The Prelude to WW III:
With a more meaningful understanding that God has recently given us concerning the use of the term “Assyria” for this end-time, coupled with the strong reality of a great spiritual war that has been raging against God’s Church, God is giving more insight into meaning contained in the Trumpets of Revelation. Over the past few years, God has been clarifying more and more to us about these Trumpets. One thing that God has clarified concerns the timing of a trumpet blast with timing of the actual occurrence of the event portrayed by the story in scripture of a specific trumpet.

The description of the trumpets were not written in a manner so that anyone could simply read and grasp truth about either timing or order contained in them. That is true about parables, prophecy, and actually the Bible itself for that matter. God must reveal the true meaning of it all. It was God’s purpose that mankind and the spirit world could not know what was written until God Himself reveals it. This is especially true regarding how God is dealing with Satan and the demonic world in this end-time.

In another recent post, the question was asked if we know for certain that the Second Trumpet did or did not sound in early April. We do not know. God has not revealed when the trumpets are blown, except for the first and the last. God has inspired it to be written that we will not know these things until they have already occurred. God has also revealed that there are many overlapping and intertwining events within the fulfillment of these trumpets.

God has not revealed it, but it may be that all seven trumpets were blown at the beginning, setting in motion those things that are to be fulfilled by each. We do not yet know, but we must understand that one cannot sit down and put these together in any kind of order, except for that which God has given as specific numbered trumpets. As physical human beings first, we generally try to reason along narrow physical parameters to put everything into place in a nice, neat, and orderly fashion. There is order to the degree God established it, according to His purpose.

Having said all this, we have been waiting, with the limited knowledge we have for the effects of the Second Trumpet to be made manifest so we might more clearly see where we are in timing and in the order of events. But God is letting us know that simple physical observation does not reveal such matters. This is akin to some limited knowledge God has given concerning the description of the Sixth Trumpet. This trumpet involves a massive nuclear exchange that isn’t made manifest until we are near the very end. It is because of this exchange (Armageddon) that God must quickly intervene with the events described in the Seventh Trumpet to stop this war. However, the events of the Sixth Trumpet are set in motion “an hour, a day, a month, and a year” (Rev. 9:15) in advance of their occurrence. God is now revealing to the Church that the Fifth Trumpet is the real prelude to World War III.

The Fifth Trumpet:
Close to a year ago, a sermon was given that addressed some of the issues of the Fifth Trumpet that did not fit into the original puzzle. This part of the picture was clouded and God began to help us see there was more we needed to understand, but that was only the beginning of His revealing more truth to us on this subject. It is truly a beautiful manner in which God progressively reveals truth to us, always moving toward greater unity and oneness with Him. I always marvel when I see the building process in action, as one thing is fit into place so that another can be built (added) upon it.

In the last few posts, God has been leading us to this post. Our Father has shown that we have not fully grasped the use of the term “Assyria” in prophecy. In this end-time, that term is not specifically about Germany any more than the term “Egypt” is about that actual country. Throughout the time during Philadelphia and Laodicea, it was believed that the captivity of Israel would be by Germany (Assyria), instead of understanding that it is about a captivity of government that has engulfed the scattered nations of Israel. It is with the physical interpretation of this that this piece of the puzzle seemed to fit into the Fifth Trumpet. Although it is through the leadership of Germany that the Euro and European Union brings to light the kind of captivity that has taken Israel, the Fifth Trumpet is actually about God’s Church, both the remnant and that which was scattered. Germany’s involvement is about events that occur throughout the fulfillment of the First Trumpet as a result of the resurrection of the old Roman Empire.

The greater meaning of the Fifth Trumpet is about a spirit war in this time we are in now. It is about power that is unleashed by a demonic world and yet there are specific restrictions upon that spirit world that God controls. Recently, the Church was given a four-part sermon from our senior evangelist, Johnny, on the subject of Christ’s final journey to Passover day. In that sermon, he referred to scriptures that revealed there was a great demonic war being waged against Christ at that time. God allowed this for a great purpose, but in the midst of it all, He was always in control of what could and could not happen.

The same is true for Satan and his demons concerning this final struggle before the Millennium in their fight against God. God has allowed them a time to stir the world into a final war, but they are highly restricted in what they are able to accomplish during that specific five-month period until God allows them to influence the final catastrophic events. Man, of his own doing and at some moment in time, would engage in great war that would end all life on earth, but God is controlling the timing for His ultimate purpose of salvation. Understanding what the world and the Church has experienced over the past few months will help give understanding to the meaning of this Fifth Trumpet. As I am unable to go into this in greater detail in a sermon series, a condensed overview will only be given in this post.

Attacks Upon God’s People:
God’s Church has been experiencing some of the most massive attacks ever from a demonic spirit world over the past few months. God has allowed this as a testimony to His remnant Church that has been growing in spiritual strength and has been fighting off such perverse abuse from that spirit world. As the last post indicated, there is a night and day difference in the condition of God’s Church today compared to the time of the apostasy when these beings easily defeated large numbers at that time. Yet during the past few months, this spirit army has not been able to defeat God’s people, as God is more fully dwelling in His people at this time. This is an awesome witness of the spiritual Body of Christ today just as it was such an awesome witness Jesus Christ gave in his life toward the end of it, as he stood firm against such power with dignity, honor, and grace as the Passover of mankind. These are things an evil spirit world cannot comprehend and neither do people who are guided by selfish human nature. Only God can reveal such importance, purpose, and beautiful meaning.

We have been in such a great spiritual battle that a Church-wide fast was called to address this and to seek greater strength and intervention from God. It was during this fast that God revealed what we have been living through. The demonic spirit world has continually fought against God and His purpose for human life. There have been times when these battles have been more intense, as in what the Church has now been experiencing. Those who are young have been the primary targets, but overall the young have stood firm. Some in the Church that have had greater experience in battle have not been attacked as severely as others. Yet there are some in God’s Church that have had great experience in battle but have been attacked on every side in a concerted effort because they are a part of the primary structure of the Church and have been targeted because of that. Again, the demonic spirit world has been losing their battle against God just as it has throughout time.

This five-month period described in Revelation 9 is poorly translated, as the translators did not know the specific intent (true thought) of what was originally written. Translations from one language to another cannot be done simply word by word, but must be done by the intended thought of the true meaning contained in the words. It is easy to read personal interpretation into such translating.

These beings emerging from the bottomless pit are the army of the demonic world and Satan is their king. God allows them to emerge in power one last time during the close of this final 6,000-year period.

The demonic world does not grasp what God allows them to do nor do they grasp they cannot accomplish more than what He lets them. This is just like the time God let them have power to stir up those who put His Son to death. The faithful angelic world was pulled back from intervening at that time, although Christ himself could have called upon legions of angels to fight; but instead, he submitted to the suffering that was necessary to fulfill the purpose and will of his Father concerning Passover.

Over the past few months the thrust of this evil army has been two-fold. First of all, it has been against God’s remnant Church and against those who were scattered due to the apostasy. Secondly, it is about the world, which will be discussed later in this post.

The Church and Those Who Were Scattered:
Over this period of five months, these evil spirit beings have been given power to attack, hurt, and mentally harass “only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads” (Rev. 9:4). This has nothing in context to do with people in the world, but is about God’s people. A distinction is made concerning those who have the seal of God on their foreheads. These people are those who are to be resurrected as part of the 144,000 and cannot be “hurt” even if they were to literally lose their physical life, as they will be in the first resurrection. Yet this evil spirit world attacked many of these, but could not “hurt” them because of their part in God’s plan, for they are sealed and have already been tested to be those who will always stand firm until their change comes.

Then there are the others of the remnant (Church) who have suffered the most because most are younger (newer) in the Body, yet as a testimony to God, most have stood firm. This demonic world has also harassed and attacked many of those of the scattering whom God is preparing to draw as the 63,000 and who will eventually benefit from what they have been experiencing. Even though they are unwittingly unaware of it.

As verse five states, “They were not given authority to kill them.” God did not allow more affliction to be upon the Church (both the remnant and those of the scattering) than this torment and hurt, as most are to live on into a new age.

The World:
The first part of this two-fold attack from the demonic realm was upon the Church, and the second part was about their attack upon the world as they are seeking to destroy as much of God’s creation as they can by pushing mankind into an all-out nuclear war. That is their motive and that is their purpose. But for five months, God holds back what would otherwise lead into WW III much sooner. God is in control of all timing and what He commands is what happens: “And it was commanded them that they could not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree” (Rev. 9:4). This has literal meaning and it has prophetic meaning as with the First Trumpet.

It has been rather strange that this world’s economic system, and especially that of the United States, has held on as it has without already collapsing. Now it is easy to understand why that has been so. The reality in all this is that the timing is God’s. Much of His purpose in this involves the very means by which He uses to apply the greatest humbling impact possible upon the scattered nations of Israel. This command of God has also held back the massive destruction that will come in God’s time toward the very end. Once the five-month period is up, these beings will have great power to influence the final conflicts that will destroy so much of this earth. It is for this reason that nations have done much threatening and have rattled sabers, but nothing has happened on any large scale.

In the midst of these verses about this trumpet is an awkwardly translated verse that is about the world and has nothing to do with the Church: “And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall seek to die, and death shall flee from them” (Rev. 9:6). Without spending much time to fully review all the meaning contained in some of these words and the misinterpretation of intent, I will only give an overview of what this is about.

It is not about people who are somehow seeking to take their own life, but it is partially about the insanity of many who desire to enter into war (which would eventually take their own lives), but have not been able to achieve it as of yet. It has been held back by God, and if it had not, this evil spirit army would have moved the world into a nuclear war already. There are men who seek to enter into war, but they truly have no concept of the devastation that will follow their foolish intentions.

As with God’s perfect timing that led perfectly into a very specific and narrow moment in time when Jesus Christ was to be nailed to a pole, so is God’s timing to intervene and prevent man from annihilating himself in order that large masses will live on into the Millennium. As with the perfect timing to bring about the Passover death, so God has perfect timing to bring everything in this world together to that specific and narrow moment when Pentecost begins.

As this post needs to go out right away, I do not have time to cover matters of the Second, Third, and Fourth Trumpets which already have events set in motion that will bring about their fulfillment. The affects of their blowing will become manifest at the end of this five month period of time. These also include in their midst a quick and final resurrection of power within the old Roman Empire that is short lived but produces devastating results for the world, including the United States.

The demonic world has already been moving this world into its final war and it has been waging a great spiritual war against God’s people. It is indeed a great “woe” to mankind. God’s people are being made stronger, though suffering in battle, and the world is about to be thrust into battle that has been thus far held back by God.

Once this five-month period of this First Woe comes to an end, the United States and the other scattered nations of Israel will begin their collapse, quickly leading to a final nuclear conflict unleashed as described by the Sixth Trumpet (the Second Woe). The Fifth Trumpet is the First Woe and it truly is the prelude to World War III.

In September of 1969, I was baptized into God’s Church, and in 1981, I was ordained into the ministry of God’s Church. Through this period of time, I have witnessed much concerning great spiritual struggles in the lives of brethren and of the Church itself. God’s people (individually) and God’s Church (of the collective body and of the structural organization) has been the object of constant spiritual attack through time. Satan loathes God, His Church, and His plan for the Kingdom of God.

We know and believe that we are now nearing the very last phase of this end-time. We believe we are about to witness man’s last war   World War III. Over the weekend, rhetoric out of North Korea and Iran has only intensified, and at some point there will be some incident in the world that triggers a rapid escalation of events that thrusts the world into nuclear war. It is a horrifying thought, but it is our reality.

In the news this past week there has been a lot of bantering back and forth as to whether North Korea has the ability to strike the United States with nuclear missiles. They have mostly dismissed and ridiculed such a possibility. Yet another source has just brought to light that North Korea does have the ability to put a satellite into orbit (as it did in December) that passes over the South Pole at a 300-mile altitude, which could easily carry a nuclear device. This report states that if a single device exploded over Omaha, Nebraska, it could generate a powerful electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, that would be able to collapse the United States electric grid and other critical infrastructures. South Korea has warned the U.S that North Korea has been working on a super-EMP warhead with Russian help. China’s military claims North Korea has such warheads and data from North Korea’s nuclear tests are stated as being consistent with super-EMP warheads. It has been confirmed that if such a device exploded over Omaha it would be sufficient to create an EMP from coast to coast in the U.S. A former ambassador and director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization said that if such a device exploded over Omaha it would blanket the entire continental U.S. with EMP effects with consequences that would soon lead to the death of millions of Americans and the end of our way of life.

We live in a precarious time, when at any moment, the first nuclear device will explode and lead to many more. Though the world is about to plunge into WW III, the Church has been experiencing world war for some time now. At the time of the apostasy, the First Seal of Revelation was unsealed and then a great spiritual war engulfed God’s Church on a worldwide scale. As I mentioned at the beginning about my time in the Church and the ministry and of witnessing great spiritual battles, what God’s Church is experiencing now is by far the most powerful and continuing attack I’ve ever seen throughout all my time in God’s Church.

Some may wonder how, in this present time, there could be the greatest spiritual attacks, when in 1994 there were over 60,000 casualties that quickly resulted from the apostasy, and there were over 30,000 who were scattered as they struggled to remain alive. During that time, there was great spiritual power, signs, and lying wonders that worked to devastate God’s Church. But the reality was that the entire Church was so spiritually weak, lukewarm, and filled with pride that God would not accept her any longer in such a condition, so at the opening of the First Seal, He removed Himself from the Church   vomited it out.

When separated from God, with Him and His Son no longer “dwelling in” the church, it was prime picking for Satan and the demonic world, and so this separation was followed immediately by power (demonic spiritual power), signs, and lying wonders within the organization of the Worldwide Church of God.

So how is this time we are in now, a time of greater spiritual warfare and attack from that demonic world upon God’s Church? During the apostasy, the body of the Church was removed from God dwelling in it. The Church was without God’s spiritual strength, power, and protection in it. However, the Church today is not weak! Since 1969, I have never witnessed the Church being nearly as spiritually strong and unified as I now see it. Some few may feel otherwise, but that could only be the result of their short-time experience and/or spiritual weakness at this time. I know what I have witnessed, and that witness is from God, and it is true.

Over the past few months, in personal experience and upon hearing from so many brethren about their own experiences, there has not been a time in all my time in God’s Church when Satan and the demon’s attacks upon God’s Church have been so furious. This is simply a testimony to the time we are in and the reality that they know their time is nearly over.

Though these attacks are making many much stronger on one hand, they are never the less very wearisome and spiritually draining, which is dangerous. If the Church were not as strong as it is, it would have been devoured long before this, but God’s people are being resolute, persevering, and continuing at the battle that is before them, and not giving up. This is a battle to the completion, when God sends His Son in His Kingdom. There have been very few casualties, but there are still a few more who are weakened and will not survive if they do not turn things around in their spiritual lives and take heed and practice what has been written in recent posts and in letters to the ministry, for this includes a few in the ministry as well.

Urgent Fast:
Since the spiritual battle has been going on for such a long duration of time and has been working to make people weary in battle, it is time to fight ever harder and press forward spiritually more than ever before. It is time for a church-wide fast in order for us to be strengthened with greater power from on high   power that Satan cannot battle. Satan and his demons can fight against the angelic realm and they can attack God’s people, but they cannot attack God and the power of His spirit in our life. That power   God’s spirit in us   is our power and might by which we are made strong against attacks and are able to move forward against that evil spirit realm unto the day that realm itself is placed into captivity.

It is with such knowledge of all this that I have often quoted a powerful scripture. “You are of God, little children, and have overcome (Gk. - conquered) them because greater is He (God Almighty and Jesus Christ) who is in you, than he (Satan and his demons) that is in the world” (1 Jn. 4:4).

As God’s Church, we are going to engage in battle, as God will pour out more strength and power upon us and in us. We will fast this weekend. For most, this Sabbath is the primary time set-aside for this fast; however, it is perfectly fine to fast on Sunday. It is your choice. If you do not receive this notice of a fast before this weekend, then participate in it as soon as you can once you receive the knowledge of it.

We are following the outline of Isaiah 58 in which we are to first cry out to God for forgiveness of our own personal sins and also ask for help to see sin in ourselves of which we are blind. Then when God helps us to see that which only He and His Son can see, we repent. Next, we are to follow this by praying (using this same outline) for God’s strength and power to fill us more fully in order to accomplish the spirit of battle of Isaiah 58 in diminishing the power of Satan (power to bind, deceive, and hold captive because of human sin).

We are small and our numbers are small, and an evil spirit world is about to be chained and imprisoned, but at present its numbers are large against us. God’s power in us makes them small and reduces their power and will bring them to nothing. This is a great war and we should be sobered by it and thereby be diligently on guard and fighting it, but our Petra is all-powerful and Almighty, against which nothing can stand. We keep moving forward.

Yesterday, my wife had a conversation with a person who was “spiritually unsettled.” One bothersome perception that this person had was that some people were overly concerned about prophecy, since this seemed to be such a large part of their conversations. It was also stated by this individual that since nothing happened on April 4th that some might leave the Church.

That date was mentioned in a post as having a correlation of a period of time within the prophetic day of one year with the timing being near 3 p.m. when Jesus died on Passover. That day was not mentioned as being the day that the Second Trumpet would sound or that the major event associated with it sounding would occur at that time. That date was given as a matter of being sobered about the prophetic times in which we live and the need to be continually on guard and watching   both physically and spiritually.

So my question is: “Why?” Why wouldn’t there be times when prophecy is a primary part of ones conversation? Does that mean a person engaged in such a subject is neglecting love, care, and concern for others by failing to engage in more casual or more personal conversation? How foolish! To me, as God’s servant and minister on earth to His Church, this simply reflects the soberness of mind such a person has because of these highly prophetic times in which we live.

There is not a more prophetic time for fulfillment than right now. There has never been and there will never be a time for more prophecy to be fulfilled than what will be completed in this end-time. The overwhelming vast majority of prophecy contained in the scriptures is about this period of time we are living. Knowing the time in which we are living should stir, sober, and move us to ever draw nearer to God. “Knowing the time” in which we are living should motivate us to work zealously to become more at one with God and to be living and practicing His way of life more fully toward others. This is especially true when we grasp that Satan and the demonic world are attacking constantly with everything they have. Do you believe that to be true with all your being? Because if you do not believe this then you are a prime and easy target.

If you do believe there are great spiritual battles being waged at this time, then what are you doing to guard and protect your own spiritual life and relationship with God? Do you have secret sin in you life? Are you praying daily and studying in some routine on a regular basis, as in listening to past sermons, reading the Bible, and/or reading truth God has made available to you on our various sites? If you are a minister, when is the last time you have reviewed and refreshed yourself in how to be a better servant in God’s service? And if those battles are real that are being waged in the spirit world, because they know their time is getting ever shorter, do you believe you are a target? Every one of you is a target, and you cannot begin to stand on your own!

So when is the last time you fasted? When is the last time you sought repentance in fasting so that you could see self more fully and to more clearly see those things that need to change in your life, rather than seeing so clearly what the problems are in other people’s lives. It’s just normal human nature to so clearly see others and not ourselves. Yet seeing self is the major spiritual battle that each one of us has.

A Personal Relationship with God:
So “what if” someone were to leave God’s Church over something so trivial as what did or did not happen on April 4th? If something so small were to lead to a reason to leave, then there is nothing you can do to change that, for it is a choice God allows because He does not seek to control anyone’s life. It is a spiritual matter, completely involving a personal issue of one’s own relationship with God. No one controls that relationship, but ourselves alone within our own life. Something God helped me to learn a long time ago is that each person’s spiritual life is in his or her own hands and in no one else’s. People can easily influence others (especially those closest to them) to doubt, be suspicious and questioning of others, to have wrong thinking, and so many other hurtful things in life because that is just the natural tendency of selfish human reasoning and of natural pulls.

A true spiritual relationship with God is different. In such a relationship, one must choose instead to fight against one’s own nature and then to actively seek God’s nature to rule in their life. This comes only from a personal choice and then active involvement to accomplish such a choice. A true spiritual relationship with God comes from genuine effort and engaged fighting in order to stand in His ways, in unity of spirit.

But “what if” the Second Trumpet did blow on or near April 4th? Do you “know” that it didn’t? I don’t! Perhaps it did blow and something is in the works that began at that time in order to accomplish what that trumpet defines. Are you watching (physically and spiritually), staying on guard in battle, and sobered by your belief of this end-time? As one minister who is watching and keeping alert mentioned, even the 9th could be a pivotal day, since it is 40 days to Pentecost, which is still “near” 3 pm. Such observations are a matter of spiritual alertness and wisdom for aiding one in keeping on their toes mentally, with soberness of mind. That does not mean we will see anything on the 9th or that anything of significance will occur, but it is part of being ready and living soberly.

What if North Korea set something in motion on the 4th or they do so on the 9th that will result in a later fulfillment? We just do not know, but as part of our deep abiding belief in the nearing of Christ’s coming, we seek to stay alert spiritually and ever on guard to our own spiritual state. I cannot give and you cannot give that which is spiritual to others. You can only seek it and work on such to be the reality, truth, and example of your own life. By this, others of like mind can receive encouragement and inspiration as you are blessed to reflect a portion of God’s life toward another in the fellowship we are blessed to participate in together.

Every one of you is without excuse if you do not recognize that a great spiritual war is now being waged. Your ability and realistic degree to which you can see this is one of the measures of your true spiritual state and relationship with God. Have the battles and trials around you increased or decreased over the past few months compared to previous years? Are battles around the Body of Christ less today than a year or two ago? Jesus Christ likened the difficulty that will be experienced in life prior to his arrival with that of a woman in birthing labor. That labor and pain does not diminish as birth nears, but it increases.

The battles before us are real. Your spiritual state and relationship with God is real, whether it is weak or strong. If it is weak, then your life is in grave danger! Only you and you alone can seek after and insure a strong relationship with Almighty God. God offers us that relationship, but it is a personal choice that must be followed by active work on our part if we are to receive it. Such a relationship will not “just happen.”

And “What If…”:
God is telling His Church that there are choices to be made now. The reality and truth is that this is what you are doing anyway, whether or not you have stated it in this way. “What if” May 19th is simply another Day of Pentecost without its fulfillment of the firstfruits being resurrected and the return of Christ? Does this question itself cause any panic, apprehension, and fear? If so, why is there panic, and why is there fear? Where is it coming from? What is the cause?

If it were only another observance of Pentecost and nothing more were to happen on May 19th, would the Church of God cease to exist? Would it go some place else or is it already somewhere else? Would the truths of God cease to exist or do you believe that we even have them? Do you know? Do you have doubt about such things? If so, why? Only you and you alone can answer such questions before God.

Whether or not you grasp it, you have been answering such things already in your life by what you are living right now. Thankfully, most of God’s people over the past several months have already answered these matters concerning the date of May 19, 2013. It is a spiritual understanding that gives people peace, boldness of faith, and confidence of spirit that no one’s life revolves around any specific date for the return of Christ, but that one’s life does revolve around how you live it before God and others. That which is spiritual is fully about a way of life God gives us to live. If we do not live in such a way, then dates, prophecy, truths, or the very return of Christ carry little significance (1 Cor. 13).

If there is some fear and panic with that question about May 19th due to the unknown trials that would lie ahead, such as financial, family, occupation, friends, etc., then that would be normal and all those could be addressed as they came, just as with other such trials of the past. There is nothing that can be done about such “what ifs” unless or until they are a reality. Then with God’s help, as it always is in the face of an actual trial, we address them in faith and move forward through them.

But if there is fear and panic because of nagging doubts, questioning (not questions), uncertainty, then Jesus Christ would say to you   and is saying to you: “Oh you of little faith!” Faith   living by what God gives us to believe   is from God and it is spiritual. You cannot give it to anyone, nor get it from anyone but God alone, through an active and very personal relationship with Him.

As for me, I believe we are in the Day of the Eternal. I live by that belief, just as I did concerning May 27th. When that day came and went, the Church was still here and very much alive. Spiritual lives and relationships with God did not disappear, but over the weeks that followed these relationships in most brethren became much stronger with God. How? It was the fruit and result of God’s spirit working in those who yielded to the process and thereby received greater conviction, strength, and more qualities of God’s character that were designed and orchestrated by the Master Potter, Almighty God.

Some have not faired as well these past few months, but with God it is never too late to repent of whatever has held one back. If you don’t know, then use the spiritual tool of fasting as outlined in Isaiah 58 and seek out God’s help to identify the sin and then repent. Such is only in the hands of each individual concerning their true relationship with God as to whether it is one of truth and spirit.

I do not believe in a “what if” concerning May 19th, but suffice it to say, if it did happen, as with May 27th, then I would deal with it in exactly the same manner. You see, I know that the Church would still be here and moving forward, waiting on God and Christ’s guidance into greater and stronger truth. The “present truth” and our understanding would shift somewhat as it always does when God reveals more and it would be clarified more so we could be in ever-growing and increasing unity with God   as it always has been. We fight a spiritual war and we continue to advance forward. God’s people are “God’s” people, and there is NO fear in any of that, but only growth in spiritual strength, boldness, peace, and confidence in God leading His people, His way, and in His perfect timing. Our lives do not revolve around “what ifs,” but in “what is” as a way of life to be lived in truth and in spirit before our great and loving Father.