(NB Headings are not part of original, but are added for clarity)
Sermon given UBread, March 1983
Two Questions
by Herbert W Armstrong
(PLAY FROM START)
Brethren it sounds like the choir were rejoicing over that offering this morning and I think even the sun is too, the way it has been shining all day. And it just reminds me that since we celebrated, the night before last, the Passover and Christ paying the penalty of our sins in our stead, that that weight is lifted so that we may better run the race now on to eternal life and glory.
And not just eternal life. I wouldn't want to live forever the way most people live, not in this world, it is a very unhappy world. But we are learning how to live so that we can really enjoy life, really the happy way of life, the peaceful way, the way of helping one another; till we all help one another and till we all succeed.
I don't whether you all heard the report for the morning offering. I'll just read you a little of it. However the - let's see; at the Auditorium the average man, woman and child, now this is even a little child giving this much because this is the average, 32.34 dollars - an all time record. Over at the College Gym; 31.71 dolllars. The combined offering was still over 31 dollars per person, or around 32 dollars, virtually.
I don't know whether God is going to allow the sun to come out on the economic condition of the whole nation, or the world, because this world is not in good condition, and it's not going to be. But God has blessed our people and we are faring better by far in God's Church than the average people in the world. Just money is not everything, money is good if it is properly used; "...the love of money is the root of all evil..." (I Timothy 6:10). But money has its advantages if it is properly handled and used to God's glory and benefit. And I think God is going to bless His people, and certainly more than the world who are going the other way and living just for money.
But we have a race to run, and we know that in the world it's not going to be just beautiful bright days all of the time from now on. The world is in trouble and it is going to get in worse trouble, and the Kingdom of God is not going to come, and Christ is not going to come and save us from ourselves UNTIL humans have had so much of the sickness of this world, the evils, the violence, the suffering, that they have had more than a stomach full of it and they don't want any more of it. Christ is not going to come and intervene until, if He delayed any longer, there wouldn't be a human being left alive because of the violence of war and destructiveness on the face of the earth.
But in the meantime He has given us His Spirit and we can be happy. You know, I might say that even if it were raining outside and a very bad day, it's not raining inside here where we are, and we can be happy. And we know that a time, a glorious time for all the world, another world is coming. Not for this world because this is not our world, it is not God's world and we are merely the embryo of the world to come, another and totally different world.
I wonder if we ever have fully realized the meaning of this Festival. Here we are starting the first Festival of the year. And incidentally, on the plane coming back from the Middle Eastern trip, I wrote a letter to the whole membership, which I hope will be printed about tomorrow and be mailed out, that it's time once again to begin thinking about the Feast of Tabernacles. We have to begin thinking about that ahead of time, and a wonderful Festival I hope that will be this year and we need to begin thinking ahead now for that.
But here we are at this joyous time in the first of the Festivals. Of course the Passover is the first Festival is a Feast in itself, although it is not a eating Feast and these Days of Unleavened Bread. They are only the beginning of that which shows the completion of God's creation. And I wonder if we fully understand it, the meaning of this Holy Day of this Festival, and of all of the Feast days, for that matter, because they picture such a wonderful great meaning.
Two Questions (PLAY FROM 06:28)
Well last Thursday morning in Jerusalem, it was about 3:15 in the morning I awakened and I couldn't go back to sleep; and it came to me the meaning a little more clearly of this Festival, and of all of these Festivals, and that it comes in an answer to two questions that I wonder if we have really understood:
If, question number one, if the final human penalty for sin is the second death and not this first death at all, and that's true. If that is true, then how did Jesus' first death, He only died one death, how could His only first death pay for our penalty of the second death? Did you ever think that one out? Well I want to explain that this afternoon.
And the second question; that has puzzled me a little bit in time past and may have puzzled some of you. Will Adam be in the Judgment? "...it is appointed to men once to die, and after this the judgment:" (Hebrews 9:27 paraphrased) "...as in Adam all die...so in Christ shall all be made alive." (I Corinthians 15:22). Does that include Adam? Is he going to come up in the Judgment?
Now in that Judgment the books are opened and one of those books is the Book of Life, and many, as I hope I'll have time to read it to you this afternoon, are going to receive life. They are going to be right back where Adam was before he made his fateful wrong decision. Will Adam be in that number and be able to find that Christ came and paid his penalty and that even Adam can yet, have the eternal life that he rejected.
Perhaps you never thought of that, and perhaps we ought to understand it. Well I have noticed, and I think many of you have noticed, that God has been revealing more truth recently and continually. He has been revealing a great deal of truth through me. And again, the answer to these questions, and to the whole question, goes right back to the beginning of those Two Trees that I have been talking about for almost two years now; because that is the beginning of this world.
That's the beginning of humanity, that's the beginning of our lives, you might say, because that is when human life began. I don't want to cover too much of the ground I've covered before, I want to cover something I haven't covered and make it plain, something that hasn't been made completely clear before.
The Creator God Family (PLAY FROM 09:49)
Genesis 1:1 the Bible starts out;
"In the beginning God..." (Genesis 1:1)
The Hebrew word for God there is 'Elohim', Strong's H430, which means more than one person. Strictly speaking, Elohim is just the plural of Eloah and it means 'gods' but it is referring to God as He reveals Himself in John 1:1.
"In the beginning [Elohim, meaning more than one person] created the [heavens] and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)
That was the beginning of everything. If we turn to John 1:1, once again I've gone over this so many, many times and we need to continually go over it:
"In the beginning was the Word [now the Word is a great personage, a Spirit being], and the Word was with [another personage] God [and God was a person] and the Word was God." (John 1:1)
I've explained before; in the beginning, or at a certain place, could be a man named John and John was with another man named Smith, and John was also Smith. Of course John could be Smith's son or John could be Smith's father – one or the other. Smith is the family name. And in this case God and the Word was the start of the great God family. So far as is revealed to us, they have each of them always existed, there was never a time when they didn't exist. In verse 14 it says:
"...the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us..." (John 1:14)
And became Jesus Christ, and in Hebrews it says that He was self-existent, had always existed:
"Without father, without mother, without descent, [without] beginning of days, nor end of life..." (Hebrews 7:3)
But has always existed and always will and never will be a time when He doesn't live and exist:
"The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him... " (John 1:2-3)
Well what did God have to do with it? In Ephesians 3:9 we read that:
"...God...created all things by Jesus Christ:" (Ephesians 3:9)
We read in the Psalms that the Word just spoke and it was done. But how did the Word speak? The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and when He became Jesus Christ, the human being on the earth, He said; He only spoke what the Father told Him to speak. So God is the one who told Him to speak, He did the speaking and thus He made all things, but the real Creator is God, God who became Christ's Father when He was born:
"All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was [and still is] life..." (John 1:3-4)
So God and the Word lived. If they lived, and I've said so many times, that means action and motion and living. And how did they live, what did they do, and how did they do it? Well they were living together, they were Creators, they were building, creating. First they had to plan and design and think. They had to have great minds to think and design and plan so many things.
In so many things there are whole systems in themselves, like the human being, which they finally created, only that creation isn't complete yet, I hope we understand that. But think of the many systems in each human being. There is a mental system, there is a circulatory system, there's a digestive system, a reproductive system, all kinds of systems in a human body. God had to think all that out and plan it. Of course, we are made in God's image, same form and shape, and God is reproducing Himself so He made us in that form and shape. But now we need to understand it a little more. So they had life, they were Creators but there were two of them and they had to get along together:
"Two can't walk together except they be agreed." (Amos 3:3 paraphrased)
Now we find they were completely agreed, Jesus agreed with His Father. Another thing, two cannot walk together except one is the leader. I have often said, that a fifty/fifty marriage always means the wife is wearing the pants. Someone has to take the lead. In too many cases today the wife has to take the lead because her husband won't do it.
The The Creation of Man (PLAY FROM 15:50)
So God created man in His own image:
"And [Elohim] said, Let us make man in our image..." (Genesis 1:26)
Now that was God and the Word. You might ask; "Who said that?" That is not God speaking to man. When God speaks to the man always it is the Word doing the speaking and He speaks only what God the Father told Him to speak. It all came from God.
But here one is speaking to the other. One of them said to the other one of them; "...Let us make man in our image..." (Genesis 1:26). Who did the speaking? I can tell you it was God, the one Jesus called the Father. He is the one who took the initiative and decided to create human beings. But you turn back to the first chapter of Genesis and there was nothing but darkness left from the sins and the evils of Satan and his demons who had inhabited the earth; and so the first thing that Elohim said was:
"...Let there be light..." (Genesis 1:3)
Now who said that? There was God and the Word, now one of them did the speaking. The Word said; "...Let there be light..." (Genesis 1:3). But He said that only because God the Father told Him to. So that was the Word speaking.
Now we come the second chapter of Genesis and it begins to introduce another Hebrew word which might be pronounced as Yahweh, Strong's H3068. I don't know that anyone knows just how to pronounce it properly. I don't think I need to apologise if someone else disagrees with me; because I don't think he knows any more than I do about how it should be pronounced. But it means the Ever Living One, or the Eternal, the Self-Existent One and refers to the one who became Jesus Christ, or the Word, the same as the Spokesman or the Word that is mentioned in John 1:1.
"...Let us make man in our image..." (Genesis 1:26)
But you will notice in Genesis 2 and in verse 7 it says; "And Elohim..." - well let's go back and read that:
"And the [Yahweh Elohim, or the] LORD God [as it is in your English Bible, originally Yahweh Elohim in Hebrew, and the Yahweh means the one who is Christ] formed man [from] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man [that is the dust of the ground now formed into a man] became a living soul." (Genesis 2:7)
The dust of the ground became a soul. A soul is not spirit, a soul is matter, flesh of the dust of the ground. However God did put a spirit in man and that spirit is not the soul, the soul is man and there is a spirit in that soul. That spirit is what gives us mind added to the brain, it empowers the physical brain with intellect, something that animals don't have, although animals have a brain just like a man does and just as good. But they can't think, they can't know what a man can know. They don't have the psyche, they don't have attitude, they don't have feelings for things like we do – sorrow and gladness, and happiness and joy, at least not to the extent that humans do at all.
The Two Trees (PLAY FROM 20:14)
But God formed man of the dust of the ground. Now he did not have eternal life, he only had a temporary, chemical existence, a physiochemical existence, as a physical being. Man is made of the dust of the ground but man was offered eternal life. Before him were the Two Trees. I won't go into the details of that again but one is the Tree of Life. Now how does God give life to human beings? Through the Holy Spirit; so naturally that tree meant that the Holy Spirit would have given him immortal life. On the other hand there was the other tree which was the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Now good and evil is a peculiar kind of knowledge. You go to College and University and a scientist studies a great deal about chemistry, about physics, about physical things, about mechanical things. And you know that has nothing to do whatsoever with the knowledge of good and evil. Good and evil is a kind of knowledge that is not concerned with making the things that we make in the world. Now today we are very advanced in the things we make; so we make jet planes and we make space craft. We make railroads; they came and went and now they are trying to bring them back again. We make automobiles, we make so many things, but that's not a matter of knowledge of good and evil. It doesn't take the knowledge of good and evil to make those things.
Good and evil is a kind of knowledge that is concerned with mental and spiritual relationships. First of all the relationship of a created being with the Creator; and secondarily with the created being with other created beings. The only reason there are troubles in the world, the trouble is a wrong attitude in the spirit in man clashing with the spirit in another man or other people.
As I've said so many times, we speak about contented cows out grazing, whether there are two cows or whether there are a hundred or several hundred cows, each one just munching on his grass and letting the other cow do the same thing. They are not each one trying to run the other one out of the way and take everything away from him like humans do.
But they are contented and humans are not contented nor happy. And that is all because man is made in a different way than animals to that extent. Physically he is the same, exactly like an animal except just the form and shape. Man is made in the form and shape of God. God is not a four footed animal, God has hands and feet, He has fingers and toes. So does man, animals don't. But man has a mind, animals have a brain. Now what is the man's mind? I've said so many times it is the brain plus the human spirit.
Now the Tree of Life simply represented the Holy Spirit that was there for Adam if he would have taken of that. It also was a tree of knowledge because the Holy Spirit is that within the human mind, that God adds to the human mind, that will open the mind to understand, to comprehend, spiritual knowledge when God teaches that spiritual knowledge.
Now God teaches spiritual knowledge as Jesus did in person. The Bible is merely the same word in writing, and here it is. And you'll find these Bibles - there may be a Bible in most of the great Universities of the world. I don't think they are ever looked at, at least not very often, and if they are it is critically and not for understanding because they cannot understand the Bible. The Bible is God speaking and God speaks in spiritual language; and the Holy Spirit is an ingredient in the mind that causes the mind to understand what God is saying. And without that Spirit it's just like some foreign language you never heard before, you don't understand it. I could have a PhD in this audience this afternoon, an unconverted PhD, and he would think I'm crazy. Maybe he ought to go look in the looking glass and see who is crazy, because he wouldn't understand the things of God, the natural mind. And so:
"...Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the [mind] of man, the things which God hath prepared for [those] that love him." (I Corinthians 2:9)
It just doesn't enter the human mind no matter how intellectual, or how much the human mind is educated. Education is only a matter of taking the kind of mind you have and stuffing knowledge into it. But the only kind of knowledge that comes into a natural mind is physical, materialistic knowledge. Spiritual knowledge that mind cannot comprehend so he never gets it, he never gets the understanding of it. He might get the words but he doesn't know what they mean, he doesn't comprehend.
Good and Evil Spiritual Knowledge (PLAY FROM 27:05)
Now there is a type of spiritual knowledge, good and evil is spiritual knowledge, and in a sense the natural mind of man can receive a certain type of spiritual knowledge but not the things of God. Adam did receive certain spiritual knowledge, or attitude, from Satan and it was through Eve. Now in the third chapter of Genesis; Eve apparently strayed away from Adam for a little while and ran across Satan in the form of a serpent:
"Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the [Eternal] God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." (Genesis 3:1-3)
Right away Satan says; "Well God didn't know what He is talking about, you mustn't believe God, you are an immortal soul." Now God said:
"...thou shalt surely die." (Genesis 2:17)
Satan said to the woman; "That is not true, you can't believe God. I say to you, you will not die, you are an immortal soul."
"...Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know [better than that, God knows] that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, you shall be as god [or you will be god yourself, or like God yourself], knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food... " (Genesis 3:4-6 paraphrased)
She could see that with her natural eye that this was pleasant to the eye. Now this came into the eye, she was looking at material things. It is:
"...desired to make one wise [now that appealed to her intellectual vanity, now a spiritual something began to enter], she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and [then she] gave...to her husband with her; and he did eat." (Genesis 3:6)
So Adam disobeyed, Eve was deceived, but Adam was not, and Adam completely disobeyed. And so he received a spiritual attitude, not necessarily spiritual knowledge, not the things of God. But now in the spiritual attitude that Adam received there is both good and evil. I wonder if you understand that? Have I made that plain and clear before? The natural carnal man can have high aspirations, he can be a man of good ethics, he can have high ideals, be a man of good morals, high moral sense, and integrity, honesty; up to a point. Satan will allow you to have all of those things but it is always, in the natural mind, it is always self-centered.
For example; the highest form of love I think that we would say; that the natural person could have would be mother love. I don't know of anything higher, but mother love is itself, selfish. A mother loves her child; her child came out from her, the child is hers. It's like part of her and she loves herself; and that's like part of herself. You will love what is yours, you are on the side of what is yours; you are against what is someone else's. Satan gives you a spirit, or an attitude, of competition, you are always against the other side; you are for your side.
I know once in a while we haven't anything else to do on the plane, I will usually go to my typewriter, and in my seat in the plane it is like a built in miniature office, you might say. I have a bookcase above, I bring a shelf down if I want to write, or have food set on it and so on. I put up that shelf, and I bring it down again, and something else comes down with it the next time – a typewriter. And back inside is paper and envelopes, other things that I need, equipment to work with. Up above is a bookcase with dictionary, Bibles, different books that I need to work with when I am spending several hours on the plane crossing an ocean.
But after I'm tired of writing and fatigued and my writing is not effective any longer, then I usually go back and sometimes play a game of hearts. Now one will say, for example, the whole object of the game of hearts is to get the low one. Now there is one reason I rather like the game of hearts, if you're going to play a game, the one who gets the least wins! In this world it's the one who gets the most and takes it away from others who wins. But in hearts it's the one who gets the least wins. But then we have people say the whole idea is to get the low man so he won't be the least. You know I never do that and sometimes I get criticized for that, but not by anyone in the Church, and I just play to get as little as I can. Well you know we have a lot of fun playing hearts because we do a little bit of kidding and we rather enjoy it, we say; "Well it is more blessed to give than receive." So we try to give all we can, get as little as you can get. You'd be surprised how many funny expressions will come out of it. I don't know, some of the others like to play bridge, or things like that, I never do but I will play hearts once in a while. I just play to get as little as I can, I don't try to beat anyone else or anything of the kind and let it go as it does.
Well anyway, Adam made the wrong decision and he rejected God, he disobeyed God, he rejected the Tree of Life and chose the other tree. He could only take one, he had to choose; and he chose to take the Knowledge of Good and evil to himself. You will notice that even churches decide for themselves what is evil and what they think is good. I was taught in a Protestant church as a boy that a deck of cards was sin; not the wrong use of them but just a deck of cards was sin. A pair of dice was sin, a theatre is sin; and if you ever go to a theatre under any circumstances it's sin. They taught that the thing was sin rather than the wrong use of it. But that was man's idea. Now God says:
"...sin is the transgression of the law." (I John 3:4)
And the law is love, and love is something that only God can really fully understand. Now the only kind of carnal love, as I say, is selfish; but there is no way that you can have God's righteousness, or the love of God, except by the Holy Spirit within you. Otherwise you simply do not have love. We can have what men call love in this world. As I say, you can have high ideals, good intentions, ethics, good morals. There are good, bad and indifferent morals in this world, mostly bad and indifferent. But there are some, I suppose, that have good morals and a sense of decency.
The Result of Adam's Sin (PLAY FROM 36:15)
But when Adam made that fateful decision, immediately God closed up the Tree of Life and He shut it off from mankind, which means He shut off the Holy Sprit from mankind. Now man is reserved to deciding for himself what is good and evil. Man was not cut off necessarily from God and God didn't cut Himself off from man.
God talked to the first son that was born from Adam and Eve. He talked to Cain, Cain was getting very angry at his brother and God cautioned him. He said; "Look out now Cain, or you're going to get in trouble." Cain didn't listen to God and went ahead in a rage, he killed his brother and then he lied to God about it and said he didn't know where his brother was. And impudently he says; "...Am I my brother's keeper?" (Genesis 4:9). That was a rather insulting, impudent statement.
God then chose Israel and even revealed His Law to them. They never did understand it because it is one of the things of God and it takes "...the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit..." (Romans 5:5) to fulfill the Law. Love is the fulfilling of God's Law and the only kind of love that has fulfilled that Law, a holy Law, is the love of God; and God never did give the Israelites His Holy Spirit. So they never did fulfill the Law, they never did obey.
But the Holy Spirit was cut off until Christ, the second Adam, should come. Except, one exception; Christ was coming to start another world and I want to show you now that Adam started a world. We are to be inside of that world, but not of it. We are the start of another world. You know we talk about the end of the world and people think that's awful, and the end of civilization. People think well that's the most terrible thing there could be, civilization is the finest thing there could be. Oh they think civilization is wonderful. Civilization is only what man has built, influenced by Satan. This is Satan's civilization not God's.
Now God cut man off from the love of God shed abroad in his hearts when Adam sinned. But God was going to start another world in His Son Jesus Christ through the Church. As a foundation, a pre-foundation for that Church, God called certain men that He chose as prophets, starting probably with Abraham. Noah was a preacher of righteousness. I don't know, that might be a matter of opinion whether Noah would be considered a prophet, God knows. Anyway, the promises of eternal inheritance for everybody are all based on promises God made to Abraham; and confirmed in his son Isaac, and Isaac's son Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. So when God closed off the Holy Spirit that left man to decide for himself the way to live, what to do and how to do it and how to live, as influenced by Satan. So this was Satan's world started by one human man Adam.
Now the time was to come when God would start God's world. It would be started by one man Jesus Christ; influenced by God instead of Satan, and of those that God would call and would be taught by the Word, Jesus Christ, as God taught Him. So the time was coming.
Now this became then Satan's world not God's world. God dipped down into this world to warn Cain, "Don't kill your brother Abel." But he killed him anyway. God dipped down into this world to call out His nation Israel. God dipped down into this world to call certain prophets and reveal truth to them, and He did give to them His Holy Spirit so they could comprehend and understand and write for us. And the first writing began with Moses long after Abraham.
Why the Second Death? (PLAY FROM 41:35)
Now in Revelation 12:9 you read how Satan has deceived all nations. In another place in the Bible you read that; "...all have sinned..." (Romans 3:23). And as in Adam all have sinned. I Corinthians 15:22 and; "...all die..."(I Corinthians 15:22).
And I want to come to that and about this death and why there is a second death. Now in II Corinthians 4:4 you also read that Satan is the God of this world; and he has blinded the people of the world till they can't understand truth. He has blinded them into his concept of good and evil and without God's Holy Spirit they don't understand the Word of God if it is spoken to them or if they read it in the Bible. They just cannot understand it. And so that was the foundation of the world when Adam made that decision and when God shut off the Holy Spirit and this became Satan's world.
We are not born into God's world - this is not God's civilization. Now nearly all Christian teaching - that is called Christian, falsely so called, Roman Catholic and Protestant or Greek Orthodox Catholic, is not the Church of God, not any of them. Not one of them understands the truth of God. They assume that this is God's world, that Christ has come to save the world.
Jesus didn't come to save this world, He came to start another world altogether. He came to call people out of this world to be separate and no part of this world; but to be the beginning embryo part that will develop into the world tomorrow. That will be God's world, this is Satan's world. Brethren I think that that is something that NO CHURCH CALLED CHRISTIAN UNDERSTANDS. DO YOU UNDERSTAND IT BRETHREN? God is not trying to save this world, not now. Now ultimately, God is going to give very human being, from Adam on, a chance at salvation.
"...as in Adam all die [I Corinthians 15:22] ...so in Christ shall all be made alive." (I Corinthians 15:22)
And they are going to be made alive, not eternally alive necessarily - some will, some won't. Let me explain that as I go along. But most are going to be made alive in the Great White Throne Judgment more than a thousand years off from now, after the Millennium. And in that Judgment they're going to be condemned, and the penalty is the second death. I want to show you why it is the second death and not just the first. Now there is one thing...
[45:12 minutes, the tape skips at this point]
...is quite a philosopher, very wise in his way, highly educated in this world, but he didn't know God's truth. In the material world all changes, given enough time, rock, stone and iron is going to deteriorate and change. Nothing remains permanent.
But spirit, a spirit person, a spirit being, once his spirit is completed can never change, it is eternally the same. Now when God created angels He did not finish their creation. It's like baking a cake first and putting the icing on later. They were not completed until character had been built within them and until it had - I like the idea of 'set'. I think of pouring cement, we pour cement and you can work it for a little while, a little while, a few minutes, but it hardens very quickly. I don't know, what is it? A couple, three hours, four hours, at least overnight, it is hard the next morning, you can walk on it. We call it "set." Once it's set it's hard, it stays there, we think of it as being permanent, it really isn't because nothing material is permanent.
Lucifer's Fall (PLAY FROM 46:42)
But until that character had been formed and set angel creation was not complete, and angels still had the right to free choice. They were given free moral agency. They were given minds better than our minds, further advanced and more intelligent than our minds. Lucifer was one of the super angels, a Cherub, which is higher order of angel than ordinary angels. Above ordinary angels were Seraphs and above them were Cherubs. And Lucifer was a Cherub, the highest rank of angels. He was one of two angels whose wings had covered over the Throne of God. He had been instructed at God's headquarters of the universe.
He had been instructed in God's Government, in God's Law and God's way of life, the way of love, the way that God and Christ live. Now I said a while ago, they lived. What did they do? They created. They had to get along together, they did, and one had to be the leader and there was perfect harmony. But they lived the way of love, of cooperation, and peace. God the Father was the leader, Christ agreed with everything and obeyed everything.
Now Lucifer was set there and there is a government. Government is merely the rules of living, how you live in in relation to other people, or other beings. And God's way of living is love, which is cooperation, sharing, giving, serving, helping, outgoing concern for the good of others, where you love others and you want everything to be good for them the same as you. You don't have any hatred, you don't have any jealousy or envy toward them or a feeling of competition or antagonism or malice or anything of the kind, just one of love.
That's why you can love your own enemies. When they do wrong you think; "Well there is a potential God, and what a terrible thing if that person goes wrong." You love that person, you don't want to see him do wrong, or go wrong, and you are sorry to see that. That is how you can pray for your enemies, you love them; you wish they weren't doing wrong because they are going to have to pay for it.
I pray for some people that God will somehow snatch them like a brand out of the fire, from the final lake of fire. They are my enemies now, they wish I had died a long time ago, they wish I would die now. I don't feel that way toward them. I feel that they are possible God beings going a wrong way for their own destruction. I pray for God to bless them, but the only way He can bless them is spiritual blessing; and that means to give up the wrong that they are doing. But God knows that; I don't pray for Him to hurt them. I pray for Him to save them and to open their eyes to the way they are going; and to turn around and go the right way. And wherever I am wrong, to help me see it, and go the right way too.
Now matter is always changing, spirit does not change. Once character is completed in an angel being it is set like cement, you might say, he can never change. Now Lucifer knew God's way, had been living that way but he hadn't made his final decision. He was placed on the throne of this earth over other angels. A third of all of the angels apparently.
He made the decision that God was wrong, that competition is better than cooperation, that destruction is better than building up and creating, that it's best to try to get the other fellow; to take away, get everything for yourself. Just the opposite of God's way who wants to give; God is a great giver, the greatest giver of all. He wants to give us eternal life, He gave His only Son that He might pay the penalty of our sins, that we still might have all of the glory of God, and come to that great glory.
Matter changes. Once Satan, or Lucifer, had made his decision he was set as a devil and he was changed from Lucifer to Satan. And his angels who agreed with him and followed him, were changed from angels to demons. And they can never be changed again, because they are spirit persons, spirit beings, composed wholly of spirit. Thereupon God created man out of matter and God is now reproducing HIMSELF. He is not creating separate spirit beings, He is reproducing Himself.
Man's Creation Not Yet Complete (PLAY FROM 52:46)
But now man was to be created in two stages. There was a physical stage and a spiritual stage; but even the physical stage, man was created in two stages. Man was created first male, but God wanted him to reproduce and have children so that they could be converted and changed and made into God beings and He wanted a good many of them. And so the man alone couldn't have children; so God took one of his ribs and made a wife for him and the two became one. Now man was physically complete. Now that was just physically; but mentally and spiritually he was not complete yet.
Now how did man differ mentally and spiritually from animal creation? Man got his life from the breath of air and the circulation of blood just like an animal. Man has a brain just like an animal. Man is of a different form and shape however, the form and shape of God. But man was made to become God and God is reproducing Himself. So man was given a mind because God has a mind, but the mind was not made complete. Man was mentally and spiritually incomplete. Mentally and spiritually man was made in two stages.
Now the mind of man is a brain, physical brain, plus a human spirit. Now the human spirit is not a person. Each angel is an individual person but the human spirit in man is, you might say, so much essence like air or water. Water can be poured, air can blow. You can take a certain amount of air and put it in something and bottle it up. But man was not completed in his creation mentally or spiritually. The human spirit is not a person, as I said, so the person was made incomplete.
Now I want to give you a difference. Adam was made incomplete and the [Holy] spirit was taken away from him and his children. And all of his children have remained mentally and spiritually incomplete to this day, except those that God called and made prophets and except Christ and those that have been called into His Church since and have received God's Holy Spirit. Now I wonder if we can comprehend this.
Christ, the second Adam, was born a little different way. Adam was created with one spirit, the human spirit. He had an opportunity to receive the Spirit of God and he rejected it. The second Adam was the Word made flesh. He was the only begotten Son of God that was ever born of a human woman. Now we may be begotten of God in another way to be made immortal heirs, but none of us was begotten of God before our human birth, we were all begotten by a human father. Jesus was begotten by the divine Father, God, and the only human ever begotten that way. Now bear this in mind, Jesus was born with a complete mind from birth. Jesus had the Holy Spirit from birth.
But even though He had the Holy Spirit, He had to face the temptations of Satan. Satan had come and decided the wrong way; and God wanted people that could resist that, and could know that that is the wrong way, and know why we go on into the righteousness of God. You just heard in the sermonette this afternoon that just getting sin out of your life is not enough. I have used the illustration of a milk bottle; now maybe the milk is dirty, maybe it's spoiled, you don't want it and you pour it out. But as you pour that out, something else goes in, air. Or you take an empty milk bottle and you want to pour some good, clean milk in it and for every drop of milk that you pour into that bottle, the same quantity of air has to go out. If we get sin out of our lives we have to put righteousness in the place of it. That is the whole story, and the whole story in these Holy Days.
Jesus, even though He was born with the Holy Spirit, He still had to face Satan. Satan tried to destroy Him before His mind could develop enough to think very far, or to resist Satan. Even as an infant Satan tried to destroy the Christ child. God protected Him and had his parents flee to Egypt where Satan's men couldn't find Him. Then Satan went after Him again just before He began to preach the gospel. After Jesus was baptized, the first thing was He had to face Satan in that great temptation. You read the details of it beginning with verse one in Matthew the fourth chapter. The most titanic battle and struggle ever fought on the face of this earth for the greatest stakes, for the stakes of really the entire universe. Not only just this world but the entire universe and the rulership of it forever!
And Jesus Christ won that because He was fighting for this earth from Satan. But once He overcame that He is going to have more than this earth, which Satan never did have. The second Adam was born with a complete mind. Now Adam's creation was never {1} completed. Now understand that.
Christ Slain from the Foundation of the World (PLAY FROM 1:00:03)
So, as a result of that, it was decreed, as you read in Revelation 13:8. I'd just like to turn to that and read it. Revelation 13:8, how Jesus was:
"...the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." (Revelation 13:8)
The foundation of the world was the time when Adam made the wrong choice and God closed off the Holy Spirit from man. That was the foundation of this world, and when this world started and Satan was in control; and it's Satan's world. It was decreed that Christ should come and pay the penalty of sin so that man; already captured now, Adam captured by Satan, and his children, all have been. In a sense, Adam was fighting that battle with Satan for all of his children to be born from him and; "...all have sinned..." (Romans 3:23), whoever have lived, born of Adam. {2} Except Jesus Christ, and He was born, not of Adam, or one of Adam's sons, but of God; begotten of God and born of a human woman.
So when God said to Adam that if he took of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he would surely die - he did die. God has a little further than that to go, God had not completed Adam's creation yet. Adam's creation was never complete. Adam died without ever being created complete, his mind was never completely created. Now at the same time, the creation of this earth in Hebrews 9:27, I want to read that once again, I've read it so many times:
"And [so] it is appointed unto men once to die [now sin, the penalty of sin, is death, but it says appointed once to die], but after this the judgment:" (Hebrews 9:27)
That also was decreed at the foundation of the world, that man would be resurrected into a resurrection after the Lamb of God had come and been slain. But man could be redeemed from the foundation of Satan's world - that was decreed. Now next turn to I Corinthians 15 beginning with verse 22:
"For as in Adam all die..." (I Corinthians 15:22)
And all that have ever been born except those still living, and I don't think there's any – maybe there is one as old as 150 now, I don't know. I think they have discovered one somewhere in the world, 150, but I'll guarantee you there is no-one 200 years old living today. All have died except a few of us still living. And of course the world has a bigger population living now than it ever had, but look at the billions who have lived and died.
"...as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all [the same 'all', every one of them] be made alive [now go a little further]. But every man in his own order [in other words there is a succession of resurrections by which we shall be made alive, now]: Christ the firstfruits [first of all a resurrection of Christ; when Jesus raised Lazarus and one or two others from the dead, that was only a temporary life they were brought back to, but Christ is the first real resurrection in this sense]; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming." (I Corinthians 15:22-23)
Now that refers to the Church. That begins with all of the prophets in the Old Testament; and that begins with the New Testament Church, the apostles and all that were in the True Church and had the Holy Spirit of God.
"...if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised...Christ from the dead shall also [make immortal] your mortal bodies by his Spirit that [dwells] in you." (Romans 8:11)
That applies to you and me today, that is Romans 8:11. And our resurrection, those in the Church at Christ's coming:
"Then cometh the end..." (I Corinthians 15:24).
And it doesn't describe that here, that is described though, in the twentieth chapter of Revelation, the Great White Throne Judgment, that is described in Ezekiel 37, the valley of dry bones when all Israel is going to come back to life. And we will have that described again on the last Holy Day of year, next Autumn. When all that ever lived are going to come back to life and they are going to face the Judgment. And Christ is going to sit on the judgment seat and everyone is going to be found guilty, because all have sinned, and the penalty is death. But you see, God decreed that there would be a cessation in this life and that they would be brought back to life again. That's why in man's case it has to be the second death.
God's Called Out Ones (PLAY FROM 1:06:38)
Now, so it was into such a world, Satan's world, came Jesus Christ to start God's Church and to start God's world, to start another world. Not to convert Satan's world, but to pull people out of Satan's world and start God's world, another world altogether that is yet to come. But in John 6:44, I think that maybe you had better read that once again. Jesus said:
"No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me [draws] him..." (John 6:44)
Now there is no way back to God. When you sin - you see God is the Law Giver, and when you sin it is against God; and that cuts you off from God the Father. You are really not just cut off from Christ, you are cut off from God the Father; and it is God the Father who has immortal life to give. Now He gives it through Christ, and Christ is the door you go through to get to God to receive immortal life. But Christ said no man can come to Him. You can't come to Him or come through that door except God the Father draws you. Now on the Day of Pentecost Peter said that the promise of the Holy Spirit was to those people there that day, their children and as many "...as the Lord our God shall call." (Acts 2:39).
To them that God calls. God picks out of Satan's world certain ones He wants to be leaders, that He wants to start His world, pioneers, leaders, teachers. Now Jesus taught the disciples, He called, well really 14, but there were 12 that were official, there were two alternates, and He taught them and they taught the Church. And each one in the Church was also to begin to teach others. In Matthew 26 He commissioned them to go out and teach others, to teach the word and teach them as He had done, the way of life. Also in Mark's gospel, Mark 16 verse 15 Jesus said:
"...Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel.." (Mark 16:15)
Now gospel means good news, and the good news that Jesus preached was the announcement of the Kingdom of God that is coming. That is what we do brethren; we go out and preach the good news of the second coming of Christ and the world to come, and the Kingdom of God, and that a time of world peace is coming, a better world.
We don't go out to convert the world, we don't try to convert the world. People say, do I try to teach Kings, Prime Ministers and Presidents of nations when I meet them, do I try to get them to accept Christ and be converted? NO, of course I don't, I don't know whether God's called them or not. I don't go out to do that. I do talk to them about their problems; and when I have a chance, I explain the problems are beyond them and that God is going to have to come and do it to us and for us. But humanity is not going to be willing to just change, and it's going to be another world altogether. I don't try to convert them, I don't know that God has called them and I couldn't convert them.
"NO-ONE CAN COME TO CHRIST unless God has chosen them and called them and called them and drawn them." (John 6:44 paraphrased)
It's too bad that the great evangelists of the world, great names, and they are buying time on television - millions and millions of dollars are being spent preaching Christ - and thinking they are preaching the gospel. They are only preaching about the Messenger, but not preaching His message. And the gospel is a message, they do not preach the gospel. They preach their message about Christ, but the gospel is the good news of the coming Kingdom of God and they don't preach that, they don't understand it. They think we're crazy because we understand it.
Training to be Teachers (PLAY FROM 1:12:00)
Now also in Hebrews there is a scripture here I want to read once again. Paul was writing to the Hebrews here: "For when for the time ye ought to be teachers..." (Hebrews 5:12)
In other words; the members of the Church had been taught so that they in turn can be teachers. Take a teacher in a school, how did he become a teacher? Because he went to school and was taught. Now he is only teaching others what he was taught when he was in school, or she, as the case may be; "...ye ought to be teachers..." (Hebrews 5:12). You brethren sitting there in seats, you are learning so that you can be teachers:
"...ye ought to be teachers [but Paul said to the Church], ye have need that [someone] teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat." (Hebrews 5:12)
In other words; you might say first grade knowledge, you are not ready for High School or College yet in the spiritual teaching. And that is the way I'm afraid it has been; because we have let so much Protestantism rub off on us that we seem to have felt that this is God's world, and we just accept Christ, and that's all there is to it. That is only the very very beginning and not the end at all.
Now then, we are to be taught and so in the Kingdom, and if we die first we'll be resurrected immortal, we are being judged now. Judgment is already on the house of God; but judgment is not on the world. Now remember that, the world is not now being judged. So we must not condemn the world. Of course they will be condemned, that is up to Christ, He will condemn them. However they will find that He died to pay the penalty in their stead and they will still have a chance. In other words; the Tree of Life is going to be opened up to them. But the Tree of Life is already opened to you and me, and we, if we accept, we are being judged right now. And the rest of the world that God has not called and opened their eyes, and they have not been converted, they are not being judged now. But everyone will be, everyone shall be.
Now in Revelation 5:10 you read that we will be; "...kings and priests [both rulers and teachers, and we are going to] reign on the earth." (Revelation 5:10). Teaching the world, that is in God's world, that is in the world to come and that world will be ushered in at the second coming of Christ when Satan is going to be put away. And then:
"...The kingdoms of this world [that are now Satan's world] are going to become the kingdoms of our...Christ; [and the Church]." (Revelation 11:15)
Then He is going to take them over and then it will begin to be His world. Now in Revelation 3:21 and in Revelation 2:26 and 27 you read that if we overcome, the overcomers are going to sit with Christ on His throne and rule with Him over the nations. And we will be given power over the nations and we shall rule them with a rod or iron. We are going to teach them, and we are going to rule them, and we are being taught how to do that now; we are going to school now. That's why it's not only just getting sin out of our lives, we are to go on and: "Study to shew [ourselves] approved unto God..." (II Timothy 2:15)
That is why we have the Bible – to study. I listen to some of our ministers, like the sermon this morning and I know our ministers have studied the Bible. It isn't just that they have just memorized what I taught them, they have gotten enough now that they understand with the Spirit of God, they have studied the Bible for themselves too and they learn. And they have learned so that they can come up here to this pulpit and teach you what they have learned. How many of you can do that? You are all going to have to teach in time.
All Have Sinned (PLAY FROM 1:17:09)
Now we go back to the time of Adam, God said; "You shall die if you sin." (Genesis 2:17 paraphrased) he did. But I Corinthians 15:22:
"...as in Adam all die...so in Christ shall [the same] all be made alive." (I Corinthians 15:22)
Well Adam died. I think that must include Adam, he's going to be resurrected and his final judgment will come, if Christ died for the sins of others. Now there is one difference; we now, whom God has called, and are being called now, and God is drawing us to Him, we can come to Christ. We are in a little different position than Adam was, we have already sinned. He had not yet, until he sinned then. We have been living in sin. Every human being has sinned, and before you are old enough to be converted you have sinned. Everyone of you have; I have, everyone has who has ever lived. So we have to repent first of the past. Adam didn't have to repent of anything - but we do. And so Adam never gained immortal life, and we are his children, and we do not have immortal life. But why did Jesus come? John 10:10 Jesus said;
"...I am come that they might have life, and...have it more abundantly." (John 10:10)
We don't have life, we just have death ahead of us; "...as in Adam all die..." (I Corinthians 15:22). Christ came that we might have life, and everyone who ever lived is going to be resurrected and have a chance to have life; "...as in Adam all die...so in Christ shall all be made alive." (I Corinthians 15:22) in a final resurrection to Judgment. But God gives us access to Christ and to the Holy Spirit only on condition. In Luke 13:3 {3} Jesus said:
"...except ye repent...ye shall all likewise perish." (Luke 13:3-5)
Repent means turn away from sin, but it also means live the righteous life. Repentance alone is not just being sorry for what you did do; it means a change to what you should do. So repentance includes going the other way, the right way.
God Uses Man's Sin as Aversion Therepy (PLAY FROM 1:20:07)
When Adam sinned God allowed Adam and his human family to continue in human existence in sin. Now remember that; God allowed the human family, and to beget children, and to live in sin. And God knew in advance what He says in the Bible that; "...all have sinned..." (Romans 3:23). That all would sin, God knew that. Now why? To learn by experience that sin is not good. To learn to abhor sin, till we don't want it. We've got to get so filled up with it that we don't want it, that we see that is not good. Now I hope I have time to read you a little something from Ezekiel in the twentieth chapter. I won't have time for this whole chapter because it is quite long, but beginning with verse five, the twentieth chapter of Ezekiel, God says:
"And say unto them [the children of Israel], Thus saith the Lord [Eternal]; In the day when I chose Israel, and lifted up mine hand unto the seed of the house of Jacob, and made myself known unto them in the land of Egypt, when I lifted up mine hand unto them, saying, I am the [Eternal] your God; [I'll just read certain portions of it, now in verse 7] Then said I unto them [well he said that they would go into the land of milk and honey; then said I to them, verse 7], Cast ye away every man the abominations of his eyes, and defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt: I am the [Eternal] your God. But [He says] they rebelled against me [now dropping down to verse 10] Wherefore I caused them to go forth out of the land of Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness [or the desert]. And I gave them my statutes, and shewed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them [it's a way of life, we live in it]. Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the [Eternal] that sanctify them." (Ezekiel 20:5,7-8,10-12)
Set them apart. They didn't know it and people don't know it today and that's why they go to Sunday:
"But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness [and for 40 years they did: and] walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them [the judgments are all based on the Ten Commandments, a way of life]; and my sabbaths they greatly polluted..." (Ezekiel 20:13)
Then later He says that He would not bring them into the land:
"Because they have despised [God's] judgments, had not walked not in my statutes, but polluted my sabbaths: for their heart went after their idols. [Then verse 18] But I said unto them and their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols [they were going to their own ideas and their own traditions]: I am the [Eternal] your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; And hallow my sabbaths; and they will be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the [Eternal] your God. Notwithstanding the children rebelled against me...they polluted my sabbaths [and so on; then verse 23 {4} ] I lifted up mine hand unto them also in the wilderness, that I would scatter them among the [nations]...Because they had...despised my statutes, polluted my judgments and had polluted my sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers' idols. Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good [He just gave them up to go the wrong way], and judgments whereby they should not live;" (Ezekiel 20:16,18-21, 23-25 paraphrased)
God has allowed people to go on living in sin that we learn the lesson of what sin is going to do to us, until we get so sick of it we finally are going to turn away from it. Now dropping down to verse 33:
"As I live, saith the [Eternal] God, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out [that is the seven last plagues], will I rule over you:" (Ezekiel 20:33)
He's talking now about after Christ comes, in the Kingdom of God and God's world and He'll pour out His last plagues:
"...I will bring you [verse 35] into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face. [Verse 37] ...and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant [that is the New Covenant, the making of the New Covenant at Christ's second coming]: And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, [but] they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and ye shall know that I am the [Eternal]." (Ezekiel 20:35,37-38)
When Ezekiel writes; "...ye shall know that I am the [Eternal]." (Ezekiel 20:38) he is always referring to the second coming of Christ. Now verse 42:
"And ye shall know that I am the [Eternal], when I shall bring you into the land of Israel, into the country for the which I lifted up mine hand to give it to your fathers. And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed. And ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have wrought with you for my name's sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the [Eternal] God." (Ezekiel 20:42-44)
But He will finally make His New Covenant with them. Now He is referring to the generation then living in the beginning of the Millennium, however the same thing applies with the Great White Throne Judgment. You find that also in the thirty seventh chapter of Ezekiel, the Valley of Dry Bones and all of them will come up in a resurrection. And then they will come to know that they will loathe themselves; and when the death sentence is pronounced on them, just loathing themselves means that they will repent, they will want to turn to God's ways and they will be given eternal life.
Then in the eleventh chapter of Romans you read how finally all Israel shall be saved. There is speaks of how God turned to the Gentiles and how finally He's going to turn to all Israel. After he is showing how God is going to save all Gentiles and Israelites alike, he finally winds up in Rom 11, and I think we should:
"O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and [the] knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath...given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen." (Romans 11:33-36)