Bible class 2014 second edition

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The 2014 Bible Class Written by Evelyn C Pointer C O N T R I B U T O R S

G L O R I A

H E N R Y

A N D

M E L I S S A

C .

P O I N T E R

The 2014

BIBLE CLASS

By Evelyn Pointer

L I T T L E

D O V E

P U B L I S H I N G

Contents To the Temple of Jesus ......................................................................5 Synopsis .........................................................................................10 Knowing our Roots: Our true inheritance .....................................16 The Sons of God and the Seed of Man ..........................................21 Tower of Babel to Jacob .................................................................28 Joseph .............................................................................................35 Moses and Spiritual Egypt .............................................................40 The Passover to the Promise Land ................................................48 The Judges to King David ............................................................56 The Prophets and the Kings ...........................................................64 The Spirit of Elijah .........................................................................73 How to Revere God in the Land of Your Affliction: ......................83 The Medes and Persians: the breast and arms of silver ................94 Judith and the Virtues of Wisdom ...............................................102 The Greek Empire and the Maccabees ........................................114

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The Birth of Christ and the Roman Empire ................................123 The Voice of Christ Calling to his Children with Parables and Teaching .......................................................................................131 The Crucifixion and the Preaching of the Gospel .......................138 The Time of the Gentiles ..............................................................148 Slavery in the United States .........................................................172 Jim Crow.......................................................................................186 The Civil Rights Movement ..........................................................196 The Booth Church to Eternity .....................................................213 2014 Church Calendar ...............................................................219 New Moons...................................................................................220

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To the Temple of Jesus Who are we? Where do we come from? What are our history and our heritage? In order to find ourselves, we can go all the way to the beginning to Adam. But our beginning extends further back, beyond Adam to God. We are the children of God, the creation of Christ. We are the children of Adam and the ancient fathers that followed him. We are the children of this earth. Our fathers were Kings and prophets.

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Looking at us today it may be hard to believe. We are so diminished.

We are reduced to almost nothing. The few of us that remain are hidden and isolated from the world and we cannot see our brothers. We are forgotten by the world and we have forgotten ourselves. We lost everything over time. We lost everything that we once had, our land, our people, our name our physical strength and beauty, our wealth, our temple, and worst of all we lost the truth. We forgot the word of God. But for us in these last days God returned one thing to us. To just a few of us he gave the only essential, the only necessary thing. He gave us his word. He gave us the understanding of the truth. And so even though we lost everything, we found our hope! By studying his word we begin to also find ourselves, our people, and to understand the lessons passed down to us through history by our forefathers.

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This year we will study the lessons given to us through history. We will come to know ourselves better. We will gain greater understanding of our people and our heritage, because the people that we read about in the bible are our people, our family. Their story is our story, their history our history. Their struggles and pains, their failings, their destruction, their victories are all ours. We know that Christ has already overcome the world. He has called us his brothers. His victory is also our victory. He is our beginning and he is also our ending. As we read our history, reminding ourselves always of the goodness and

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salvation of God we grow stronger. We become more determined, resilient in the face of hardship, enduring temptation, increasing in faith as we rise up daily to the challenges of these dark times. We can understand our sure and unfailing hope and the promise of salvation.

We will come to know a full circle, from God to Adam to us and finally back again to God. Our heritage does not begin and end with the flesh of man. We are sons of God. This is our story.

May God bless and keep each and every one of us.

Sister Evelyn 

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Synopsis In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. On the sixth day he created man in his own image. He rested on the seventh day. He gave Adam and Eve a commandment which they disobeyed. God blessed and cursed his creation. The root of evil was established in the flesh of man. It was not to man’s benefit to know good and evil as a god. From evil and disobedience came death and a breech between man and the kingdom of heaven. In the beginning before the earth was created God the Father foreknew his children and placed their names on the book of life. The multitudes that were born after the sin of Adam and Eve were mostly children of the devil, whose names were not written in the book of life. The righteous seed and the promise of salvation would be preserved in the body of his Son Jesus Christ, the creator, who would come in the form of man to overcome the evil that was done from the beginning. Our story is the story from the beginning of the righteous seed.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God. Christ created the earth and all mankind. The first that was created was Adam and Eve. The righteous seed went from father to son. The multitudes of the wicked grew, and evils increased so much that during the time of Noah, God destroyed the earth with a great flood. God made a covenant with Noah in the form of a rainbow that he would no more destroy the earth with water. All mankind from that time until now came from Noah and

his three sons. From the family of Shem came Abraham in the process of time. God chose Abraham because he alone had faith and served the Lord. His family and the entire world worshipped idols. Abraham is called the Father of many nations. He was the father of many children, but it was Isaac the son of Sarah that God chose. He was the seed that God promised. Isaac had twins, Jacob and Esau. God chose Jacob and hated Esau. Here is a sign of the children of the earth. One is good and the other is evil, one a child of God and the other a seed of the devil.

Jacob had twelve sons. God called him Israel, Prince of God. His sons, the twelve patriarchs are the fathers of the nation of Israel. Joseph was sold into Egypt by his envious brothers. In the process of time during the great drought Joseph and his family are united and live in Egypt.

There they become a great nation, and there they become enslaved by Pharaoh. After 430 years God calls Moses to lead his people out of Egypt. God delivers the children of Israel with great signs and wonders.

In the wilderness of Sinai he gives them the law. At first the law was taught by mouth from father to son. Now it is a written law. The priesthood is no longer the duty of the firstborn in the family, but God establishes the priesthood with the house of Aaron. After 40 years Moses leads them to the Promised Land. Joshua succeeds Moses and leads the people over Jordan. They fight the battles of the Lord and inherit the land. The children of Israel were a nation without a king, surrounded by their enemies that constantly sought to destroy them.

Who would lead them after Joshua died? God set up Judges, leaders and warriors who would go before the people. Notable Judges included

Gideon, Samson and Deborah. The last of the great Judges was Samuel.

After Samuel the children of Israel asked for a king. The first king was Saul, who was later rejected because of disobedience. The most notable was King David, the great warrior and beloved Psalmist, to whom the Lord gave the sure mercies and promised him and his seed an everlasting kingdom. According to the flesh, Christ was of the lineage of David, who is king of kings and Lord of Lords forever. Solomon the son of David was the wisest man that ever lived but he was weak when it came to women, and he sinned so greatly that the nation of Israel was divided after his death, and the division was never healed. Most of the kings were wicked. There was never a righteous king in the nation of Israel. There were a few righteous kings in the nation of Judah. Some of the righteous kings were Hezekiah, Asa, Jehosephat and Josiah. But the nations of Israel and Judah continued to sin against God, even though he sent them prophets to warn them to obey. They would kill his prophets. They worshipped idols and acted just like all the wicked nations around them. So God sent them into captivity, first the nation of Israel were taken by the Assyrians, never to return and from then on called the “Lost tribes of Israel�, next the nation of Judah were taken into captivity by Babylon, then the Medes and Persians, Greece and finally Rome before disappearing from history like their brethren before them. For 70 years they were in Babylon. Babylon and Edom burned the temple to the ground. When the Medes and Persians came into power they were given a little space of time for the second rebuilding. Then the Greeks came and established the abomination of

desolation leading to the wars of the Maccabees. Finally Rome came into power. It was during the Roman captivity that Christ was born.

Christ was the seed of the promise. He was the seed promised from the garden that would crush the head of the serpent. He became the Son of Man and the second man Adam. The Father predestinated us to be conformed to the image of his Son. Christ established the apostles and disciples and preached the gospel. The gospel was preached with great power by his disciples after his resurrection, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. In 70 AD Rome came, just as Christ warned them, and burned the temple. They slaughtered the people in Jerusalem; the streets literally ran with blood. The Christians were persecuted where ever they were. Some went into hiding. But the Romans could not stop the gospel from being preached. The knowledge of evil had an alternative plan. Grievous wolves had already infiltrated the churches.

When the true leaders died they took over and corrupted the doctrine.

They changed things. We see in this time as well the abomination of desolation. A great time of darkness and ignorance came on the world for many, many years. This was the time of the Gentiles. The children of Israel that had survived were sold into slavery down the river of Ethiopia.

Written history of our people stops here. We know what happened through the prophecies written long ago and by the words of Deuteronomy chapter 28, verses 48 & 49, “Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the Lord shall send against thee in hunger, and in

thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee. The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand..” and verses 64 & 68, “And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone”, “And the Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee, Thou shalt see it no more again: and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy thee.” We went through Africa, beyond the rivers of Ethiopia as the scriptures tell us. We forgot who we were. The holy seed was mixed.

At the same time the Catholic Church grew and became the leader of the Abomination. God’s hand was still mighty among the Gentiles. It was God’s will to weaken the Catholic Church which brought about the Protestants. Much blood was shed, brother against brother in their religious wars to punish them because of their wickedness. The bible was eventually translated and published.

The Europeans came to this country, bringing with them slaves on ships from Africa. It was the worst slavery ever known and many died before they made it to this land. Our people survived. A very small remnant of the slaves from Africa was the children of Israel. After 400 years of Slavery the civil war. Again God punished the Gentiles, brother

against brother and many died. The emancipation proclamation did not bring the black man into equality. Jim Crow laws, and cruel lynching ensured that the black man remained under the foot of the white man. God opened the eyes slowly of a few black men who began to understand that they were of the lost tribes of Israel. During the civil rights era laws were enacted and God touched the hearts of the gentle giants to open up doorways for his people, so that they could be educated and have better jobs. During this time the Black Hebrew groups grew and many came to call themselves the children of Israel, though few, very, very, few came to understand the truth. Many called themselves Israel as a protest, or as a fad, and did not dig down to find the true gospel. Many of them did not believe in Christ and added traditions from Islam and Buddhism.

My parents, James and Ethel Webb eventually left the Seventh Day Adventist Church and joined The Church of God and Saints of Christ, one of the black Hebrew churches. They eventually left because they found faulty doctrine. My family ended up worshipping in homes. In the process of time our little church was established and we eventually came to the place we are today. So here we are today, a tiny remnant of a great nation. Just as God told us we would be. Ezekiel 6:8 “Yet will I leave a remnant that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries.�

Knowing our Roots: Our true inheritance January 18, 2014

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With all of the fearful things facing us and the troubles of the world it is important to know our true roots, where we come from, our inheritance and our genealogy. Recorded in the bible is information about our existence, telling us who the ancient fathers were before and after the

flood. It is written for our good and our salvation. Some of the ancient fathers were weak and some were very strong. They left a pattern for us showing how to overcome sin and wickedness and they left instructions

from God to obey all the laws and keep his commandments. When man sinned in the beginning being deceived by Satan, the Lord put enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the devil. That enmity is perfect hatred. The seed of the woman is Christ and the woman represents Zion. The seed of the woman is that perfect righteousness from Christ that will bruise the serpents head. Within Zion the church, there are strong leaders called the servants of the Lord and a congregation of righteous people.

Throughout time the Seed of Righteousness, traveling through man, selected the strongest of the people, the sons of God to set up examples of righteousness to overcome Satan. The strong were not fearful to risk

Seeds are tiny but extremely powerful

their very lives for the principals of holiness. Even today God has set up the strongest as leaders of his people and gave them the truth that has been hidden for centuries.

To know our true lineage we start with Abraham. Christ said “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.� Abraham is the father of the righteous because he obeyed the voice of God. Of all of the nations of the world Christ took on the seed of Abraham. Hebrew 2:16.

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The Seed of Righteous started in the Garden, from Adam to Shem going from father to son until we come to Noah. Genesis chapter 5 lists the genealogy of all of the ancient fathers from Adam to Noah. Noah was a man of perfect righteousness. He had the seed of the woman within him. This seed we know is the word of God, who is Christ. He and his family were the only people that were saved from the flood.

Noah was the strongest of the living in his time, so he was chosen by God. Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. Japheth was the oldest and Ham was the youngest. Japheth had 8 sons. Ham had 4 sons

and Canaan was his youngest son. Noah cursed Canaan. Shem had 5 sons, Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud and Aram. Of Noah’s three sons, the strongest of them was Shem and the Seed of righteousness went from Noah to Shem. From Shem the Holy Seed went through Arphaxad, then Salah and then Eber. From Eber the seed went to Peleg who lived around the time that the earth was divided at Babel. The strong seed continued to travel until it reached Abraham.

After many generations God chose one family to build a holy nation of people upon whom he would establish his covenant. The Lord called Abraham away from his family who worshipped idols. God made a covenant with Abraham and blessed him. Melchezidek met Abraham and blessed him, saying “Bless be Abraham of the Most High God possessor of heaven and earth.” Genesis 14:18-20. In this ceremony Abraham was being ordained by the throne to be the father of all the righteous in this earth and thereafter. Ordain means to enact or establish by law, to give a divine decree or order. Abraham was named after Christ, “the I Am”. It was a heavenly decree from the throne of God that this perpetual covenant of exceeding high honor was bestowed on Abraham and on all of his children that were given him by the Father in heaven. But God said to Abraham, “In Isaac shall thy seed be blessed.” Isaac was the son of Sarah born when they were in old age.

After Abraham’s death the Lord confirmed the same covenant with his son Isaac. Isaac married Rebecca. She became pregnant with twins.

The Lord told her that she was carrying two nations of people and that

the elder would serve the younger. Esau was born first. Jacob came out holding on to the heel of his brother. Traditionally the firstborn would receive the birthright and assume the responsibilities as head of the family after his father died. This also would include the role as priest for the family. Esau hated his birthright and sold it to Jacob for food when he was hungry. The Lord hated Esau and loved Jacob. The inheritance of Abraham and Isaac went to Jacob. The Lord blessed Jacob and changed his name to Israel, which means Prince with God. God made the same covenant with Jacob as he did with Isaac and Abraham.

Jacob’s twelve sons are known as the twelve patriarchs, who fathered the twelve tribes of Israel. Subsequently all of Jacob’s children and their descendants became known as the children of Israel to this day.

When God identifies himself to his people and other nations he says, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” It is the nation of Israel to whom God chose to put his name. They are God’s chosen people.

To identify your inheritance as the children of Israel you must read Deuteronomy chapter 28. This prophecy tells us that the children of Israel will go into slavery in a strange land. Also read Solomon’s prayer that the Lord would forgive them and hear them if they call upon the Lord and repent for their sins. Please read Deuteronomy 28

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The Sons of God and the Seed of Man February 1, 2014

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When Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they brought sin and death to the entire world. It changed the nature of the plants, bringing forth briars and thistles. It changed the

animals and all of mankind. God cursed the earth and he cursed Adam and Eve. To Eve he greatly multiplied her sorrow and her conception.

He did not change the number of the children that would be born on this earth that he had already foreknew, their names written in the book of life. The vast multitudes that came about after sin were the children of the devil. Satan’s children are like weeds. They are called tares. They live and grow among the righteous and they filled the earth.

They have no heart or mind to serve the Lord. Though God gave them every benefit and every opportunity to obey, they continued to sin.

Christ spoke of the Father saying that his sun shines on the just and the unjust, and that he gives rain to the just as well as the unjust. The wicked killed the righteous. Wicked people among the children of Israel stoned and killed the holy prophets. Wicked people in Jerusalem crucified Christ.

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Adam and Eve’s first two sons were Cain and Abel. Their story teaches us a lesson about the nature of a child of God and a child of the devil.

Both of them knew God. They both knew him in a way that we do not because they walked and talked with him. They were not led astray by others. They were not confused because of multiple religions. They knew who God was. They knew what he expected of them. They knew what they were supposed to offer to him. Abel obeyed. Cain did what he wanted to do. He gave God what he wanted to give him, not what God asked for. This is oh so similar to the way most of the people worship

God today. God says clearly to worship on the Sabbath day, but they give him a couple of hours on Sunday. God says to keep his commandments, but they say as long as they are not hurting anybody or if it’s between consenting adults everything is ok. God says he hates the wicked but they preach that he loves everybody. God did not accept what Cain brought and he will not accept what the wicked brings. Cain in anger and envy of his brother killed Abel. This was the first murder.

The thistle loves the light from the sun and the rain from heaven but it does not produce delicious fruit. It is covered in pointy barbs that can be quite painful.

The wicked enjoy the goodness of God but they will never bring forth fruit of righteousness.

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It wasn’t the last. The wicked continued to multiply and filled the earth with violence and sin. The earth was completely corrupt. God said man’s heart was filled with evil continually. He repented that he had created the earth. He decided to destroy the earth with a great flood.

But first let us look at a few facts about the most ancient fathers from Adam to Noah. The ancient fathers lived almost a thousand years each.

From Adam to Noah it was 956 years. So in almost a thousand years only 11 righteous men lived on the earth, including Abel who was killed

by Cain. The righteous seed did not therefore go through Abel. The righteous seed appeared 130 years after Adam with Seth and continued through his line. The seed of the wicked grew and multiplied. Adam and Eve had many children; all of them wicked except Abel and Seth and probably Seth’s wife. The bible never mentioned any of the wives by name until we come to Sarah. All of Cain’s children were wicked and none of Cain’s lineage survived the flood unless Noah’s daughters in law were related to them in some way. All of the ancient fathers except for Adam lived to see the birth of Noah. Adam died only 26 years before Noah was born. Enoch was translated before Noah was born. None of the ancient fathers died in the flood of course. Noah’s father Lamech died 5 years before the flood, but Methusaleh the longest living man lived right up to the year of the flood!

Noah was very special. His father named him saying, “This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the

ground which the Lord hath cursed.� The name Noah means rest. Can you imagine how they felt, these ancient holy men, completely surrounded by wicked people, every child that they had a seed of the devil, hoping for at least that one promised seed? Can you imagine how Adam and Eve must have felt having to witness what their actions had caused, the filth, the violence, the hard work, animals that used to be friendly becoming fierce beasts? What must it have been like seeing the beautiful and perfect earth become dangerous, deadly and increasingly full of sin and wickedness and knowing it was all their fault? I believe they all knew about Noah, and they probably knew God was going to destroy the earth in a flood. Even Enoch prophesied about the coming of God. A few reminders about Noah: Noah begat Shem, Ham and Japheth when he was 500 years old. Japheth was the eldest. When he was 600 God sent the flood. He told him to build the ark of gopher wood and he brought in the animals and birds, a male and a female. A total of fourteen of each type of clean, and four of each type of unclean animals, and fourteen of each type of bird. In the 2nd month of the 600th year the flood came. The water came from the deep as well as the rain came from heaven. It rained forty days and forty nights and covered the highest mountain about 30 feet. The water stayed on the earth in its full strength for 150 days. Then the water began to abate. The earth did not become completely dry until the second month of the next year. So the flood remained on the earth about a year.

God made a covenant with Noah and his sons and the animals and the birds to not destroy the earth with water again. As long as the earth remains God promised that all things will continue, seedtime, harvest, night and day. The rainbow is a sign of his promise. Because of the sin of man he changed the length of time that man would live to about 120 years, though it took a little while to decrease to that extent. He also put the fear of man on the animals. If they weren’t afraid they may have tried to kill them and it was only 8 of them left. He also gave the animals, the clean ones of course to man as food. The entire earth was repopulated by the three sons of Noah: Shem, Ham and Japheth. God chose the lineage of Shem to carry the seed of righteousness. It is from the line of Shem that we continue to our next great father, Abraham.

The wicked seed and the evil root were not drowned in the flood. It remained in the flesh of man. Just like there were few righteous in ancient times, there are comparatively few righteous today. Wicked people multiply in droves. The evil root has taken over the earth as it did in the days of Noah. Horrific violence, unspeakable filth and wickedness have become common place. There is a famine of truth.

Lies have taken over the world. People deny the existence of God. But the Lord promised not to destroy the earth with a flood again. He’s going to destroy it this time with fire. Like Noah our church is like a little ark. We are happy there are more than eight of us! Also, we carry the word of God in our hearts like the ark that carried the law. God will preserve us just like he preserved Noah and his family.

Please read: Genesis 6:5-8, Genesis 7:1-24, Genesis 8:1-22, Genesis 9:1-17 (67 verses)

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Tower of Babel to Jacob March 1, 2014

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The tower of Babel was built about 100 years after the flood. The word “Babel” means confusion, because there the Lord divided the language

and the people. The people were angry at God and afraid because of the flood. They thought they would be protected in a great tower. God knew

that the evil root would grow too rapidly if the people remained as one body. “And the Lord said, Behold the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.�

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Today we live in spiritual Babylon. It is a conglomeration of different nations, kindreds, tongues and customs, that must remain divided.

Some nations are strong and others are weak, and they all pull in different directions which is a good thing for now because it restrains the uniting of evil. Isaiah chapter 24 tells us how the world is called Babylon today after the name Babel. It is called the city of confusion.

Isaiah 24:1 & 10, “Behold the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.” “The city of confusion is broken down: every house is shut up, that no man may come in.” One day the nations will come together as one body and one people in the end of the world under the man of sin. In that time horrible atrocities, worse than at any other time in history will be inflicted on the poor and the weak, those who are children of the devil and even on some of the children of God.

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Abraham was born about 293 years after the flood. Noah lived 350 years after the flood, so Noah was alive when Abraham was born! God decreased the life span of man after the flood to about 120 years. This did not happen right away to the children of God but slowly over time.

Noah’s sons lived about 500 years until the tower of Babel, and then the ages of the fathers were cut to around 200 hundred years until Abraham.

Abraham’s family began to worship idols. The evil root remained as the wicked multiplied but the righteous were born very slowly, one man at a time. There were still very few of the seeds of righteousness on the earth at the same time. Some still lived because they lived a very long

time, like Noah and Shem. God made a covenant with Abraham and sent him away from his fathers. He sent him to the land of Canaan.

Abraham was married to Sarah, his half-sister. He took his nephew Lot with him. Abraham and Lot were rich and had a lot of cattle. Lot and Abraham divided to give their cattle room to graze. Lot settled in Sodom and Gomorrah. The evil in those cities was so great that in the process of time God destroyed them with fire, saving only Lot and his two unmarried daughters. Lot was the only righteous person in that land. But between Lot and Abraham, Abraham was the strongest.

Though Lot was a righteous man, God did not choose him, he chose Abraham. God promised to make Abraham into a great nation. Sarah was barren and began to lose patience. She tried to make it happen herself by using Hagar as a surrogate mother. It did not work out well.

Hagar resented Sarah, and her and her son made fun of Sarah and Isaac when he was born. Like Sarah God has promised us a seed. We wait, growing older and growing weary. Why are we doing all of this work, all of this preparation? Where are our brethren, the children of God? We must hold on to our faith like Abraham and believe in the promise of the Lord. If we try to go ahead of God and make it happen ourselves we may just get Ishmael, a wild man rooted in Egypt like Hagar. People whose hearts are not prepared of God would be like Ishmael in the church, wild, not prepared by God, and ready to fight or cause confusion. Remember Ishmael had to be cast out!

Abraham had Isaac when he was 100 years old. Isaac was forty when Abraham’s servant brought him Rebekah to be his wife. Abraham lived 175 years. Rebekah was also barren, but Isaac entreated God for her and she became pregnant with twins. God told her that there were two nations within her and that the elder would serve the younger. Esau

was the elder and Jacob was the younger. He was called Jacob meaning to supplant because he came out holding on to the heel of his older brother. The word “supplant” means to supersede or take the place of because of superior excellence or power. God’s chosen people carry within them the seed of righteousness, which is Christ. They are the

best. Jacob was also an example pointing to Christ. Christ, as the Son of Man supplants the forces of Satan. He will literally put his foot down on the head of the Serpent. God changed Jacob’s name to Israel which means Prince of God. Everything that we read about Jacob in the scriptures was a sign pointing to Christ and to Israel God’s chosen people. The four women with whom he had his 12 sons represent four different groups of people within the church of God and within the remnant. The Lord blessed Jacob exceedingly and made a covenant with him. Jacob was righteous and Esau was wicked. God hated Esau.

Esau thought little of his birthright and sold it to Jacob for food. When Isaac was old and blind Rebekah told Jacob to tell his father that he was Esau so that his father could bless him. This was the will of God. The blessing of the father extended throughout his generation to the end of time. Isaac was blind in a sense to the wickedness of Esau seeing only his strong first born son who was a great hunter. When Esau came in afterwards to receive the blessing it was too late. He cried to his father and begged him to bless him also. So Isaac blessed Esau too.

Esau’s blessing was different from Jacob’s. Esau was blessed with the things of this world and this life. Jacob was blessed with the things from God in heaven.

When we look at the wicked and common people in this world we may wonder why they seem to have so much when we have so little in comparison. The things that they have pertain only to this world and will also be destroyed with this world. They are dust and ashes. God

promised us our bread and our water. Often times we have even more than our basic necessities. We have things of comfort and pleasure too.

But most importantly we have the word of God, the hope of the promise, the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, the comfort of the Holy Ghost and the love and good will of the Father. We are taught by the Wisdom of God. Our names are written on the book of life and we are predestinated to be changed into the image of the Son at his coming.

We have a home prepared for us, a city that is built with foundations.

And we will also be taken to meet the Father together with Adam and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This is the blessing of Jacob.

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Please read: (83 verses) Genesis 11:1-9, Genesis 12:1-5, Genesis 17:1-27, Genesis 25:19-34, Genesis 27:6-29, Genesis 28:1-4 For additional study, please read Sister Colleen’s class on the Blessing of Esau verses the Blessing of Jacob.

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Joseph

March 15, 2014

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Jacob was the father of the nation of Israel. From four women he had twelve sons. Jacob loved Rachel the most. Rachel was the mother of Joseph. Everything that happened to Jacob was an example for all of his children. He worked very hard for his father in law who took full advantage of him, but the Lord was merciful and increased him with

riches. Jacob left Laban after twenty years of service. He returned to the land of his father. From Adam to Isaac the seed of righteousness appeared singly going from father to son, one in each generation. All of that changed with Jacob. His entire family, all of his sons held within them the holy seed. They were the chosen family, and from them would come the entire nation of Israel. His sons were not perfect, except for Joseph. Joseph was the strongest of the brothers and God chose him to save his family, as well as the entire world. Joseph was exceptional. His blessing was different from his brothers. Let us compare Joseph and the 144,000.

Joseph as we know was the son of Jacob and Rachel and the brother of Benjamin. Out of all Jacob’s sons, he was the most obedient. Because of this and the fact that Joseph was the son of Jacobs’s old age, he made Joseph a coat of many colors. This distinguished Joseph from his brothers. Jacob loved him the most so that his brothers hated him and could not speak peaceably unto him.

Let us look closer at Joseph for within his life and what he did on behalf of the Children of Israel and Egypt; we will be able to understand ourselves and God’s plan for us better. We know that Joseph reported to Jacob the wicked things that his brothers did which caused them to hate him more. To complicate matters, God gave Joseph dreams in which he saw himself over his brothers and them making obeisance to him. However when he dreamed that his father, mother and brothers

bowed to him his father Jacob rebuked him and even he did not understand Joseph’s dreams.

The envy and hate that Joseph’s brothers felt towards him escalated to the point that they wanted to kill him. When Jacob sent Joseph to help his brothers feed their flock, they conspired to kill him but God moved them to spare his life and they sold him into Egypt by a group of Ishmaelite’s going to Egypt. Before he was sold they stripped him of his coat of many colors, dipped it in kid blood and returning it to Jacob for him to assume Joseph was killed by an evil beast. As we know this caused great anguish to Jacob who wept but never really trusted his ten sons and kept Benjamin close to him.

Being a slave in Egypt was very hard on Joseph because he was still a child only 17 years old and always enjoyed the love and protection of his father and was now in the hands of his enemy and treated as a common slave; but God was with him.

How does the life of Joseph parallel ours? Our lives parallel Joseph because we were the beloved children of our Father; he lifted us up and we became a great nation; he gave us his Holy Oracles which is like the coat of many colors; which represent the covenant of God, Exodus 19:5-6. We the Children of Israel would be the light of the world to show where righteousness and holiness can be found. Unlike Joseph, our whole nation broke the covenant; we were stripped of our coat of many colors and we were sold as bondmen and bondwomen into Egypt.

However, there is a remnant of the Children of Israel who was like Joseph and did not disobey God even though they suffered the same fate that Joseph did being sold into bondage. As God was with Joseph so was he with that remnant and they prospered. Yet despite the prosperity of the Egyptians, Joseph was put in jail and falsely accused

by Potiphar’s wife; there Joseph remained in prison for many years.

In our day, we are in spiritual prison by the forces of darkness and death. We are bound in this body of flesh and Satan has access not only to our minds but the minds of the whole world which caused our curse to be much worse; he accuses us day and night unto God. Just as in the days of Joseph, God will lift us up out of prison .Truth will be raised up and grow abundantly like corn among his remnant. God will remove Satan from our minds and death from our bodies and we will be priest and kings before as Joseph was a king second to Pharaoh.

The Great thing that Joseph did was to save his family as well as Egypt during a terrible drought and famine, Genesis 42:1-2. We the remnant will do the same in the latter day; there is also a drought for the word of God as well as common things, Amos 8:11-13; however the children of God will receive corn in abundance from the remnant and they shall all be saved, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! Amen.

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Please read: Genesis 37:1-36, Genesis 39:1-23, Genesis 41:25-49

By G. Colleen Henry Elder

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Moses and Spiritual Egypt March 29, 2014!

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When we think about the first Passover it brings to mind one of the greatest men in the bible second only to Christ Jesus. That man of course was Moses. Moses was different from all other prophets and leaders in the bible. He led the children of Israel out of Egypt. He developed them into a nation according to the will of God. He was a combination of priest, king and General of the Army, as well as a

prophet and father. Most importantly he taught them the law and brought the written word to Israel, and later to all of us that read the bible. No other prophet or leader had as much power as Moses who called down plagues on Egypt and practically destroyed it. And yet Moses interestingly was also the meekest man on earth.

He was a very great man, and just like Christ he began his life in a very humble way. No, he was not born in a manger. Instead he was placed in an ark, a little boat with a covering to hide him from the Egyptians. He was put in the river to await his fate, his sister Miriam keeping watch.

400 years earlier the Patriarch Joseph made Pharaoh and the nation of Egypt very wealthy. Because of his wisdom, and the mercy of the Lord, Joseph became lord of all Egypt in all areas except the throne. All of

Egypt and the surrounding countries suffered through a terrible drought for seven years. Joseph had stored food during the years of plenty, and the Egyptians initially brought their money, then when that was gone they brought their cattle, and finally had to indenture themselves to Pharaoh as servants forever. In this way Pharaoh owned everything including the people. The people in the surrounding countries also brought all that they had into Egypt to buy food to survive the famine. All of this wealth went into the coffers of Pharaoh.

After Joseph and his brothers died Egypt began to forget how good Joseph had been to them. Other Pharaohs lived and in turn died. And the children of Israel multiplied exceedingly. The Pharaoh who lived when Moses was born was fearful of the increasing numbers of the children of Israel. In Joseph’s day his family, his father, brothers, their wives and children totaled 70 people. By the time of the Exodus there were 600,000 footmen, as well as women and children. They had become a nation within a nation. Pharaoh was afraid that the children of Israel would join an enemy to overcome Egypt if there was war.

Now we should understand that the same spirit that causes people to hate those that are different from them was alive and well in that time and has continued through history to the present. Racism, bigotry, ethnic and religious hatred is not a new thing. Egypt felt threatened by the children of Israel. So Pharaoh decided to enslave them. Now how could this happen? Well, it’s not so difficult to understand. In European nations the serfs were little better than slaves. The kings and

leaders literally owned the people. Also Pharaoh was ambitious. He wanted pyramids and treasure cities. In that way he could have eternal honor and glory. It’s like today when wealthy men build great buildings and put their names on them. But even though he enslaved them and made them to work with rigor they continued to increase. In our country today the white man is afraid of soon becoming the minority.

The Egyptians did not want to become the minority in their country.

They also wanted free slave labor. But Pharaoh could not forget about his fears, which was the danger of all of those Israelite men. Pharaoh decided that aggressive action was necessary. His plan was to kill all of the male babies and to let the baby girls go free. If you get rid of the baby boys then they can’t grow up to be warriors.

That is how Moses ended up in the ark. Hidden among the reeds in the river he was left to the mercy of God. His big sister Miriam watched nearby to see what would happen.

God sent Pharaoh’s daughter to the river. When she saw the ark and heard the baby cry, and looked at his beautiful little face she felt compassion and love for him. She decided that she would keep him for her own son. But tiny babies needed someone who could feed him. He needed a nurse. Miriam offered to find a nursing mother who would be able to feed Moses. Of course Miriam was a very wise and protective girl. She called her mother. Moses’ mother was then given wages to nurse him. So Moses was saved. His mother kept him until he was weaned and then gave him to Pharaoh’s daughter. We can see a parallel

with the remnant. We live in spiritual Egypt. We must give honor to the heathen who have authority over us. But like Moses who was fed by his mother we are fed the sincere milk of the word.

The bible does not tell us what Moses’ life was like in Pharaoh’s house.

It was nothing like the movies. Moses knew he was an Israelite. I’m sure he was reminded of that by all of the Egyptian boys. He was probably looked down upon as being really the son of a slave and not of Pharaoh’s blood. He grew up in Pharaoh’s house knowing he was different, not accepted by them as an equal, but on the other hand, with benefits not given to the other Israelites. When Moses became an adult he went out among his people. We know the story. He killed an Egyptian to protect an Israelite. When Pharaoh found out he had to escape for his life.

Now let us stop here for a moment and compare Moses’ life with Christ and with the remnant. Like Christ, Moses was a shepherd who led his people. They both had humble beginnings. Wicked kings were killing the baby boys when they were born. Their lives were in danger. In our day the remnant has very humble beginnings. We are among a race of people who were enslaved, and are generally considered inferior. Satan has systematically tried to destroy the males among the people. The black male is endangered. Many die young and violently. They are often imprisoned. Satan has weakened them. The remnant, just like Moses, is within the richest nation. Moses knew he was an Israelite. He knew he was different from the Egyptians in Pharaoh’s house. Christ knew he

was the son of God, different from all that were born on this earth. The remnant know that they are Israelites also, children of God. We are separate and alone because of the truth.

After many years in Midian God came to Moses in the burning bush and told him to return to Egypt to deliver the children of Israel. We know what happened. How Moses at the commandment of God called down plagues on Egypt culminating at the night of the Passover when all of the firstborn of Egypt was killed by the destroying angel. In the last days the bible tells us that God will call his children from the north, the south, the east and the west and that he will smite Egypt with plagues as before. In the last days Egypt is the entire world. Moses brought the children of Israel to Mt Sinai where they received the law.

But Paul says that we are not coming to Mt Sinai but to Mt Zion, “But ye are come unto Mt Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the

heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn.�

We are the remnant, the last remaining of the children of Israel, the hidden ones. We have worked hard to uncover the law that has been hidden for thousands of years through the deceit of lies. Through that end we have established a creed and church covenant based on this same law that was spoken by the mouth of God in Sinai and was written by his hand. Moses brought the law of God from Sinai to the children of Israel on two tables of stone. But one day God will write that law in the hearts of his children. And we will hear his voice speak to us from heaven. You will hear his voice through the thunder, with the sound of the great trumpet. From his mouth will come the law which is a two edged sword, and is a consuming fire. The entire world will be judged just like Egypt was judged. In that day God will not only shake the earth, he will shake the heavens.

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Please read: (75 verses) Exodus 1:1-22, Exodus 2:1-15, Exodus 3:1-22, Exodus 6:1-8, II Esdras 15:5-12 If you would like more information about Moses please click here .

The Passover to the Promise Land

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The Trek through the Wilderness!

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April 12, 2014 The night of the Passover was the most memorable night in the history of our people. With a strong arm God led the children of Israel out of

Egypt. All of Egypt mourned at the death of the firstborn. Israel left with a high hand, spoiling the Egyptians. This was the beginning, all pointing to the ending in the last days. The scripture tells us that we will no longer say “the Lord liveth that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; But the Lord liveth that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them” Isaiah 16:14-15. This world is spiritual Egypt. This world will also be systematically destroyed. The firstborn of this world, the great leaders, the rich, those who have, will be destroyed. Everything, every little thing that happened to the children of Israel, was an example that teaches us the nature of the kingdom of heaven and tells us the story of our salvation. Everything is a lesson in righteousness. In order for the children of Israel to enter into the Promised Land they had to first take a walk through the wilderness.

But before they entered the wilderness, they had to cross the Red sea.

We will begin our journey through the wilderness at the crossing of the Red sea.

Moses and Aaron were great leaders. In his hand was a rod. The rod is a symbol of the word of God. It is also the power of God to lead and direct his people like a flock. The children of Israel stood on the banks of the sea and saw Pharaoh’s army chasing them. They became very afraid. God told Moses to lift up his hand and stretch out his rod over the sea, and the sea parted. The Children of Israel went through the sea on dry ground. What does this mean to us today? What is this an

example of? It is an example of baptism, I Corinthians 10:1-2. When we come out of Egypt we must be converted. We must change our lives.

We must be baptized so that we can walk like Christ. The entire time in the wilderness is the time period God gives us to prepare to meet him.

In that time we must overcome trials and tribulations and hardships.

The wilderness was called a waste howling wilderness or desert. It was not a fun place. Yet vital things occurred for the children of Israel as well as for us in our spiritual lives. They were given the law, they were fed with manna. They were proven through hard times. What did some of the occurrences represent on the trek through the wilderness?

When the children of Israel came to Marah the waters were bitter and they couldn’t drink it. They murmured against God, but God told Moses to cast a tree in the water and the water was made sweet. God said that this meant that if they obeyed him that he would put none of the diseases of the Egyptians on them. They were then led to Elim where there were twelve wells of water and 70 palm trees. These represent the twelve standards and 70 booths to be established in the last days. They murmured again when they came to the wilderness of Sin. God gave them manna to eat. The manna is the word of God. Christ told us that he was that bread from heaven that would give us life. When they complained of thirst Moses took his rod and smote the rock and water came out. We know that we drink of that spiritual Rock who is Christ. When they came to Sinai God gave them the law on two

tables of stone. This is the first covenant. God has promised us a new covenant and will write the law in our hearts.

The children of Israel were established as a nation of people as well as a

church of God. Many people were called out of Egypt. There were over 600,000 footmen, besides women and children. After forty years, many were rebellious and many were killed by God. There were so many wicked people among them, they outnumbered the righteous. When they crossed Jordan with Joshua, There were only 40,000 footmen, about 6.4%. What happened to all of them, to over 90%? Many died in

the plagues. They openly rebelled against God and worshipped the golden calf even as Mt Sinai was covered with the cloud and fire. They were envious of Moses and Aaron. The wicked simply will not obey even in the presence of great miracles, and even when they see physical visible evidence of God’s power. Others died naturally. Perhaps they did not reproduce as much as they used to. But one thing we do know, many were called out of Egypt, but few made it to the Promised Land, which is a good example for us. What did God call the children of

Israel? He called them stubborn and rebellious. He warned us not to be like our fathers that tempted him in the wilderness, Psalms 95:8-11.

The children of Israel had to wander in the wilderness for forty years.

They followed the cloud that determined every place they had to go.

That is like us. We don’t know where our life will take us day by day and year by year. We must let God be our guide and lead us like he led them in the wilderness. Just before they were to enter into the Promised Land Moses led them in the battles of the kings on the east side of Jordan. Moses was so provoked by the children of Israel that he

did one thing in anger. God told him to speak to the rock the second time. Instead Moses hit the rock in anger. Because of his disobedience he could not take them into the Promised Land. That honor was left to Joshua. What did the crossing of Jordan represent? The crossing of the Red sea is the baptism with water when we give our lives to God, coming out of Egypt. Before we can enter into the Promised Land we must be baptized by Jesus Christ. This is the baptism of fire. The priests stood in the river Jordan holding the ark of God. Inside the ark was the testament. For us it is the New Covenant, the word of God carried in our heart like the ark. It is his law that will open the water that would prevent us from entering into the promise. Isaiah 11:15-16, Zechariah 10:11. The Promised Land is the rest that we were promised. Hebrew 3:7-11, Hebrew 4:1-11.

The children of Israel that were left obeyed Joshua unlike their fathers who rebelled against Moses. They continued to obey the Lord and fought the battles to take the land. But they did not kill all of the inhabitants like God told them to, so the Lord did not remove all of their enemies. The evil root continued within the people of Israel and they quickly forgot about all that the Lord had done for them. They worshipped other gods like the nations in the land. The enemies that remained in the land of Canaan were like pricking thorns to them and were constantly trying to take them over. They were also surrounded by great enemy nations like Syria and Assyria. Israel was never out of danger for any significant length of time but the Lord did not leave

them without help. He never forgot his promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. After the death of Joshua and the leaders in that generation he sent them Judges that fought their battles and led the people for 480 years.

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Please read: (85 verses) Exodus 14:15-31, Exodus 15:22-27, Exodus 19:1-19, Numbers 1:1-3, 44-46, Joshua 1:1-9, Joshua 4:10-14, Judges 2:1-23

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The Judges to King David !

April 26, 2014

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The children of Israel were led by judges for about 480 years. God was their king. Who were these judges and how did they come about, and why did the children of Israel replace the judges with kings? Israel never defeated all of the nations of the land of Canaan as they had been commanded to by God. They allowed some of them to remain in the

land and eventually began to mingle with them and to take on their ways. After Joshua and the men of that generation died the people began, as usual, to follow the ways of the heathen and to worship idol gods. Therefore God punished them with these same heathen nations who invaded them and afflicted them. Israel cried out to God. God had mercy on them and raised up judges to deliver them out of the hands of their enemies. But the children of Israel would always return to their wicked ways whenever there was respite, just as the people do today.

When we consider all of these things, including how the children of Israel rebelled in the wilderness we can understand why we are in the condition that we are now. God’s children were not all disobedient, but there were always so many wicked people intermingled with the righteous. Often times the punishments afflicted on Israel was to cut down the over growth of the wicked so that the righteous would have an opportunity to grow and bear fruit. So it is the same in our day.

The first judge mentioned by name was Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother who fought against the king of Mesopotamia.

The land had rest forty years under his rule. Next came Ehud from the tribe of Benjamin who delivered Israel from Eglon a Moabite king.

After Ehud there was the only female judge, and really the only female ruling head mentioned in the bible. Deborah was a prophetess who led Israel into battle against Jabin King of Canaan. He had oppressed Israel for twenty years. Deborah told Barak to take ten thousand men from Naphtali and Zebulun and God will deliver Hazor the captain of

Jabin’s army in his hand. Barak refused to go unless Deborah would go with him. Deborah agreed to go but said that therefore the Lord would not give him the honor of defeating Hazor, but he would be destroyed by a woman. Jael the Kenite killed Hazor by impaling him through the head with a nail from the tent. Gideon defeated the Midianites with only 300 men. 22,000 Israelites were afraid and turned away from the battle.

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The next notable judge was Samson who was from the tribe of Dan. Samson had an unusual birth. His mother was barren and an angel of

the Lord came to her and told her she would have a son who would deliver the children of Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. Samson was a Nazarite from the womb and was to never cut his hair. The Spirit of God gave him incredible power and strength through his hair. When he grew up he began to go among the people of the land and always wanted to have a Philistine woman. Each time he ended up destroying the Philistines. We remember the story of Delilah and her wiles tempted Samson in telling the secret of his strength. She cut his hair and he was captured by the Philistines. Samson killed more people at his death than he did when he was alive. The greatest judge of Israel was the last one. The last judge of Israel was the prophet Samuel.

Samuel also had an unusual birth. His mother Hannah was barren also and prayed to the Lord for a child. She promised to lend the child to

God all the days of his life if he would only answer her prayer. God heard her prayer and gave her Samuel. Hannah did not forget her vow.

As soon as Samuel was weaned she took him to Eli the priest and left him there. She would visit him and bring him a new coat every year.

Samuel grew up to be a great prophet and leader of Israel. He led them in the wars against the Philistines that continued to fight against Israel.

He taught the people to obey God and to put away the strange gods from among them. He subdued the Philistines and delivered the children of Israel out of their hands. I Samuel 7:3-4, 15-16. When Samuel became old he made his sons judges. They were not like him.

They took bribes and perverted judgment. The children of Israel came to Samuel and told them that his sons were not like him and that they wanted a king like the other nations. This displeased Samuel. God was supposed to be Israel’s king! God told Samuel to do what the people wanted because they had not rejected Samuel, they had rejected God! He told him to tell them how a king would treat them, about the armies he would build up, about the taxes and all of the problems of having a king. The people said they wanted a king anyway. So the Lord gave them a king.

The first king that the children of Israel had was Saul from the tribe of Benjamin. Saul was tall, strong and handsome and it was not his idea to be king. God chose him. He was a great leader and warrior in battle and defeated the enemies of Israel. But Saul would not obey the Lord in

everything that he told him to do. So God rejected him. God chose someone better.

David was the youngest son in his family. God chose him when he was just a lad, most likely a teenager. He was not a warrior. He kept his father’s sheep. David defeated the giant of the Philistines with a sling shot. Saul noted David’s bravery and made him his armor bearer.

Eventually he would become king. He was the greatest king of Israel.

He was ancestor to Jesus Christ according to the flesh. He represented the Son of Man and his Kingdom. God gave David his sure mercies. He was a prophet and a psalmist. He established the kingdom of Israel. He established the service of the house of God. David will always be king.

God promised him an everlasting kingdom. Just as he made Abraham father of many nations, he made David king forever. David was not a warrior when God chose him but he became the greatest warrior in Israel’s history. He was a wise ruler. Everything that we read about David is a lesson to us. Much of it is an example pointing directly to Christ. David did not do all things perfectly. He sinned when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and arranged to have her husband killed in battle when she became pregnant. God punished him severely.

When a leader sins it can lead to trouble for the whole nation, and it did. David’s entire family as well as all of Israel was affected by the punishment of the Lord. Many people fell in battle when his own son Absolom tried to take the throne away from him. There was no peace in David’s house. It is far too much to try to speak in any detail at all

about the life and the good works of King David. We can see how much God loved and honored David. We can see how much David loved the Lord when we read the wonderful words and sing the wonderful songs written in the book of Psalms. David had a son that would succeed him.

King David had multiple talents and he used them to serve the

Solomon was the wisest man that lived. He built the temple of God. But it was David who had laid out the pattern, who had made the plans, and had prepared the materials and set them aside for him.

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Please read 69 verses I Samuel 8:1-22, I Samuel 9:15-17, I Samuel 15:10-11, I Samuel 15:17-23, I Samuel 16:1-13, II Samuel 2:1-22

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The Prophets and the Kings May 10, 2014!

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The children of Israel were a family of seventy persons when they came into Egypt. When they came out of Egypt they were a nation of individual tribes. After Samuel they asked for a king and became a kingdom with one ruling head. The kingdom was established with King

David. He was the greatest king of Israel. He established the kingdom, the government and the House of God according to the Spirit of the Lord that was with him. The Lord blessed David with an everlasting kingdom.

God promised David in II Samuel chapter 2, “and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever…..but my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul…and thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established forever.’’ David was beloved of God. Yet he sinned in the matter with Bathsheba. The Lord punished David and his house. There was no peace. His family was troubled. David was a great warrior and waged many battles against his enemies. God did not allow David to build him a house, though David had wanted to do so, because of all of the blood that he had shed. But he said that the son that would succeed him would be a man of peace, and that he would build the temple of the Lord. This son was Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived. Under Solomon, the nation had wealth and peace. Solomon did not fight wars,

he built the temple and put in action all of the plans that his father had left him. David had left him the materials and the blueprints for the temple and had established the method of government and the plans

for the ordering and the services of the house of God. Solomon put all of these plans into action. When Solomon was very young he asked God only for wisdom to be a wise ruler. So God gave him more wisdom than any other person on earth, as well as long life and riches and peace.

When Solomon became older he built temples for idol gods for all of his many, many wives that he loved. This was a terrible sin against him and all of Israel. This caused the Lord to curse Israel and divide the nation. God did not do this in Solomon’s time because of his love for King David, but he did it in the time of his foolish son Rehoboam whose mother was an Ammonitess. Rehoboam was left with the tribe of Judah and the priests and Levites which became the nation of Judah.

The other 10 tribes became the Kingdom of Israel under the hand of Jereboam, I Kings 11:29-36. The Lord promised Jereboam a sure

house just like David if he would keep his commandments, but Jereboam was not a righteous man. He was afraid that the children of Israel would go back to join the house of David if they came to worship

the Lord at the temple in Jerusalem, so he made two golden calves and set them up at Bethel and at Dan for the people to worship, and he made a house of worship with priests of the lowest of the people and not the Levites. He invented his own religion out of his pride and ambition. There was not one righteous king in the nation of Israel after the tribes separated.

There were a few righteous kings in the nation of Judah. Most of those that obeyed God still made serious errors that caused trouble for the people. Asa was the grandson of Rehoboam, he was righteous but he became afraid in his battles with the King of Israel and took the treasures of the house of God and made a league with the Syrian king to fight against him. Jehosophat was Asa’s son. He was a righteous king but he had affinity with Ahab, one of the wickedest kings of Judah, and with his son Ahaziah whom God hated. Jehosophat was warned against this association by the prophet Jehu, II Chronicles 19:2. His son Jehoram married Athaliah the daughter of Ahab. This eventually caused the death of almost all of Jehosophat’s grandchildren by the hand of this wicked woman. II Chronicles 21:1, 4-6. The next righteous king was Joash, the only one left of the seed royal who had been hidden by his aunt to keep Athaliah from killing him. His aunt, Jehoshabeath was married to the high priest. While the high priest lived Joash followed the Lord. But when he died he went along with the request of the princes of Israel to serve idol gods and the grove. When Jehoida the priest’s sons spoke against this the king had them killed.

Amaziah reigned after him. He was a righteous king also but did not have a perfect heart. He also began to worship idol gods. Next was Uzziah, another righteous king that did not walk perfectly before God. His son Jotham was the same. The next righteous king was Jotham’s grandson, Hezekiah. He walked perfectly before God. He destroyed the idol gods and cleansed the temple. He reestablished the services in the house of the Lord. He called all of Israel and Judah to Jerusalem to keep the Passover. After Hezekiah was Manasseh one of the wickedest kings of Judah. He undid all of the good that his father had done. He built again the high places and worshipped idol gods and caused his children to pass through the fire to sacrifice them. He eventually repented. The last of the righteous kings was Josiah. Like Hezekiah he cleansed the temple, destroyed the idols and reestablished the offerings to God. IIChronicles 34:1-8, II Chronicles 34:30-33. But it was too late to stop the destruction that was to come from the fierceness of God’s wrath. His wicked sons were taken in captivity by Nebuchanezzar.

The children of Israel were greatly influenced by their kings. The Lord did not leave them without warning. He rose up early and sent them prophets. Jeremiah 29:18-19. Prophets were anointed like kings and priests, but unlike kings or priests they did not come from a particular family, and they were not established by man. They were called by God.

Some, like Samuel and Jeremiah, were called from the womb. They were literally the mouth piece of God. Ezekiel 33:7. They were signs and wonders to the people. Often times God had them act in a certain way as a sign that let the people know what God’s intentions were.

Isaiah 8:18.They did not have happy pleasant lives. They had to do God’s will in lieu of anything else that they might want to do. They were his servants. The people did not want to hear the prophets who spoke against their wicked ways. They were put to death, stoned, sawed asunder, and imprisoned. They wandered in deserts, and lived in caves and were in peril. Some of the prophets did miracles. Some of the prophets were prolific writers. The majority of the prophets spoke during some of the most turbulent times of Israel’s history as a nation.

Samuel was a prophet and also the last of the judges. Nathan and Gad were prophets that the Lord sent to warn David. David himself was a

prophet but was first the king. Elijah was one of the greatest prophets.

We have no books that were written by Elijah, but we read about him in the books of the kings. He lived in the nation of Israel, and the Lord sent him against Jezebel and Ahab. Elijah was a great man of God, and was mighty in word and deed. He also did miracles. He was sent to warn the Israelites against serving idols and to turn again to serving the Lord. Ahab was king over Israel during the time that Asa and Jehosophat were kings over Judah. Even though there were no righteous kings in Israel the Lord still sent prophets to them. Two of the greatest were Elijah and Elisha. They prophesied during the time that Syria fought against Israel. Elisha was also very powerful and did miracles.

Some of the prophets wrote great books that show us the things to come even to our day. The first of these was the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah prophesied several generations after the times of Elijah and Elisha. He was a prophet in the nation of Judah during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. He prophesied against the nations of Israel and Judah and warned them of the wrath to come. It was during his time that the nation of Israel was taken into captivity by the Assyrians, never to return. Isaiah, more than any of the prophets spoke in greatest detail about the coming of Christ the first as well as the second time. He also prophesied at length about the hope of the promise. Jeremiah wrote a great body of work. He prophesied in the nation of Judah warning them about the coming of the king of Babylon.

He continued to prophecy during invasion and destruction. Of course he was imprisoned for warning the people. Ezekiel was a prophet that warned the people during the captivity. Daniel was a prophet brought over as a child to Babylon. His works are some of the most difficult to understand. People to this day attempt to interpret them. They are very specific to our present time unto the end of all things. Some of the prophets prophesied at the same time as the other ones. Some prophesied in Israel, some in Judah, and others during the various captivities. Esdras, or Ezra prophesied during the time of the rebuilding under the Medes and Persians.

There were always prophets in Israel. The last of the great prophets was John the Baptist the fore runner to Christ. And even after him there were prophets during the preaching of the gospel. The prophets in those days were not the primary way that the word of God came to the people. Christ had established Apostles and disciples to preach the gospel. They had walked with him and had a hand directly in his work.

Today we have no prophets like the prophets in the bible. Yet we do still have the spirit of prophecy. God gives us dreams and visions, and he gives us the spirit to interpret the teaching in the bible. God spoke about the people in the last days to Esdras in II Esdras 1:35-37.

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The Spirit of Elijah

May 24, 2014!

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“Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.� Malachi 4:5-6.

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Who was Elijah the prophet? Elijah was one of the greatest prophets in the bible. He was one of only three men listed in the bible that never died. Instead Elijah was taken up directly to heaven in a chariot of fire.

Elijah lived during the time of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. Jezebel was a Zidonian princess. They were extremely wicked rulers of Israel. I Kings 16:31-33. Jezebel encouraged Ahab in his wickedness and caused the people to worship Baal and the gods of the grove. She was

also a cruel and vicious woman. She systematically had all of the prophets of the Lord put to death. No one could speak against her or

their life was in danger. Obadiah, governor or steward of Ahab’s house was a righteous man who feared the Lord. He hid 100 of the prophets of the Lord in caves and fed them. Elijah was not like the other prophets. He was full of the spirit of God and was not afraid to prophecy against Ahab and Jezebel.

The marriage of Ahab to Jezebel is an excellent example of why the children of Israel were not suppose to intermingle with the nations around them; because they would always lead them astray. Also when you depart from God it is a slippery slope. It stated in the bible… it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat…went and served Baal, and worshipped him. He then engaged in depraved behavior and influenced the people to follow him.

The children of Israel were always greatly influenced by their leaders.

They began to be completely taken over by idolatry. Elijah prophesied against this wickedness and called for a famine and drought in the land. There was no more rain. The land and the people suffered greatly and began to fail with drought and hunger. Elijah remained hidden from Ahab and was fed through the power of the Lord by a widow woman in Zidon. When he asked her for food she gave the little that she had with her first even before she fed herself and her son. Elijah prophecied and blessed her, “For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth.� So Elijah and her family were fed during the years of the drought.

After three years God told Elijah to show himself to Ahab and that he would send rain again. When Elijah met Ahab he told him to gather together all of the prophets of Baal and the prophets of the grove. It was time that the people would choose who was the true God that they would serve. He asked them to bring two bullocks, one for him and the other one for the false prophets. They would prepare the bullocks as sacrifices on two altars. Whichever God would answer with fire on the bullock would be the true God. They all agreed. The prophets of Baal and of the groves called on Baal from morning until noon and nothing happened. They jumped and leaped on the altar. Elijah mocked them.

Perhaps their god was on a journey, or maybe he was sleeping. By evening they began to cut themselves, their blood pouring out to Baal and still no fire, no voice and nothing regarding.

About the time of the evening sacrifice Elijah prepared the altar of the Lord that had been broken down and built it with twelve stones according to the twelve tribes of Israel in the name of the Lord. And he built a trench around the altar that could hold water. He laid on the wood and the Bullock that he cut in pieces on the altar. He had four barrels filled with water and had it poured on the offering and the altar.

He did this three times until the water ran around the altar and the trench was filled. And at the time of the evening sacrifice Elijah called upon the Lord.

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“Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again.� Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The Lord, he is the God; the Lord, he is the God. And Elijah said unto them take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And they took them: and

Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there. I Kings 18:36-40.

So why are we still looking for Elijah the prophet. The prophet Malachi prophesied about the coming of Elijah the prophet many years after Elijah had been taken up into Heaven. Malachi was not talking about the man Elijah, but the spirit of the prophet Elijah. Christ explained this further after his transfiguration on the mountain. He told them to tell no man what they had seen until after his resurrection. They asked him why the scribes said that Elias must come first. He told them that Elias shall truly come first and will restore all things. And then he told them that Elias is come already and they knew it not, but had done to him whatever they had wanted. They knew he was talking about John the Baptist. John the Baptist was an example of the spirit of Elijah

because he prepared the people for the first coming of Jesus. The angel of the Lord prophesied about this to Zacharias in Luke 1:13-17, “Fear not Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make read a people prepared for the Lord.”

God’s children are for signs and wonders. Isaiah spoke of this when he said, “I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and wonders in Israel form the Lord of Hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion.” He was not speaking necessarily of himself, but was speaking as a prophet about Christ and his children. Everything in the bible teaches us through demonstrations and examples the will of God, the kingdom of heaven, and the nature of God. It teaches us of his righteousness and his judgment. All of the prophets and righteous leaders were examples pointing to God. Elijah was an example of how the Holy Spirit works with man to change the heart.

Malachi was talking about the spirit of Elijah that will prepare the world for the second coming of Jesus. “Behold I will send you Elijah

the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” The great and dreadful day is still to come.

When the Holy Ghost fell on the apostles on the day of Pentecost and they began speaking in tongues it pricked the hearts of the people.

Their hearts turned to God. They repented and were baptized. Peter told them that the times of refreshing and the times of the restitution of all things was still to come. It would come at the second coming of Jesus. Acts 3:19-21 “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.”

The lesson that we learn when we study about the prophet Elijah is that there is one God. God is indeed the Lord. He is omnipotent. Idols are lies and falsehood. God is our Lord and master and we must worship him with our entire hearts turning away from the sins, deceit and lusts of the flesh. This is what worshipping idols are in our day. When we sin, when we are partial in the law we are just like the children of Israel who were worshipping Baal and the idols of the groves. `We must worship the one true God from heaven that has given us life, a chance at salvation, who heals our diseases and saves us from our sins. We continue to look for the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, which is the spirit of Elijah who will strengthen us and prepare us for the second

coming of God. We remember the words of the Prophet Malachi, “Behold I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers soap.�

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How to Revere God in the Land of Your Affliction: !

The Prophet Daniel!

June 21, 2014!

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The children of Judah disobeyed God just like the children of Israel.

God punished them by sending them into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar

king of Babylon, the first of the great kings that he put over the world.

“Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place: But they mocked the messenger of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees.” II Chronicles 36:14-17.

Who was the prophet Daniel? Daniel was a captive of the children of Judah, brought over as a child to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar had commanded that they bring the best and the wisest of the children of Judah, the sons of the king and the princes to Babylon in order to train them, to teach them the language so that they could be servants of the king. They were put under the hand of the chief of the eunuchs and were to be nourished for three years with a daily provision of the king’s meat and of his wine. Daniel had determined that he would not pollute himself with the king’s food and requested to eat pulse, which is beans or lentils, and to be given water instead. The chief of the eunuchs agreed to give him and his three friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego a ten day trial. After ten days they appeared healthier than all of the other children and were allowed to continue to eat this food.

Daniel and his friends were also the wisest of the children. After the

three years were over, the children were all brought before the king to talk to him and to be examined by him. None of the children were as wise, understanding all things better than all of the magicians, wise men and astrologers as Daniel and his three friends.

Nebuchadnezzar was a tyrant with a terrible temper. You had to be very careful to obey him or he would put you to death. One of his favorite ways of putting people to death was burning them in a fiery furnace. As tyrannical as Nebuchadnezzar was, the bible does not say that he ever tried to kill Daniel specifically. Although Daniel’s life was in jeopardy with all of the wise men in Babylon because they could not tell Nebuchadnezzar about a disturbing dream that he had. In fact after Daniel was able to tell him what the dream was that he had forgotten, about the great image of gold, silver, iron and clay, and tell him the interpretation, that he was a king of kings and the head of gold, Nebuchadnezzar honored him and made him ruler over the whole

province of Babylon. At Daniels request he put Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego over the affairs of the province of Babylon. But that didn’t keep him from trying to kill Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when they wouldn’t bow down to his idol. They were quickly sentenced to death.

There was a lot of envy among the rulers in Babylon because Nebuchadnezzar had promoted Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Nebuchadnezzar made a giant image of gold that was sixty cubits, which would be about ninety feet high, in the province of Babylon. He made a decree that everyone had to bow and worship whenever they heard the sounding of the musical instruments. Of course the three Hebrew boys did not bow down. This was the chance the Chaldeans were looking for. They accused them before the king.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were not ashamed or afraid to tell the king that they worshipped the God of heaven and would not worship his god. They said that their God would save them from the fiery furnace or if not they still wouldn’t worship his god.

Nebuchadnezzar was in such a fury that he told them to heat the furnace seven times hotter and to throw them in, in all of their clothes, to make sure they burned. The furnace was so hot that the flames killed the men who took them.

But the three Hebrew men did not burn. No, the angel of the Lord was with them. Nebuchadnezzar himself said that he sent three men to die, but he saw four men in the furnace and the form of the fourth was like the son of God. So he called them out of the furnace and commanded that no man speak against the God of heaven. Apparently he had forgotten in his rage that he had told Daniel after he interpreted the dream about the image with the head of gold, that Daniel’s God was a God of gods and a Lord of kings. The salvation of the three Hebrew men was a necessary reminder. Let us note that all people will recognize God if he wants them to.

Nebuchadnezzar had to be reminded of the power of God again when he was turned into a hairy beast and lost his mind roaming around

outside with animals. “Let his heart be changed from man’s, and let a beast’s heart be given unto him; and let seven times pass over him.

This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.” We should keep in mind today that God still rules in the kingdom of men and that he sets up who he will and puts over us the basest of men, which we can understand when we see the corruption of the government and political leaders. Nebuchadnezzar’s son Belshazzar, after knowing all of these things had to be reminded of God’s supreme omnipotence after he profaned the vessels of the holy temple drinking wine out of them and praising the names of his idol gods. A hand came down from heaven and wrote upon the walls that he was weighed in the balance and his kingdom was given to the Medes and Persians. He didn’t have much time to consider all of this though because that night he was killed in his bed, and so ended the time of Babylon.

It was during the reign of the Medes and Persians when Daniel was thrown twice in the lion’s den.

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Before we go further let us talk a little about the prophecies of Daniel.

Daniel’s prophecies are some of the most difficult to interpret. Many people have tried and failed. God gave Daniel prophecies about the nations or kingdoms that he put over the world starting from the time of Babylon and continuing through the time of the man of sin, until as he says in Daniel 7:27, “And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most high, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.”

Daniel’s prophecies included specific times and frames of references that people have tried to interpret with little success. Daniel himself did not understand all of his prophecies. In Daniel 7:7 he dreams about four beasts. The fourth one was different from the others and was dreadful and terrible and had ten horns on his head. Esdras was shown

this same beast in the figure of an eagle in II Esdras chapter 11. We know that we live in the time of this fourth beast, and coming from it was the little horn with the great blasphemous mouth which is the man of sin. Daniel 7:7-8.

Now let us go back to our subject, which is actually not prophecy, but how we, like Daniel must revere God in the land of our affliction.

Daniel showed honor to the king by his mouth and by his actions. He was very respectful and he did everything faithfully. In my job the word that they use is compliant. During the time of Darius the Mede the first ruler of Babylon after the death of Belshazzar, the princes and rulers became very envious of Daniel because the king had made him the first of three presidents that were over them. They had to give account of all of their expenses to Daniel. They knew that they couldn’t find anything to accuse Daniel of because he was faithful in all things. They decided to ensnare him through his beliefs. They asked Darius to agree and make a law that no one could petition man or god except the king for thirty days or he would be thrown in the lion’s den. The king, unaware of what they were trying to do agreed. Then they waited for Daniel to pray as he always did. They came to the king and accused Daniel, reminding him that the law of the Medes and Persians signed by the king could not be changed. The king was very upset but he put Daniel in the lion’s den and spent the night fasting and praying. Of course Daniel was fine in the morning, so the king called him out and then threw his accusers with their entire families into the lion’s den to be

killed by the lions. The second time Daniel was thrown in the lion’s den was during the time of Cyrus. In the book of Bel and the dragon in the apocrypha it tells us how Daniel proved to Cyrus that Bel was not a real god and that his priests and their families were eating all of the food that was offered to Bel. How embarrassing! Then Cyrus took him to a dragon that they were worshipping. He said, He’s living, worship him.

But Daniel said he would worship the Lord God. He said he would kill the dragon without a sword to prove he was not a God. He made balls of pitch, hair and fat and put them in the dragon’s mouth and he burst asunder. Well when the people of Babylon found out that Bel and his temple were destroyed and the dragon killed they threatened to kill the king if he did not deliver Daniel to them. So he gave them Daniel and they threw him in the lion’s den. But of course the Lord kept the lions from eating Daniel. In fact the angel of the Lord took the prophet Habbacuc through the power of the spirit to Babylon to bring food to Daniel.

When we read the book of Daniel we can see that Daniel was very respectful to the king. He gave honor where honor was due. But he put the law of God first even if in doing so put his life in danger. We live in a country where our laws are good and evil. The laws do not force us to disobey God, but they are evil because they justify those who do disobey God. They have changed the laws of the land to such an extent that it justifies the breaking of all of the commandments. The freedom of religion that protects our rights, allows others to also break the first

two commandments for example. The laws of God are reputed as nothing; no credence is given to it. You can keep it if you want to.

That’s the best we can get these days. The greatest problem most of us have is over the Sabbath day with our employers. We have to make major sacrifices and sometimes our jobs are in jeopardy. God did not promise us a certain job or career. He did promise us our bread and our water. The bible tells us that we must give honor to whom honor is do, that we must obey our masters, or bosses and not just in front of their faces, it tells us to obey the laws of the land and the people who are given authority over us. Even Christ told us to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars’. Let us read Romans 13:1-7. We must be diligent at work, respectful of those in authority, and we must treat our neighbors as we would like to be treated. When trouble arises when we must make a sacrifice for the law of God, or if there is a conflict between the law of God and our job, or the law of God and the laws of man, then we will call upon God and he will hear us and will help us just as he was with Daniel and helped Daniel.

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Please read: 87 verses II Chronicles 36:5-21, Daniel 1:1-21, Daniel 2:1-49

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The Medes and Persians: the breast and arms of silver July 5, 2014!

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The Medes and Persians were the second great nation that God gave to rule the world. In the book of Daniel, the Medes and Persians were the breast and arms of silver on the great image that Nebuchadnezzar dreamed about. They were different from all of the other nations that ruled over Israel because of two important things: 1) they were the only nation that built the temple and Jerusalem; and, 2) their first king was a child of God and is symbolic of Christ who will destroy the nation of Babylon, free his people and build his church, just as other great men in the bible like David and Moses and Zerubbabel are symbolic of Christ. In comparison to these two facts, we know that Babylon, the head of Gold, was the first to destroy the temple and take the house of Judah captive, and we can read about the terrible siege in the book of Lamentations by Jeremiah the prophet. Babylon also took away the holy vessels.

What they didn’t take is the Ark of the Covenant.

Jeremiah took and hid it in the mountain Nebo at the top of Pisgah.

This is found in II Maccabees. The third nation was Greece, which was the belly and thigh of brass on the image. Greece desecrated the temple and set up the Abomination of Desolation. They put the altar of Zeus upon the altar of God and made sacrifices of swine. We can read about this horror in the books of the Maccabees. We know that Antiochus symbolizes the Man of Sin.

We can recall how he tortured and

slaughtered the children of Israel. The last nation of course is Rome.

In a sense, we remain in Rome.

It was the Romans who Christ

mourned about when he said of Jerusalem that she would be surrounded by armies and that not one stone of the temple would be

left upon another. History tells us that the streets literally ran with blood. Whoever was not brutally killed was captured and sent back to Egypt in chains.

They were sold down the rivers of Africa and

eventually came to this country as slaves.

Compared to all the other nations, the Medes and Persians were benevolent and good to our people but we remained as servants to them. We were not free to do as we pleased. The men in the bible that we read about were sent by order of the king to do his will to build the temple. We as a nation remain subject to a foreign power. Under the Medes & Persian Empire, we were surrounded at all sides by enemies that fought against us and hindered the works (Ezra 9: 8-9, Nehemiah 9: 36-38).

Cyrus was a good and benevolent king. He was a very good ruler. He did not adopt the policy of the other nations who when they conquered a people would remove them out of their land and force them to serve other gods. Cyrus felt that if he returned these people to their lands and allowed them to serve their gods then his kingdom would be prosperous. Cyrus was a child of God but he did not know God. He worshipped Bel, the sun god, (Isaiah 45: 1-4, Bel & the Dragon in the Apocrypha 1: 3-4).

The Persian empire lasted 192 years. It began when Cyrus defeated the rulers of Babylon in 539 BC until it fell to Alexander the Great in 331 BC. There were nine kings. Most of them named Darius or Artaxerxes.

Interesting to us, are the notable kings during that time that pertain to

the building and restoration of Jerusalem and holy temple. These were Cyrus of course, Artaxerxes that stopped the building, Darius the first, under whose order the building was completed, Ahasuerus, the husband of Esther and his son Artaxerxes that sent Ezra and Nehemiah to order the people and build the walls of Jerusalem.

Daniel lived during the time of Cyrus. Other notable men of Israel, servants of King Cyrus, were sent with the charge to build the temple.

These were Zerubbabel, and Joshua the priest. The first thing that they did was to build the altar and begin the sacrifice and oblation. The altar was complete on the first day of the seventh month, the Day of

Trumpets in the first year after they had returned unto Jerusalem.

They kept all of the prescribed services of the Levitical Priesthood (Ezra 3: 3-6). Now in the second year, after they had returned in the second month, they began to work on the temple and started laying the foundation. The completed laying the foundation with great stones on the 24th day of the 9th month. And they celebrated the dedication of the foundation with great joy (Ezra 3: 10-11, Hag 2: 18-19).

Afterwards, they were frustrated by their enemies and the work was delayed. They even began to build fine houses for themselves. Their enemies went to King Artaxerxes, who stopped the building until the second year of Darius’ reign. The building ceased for 16 years. The prophets Haggai and Zechariah prophesied to the people to exhort them to complete God’s work. (Haggai 1: 1-8 & 12-14).

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completed this work in 4 years, starting from the second year of Darius and finishing in the 6 year of Darius.

Darius the first was a great and benevolent king. He not only ensured that the work was done, he helped pay for it. An interesting thing to know is that at some point, after Zerubbabel’s first time in Jerusalem, he returned to the king’s service and was part of the royal guard to Darius the first.

Remember the young man whose wise sentence,

asserting that women were the strongest but the truth excelleth over all? That young man was Zerubbabel, the king was Darius the first, and he requested that Darius fulfill the promise that Cyrus and that he had made, that the temple at Jerusalem would be built.

Ahasuerus, was the son of Darius the first and the one who historians felt was the husband of Esther. Her cousin Mordecai adopted her and as a servant to the king had to returned to do his duties, just as Zerubbabel had return. Satan was still intent on destroying Israel. The people who had returned (not all of the people chose to return to Israel.

Many of them stayed right where they were), were surrounded by enemies and as the great men, the shepherds, either died or returned to their service with the king, the people who had returned to Israel began to marry foreign wives and to oppress the poor of the land and to buy and sell on the Sabbath. Meanwhile in the capital city of Persia, Susa, or Shushan the Palace, Esther’s story began and she became Queen.

Haman hated Mordecai so much that he wanted to destroy every Jew in the Kingdom and this would have included the Jews in the land of Israel because Israel was a part of the Persian Empire. Haman had lots cast before him to determine an advantageous time to destroy all the

Jews. The lot fell on the 13th day of Adar, which is the 12th month. We recall what Mordecai did and how Esther fasted and appealed to king, and so their enemies were defeated not only at the palace but in all the provinces of Persia on the 13th through the 15 day of Adar. So the Feast of Purim was kept as days to rejoice that Israel was victorious over their enemies on the 14th and 15th day of the month Adar.

Mordecai was next to King Ahasuerus seeking the wealth of his people.

The last king I would like to discuss is Artaxerxes the son of Ahasuerus.

Artaxerxes sent Ezra to Jerusalem in the 7th year of his reign with the commandment to oversee how things were going Israel. He also said that any of the children of Israel who wanted to return could go with Ezra at that time. He sent him with gold and silver and whatever he needed out of the king’s own treasure houses so that they could make offerings to God. He also commanded Ezra to setup magistrates and judges in the land to judge the people according to the law of God. Ezra began to order the people and make reforms in the land.

Thirteen

years after Ezra came to Jerusalem, in the 20th year of Artaxerxes, Nehemiah his cup bearer requested to be able to go and see about the people in Jerusalem because they were distressed by their enemies and the wall was broken down. Nehemiah had to give the king a set time that he would be away and he had to tell him when he would return to do service to the king. So Nehemiah went with letters from the king.

He was a very great man and leader. He organized the building of the walls of Jerusalem and we recall how they had to build armed for

defense.

The wall was built in 52 days in 444 BC.

He also made

reforms, stopping the wealthy from abusing the poor. At that time, Ezra taught the people the law and they made a covenant to obey God. They appointed the priests and Levites in their services. They had a great feast to celebrate the wall of Jerusalem.

• The altar was built 536 BC • the foundation was laid 535 BC • the temple was built 516 BC • the wall was built 444 BC • 92 years between the return to Jerusalem and the wall being built and 72 years between the building of the temple and the wall being built. • Compare that to the total amount of time that the children of Israel was in Babylon, 70 years.

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Judith and the Virtues of Wisdom August 2nd, 2014

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Who was Judith? Judith was one of the saints that we read about in the Apocrypha. She was a widow who lived during the time after the children of Judah had returned from the captivity. The land of Judah was surrounded by enemies. They were caught between warring great nations and their land was a passageway between Egypt and Mesopotamia. During the reign of the Medes and Persians and of the Greeks, there were constant threats against Judea as these other much more powerful nations strove to gain control over the entire region.

They wanted a foothold in Israel because the land of Israel was a natural passageway. In fact it was called the king’s highway. Much of the history of this time, the time of the Medes and Persians and all of the time of the Greek empire is not found in the bible but in the books of the Apocrypha.

The people had all recently returned from the captivity during the days of Judith. Judith 4:3 says, “For they were newly returned from the captivity, and all the people of Judea were lately gathered together: and the vessels, and the altar, and the house, were sanctified after the profanation.” This occurred during the time of the Medes and Persians.

Judith references them in her song of victory. In Judith 16:10 Judith sings, “The Persians quaked at her boldness, and the Medes were daunted at her hardiness.” According to the book of Judith after Nabuchodonosor the Assyrian king defeated Arphaxad the king of the Medes, he decided that he should be worshipped like a god. He was angry at the nations that did not join him in his fight against king Arphaxad and he decided to punish all of them. He decided to destroy all of the people that had not obeyed him. He sent his general Holofernes to go before him and take the coasts of all these nations. He was ordered to not let his eye spare and to spoil and slaughter them.

Then when Nabuchodonor came later he would kill and capture everyone. Now don’t be confused. Nabuchodonosor was not Nebuchadnezzar! Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylon, not Assyria, and he had lived a long time ago before Nabuchodonosor.

Nebuchadnezzar was the king that had led Judah into captivity.

Nabuchodonosor came to destroy them after they had returned from captivity. Their names may be the same, but many kings had the same or similar names. Like most tyrants he was vicious and cruel. He wanted to be worshipped as a god like the other Assyrian kings.

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Holofernes gathered a very great army, 120,000 men and 12,000 archers on horseback. Many of the other nations also joined with them.

They went out and destroyed the nations that did not obey Nabuchodonosor, one by one. Finally they came to Judea. Now Judea was built up on hills. The cities were on the tops of hills and mountains and you couldn’t just walk or march into Judea. There were narrow passages that a person would have to walk through to come into the hill country.

When the people of Judea and in Jerusalem heard what had happened to the other countries and knew that Holofernes was headed to them they were very afraid. They were newly come out of captivity, and the vessels and altar were sanctified. So they sent to all of the coasts and went into the tops of the mountains and fortified the villages in them.

They laid up food and water. Joacim the high priest commanded the villages of the two passages to keep or protect the passages and not to allow the Assyrians to enter in. Judith 4:6-7, “Also Joacim the high priest, which was in those days in Jerusalem, wrote to them that dwelt at Bethulia, and Betomestham, which is over against Esdraelon toward the open country, near to Dothem, charging them to keep the passages of the hill country: for by them there was an entrance into Judea, and it was easy to stop them that would come up, because the passage was strait, for two men at the most.�

This is how Judith became involved. Judith lived in Bethuliah. Judith was of the tribe of Simeon and had been the wife of a very wealthy man who had died from sun stroke while overseeing the harvest. He left everything to his wife. She lived in a state of mourning and widowhood, though she was a young and beautiful woman. Judith fasted every day except the Sabbaths, new moons and holy days, and the eves of the same. She was also very wise and she feared the Lord.

The army of Assyria pitched at the passage of Bethulia. It had to have been terrifying to the people who lived there. But they had shut up the passage and laid impediments to prevent the army from entering in. All of the men of Bethulia took up weapons of war and kindled fires and watched in the watch tower all night. Then the men of Esau and Moab came to Holofernes and advised him how to defeat the children of

Israel. They told him that he should stop the streams and waters that went into the mountain and the people would have no water and would have to give in eventually because of thirst. And that is what almost happened. Eventually the people of Bethulia ran out of water. They began to faint for thirst and they lost courage. They came to the leaders of the city and demanded that they fall out to the Assyrians saying, “For it is better for us to be made a spoil unto them, than to die for thirst: for we will be his servants, that our souls may live, and not see the death of our infants before our eyes, nor our wives nor our children to die.� The people were crying and were in so much despair that Ozias the governor agreed that if the Lord did not help them in five days that they would open up to the Assyrians.

Judith heard what had happened and what he promised. She called for the elders of the city and gave them perfect counsel. Let us read Judith 8:11-25. Ozias and the elders told Judith that they all knew she was wise, and that what she said was right, but that they had made a vow to the people and would not change it. Then Judith told them, “Ye shall stand this night in the gate, and I will go forth with my waiting woman: and within the days that ye have promised to deliver the city to our enemies the Lord will visit Israel by mine hand.�

Judith prayed to God and then she dressed herself in her beautiful clothes to make herself as attractive as possible. She brought her maid with her carrying her necessary food. They opened the gate, and these two young women walked alone into the camp of the great army of the Assyrians. The warriors wondered at what this could mean, two young women walking alone into their camp. They also wondered at her great beauty. They took her to Holofernes tent. Judith had prayed to God that she would be able to deceive Holofernes by her beauty. Her beauty and her wisdom, the subtlety of her speech was a stronger weapon than all of his great army. She told him that she had left the city because she knew that Judea was about to sin against God and eat the devoted things. She said that if they ate those things then the Lord would be angry and punish them by giving them over to their enemies. She said that she knew that the Assyrians would come in to destroy them. She flattered Holofernes telling him that everyone knew of his wisdom and policy and excellencies, and that king Nabuchodonosor would rule all

of the earth through him. She told him that she was religious and served God day and night and would go out to pray at night, and that God would reveal to her when the people of Judah had sinned, and that she would lead him in to destroy them.

Well, Holofernes thought that was a wonderful idea. Everything that she said pleased him. So Judith stayed in the camp for three days. She developed a pattern that they came to trust. She ate her own food, then she slept till midnight, then she went out to pray. Holofernes commanded his servants to let her go out to pray. She came back faithfully after her prayers and remained in her tent until her evening meal. On the fourth day Holofernes made a feast to his servants.

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He decided it was time to become intimately acquainted with Judith.

He planned to force her. He sent his servant to bring her to his tent.

Judith readily agreed to come. She made herself beautiful and sat near Holofernes. They ate and drank together. Judith ate what her maid had brought her, and Holofernes who was filled with lust drank more wine that night than he had ever done in his entire life. All the men had left because they knew what Holofernes had planned to do with Judith. But instead he passed out from the wine. Judith took him by the hair, prayed to God for strength and took the fauchion that was on his bed and cut off his head with two great strokes. She put his head in her bag, called her maid and went out to pray as was her custom. They didn’t stop her because they were used to her going. They didn’t suspect a thing. But Judith didn’t stop to pray. She returned to the passage of Bethuliah and called for them to open the gate. The men of Bethuliah were surprised to see her. She showed them Holofernes head and praised the Lord. She told them that when the sun rose to hang his head on the highest point of the wall, and for the men of war to take their weapons and act as if they are going out to battle against them.

In the morning Holofernes servant went to wake him, knocking at the door carefully because he thought Judith was there. When there was no answer he went in and found Holofernes on the floor dead without a head. He cried, “These slaves have dealt treacherously; one woman of the Hebrews hath brought shame upon the house of king

Nabuchodonosor: for behold, Holofernes lieth upon the ground without a head.” When the men of the army heard that they became so afraid that they all started to run away. The men of Judah rushed out on them. They sent to tell the Israelites in the coastal cities what had happened and they also fought against them and made a great slaughter.

So the land of Judah was saved by the hands of a very brave and a very wise woman. Judith was full of the virtues of Wisdom. She feared God first. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom. She gave excellent counsel. Counsel is advice, a policy or plan of action and behavior. Wisdom gives us good counsel, and she also teaches us to use good counsel in everything that we do. She tells us in Proverbs 8:14, “Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength.” And in Proverbs 11:14, “Where no counsel is the people fall: but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.” And Proverbs 24:6 says, “For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war.” Judith was subtil, and she used discretion and prudence in her speech and her action. Subtil means cunning, having keen insight and perceptive. She deceived Holofernes by her subtility. Making herself as desirable as possible weakened him. Using flattery and honoring him with her words made him feel good and confident of what she told him. She developed a custom of going to pray and returning faithfully every day which made them all trust her. She used keen insight and understood the heart of a proud and lustful man. Discretion means to be cautious

and reserved in the things that you say and prudence means the ability to discipline and govern one self. We see that Judith was very careful and deliberate in everything that she said to the elders of her city as well as to Holofernes. And also she fasted almost every day which exemplified self-control or self-governance. She did not give in to fear, but remained steadfast in her enterprise and in her intentions of saving her people. She even gave them good counsel of how to defeat the entire army! Judith was a perfect example of the virtuous woman. She was filled with the spirit of Wisdom. She shows us that we can do all things through the power of God, by the strength of his Spirit and by

Mother Wisdom who guides us in all of our ways. If you would like more information please click here.

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Please read: (90 verses) Judith 8:1-36, Judith 9:1-14, Judith 13:1-20, Judith 16:1-20

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The Greek Empire and the Maccabees August 16th 2014

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The Greek empire was the third of the four nations that God had shown King Nebuchadnezzar that would rule the world. The Medes and the Persians were benevolent to Israel. The Greeks were harsh and cruel.

The worst of the Grecian kings was King Antiochus who brought about

the Abomination of Desolation. God raised up a family of warrior priests who would fight against him and the other Greek kings on behalf of their nation. Israel. They were the Hasmoneans. Their father Mattithias led them into rebellion against Antiochus. The greatest of his sons was Judas Maccabeus who fought the battles against the oppressors without fear. He also cleansed the temple and the altar. He was such a great leader that his family then has become known as Maccabees. It is from the book of Maccabees in the Apocrypha that we learn their story, our story.

Alexander the Great defeated Darius, the Persian king in battle and took over the Empire. He died without an heir when he was 34 years old. His kingdom was divided by his four generals. Seleucus was over Syria and Palestine. The children of Israel were ruled by governors and the High Priest. Onias was the High Priest during the reign of Seleucus.

Onias was righteous and hated wickedness. He was a good ruler.

Because of his goodness the Greek kings allowed Israel to continue to keep their laws and traditions. Seleucus even paid for things necessary for the sacrifices. As usual Israel was troubled because of its own wicked rulers. Onias was good, but Simon the governor of the temple wanted the power for himself. He lied against Onias conspiring against him for his own greed for power, and told the governor of the city that the temple was full of great riches. The governor told the king, who demanded that they give him the money. He sent his treasurer to collect it. There was no great wealth or riches there, but he entered into

the temple anyway. God punished him immediately with a vision of angels that were beating him and he passed out and had to be taken out. But Onias prayed for him that he would recover for fear that the king would think that they had done something to him. When he recovered he praised and acknowledged God. II Maccabees 3:35-40.

Simon continued to slander and fight against Onias. He flattered and tried to impress the king for gain. He got license from the king to train the young men in the Greek traditions and exercises. The people began to prefer the ways of the heathen to the ways of God and they began to

forsake the temple. There was great division and fighting among the factions in Israel. There were uprisings among the people. When Onias

had been put to death without cause the people rose up in protest, but the Greeks thought it was a rebellion. Because of this Antiochus came to Jerusalem to stamp out the rebels. He decided that the Jews must be made to obey the law through force. He decreed that they must give up their own God and their own traditions and embrace the Greek ways.

He forced the people to participate in the Greek sacrifices and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

On the 15th day of the ninth month he set up the abomination of desolation. He set up altars and groves and commanded that the baby

boys be left uncircumcised. Whoever disobeyed would die. He commanded that the cities in Judah all sacrifice to idols. Many of the Israelites agreed to this and gathered to his officers. Those who did not agree hid themselves in the secret places. They burnt the books of the law. On the 25th day of the ninth month they sacrificed swine’s flesh on the idol altar that he had put on top of the altar of God. He commanded that everyone must leave the law. They even put to death certain women who had circumcised their babies.

Mattathias was a priest with five sons. Their family name was Hasmonean, but most of us refer to them as Maccabees. We think of them as Maccabees because of Judas Maccabeus one of the sons of

Mattathias who was a great warrior who led the people to fight against the Greeks and to reclaim the temple. He also cleansed the altar and restored the worship. He had no fear. He trusted solely in God. In the beginning it was his father Mattathias who rebelled against the Greeks.

When Mattathias saw the blasphemies committed in Judah and Jerusalem it grieved his heart. “Then Mattathias answered and spake with a loud voice, Though all the nations that are under the kings dominion obey him, and fall away everyone from the religion of their fathers, and give consent to his commandments: Yet will I and my sons and my brethren walk in the covenant of our fathers. God forbid that we should forsake the law and the ordinances. We will not hearken to the king’s words, to go from our religion, either on the right hand or the left.” When he saw one of the Jews sacrificing on the altar he could not contain himself and killed him as well as the king’s commissioner.

Then he cried out, “Whosoever is zealous of the law, and maintaineth the covenant, let him follow me!� So Mattathias and his group ran to the mountains. Many people joined them there. Others fled to the secret places in the wilderness to hide. When the Greeks fought against those in the secret places in the wilderness on the Sabbath, they would not fight back and were all killed. But those with Mattathias in the mountains decided they would fight for their lives even on the Sabbath.

Many people began to join Mattathias and they rebelled against Antiochus, pulling down the altars of the idols and circumcising the baby boys. They also fought against the wicked and recovered the law out of their hands. I Maccabees 2:45-48. When Mattathias was ready to die he encouraged his sons to fight the battles of the Lord. He told them that Judas Maccabeus had been mighty and strong from his youth and for him to be their captain.

Judas was the greatest and the strongest of his brothers and a fearless leader in battle. The Greek kings were constantly fighting each other.

Israel became a pawn in their battles. One king would say he would give them freedom, and then another king would come in and refuse all of the promises made before. Israel was caught in the middle. The heathens would come against them with great numbers and elephants and Judas had few men with him. But Judas encouraged his men

saying, “It is no hard matter for many to be shut up in the hands of a few; and with the God of heaven it is all one, to deliver with a great multitude of an host; but strength cometh from heaven.”

Judas’ strength, bravery and accomplishments were well known to the heathen, because he defeated them in battle. Now when the enemy was discomfited they went up to cleanse and dedicate the sanctuary. Judas called for priests who were blameless in the law to cleanse the sanctuary and bare out the defiled stones. Now three years later on the

exact same day that it had been polluted they dedicated the temple and the altar on the 25th day of the ninth month.

The story of the Maccabees is one of courage during extreme tribulation. They all fought the battles of the Lord, but every last one of the sons of Mattathias that led the people against the Greeks were martyred one by one. They all died for the cause. But they were instrumental in defeating the Greeks. In fact they weakened the Greek kings and their ability to hold their power. They made a league with another great people, the Romans. Eventually Rome took over as the fourth kingdom that king Nebuchadnezzar dreamed about. If you would like more information please click here.

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Please read 70 verses: I Maccabees 1:11-24, 41-64, I Maccabees 2:1-14, 49-50, 62-70, I Maccabees 3:52-59.

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The Birth of Christ and the Roman Empire August 30th 2014

Christ was born in the midst of time, during the time of Rome. His was the birth that we all looked for, the son that we had been promised. He

was the seed of the woman that would bruise the head of the serpent.

He was before us, because he created us. But he joined us, becoming part of man, one with mankind. Therefore he called us brothers. He came to us humble, meek as a lamb. He will return to us at the end of time in glory and majesty, a God of war, the destroyer of evil and the redeemer of his children. Christ is the seed of the promise. He is the

seed of righteousness. He exists in all of the righteous. To believe in him, to obey him is to have his word, his seed within you. Therefore he is part of us and we in turn are part of him.

Christ came to Mary through the power of the Holy Ghost. The angel told her of his coming. “And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary:

for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.”

When Mary asked him how this was possible for she had not known a man. Gabriel told her “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” Mary did not hesitate to accept the will of God. She said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” Christ came through the line of David and of the kings according to the flesh.

But at that time the line of the kings was greatly diminished. There were no Israelite kings. There were priests and elders who were religious leaders. They were ruled over by the Roman Empire, and their king was Herod who was an Edomite and a hideously cruel and vicious man. Christ’s parents were meek and humble. They were not of the rich or elite. What they had was an abundance of faith and obedience to God. Mary and Joseph accepted his strange birth. Mary was told by the angel prior to her conception. She was betrothed but not yet married and according to the law could be stoned for whoredom. When Joseph found out that Mary was with child, he initially thought to put her away privately being a just man and not wanting her to suffer public humiliation or punishment. The angel came and told him to marry her because the child was of the Holy Ghost. He did not resist or question, He immediately married her. He did not touch her until after Christ was born.

Rome was different from Greece in that Israel was allowed to keep the temple that the Maccabees had fought so hard for. They were allowed to have their traditions and live according to their laws. In fact many of the Roman leaders were educated in the laws and the prophets. But the supreme ruler was Caesar.

Rome was hard, hard as iron and would stand absolutely no rebellion.

They showed no mercy to anyone who challenged their authority. Rome had a strong central government which was so different from Greece that had city states that were constantly at war with each other. Rome was ruled by a senate. It also had emperors. Rome included the best of the nations that it had conquered. It so admired Greek art and culture, philosophy and language that it spread this throughout its empire. The major language in New Testament time was Greek, and education

included the works of the Greek philosophers. Rome was full of greed and excess. It was morally filthy, full of wickedness and idolatry. But it was more tolerant of differences than Greece, and so Israel was allowed to practice their religion and their traditions up to a point. A few of the emperors were deified by the people and worshipped as god.

Christ was born during the reign of Augustus. Herod was king. Let us briefly go over the facts of his birth. Gabriel appeared first to Zacharias the priest. “Fear not Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt name him John.” He told him that John would be great in the sight of the Lord and would be filled with the Holy Ghost from his birth. Many of the children of Israel he would turn to God. “And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the

disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.� Zacharias found this hard to believe, so the angel gave him a sign, he made him mute until the birth.

When Elisabeth was in her sixth month the angel appeared before Mary and told her she was going to have the Christ. He also told her that Elisabeth was pregnant in her old age because nothing was impossible with God. Mary went to see her cousin Elisabeth, and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost and said, “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this that the mother of my Lord should come to me, For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.� Mary also began to prophecy and rejoice at the goodness of the Lord. She stayed with her about three months. When

John was born his father’s tongue was loosed and he prophesied and rejoiced about John and about the coming of Jesus.

Mary and Joseph were required to go to Bethlehem to pay their taxes.

When they came Mary went into labor but there was no room at the inn so they had to go into the stable. When the baby was born he was placed in the manger. In the same area there were shepherds tending the flock. An angel came to them and announced the birth of Christ.

“Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” He told them where to find him and then suddenly a heavenly host appeared praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” When the shepherds saw the baby they praised God and told everyone what they had heard and seen. When Jesus was eight days old he was circumcised. He was presented at the temple after the days of Mary’s purification because he was the first born. There at Jerusalem two righteous people, Simeon and Anna knew who baby Christ was when they saw him and they prophesied and blessed him and gave thanks to God because they lived to see his salvation. Afterwards wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying “Where is he that is born king of the Jews?” When Herod heard about that he was afraid. Herod had been well trained in the Law of God as well as Greek philosophy.

He called the chief priests and scribes who told him that Christ would be born according to the prophets in Bethlehem. Now Herod believed

this and was afraid. He didn’t want another king to come and take his place. Like a devil he believed and trembled but had no intention to obey. He told the wise men where Christ was supposed to be born and told them to let him know when he found him so he could come and worship him. When the wise men found Jesus as a young child, they worshipped him and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

They were warned in a dream not to tell Herod where Christ was. When they left the angel of God told Joseph to take Christ into Egypt because Herod would try to kill him. When Herod found out that the wise men were not going to tell him where Christ was, in his anger he had all the baby boys in Bethlehem and its surrounding areas, from 2 years old and under put to death.

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Please read: (102 verses) Luke 1:19-56. Luke 2:1-40, Mathew 2:1-23

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The Voice of Christ Calling to his Children with Parables and Teaching September 13th 2014

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In preparation for the Day of Trumpets we will study about the time of Christ when he came as the Son of man and preached the gospel of the

kingdom. Christ is the word of God. It is he that calls his children. It is his voice that the trumpet signifies.

When Christ was born to Mary and Joseph, very few people were aware of his birth. The Children of Israel had been taught through Moses that a prophet like unto him would be raised up in the midst of them and unto him ye shall hearken, Deuteronomy 18:15. This is why Herod questioned the leaders of the Jews when the wise men from the east came to worship Christ. Herod wanted them to tell him where he was so that he could kill him, Matthew 2:16-18.

When Christ was twelve years old, the leaders of the temple marveled at his wisdom when he sat among them asking questions about the word of God. When Christ was about thirty years of age, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness saying, “Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.” The people did not know he was talking about the coming of Christ who would call his children out of the world unto redemption and salvation and give unto them the gospel of salvation.

After Christ was baptized by John the Baptist, he fasted 40 days and tempted by the Devil in the wilderness, he began his working, preaching the gospel, Matthew 4:17, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He first blew the trumpet to the disciples as he preached the gospel by the Sea of Galilee as they were casting their nets. He told them that he would make them fishers of men if they followed him.

Jesus went about Galilee, teaching in synagogues, preaching the gospel and healing all manner of sickness and diseases among the people.

When Christ gave his great sermon on the mountain, he taught the people how to keep his commandments and gave them his testimonies and not the traditions of men. He taught them how to pray to God and seek the kingdom of heaven in order to be saved.

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When Christ preached to the people in the wilderness and the desert, he not only taught them spiritually but physically as well and showed them the miracles of the fishes and the loaves. Christ preached in many synagogues and the temple about the kingdom of God as well as in homes of the people, by the seaside in ships and on the mounts. He often warned them about the leavening of the Pharisees who micro-

managed the people with their traditions and lies and put great burdens on them that they themselves would not bare. For this cause many leaders of the church sought to kill him or silence him forever.

Christ was the seed of the Gospel and taught the gospel which is the second covenant and this was difficult for many to understand, Matthew 9:16-17. That is why Christ used parables so that they could understand better using things that they were familiar with. What is a parable? A parable is an example, story or similitude taken from a natural thing. In this way people could understand clearly what he was saying.

Let us look at just one of his parables which is a perfect example of how he calls his children. In Matthew chapter 22 Christ teaches a parable about how a king made a marriage to his son and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding. But the guests refused to come. They even made light of it and entreated his servants spitefully.

He was showing an example of ancient Israel and the prophets, and the

children of Israel and the Pharisees in his day. The messengers that he sent them were Apostles and disciples. Israel was called first but

refused to obey and they persecuted and killed the prophets and disciples. He said they were not worthy and destroyed them and their cities. This indeed would happen to Israel. Then he sent his servants to the highways to bid people to the marriage. So they brought in as many

as they found both good and bad. These are all the people called after the gospel was preached the first time, the gentiles came and the word was sent around the world. Some people were good and many were wicked that came in and sat down and called their name “Christ�. But when the king saw someone without a wedding garment he cast him out into outer darkness. We know the wedding garment represents our righteousness.

It is important for us to know that the first trumpet that Christ blew to his children was on Mount Sinai when the children of Israel received the commandments of God verbally and received them on the table of stone written with the finger of God. He gave a trumpet to his leaders, priest, prophets and kings and disciples, to teach the people both great and small. He came as the seed of the gospel in the form of man to undo the sins of Adam. Before he was crucified he rode into Jerusalem on the colt of an ass bringing the gospel of salvation unto the world. In our day he is blowing the trumpet unto his children as he walks among the seven churches. He is calling for them to come out of darkness and repent of their sins and come into the glorious light unto salvation and redemption.

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Please read:

Matthew 2:1-5, Matthew 2:7& 12-13; Luke 2:41-52; Matthew 3:1-5& 6-17; Matthew 4:19& 23-25; Matthew 21:1-11; Revelations 1:9-20. (61 verses)

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The Crucifixion and the Preaching of the Gospel September 27th 2014

“Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed.” John 6:53-55. Christ is our atonement. “In

whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.� Ephesians 1:7.

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Christ was about 30 years old when he began his work. He preached the gospel of the kingdom for about 3 years. He called twelve apostles and 70 disciples to assist him in his work. He healed the sick, caused

the blind to see, opened the ears of the deaf, and made the lame walk.

He fed multitudes of people. He taught them to live and walk through faith and to obey God sincerely. He demonstrated how to live our lives perfectly before God. He did not come to renew the kingdom of Israel.

He came to save all of his children from sin and damnation and to give his life for the world. He suffered greatly in his death. He bore all of our sins. We must believe in the promise of God. “And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.�

John 6:40. The evidence of our belief or faith is that we keep his commandments. It is also the evidence that we know God and that we love him.

Let us review some of the events surrounding his crucifixion. Christ raised Lazarus from the dead not long before his last Passover. It was this great sign and miracle that was the last straw with the priests and the scribes. “Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.� John 11:53. Jesus did not walk openly in Judea after that but went to a city near the wilderness. Six days later he returned to Bethany. Mary anointed his feet with precious ointment.

Five days later he entered into Jerusalem on a young ass and the people received him with joy with palms and branches of trees shouting Hosanna. In Jerusalem he talks to his disciples about the end of the world and the fall of Jerusalem in their time and he warns them of the destruction of the temple. He also casts out the sellers of doves and the exchangers from the temple. On the day of unleavened bread he sent the apostles to prepare a place for them to eat the Passover. When the hour was come he sat down with the twelve and blessed the bread and brake it saying, “With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer: For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves: For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come. And he took bread, and gave thanks, and

brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.� Luke 22:15-20. After the supper he washed their feet and began to teach them again the beautiful words of his last sermon in John chapters 14-17. Then Jesus goes to the garden and prays. Judas Iscariot arrives with soldiers. The apostles flee after Jesus is captured.

The Romans loved to crucify. They loved to let people die with as much pain as possible. Crucifixion is a long painful death. A person is bound, unclothed for their shame and long nails are hammered through their extremities to hold them to a cross. Their agony would cause all others to fear rebelling against Roman law. The Romans were interested in keeping down rebellions. Everything was political. No one wanted to lose their position. If Jerusalem rebelled somebody was going to be blamed.

Jesus was taken to the chief priests who interrogated him and brought in witnesses to falsely accuse him. That night during his interrogation Peter and John had followed behind him. When a maid tried to insist that Peter was one of those with Jesus, Peter denied three times and the cock crew. In the morning they took him to Pilate to interrogate him further and demanded he be put to death. Pilate saw no fault in him. He sent him to Herod who also interrogated him. When Pilate told the priests and elders that he saw no fault in Christ and wanted to release him, they threatened to accuse him of treason, that he was not a

friend of Caesar if he let Jesus go, because Jesus claimed to be the king of the Jews. When Pilate heard that and saw that there was going to be a tumult and that they refused to release him he commanded Jesus to be scourged, severely beaten and crucified. They put a crown of thorns on his head. They mocked him and led him away to Calvary. They nailed him to the cross and took away his clothes. The soldiers beat him and spit on him. The people surrounded him like dogs mocking him.

Christ asked the father to forgive them for they didn’t know what they were doing. Next to him were two thieves, One of them scorned him, the other one asked him to remember him. At the sixth hour of the day,

which is about noon the sun became dark and the veil of the temple was rent. Jesus died at the ninth hour. Before the sun was down they took his body and wrapped it and placed it in a tomb.

Three days and three nights later Mary Magdelene and the other women went to the tomb. Christ was already risen. An angel told them to tell the disciples who found it hard to believe. “And as they thus spake Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.� He appeared before them on several occasions during a forty day period. At the end of that time he ascended to heaven. Acts 1:1-10.

When the day of Pentecost was fully come they were all with one accord in one place. The Holy Ghost filled them. They began preaching the gospel in all languages. The people believed them. Their eyes were open now, though they were closed when Christ taught them. Three thousand people joined them in one day and were baptized. The church continued to grow and the gospel was preached. They cared for the widows and orphans. The Greeks, Jews who were raised outside of Israel and who spoke other languages, became jealous and demanded that their widows be fed. The apostle anointed seven men to serve them. They preached the gospel to them also. The priests and elders were alarmed. They began to persecute the church. They sent Saul, a young Pharisee with letters from the priest to arrest any followers of Christ. Many of the disciples fled Jerusalem. They preached the gospel wherever they went. The Samarians were preached to and converted.

Some of the gentiles who lived among them like Cornelius were converted. The Holy Ghost fell upon them also. One of the synagogues of the Greeks became so angry with Stephen that they stoned him. Saul was there agreeing with it. He made havoc of the church. He arrested people, and put them out of houses. Many were put to death. The gospel continued to be preached.

A light shown on Saul from heaven. God spoke to him. He was converted. He was now Paul. Paul became one of the greatest teachers and leaders in the church. He became the head of the gentile church.

He preached the gospel around the world, as far as Spain. He was imprisoned in Rome. Both he and Peter warned the people that grievous wolves had entered the church to change the doctrine of the

kingdom. Paul died about 64 AD. The work of the apostles remain with us. Grievous wolves did indeed enter the church. In 70 AD Jerusalem was destroyed. There has been no center of truth since that day. The Christians suffered great persecution and began to bend and sway and compromise after the death of the true leaders. Christ’s name could not be blotted out though. His name prevailed though the Knowledge of Evil diminished the truth and polluted his word through lies. By 313 AD, Constantine the Great made Christianity the official religion, but it was a far cry from the church that the apostles led. It was the beginning of Mystery Babylon. Sunday became the official day of worship.

Christ is our atonement. It is his blood that cleanses us from sin and death. His blood is eternal life. When he died he left us a promise. He promised to return and deliver us. He taught us that we must have faith and believe because through faith we can do all things. We must repent of our sins and be baptized. Our bodies must be cleansed with pure water which is his word. He sent the Holy Spirit to be with us and teach us. We know we have his Spirit because we believe in him and we obey his word. He must be in us because he is our life. How do we know he is in us? When we obey him and keep his word. We must love him. To love him is to keep his commandments. This is his promise to us. He has already sacrificed himself, he already won the victory. We in turn must prove our faithfulness by our obedience. We have a guarantee.

“And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he

hath given me I should lose nothing.� We await the refreshing and the restitution of all things in the last day.

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Please Read: (72 verses) John 6:32-58, Mat 26:17-35, Mark 15:15-39, Acts 4:19-21

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The Time of the Gentiles October 11th 2014

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“Blindness in part is happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.�

The time of the Gentiles began after AD 70 when Jerusalem was burned to the ground. It began after the deaths of the apostles and that

generation of Jewish leaders of the church. And after the children of Israel had been slaughtered, scattered and taken into captivity, when the light of truth had been extinguished in Jerusalem and the world returned unto its old darkness. The time of the Gentiles is a time of darkness. We continue to live in the time of the Gentiles. The Gentiles time is not over until the day star dawns again. And until the return of Jesus and the center of truth is established in the world. It is not over until the restoration of Israel.

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In this time of darkness we see how the Gentile spread false doctrine and how Mystery Babylon has polluted the world. We see how truth has been trampled in the street.

The Gentile was very cruel, they

persecuted, tortured and killed any who stood up against them. Rome tortured and killed the Jews and the true Christians. Later in the time of ignorance our people now blind and deaf took hold of the vanities of the Gentiles and the lies spread by Mystery Babylon as you see most of them do today.

How could God, or why would God as some may ask,

allow them to do what they did? It was the will of God. Our people were not just innocent victims in all this. Our forefathers asked that the blood of Christ be on their heads and on the heads of their children.

We know how Israel sinned against God. We know that he warned them and warned them but they would not take heed. We remember

that they killed his prophets. Christ is the bread of life, his word is food.

Our people have been eating unclean things among the Gentiles.

Ezekiel 4:13 “And the Lord said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them.”

God was patient and merciful. He gave them chance after chance. He gave them time and opportunity to obey him, just as he gives us time and opportunity. Our time is over at the time of our death or at the time of our judgment. The time of the “former” house of Israel ended in AD 70. We await the “latter” house.

We live in a time of great darkness, yet a very few of us have come out of darkness and found the light of truth and understanding. In this time of darkness upon us the light has shined.

As Isaiah said “The

people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined”. Isaiah 9:2.

So why did God just let the Gentiles mess everything up? He didn’t.

However, he punished our people. Yet he also made a promise to us. As Paul said, “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins…For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.”

Romans 11:26-27 and 29.

The time of the Gentiles is a time of darkness, a time of night. But it is not absolute darkness. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handy work. Day unto day uttered speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge�. David states here in the Psalms that knowledge is shown in the night. There is a light of the day and a light of the night. In the day the sun is so bright it enlightens every bit of obscurity. So also is the pure truth and the understanding of the word of God.

There is a lesser light to rule the night, and

comparatively a lesser understanding.

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The word of God is sure, unstoppable, immutable, and invincible and of such unsearchable power that it does exactly as God intends for it to do.

As he said, “For I am the Lord, I change not”. And also, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away”. Isaiah 58:8-11 speaks even clearer. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” What was the sure word that was accomplished?

What did God promise? God has children in every nation on the earth.

He has children in every generation. During the time of darkness the Gentiles did a great work. The children of Israel were given the holy oracles. They were given the prophets. They literally wrote the books of the bible. Most of the saints in the bible were Israelites. The lives of these great men and women were written for us for examples. Moses was an Israelite, so was David, and even Christ was born of the tribe of Judah as it pertains to the flesh. And what did he say to the woman at the well? Salvation is of the Jew.

The Gentiles were given a work to do also. To them it was given to protect the bible, to translate the bible, to print the bible and to

disperse it around the entire world. By doing this the knowledge of truth was made available to all of God’s children.

So why don’t

everybody know the truth then? The Knowledge of Evil, that great opportunist, came in to muddy the waters. From the very beginning she was the cause of the death and destruction of our people using vain men and their traditions to make void the law. She didn’t stop with Israel.

With the gentiles she established an alternative belief system that used many of the tenets of the word but not all. She took the basic structure

of the bible and wove in an interpretation of lies to deceive the people.

Her major point of attack was with the fourth commandment and she caused vain and sinful men to become leaders of the church and of the

nations after they had killed the true leaders, to make laws contrary to the word of God and to impose their will upon the people. She created Mystery Babylon. Isaiah 24:5.

Though the Sabbath day was under intense attack there were always some people from the beginning, even until our time, who kept the Sabbath.

Some of these are Gentiles, who also suffered great

persecutions for worshipping on the seventh day. After Ad 70 there was intense persecution by Rome on all things that was considered Jewish. The early Christians all kept the seventh day Sabbath holy, and this belief continued to spread like wild fire. It could not be stopped.

Even when the Jewish leaders of the church and the first and true Christian leaders died out the name of Christ continued to grow.

Remember that Christianity was of Jewish origin.

The Romans

persecuted the Jews and also persecuted the Christians. They felt that everyone should show reverence for the Roman gods for prosperity to remain in the land.

Rome was having lots of struggles and the

Christians became a convenient scapegoat. At first every one kept the Sabbath day holy. Later, with intense pressure to honor the Roman gods and high days, they began to keep Sabbath and Sunday calling the Sabbath the end of the creation and Sunday the Lord’s Day. The term Lord’s Day is found one time in the bible in Revelations 1:10. Nowhere in the bible does it indicate or even suggest that this is referring to Sunday. This term was used as an excuse to justify the changing of the most holy law of God and the fourth commandment by evil and vile

men for their own purposes. They also use one scripture showing that they broke bread together on the first day Acts 20:7. However we know that the apostles broke bread together every day, Acts 2:46.

Around 313 AD Constantine purportedly converted to Christianity but made an edict that we will not Judaise. The council of Laodicea in 364 by the Eastern Church threatened to excommunicate anyone who rested on the seventh day.

Throughout the following centuries a

common tradition, the day of the sun grew to take precedence over the

Sabbath day though there were always some who continued to worship God on the Sabbath. There were people in Great Britain and France

who purportedly kept the Sabbath, and also in Spain and other parts of the west. Part of the work of the inquisition was to enforce the Catholic

Church’s edicts pertaining to the Sabbath day. The Catholic Church

said that anyone keeping the Sabbath holy was a heretic and antiChrist. The keeping of the Sabbath day was considered an infestation of Judaism.

Ethiopian Emperor Galawdewos AD 1540-1559 is

purported to say “We do celebrate the Sabbath, because God, after He finished the creation of the world, rested thereon… and that especially, since Christ came not to dissolve the law but to fulfill it. It is therefore not in the imitation of the Jews, but in obedience to Christ, and his holy apostles that we observe that day”.

There were Sabbath keepers in

Great Britain, some of them Puritans and Sabbatarians that emerged after the reformation. Other Sabbath churches remained.

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Ellen G. White was a member of one when she was 17 years old. At some point she claimed to have visions and prophecy and a group of followers joined her. They became the Seventh Day Adventist church today the most well-known of the Sabbath keeping Gentile churches.

Another group became the Church of God Seventh Day, less well known but also a very large and worldwide church. One of its prior ministers was Armstrong who left after 3 years and developed the Radio Church of God. These three Sabbath keeping Gentile churches, the Seventh Day Baptist, the Seventh Day Adventist and the Church of God Seventh Day exists today all over the country and in many countries all over the world.

Though these churches worship on the seventh day, they are not like us. The belief in the entire commandments of God is just the beginning of understanding. The Sabbath keeping churches are the only places where you see light because the scripture says in Isaiah 8:20, “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them”. Satan transforms himself into an angel of light and so also do his ministers, but if they do not uphold the Sabbath day then they are liars and the truth is not in them. As the scripture says, “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing”. You cannot find truth from darkness and you cannot pick out the clean things from a pot of soup mixed with pork. The Sabbath keeping Gentile churches

that ascribe to the law and the commandments have some light, but it is not the pure light from the day, but the lesser light and lesser understanding from the night.

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For example, the oldest Sabbath keeping church in the United States is the Seventh Day Baptist. The Seventh Day Baptist is almost exactly like other Baptist churches except they worship on Sabbath.

They believe in almost identical doctrine with one exception, they worship on Sabbath. All you have to do is believe to be saved. They are also affiliated with the Sunday Baptist Church. I do not know if they keep the food law or not or if they celebrate pagan holidays or not.

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The Seventh Day Adventist church keeps the Sabbath and says you must keep the commandments, but they do not keep the feast days either. The Seventh Day Adventist Church also celebrates Christmas and Easter. They keep the food law. They also esteem the teachings of Ellen G. White as sacred and holy as the bible and call her the spirit of prophecy, even though much of what she said is not according to the bible and her prophecy did not come true.

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The Church of God Seventh Day, says that obedience to the law is not necessary for salvation just like the seventh day Baptist. They keep the holy days though they don’t understand why they are to be kept. They keep the food law. They do not believe in the trinity saying that the Holy Ghost is not a being but an emanation from the father. Like the Jehovah Witness they do not believe this earth will be destroyed but will go through a purging with fire and be made new.

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The seventh day Baptist have about 50,000 members worldwide. The Church of God Seventh Day has about 11,000 members in America and about 143,000 worldwide.

The Seventh day Adventist is by far the

largest of the three with over seventeen million members worldwide.

Of course there are other Sabbath keeping gentile churches that say they are not associated with any of these three churches, so who knows

how many there are in this country and in the world.

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I have not mentioned of course the black Hebrew groups because I wanted to focus on the gentile churches. We do not know how many exist because some of them like our church is quiet and hidden in the wilderness.

How many true Israelites who see, understand and

worship God in holiness and truth exist now? Over 144,000.

If we add up all the Sabbath keeping churches that we know about and estimate the numbers of others we don’t, let’s say about 20 million exists today. But how many other so called Christians are there?

There are about 2.1 billion, about 1/3 of the world population, Muslims

are second at 22%, about 1.2 billion. If my math is correct, 1 billion is a thousand million, so for every 100 Sunday keepers there is < 1 Sabbath keeper, and we know that many of these Sabbath keepers are not children of God and almost all have very little understanding.

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God has people everywhere, in every nation and kindred and tongue.

Many of them worship in ignorance.

Some are Muslims, some are

Catholics and most in Mystery Babylon of some sort. Very few know the truth. What is so wonderful to know is the power of God to save his people. All people know good and evil. A child of God will choose the good, even in his ignorance he will come to love God and seek for God and choose the good. A child of God will drink the cup of Salvation.

Their lives will prove that they belong to him. They will answer when he calls them. God winks at the ignorance of his children who obey him to the best of their understanding. It was not their fault that they were born blind and deaf. creator.

But even the deaf will hear the voice of their

These Gentiles that protected, translated, printed, and

dispersed the bible around the world were doing the will of God and were serving him and in doing so were doing a great service for our people who were powerless and enslaved at the time by these same Gentiles. Their sacrifices allowed the bible to be printed worldwide. It made it affordable and translated in all languages around the world so that the poorest of people could have the truth. Another great service that they did for us involves the hymns. We sing these hymns in our worship. Holy, Holy, Holy, Leaning on the everlasting arms, Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus, and the music for Father We Thank Thee, and so many more songs and hymns that we sing everyday were written and published by Gentiles. And we feel the Spirit of God move in our hearts when we sing these songs. They touch our spirits, we know God was part of the creation of them. The word of God manifests itself even in a

time of great darkness. And God is going to do exactly what he sets out to do.

What is the relationship between Jew and Gentile and between God and the Gentile? When God created the earth he divided the nations of the Gentiles according to the number of the sons of Jacob. No matter what they may tell you, God did not divide his people according to race.

He divided them first by two. There was the Jew and the Gentile. And he divided the Gentile by twelve and Israel also by twelve. Because of the righteousness of certain holy men, he placed within their hands his holy word and the promise of the holy seed. Abraham, Isaac and then Jacob who became Israel, our forefathers. These are the seed of the promise.

To their children God made a covenant and they would

become a holy nation and a royal priesthood. Israel is God’s firstborn vs. and the Gentile is God’s second son. Always it says in the scripture, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. Romans 2:9-11. There are, as I said no matter what the world says, only twelve nations of Gentiles, and there are twelve tribes of Israel, all representing the number of the sons of God, and the characteristics of Jesus Christ. Israel is God’s firstborn and again, to him was given the holy oracles and the prophets.

Also to him was given the interpretation of scripture and the true doctrine.

The Gentile was supposed to dwell in the tents of Israel

Genesis 9:26-27. Jeremiah 11:16, speaking about Israel says “The Lord called thy name a green olive tree, fair and of goodly fruit.” We know that the oil from the olive tree represents the word of God. The

Gentiles was considered a wild olive tree because they had not been nurtured and cultivated through the law and the prophets as Israel had been. Romans 11:16-17. They were supposed to be grafted into the root of the domesticated olive tree and not set up their own agenda.

Romans 11:18-21. As Christ said, Salvation is of the Jew. The Gentile was never to change the law of God. The Gentile was required to keep the same law that Israel had to keep. There was never supposed to be different religions and doctrines. God made different nations of people but not different ways to serve him, and the pattern of salvation was given first to the Jew. Galatians 3:26-28

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So what happens when the time of the gentiles have been fulfilled?

Well Paul said that blindness in part happened to Israel until the time of the Gentile had been fulfilled. So it is obvious that Israel will no longer be blind. And Romans 11:26 says, “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:

For this is my covenant

unto them, when I shall take away their sins.” At what time will the sins of Jacob be taken away? It clearly tells us in the book of Acts 3:19-21. And in Romans chapter 11 paraphrasing Paul, he said that Israel did not fall for their destruction “but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles”, and that the punishment of Israel opened up a door of salvation to the world. He went on to say that if the casting away of Israel led to the reconciliation of the world, what

would the receiving of them be but life from the dead. He said that because God was merciful to the Gentiles who were in sin and ignorance, he would show that same mercy to Israel who are blind.

Romans 12:30-32. Isaiah speaks a lot about the restitution of Israel and the times of refreshing when Christ shall return. Isaiah 11:10 “And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentile seek: and his rest shall be glorious”.

There are many, many more scriptures concerning the

relationship between Israel and the Gentile in the last day. Zechariah 8:23 says “Thus saith the Lord of hosts; In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you”. As the scripture tells us we are all one body in Christ. We know also to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. The Holy Spirit will come first on the children of Israel but will descend upon all of God’s children, in every language and in every nation and kindred. God has a bountiful harvest in the end of the world. There is a number that cannot be numbered that will be saved. Satan has troubled us, but he could not defeat us. He has hurt us, but God has healed us. We are not lost, Christ has saved us and he will deliver us, from every corner of the earth and from the grave.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God. His word is invincible.

Both Israel and the Gentile had a part in the salvation of mankind. By one the word was written and the holy oracles were given, we are the children of the promise the first born of Christ. By the Gentile the bible

was translated and printed and published around the world. They are our brethren, and together we make up the kindred of mankind on this earth. We are not whole without them, they are not whole without us.

Just as those of us with more than one child love the younger child, care for the younger child as much as the elder, so do God who divided up the seed of mankind according to his very good will and his excellent pleasure. He will reward all of us according to our works. Some of the righteous Gentiles have done greater works than some of the children of Israel. And their sacrifices can be just as great. And really, there are only two distinct differences that are important in the end between people. Are you a child of God or a child of the devil?

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Slavery in the United States October 25th 2014

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When Israel became a great nation in Egypt, they were nurtured by Joseph who was second to Pharaoh and profitable to him.

They

remained in Goshen and multiplied like the stars of heaven. However, as time went on they became stronger and stronger so that the Egyptians began to fear them and sought out how to reduce their numbers. They became like an enemy of the state. Egypt is where slavery began for Israel to decrease their numbers, kill all male babies and teach them the ways of the Egyptians. Yet they knew who they were, they knew about God and had received his oral laws. As time went on when they were delivered from Egypt and came into the land of Canaan that God had promised to Abraham, whenever they sinned against God they were invaded by other nations who they served. Still they knew who they were, they knew who God was and they knew his written laws.

As we know Israel sinned multiple times before God and worshipped the gods of other nations and was subject to their enemies. But when they cried to God he had pity on them and delivered them. Israel continued to sin but God continued to deliver them and when he did, they would obey for a season and then go back to their sinful ways.

Eventually they asked for a king and most of their kings were wicked and led them to sin even greater before the Lord, which caused the ten tribes to be removed from the land by the king of Assyria, who replaced them with other nations. They never returned to their land. The king of Assyria sold them as bond men and women throughout different nations.

The children of Judah had a similar punishment when Nebuchadnezzar entered Jerusalem and burned the temple and took them to Babylon.

He destroyed their king and took them captive to the land of their enemy. They still knew who they were and knew who God was and his laws and commandments. Israel remained captive during the Meds and Persians who over threw Babylon. The Medes and Persians helped them to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and put over them governorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and priest to oversee the cit. But they still no longer had kings. They remained captive under Greece who tried to destroy their way of belief in God and set up the abomination of desolation. After Greece, they remained captive in Rome who was in power 1000 years. Christ was born and died in this time period. During the Roman era there remained a temple, they knew who God was, there were priests, and they continued to sacrifice unto the Lord. The priests were leaders and shepherds among them. But when Christ was born, Herod had a visit from the wise men of the east looking for Christ, fearing the king of the Jews who would remove him from his position he destroyed many baby boys in the city of Bethlehem and its coasts. During the Roman Empire, Christ raise up the disciples, healed the people and preached the gospel until he was crucified.

When Jerusalem fell in 70 A.D. by Rome, everything was destroyed and many people were killed until blood ran in the streets. The people, the temple, and the city were no longer there. God had spewed them from the land as prophesied. Some died by the sword, famine, pestilence and

the beast of the fields. Many were sold into slavery in Egypt and throughout Africa and every nation, kindred, and tongue. Slavery was very profitable to those in power who enslaved those people who no longer had leaders, land or hope! Israel assimilated among their enemies. They forgot who they were, they forgot who God was, they forgot Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s laws, and they forgot Jerusalem!

Slavery remained profitable as lands were discovered in the western hemisphere. As the European nations explored these new lands they became richer, but in order to extend their borders they colonized these new lands and they needed slaves to help build their countries by using the natural resources of the land and they destroyed the native people who inhabited it.

The Curse of Deuteronomy #28

The curse of Deuteronomy #28 begins to fulfill itself when Europeans traveled to Africa on slave ships to find humans who did not look like them, who they felt were people without souls, who were lower than animals and who’s lives had very little to no value. They traveled the middle passage between the coast of America into West Africa to bring slaves to North and South America and the Caribbean Islands as well as Central America; which they did for hundreds of years until they built their lands on the backs of slavery. This was the worse slavery ever recorded in history!!! “Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the river of Ethiopia. That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in the vessels of waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled,” Isaiah 18:1-2.

The Iron Yoke

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When the Europeans came for slaves, many were kidnaped but most were traded by African middle men who sold their enemies from captured nations of Africa. They too realized the profitability of slaves for the Europeans and for their benefit. Once captured, they began their journey from the interior of Africa to the coastal regions.

Thousands died making this trek and their unburied bleached bones could be seen along the slave route. Once they arrived at these coastal towns, men, women, and children were stripped, examined and traded

like animals. Those that they sold were branded, bound in chains and herded into slave dungeons where they were held for weeks or months until they had enough to fill the slave ships. The trade in flesh was an evil that lasted about 400 years from Africa to the Americas. Many profited from the slave trade; and became very rich and made a name for themselves.

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Once the slaves were loaded on the ships as tightly as possible, the net receipts from the sale of slaves would offset the number that died aboard. Crammed in suffocating heat and held by chains bolted to the

floor they were forced to lie in their own waste; breathing air rancid with vomit, sickness and disease, they suffered unimaginable horrors.

They had to see giant rats that could gnaw through wood as well as their flesh, this made many go mad with fear and illness. There on the floor covered with blood and excrement, screams of pregnant women gave birth and many awoke chained to the dead.

As forms of entertainment, their captives made them dance for their amusement. â&#x20AC;&#x153;By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea we wept when we remembered Zion; we hanged our harps upon the willow in the midst thereof, and they said sing us one of the sons of Zion. How

can we sing the Lordâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s song in a strange land but they said sing us one of the songs of Zionâ&#x20AC;?. The cries of agony by the slaves were continuous and many died, a conservative estimate is 50 million. The slave who died or was sick was tossed overboard to be drowned or eaten by fish.

Once they reached their destination, they were chained and loaded on an auction block, stripped naked, examined shamefully, and sold to the

highest bidder. Care was taken to get the most money out of a slave so that any slave that got out of control was beaten, raped, sodomized,

hung and killed in the cruelest way in the sight of other slaves, for them to remain in control and in submission to their captives.

Slaves labored in the fields usually from sun up to sun down with little rest and they built up the South and other areas where they were sent.

They toiled in the sun and sowed and reaped products such as cotton, tobacco, sugar cane, rice and hemp which made their masters very rich.

It was against the law for slaves to read and if they were taught they were punished by death, therefore many slaves remained ignorant and their owners could control them in every aspect of their lives. The slave masters felt if their slaves could not read or write and remained ignorant then they could not escape. But what slavers did not know was, among the slaves were the Children of Israel and God gave them knowledge and wisdom to survive during slavery. Many escaped, learned to read and they rescued many from slavery by following the North Star. They were aided by Gentiles who helped them via the Underground Railroad; they escaped to the north and as far away as Canada.

The Civil War

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Go down Moses way down in Egypt land, tell O Pharaoh to let my people goâ&#x20AC;?!

God always had his eyes on the Children of Israel no matter what their punishment was. Slavery lasted about 400 years and when the time came for the iron yoke to be removed, abolitionists rose up against slavery and many were killed; this helped turn the North and the South against each other. President Abraham Lincoln was raised up by God to aid in the government for the freeing of the slaves. Most people think even today that the Civil War was basically about keeping the nation from becoming separate however the Civil War was fought on behalf of the Children of God and the scripture had to fulfill itself.

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The Civil War was the worst war ever fought for this country. What made it so deadly was it pitted a country against itself; brother against brother; father against sons; uncles against nephews and the bloodshed was the worst in U.S. history even today. It is estimated that 620,000 individuals lost their lives during the Civil War, which is the highest number of deaths than in all other conflicts. How did this happen? God turned them against each other for his childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sake. God put time limits on all things and at the end of slavery, they could no longer hold the remnant of the Children of Israel captive!

The Pioneers

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Prophet William S. Crowdy was born a slave, Aug 11, 1847 and died Aug 4, 1908. History tells us that he lived on one of the cruelest and most

brutal plantation in Maryland. Despite it being illegal to read, Crowdy from a young age learned about the Hebrew prophets. Because of the severe abuse he was able to escape at the age of 17 and join the army and receive a discharge in 1872 post Civil War. He finally settled in Guthrie Oklahoma where he had a vision from God calling on him to lead his people to the true religion. He had another vision in 1895 that was said to frighten him so much that his hair turned white and his family did not recognize him at first. After that he began preaching and setting up a church in Guthrie Oklahoma. He preached the kingdom of God, the Ten Commandments and abstaining from wine and tobacco.

In 1896 The Church of God and Saints of Christ was incorporated teaching that the black man was the true Israelites and observing the Passover eating unleavened bread.

Prophet William S. Crowdy was one of the slaves that profited from reconstruction of the South. Not only was he able to buy land but he started businesses and expanded his congregation not only in the U.S. but other countries. He was able to buy 40 acres of land in Belleville, Virginia where they would go to observe the Passover. Near the end of his life ravening wolves came in to destroy what light that they had and caused a division there.

The Church of God and Saints of Christ still exist but not as they were before. They are the oldest established black Hebrew church in the country that observes the Sabbath, the Ten Commandments and the Passover. Today there have been many Black Hebrew groups who

broke away from the Sunday churches as well as some Sabbath keeping churches. But the true worshippers of God who are the true Children of Israel, worships in small groups, churches and some in homes. They not only worship on the true Sabbath but believe and do all that is written in the King James Bible. These pioneers laid the foundation of truth for those of us today that follow the pure truth of God.

These

people know who God is; they know his written Commandments and Testimonies of Jesus Christ and are waiting for the restoration of the Children of Israel.

Amen.

By G. Colleen Henry Elder

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Jim Crow November 8th 2014

Jim Crow law, was any of the laws that enforced racial segregation between the end of the reconstruction period in 1877 and the civil rights and voting rights acts in 1964 and 1965. In the south these laws were instituted to keep black people in their place, as close to slavery as possible. You could be fined, jailed and put to death for breaking these

laws. However the north was not the Promised Land. Racism was alive and well and segregation was a way of life.

Abraham Lincoln issued an emancipation proclamation in 1863 after pressure from the radical republicans which were the abolitionists to free the slaves. Congress passed the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery in 1865.

After Abraham Lincolnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s assassination in 1865, President

Andrew Johnson supported white supremacy in the south and favored southern politicians. The southerners did everything to restore slavery in substance if not in name. There was a battle between Congress and the president over who should control reconstruction. Reconstruction was the way to readmit the south into the union on terms acceptable to the north and to give full political and civil equality to blacks. The northern republicans won more seats and they could veto anything that president Johnson might impose. In order to be part of the union the southern states were required to accept the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments. The fourteenth and fifteenth amendments gave blacks citizenship and the right to vote.

The Ku Klux Klan was a terrorist group determined to prevent black people from rising above their position of servitude through intimidation, abuse, and publicly supported murder. They prevented blacks from voting, from being educated and they stole their land. They burned their churches and schools and lynched their teachers and could murder them for any reason whatsoever. In 1875 a civil rights act

was passed by the radical republicans and then overturned by the Supreme Court in 1883.

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Jim Crow effectively began after the election of Rutherford B. Hayes.

Politicians from the north and the south decided it was better for them to be in agreement with each other over the race issue than to worry about civil rights for black people. The executive administrations of 1876 to 1900 just did not address any issues relating to laws that disfranchised black people. They let the south do whatever it wanted to.

Plessy V. Ferguson in 1896 was a case that went to the Supreme Court to attempt to challenge the law that required a black person to sit in a separate compartment on a train. The Supreme Court ruled that separate facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as

they were equal. Booker T. Washington was a great educator, but was controversial with other black leaders because he sought to assure white people that his school would not challenge white supremacy. He was conciliatory to the whites in power and they supported him. He made a speech accepting segregation in all things social, but proclaimed like the fingers on his hand, whites and blacks could be separate yet equal. This was not the case.

Where did the term Jim Crow come from anyway? Jim Crow is a racial epithet. It was another way of saying the “N” word. It was a term like coon or…… It came from a white entertainer who performed on stage with black face makeup singing and dancing and acting like an ignorant clown. Whites loved to laugh at the foolish (“N” word), so he became quite wealthy. He would sing a song that he said he first heard from a black slave singing and performing for his master. “Weel about and turn about and do jis so, Eb’ry time I weel about I jump Jim Crow.” At first Jim Crow was used as a racial epithet to describe black people but was later used to identify the laws of segregation.

What were some of these laws? Jim Crow laws prevented black people from any type of social association with whites. The schools were segregated. The housing was segregated. The neighborhoods were segregated. So were churches and restaurants, buses, bathrooms, water fountains. It was illegal for blacks and whites to marry. Blacks were paid far less than whites doing the same jobs. Blacks were given only the lowest paid and menial jobs. Blacks had to be subservient to whites.

A law was passed in Mississippi that was to prevent black people from voting. It required all voters to be able to read and understand the constitution of the United States. The registrars were politically appointed whites. The Ku Klux Klan would ensure that blacks were so

intimidated that they submitted. They would kill you. They would kill your family and there would be nothing you could do about it. The law would not protect a black man. He had no rights. The federal

government would not concern itself. It was horrible in the south. This was why so many blacks came north. The laws of segregation may not have been written on the books in the north but whites had a deep seated belief that blacks were inferior. There was therefore a tradition of segregation in the north that was just as strongly upheld. You knew where you could live, what stores you could shop at, where you could work. Even still, the hospitals in the north did not accept black people at first. Later there were separate wards for blacks and whites. Many of these traditions continue today.

I remember traveling with my family to see my brother in college in Bloomington. My mother would always pack a lot of food to take with us. I was very young so I thought that was how everyone travelled. I was born in 1957 in the midst of the Civil Rights Era, but Jim Crow

laws were still in effect. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know that it could be dangerous for

black people to travel. I didn’t know that black people traveling a long distance would stay with relatives because hotels would not accept them. My husband remembers his father taking a gun with them when they travelled south to Arkansas, and they would always start at night because you had to make sure it was daytime when you travelled in the south. My mother had most of her children at home. Hospitals didn’t take black women in those days. My oldest sister had to be in a hallway when she had her baby because the black ward was full even though there were empty beds in the white ward. This was in Gary, up north, not that long ago.

My parents were very much affected by these unjust laws and the cruel treatment of blacks. My mother was very bright and intelligent, but to help support her family she had to clean houses. Some people were very nice, others weren’t. They intimidated her when she was expecting me, after she had cleaned fifteen flights of stairs. The woman that hired her and the men that intimidated her had a good laugh about it. It breaks your heart. When my parents still lived in Mississippi, my father worked at Jack Cookie Company, a bakery owned by the Seventh Day Adventist Church. He and his brothers learned that there was a law that said that black people were supposed to be paid as much as whites.

My father was a brave man. His brothers convinced him to go to the boss and ask for raises. This did not work out well. The boss was angry and his brothers backed down and acted as if they didn’t know anything about it. They initially gave my father a raise and then they

threatened to lynch him. My father took his family and came north to Gary Indiana. There was better opportunity for him here and besides the flour and heat and humidity made him have asthma attacks.

My parents were Seventh Day Adventists. Our family belonged to the church. It was segregated. Ellen G. White, their leader who the church said was the spirit of prophecy, wrote that the black man should not attempt to be on equality with the white man. There was a black church in Gary as well as a white church.

Black people, as well as some whites continued to fight against these unfair laws and the cruel oppression perpetrated on our people. There were always black leaders who spoke against slavery, as well as racism.

There were always white people who also spoke and fought against these things on the behalf of blacks. Blacks and whites lost their lives in the struggle. God put a spirit on these people who endangered themselves for the cause. The civil rights movement began in large part as a protest against these unjust laws. The land mark case was Brown V. The board of education in 1954 that challenged Plessy V. Ferguson that said segregation was constitutional. I was born only three years later in the middle of the Civil rights movement.

God has led us through fire and through water. Psalms 66:10-12, â&#x20AC;&#x153;For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried.

Thou broughtest us into the net; thou laidst affliction upon our loins.

Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.â&#x20AC;?

We have seen hard things. The iron yoke of slavery was slowly replaced with a wooden yoke. Racism remains alive and well. Why are we the way we are? People are tired of hearing of the black plight. They say just get over it. Pull yourself up by your boot straps. Racism is felt in the politics of this country. They have started to add deterrents to voting in many states just like they did long ago in Mississippi. They want to remove the safeguards for the poor and the ill and the disabled.

Slowly they want to take away all of the advances that we have made.

But today there is a black man in the oval office. Black people have made advances in all aspects of society. We can live in the best places, though some places still are segregated. We can go to the best schools, work in the best businesses. But black people still cannot in many cases attain to the level that a white man being equal can attain to. Many black people are complacent. In fact many people in the world are complacent. Even in the face of injustice they look to the government, forgetting that they must look to God. It was not through the good will of man that the civil war was fought, and the civil rights movement was waged, or that laws were passed to protect the rights of blacks. It was the will of God that all these things were done. It affected all of us. Yet it was for the benefit of Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chosen people. God has always kept watch over us. He blessed us even during the long dark years of slavery.

We survived. Our people survived. We survived in hardship and pain.

We survived the heavy burdens and the labor, the hot sun and the cotton fields, the abuse, the beatings, the lynching, the lying, the cheating, having our property stolen, the abject poverty. We walked

through the waste howling wilderness. We were purged in the furnace of affliction and now there are so few of us left. We are just a remnant.

Our men are gone. They are swallowed up whole by the dragon. Where is our strength? Our strength as always is in God. He remains with us.

We must remember and not forget the struggles of our people. Ask your grandmother, an aunt or an uncle. You will find that not so long ago, in fact a very short time ago things were very different than they appear to be now. It was not by our power or our might that God has given us respite, but by the Spirit of God, to enable us to return to our true heritage, to uncover the truth, to lay the foundation and to build the walls of Zion. Isaiah 58:12, â&#x20AC;&#x153;And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.â&#x20AC;?

Please read attachments by Sister Marjorie and Brother Rick.

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The Civil Rights Movement November 22nd 2014

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At the end of Reconstruction, the South returned to its racist ways in full force. All progress made during the reconstruction phase to rebuild the South was quickly reversed. There had been a ratification of the amendments 13, 14 & 15 which ended slavery and gave Blacks citizenship and voters rights. The reconstruction that started after the Civil war was turned back to States Rights, and as a result of this, the KKK organized to take rights from the black people by lynching, violence and threatening newly freed slaves. Because of their ignorance

and lack of education, inability to read or write they were unable to progress forward but became down trodden and living not much above slavery. To make matters worse Plessey v Ferguson of 1896 opened the door for the Jim Crow laws to go into effect and imposing the system of white supremacy and second class citizenship for blacks. Plessey v Ferguson was supposed to be separate but equal law and it was named Jim Crow so that whites would always be superior to blacks and blacks could do nothing about it. Jim Crow continued to grow in full force until the civil rights movement, which began in 1948 when President Truman signed Executive Order 9981 for equal treatment in the military without regard to race, color or religion. Even today black people struggle for their civil rights, but many rights are still not met which has affected many black people, and despite all of their struggles, they are still considered second class citizens.

The Great Migration

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Because of the unfulfilled promises made to black people post slavery and the failure of reconstruction to secure their rights, and also because of the cruel lynching, abuse, unjust wages, and miscarriage of justice, black people began migrating from the south to the north. They left the south in droves and it has been estimated that 6 million people migrated north by train, cars and buses for a better living on the east coast all the way to the west coast of the United States.

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Many Southern whites even attempted to prevent blacks from leaving so that they could continue working at a little above slave wages.

However many northern manufacturing companies would send recruiters south to encourage blacks to work in their factories for much better wages than in the south. This angered the southerners who threatened the northern recruiters from coming south to take their workers. However, many black people escaped into the night leaving all that they had including members of their family for a better life up north.

Even though blacks had a better life up north, the long tentacles of Jim Crow were there as well. In the North were invisible boundaries and color barriers that blacks could not cross. There were places that they could not live, homes that they could not buy, hospitals they could not go to and schools they could not attend. Their wages were always less than whites doing the same work and many companies would not hire them because of their skin color. Many well educated Blacks could only work at jobs well below their capabilities and education so inequality was still well at work up north.

The Civil Rights Movement Begins

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In the spring of 1951 Black students in Virginia protested their unequal education status, and even though the NAACP tried to persuade the students to back down, they would not budge, eventually the NAACP

joined the battle against school segregation. There were many events that initiated the civil rights movement that swept across the country, one such event was Brown v Board of Education in Topeka Kansas 1954. The Supreme Court unanimously agreeing that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional, this became a landmark case declaring separate schools for education of blacks and whites were unconstitutional. This case was a victory for Thurgood Marshall who eventually became the first black Supreme Court justice. However this case did not change segregation in transportation but did set in motion the future overturning of separate but equal.

The killings, lynching, and terrorizing continued and in Aug 1954, Emmitt Till, visiting his family in Mississippi was kidnapped, brutally beaten, shot and dumped in the Tallahatchie River for allegedly whistling at a white woman.

His murderers were acquitted by an all-white jury and they later boasted about committing the murder in Look Magazine. This miscarriage of justice was one of the many events that set off the Civil Rights movement.

Another landmark event was when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat at the front of the colored section defying a southern custom of the time. She was arrested and in response to this, the black community launched a boycott which lasted more than a year until the buses were desegregated in 1956; newly elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Board was Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. who was instrumental in leading the boycott.

In 1957, Martin Luther King and others established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of which King was made the first president. The SCLC became a major force in organizing civil rights movement based on nonviolence, discipline and dignity. By using these tactics, it showed the world how to fight evil with good. It showed the world the injustices that Black people suffered and touched the hearts of people who were in power in order to change the way the world looked at Black people.

The Impact of Students

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On September 4, 1957, nine black students are blocked from entering a high school in Little Rock Arkansas, these students were chosen specifically; and trained in nonviolent tactics and prepared for what they would face. They chose to go to school despite the angry mob of men, women and children who threatened them, spat at them and called them despicable names yet they did not fight back but turned the other cheek. The governor of Arkansas sent in the national guards who blocked the teens from entering into the school. Thurgood Marshall and other NAACP lawyers were granted an injunction to impede the governorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s use of National Guard troops that were eventually withdrawn. After U.S. Congressman Brooks Hays and Little Rock Mayor Woodrow Mann asked President Dwight Eisenhower for help, he sent between 1100-1200 troops of the 101st Airborne Division and sent 10,000 National Guardsmen on duty to protect these 9 students.

Aggressive white mobs verbally abused the students and attacked black reporters in the crowd; all of these events were seen around the world.

February 1960 more students challenged the Jim Crow law in Greensboro N.C. by a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth lunch counter.

Although they were not served they stayed at the counter; and they too endured verbal abuse. This triggered similar protests throughout the south. Six months later these students was served at the same Woolworth counter.

May 1960, students begin taking bus trips through the south to test out the laws that prohibited segregation in interstate travel and they too were attacked by angry mobs. They were called the Freedom Riders and not only were the students black but white as well, which was in defiance of the Jim Crow law. The police did not intervene when the

KKK met them with hatred and violence; some lost their lives. They were beaten, spat upon and put in jail. One bus in Anniston Alabama was set on fire by KKK members when the bus driver drove there. The anger of theses white was so severe that they tried to burn the bus with people in it.

Oct 1963, James Meredith became the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi and because of the violence surrounding this, President Kennedy had to send 5000 federal troops for his safety and to quell the riots threats of lynching him.

Martin Luther King Jr. and others continued to protest against segregation and was jailed on different occasions. During protest in Birmingham, Ala. Bull Connor the commissioner of public safety used fire hoses and police dogs on the demonstrators who did not fight back but turned the other cheek. The images of brutality were broadcast on television.

1963 1963 was a significant year that had a profound effect on the civil rights movement which caused changes that effected it. Many people worldwide began to open their eyes, including the gentle giants who helped the black people in their struggle; but had little effect on southern whites.

June 12, 1963 Medgar Evers who was a NAACP field secretary in Mississippi was murdered for helping people register to vote. He was a

civil rights activist who aided James Meredith in enrolling in the University of Mississippi.

He also worked to investigate crimes against blacks. He was murdered outside of his home in Jackson Mississippi. He was murdered after President Kennedyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s speech about civil rights. It took 30 years for them to convict the Klansmen who killed him which was a miscarriage of justice.

August 28, 1963 Martin Luther King and others organized the march on Washington which was attended by 250,000 people black and white for jobs and freedom. It was the largest demonstration seen in the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capital and they marched to the Washington Monument and to the Lincoln Memorial. On this day Martin Luther King Jr. gave his â&#x20AC;&#x153;I

Have a Dream speechâ&#x20AC;?, which is considered one of the best speeches that characterized the struggle of the black man.

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September 15 was Bloody Sunday where the KKK bombed a church in Birmingham Ala. where 4 little black girls were murdered as they attended church. Robert Chambliss was identified as the man setting the dynamite; he was arrested and only charged with possession of dynamite and had to pay a 100 hundred dollar fine, and was given a six

month jail sentence for possessing the dynamite. This again was another miscarriage of justice in the black community.

November 1963 was the year President Kennedy was assassinated 2 months after the bombing of Birmingham church.

1964 Little by little the unfair and unjust laws against blacks were being peeled away. January 1964 the 24th amendment abolished the poll tax which originally had been initiated in 11 southern states after Reconstruction to prevent poor blacks from voting. A poll tax was a levy on the people and linked to the right to vote, also a Literacy tests

were used to prevent blacks from voting. Most southern whites, who tested the blacks for literacy, were no more knowledgeable of the laws than the black people that they tested.

President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Acts July 1964, which prohibited discrimination of all kinds based on race, color, religion, or national origin; this gave the federal government the power to enforce desegregation.

Despite the Civil Rights Act being signed by President Johnson and the abolishment of the poll tax, 3 Civil rights workers were murdered; one black; one white and one Jewish. They had been working to register voters in Mississippi. They were also investigating a black church that had been burned. They were arrested on bogus charges of speeding; put in jail for hours and released to the Ku Klux Klan at night who murdered them. As usual, the murderers were not convicted on murder charges, only on conspiracy charges and served no more than 6 years or less. Forty years later, the ring leader Edger Killen, who was 80 years old, was charge with 3 counts of murder which was changed to a lesser crime of manslaughter. This was just another miscarriage of justice against black people and the whites who helped them.

1965 While the south was doing its overt racism, the north was somewhat covert. Jim Crow still had a hold in the north. February 1965 Malcolm

X, the founder of Afro American Unity was assassinated by members of the Black Muslim faith.

Blacks began marching in Selma Alabama in support of voting rights and stopped by police blockade; fifty marchers are hospitalized after being clubbed and tear gassed; this incident was dubbed “Bloody Sunday” which helped push through the voting rights act. Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. August 11-17 1965, race riots erupted in Watts California.

September of 1965, President Johnson issue an Executive Order 11246 which enforced affirmative action for the first time because the civil rights laws were not enough to remedy discrimination. Affirmative action helped many black people because the government set stipulations in order to help black people to go to school; get better jobs; as well as better places to live and raise a family. Companies that wanted government contracts had to have a certain amount of black people working for them; schools in order to get government funding had to have a certain amount of minorities there. If they did not comply there could be penalties, so, many companies and rich people gave to the United Negro college fund like Rockefeller and people like him.

“Gentle Giants” rose up on behalf of God’s children and the White Spirit mowed down evil which changed the way of thinking of the people. A pathway was being made in order that the remnant could come through. There had to be places of safety; education; jobs and

places to raise their children. All this prepared the remnant to build churches and booths, learn about God and the everlasting gospel.

1966 the militant group Black Panthers were founded by Huey P Newton.

1967 there were more race riots in Detroit, Newark New Jersey and Stokely Carmichael coined the phrase black power!

1968 Martin Luther King Jr. at the age of 39 was shot as he stands on the balcony outside his hotel by racist James Earl Ray. April 11 1968, just seven days after Martin Luther King was killed, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968 prohibiting discrimination on the sale, rental and financing of housing.

Riding the Coattail of the Civil Rights Movement

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The civil rights movement was the most significant time period of the twentieth century. It was a turbulent time period with tremendous change not only in the United States but it affected the whole world.

How did this happen? When God moves on behalf of his children it causes an earthquake that shakes the foundation of governments, people and places and laws. The civil rights movement helped the blacks in many ways; economical, mentally, socially, physically and spiritually. At this time period God blew a trumpet to his remnant;

many people began searching for their roots; many black Hebrew groups rose up and some went to Israel. Some people became Afrocentric and wanted to be identified with Africa and their cultures.

Some black people wanted acceptance in the white world once they had their education and became successful and many turned their backs on blacks and the people that helped them.

With the civil rights movement everyone wanted their rights! Here are just a few: Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;sâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Liberation, Sodomy; Birth Control pills; Abortion; Planned Parenthood; fashion industry changed with the mini skirt, drugs were introduced to the common people on college campuses and abroad; celebrities in all industries felt that what they said or did was their rights! Many people blindly followed the idols that they worshipped and refused to marry bringing forth children of adultery; there was no shame of what they did, because people felt that this was their right to do and speak according to their will and the constitution.

Other things were going on: The Viet Nam war was in progress and there were demonstrations against it. The cold War was in full swing with Russia and the United States posturing against each other; the race in space and the first man on the moon; technology was booming making easy access for the good and the evil.

Lest We Forget

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When we look at the past let us not look so mush at the person that was instrumental in the civil rights movement. Know that each person was chosen by God and a tool on behalf of Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s children. Many people looked up to Martin Luther King as an idol but others say he made mistakes. This man had the spirit of God directing him and he ventured his life as well as the life of his family who were young. God did choose a leader of the black church because this was where the power of black people was. They did not have power in their pocketbooks or anywhere else. The black churchs in that time moved as one man, they marched and sacrificed and many were killed black and white as well. They came together as one person, young and old so that the rights could be given to black people and their future. God was mowing down the evil so that the righteous seed could come through and do a tremendous work concerning the salvation of Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s children in the latter days.

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By G. Colleen Henry Elder

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Amen.

The Booth Church to Eternity December 6th 2014

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We were slaves. And then we were not. God was always with us. His spirit never left us. He called us to him, and he told us who we were. In the late 1890s the Spirit of God revealed to some of his children that the black man was the children of Israel. One of these was Prophet

William S. Crowder who formed the Church of God and Saints of Christ. My father was Seventh Day Adventist. When he and my mother married he challenged her to prove him wrong about the Sabbath Day. She could not. She proved him right and she joined his church to the disapproval of her family. The Seventh Day Adventist Church was segregated. When my parents came up north they continued to worship in an all-black congregation. The Seventh Day Adventist Church, like all other Sabbath Day churches was the beginning of light and understanding. We call this moon light knowledge. The founder Ellen G. White was considered a prophet, in fact she was considered the Spirit of Prophecy and her words were not questioned, even when proven false. There was much in the things that she wrote that was not true. When my father questioned these things he was brought before the white leadership and was kicked out of the church. We had to worship at home. My mother felt her family needed to belong to a church. She visited a few of the seventh day home churches with other people that had left the seventh day Adventist church. They did not find a church home. Eventually they came to the Church of God and Saints of Christ. My mother said she had never heard anyone sing like them.

At this church my family came to know that we were of the lost tribes of Israel. But, as usual, there were things not correct in what they believed. We could not stay there either. My mother and my oldest sister continued to periodically try to find a church with the truth. They even ran across the Black Hebrew churches in the sixties. Many of them did not believe in Christ. They never found a church with pure doctrine.

We worshipped at home. We were a family church and for all intents and purposes we still are. At times we worshipped at my brotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home, then in the basement of a family friend. Later we ended up worshipping at home again. There have been separations within our family and our church. Satan has never stopped fighting against us.

When I was fifteen the black Hebrews came to see my father.

Impressed by his knowledge and understanding of the scripture many of them stayed and we began to worship in a pavilion. This lasted about three years. But wickedness rose up and there was another separation.

Then we began worshipping in my oldest brotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home. The church remained in his home for about fifteen years. We had grown a little and needed more room. So we looked for and found a small church at our present location in 1992. We became a booth church.

What is a booth church? A booth church is a temporary dwelling place.

Spiritually it is a church of God in its beginning with all of the foundational doctrine. It is a teaching church. My mother Ethel V. Webb was our matriarch and founder. She rejoiced to finally have a church home and not to have to wander from place to place.

We established a church creed and covenant and set up officers in the church. We built a new sanctuary, and remodeled the inside of the church. The outside is beautifully landscaped. God has been good to us, but the evil root continues. We have suffered separations and are now a very small congregation. Some people judge success by the numbers of members in a church. But success should be judged by the truth that is

in a church, for it is by the truth and by our obedience that God judges all of us. We have prospered in our distress. We have grown in the ways that are truly important. For the very first time, in the years of our existence, we are on one accord. We have peace and love and the work that God gives us continues.

What is our future? It is bright and sure. As the word of God is sure, our hope and promise is sure. No one can separate us from God. We are determined and unyielding. We do not bend with the changing winds of society. We do not break under the many pressures of our common life. We walk straight, and true to our beliefs. We have faith.

We know that God is with us because we walk with him. We walk in his law and we teach others so. He has given us a new ministry. We have a website and a voice that reaches out to others. We have a regular core of people that listen to and read our teachings.

Our charge is to hold on tight to the foundation, the fundamental teachings that were lost and forgotten for many generations. My parents, the first generation began digging them up, and laying down the stones, building the pathway for us to follow. We have continued.

To this day we continue and we guard as most holy, most precious, most essential, the truth, never to change, never to waver. Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s word is truth, and his word is our life and our salvation. He has given us a light. We will hold fast and never let our light go out.

Looking to the west we see darkness growing. The sun has set. Sin has taken its course. Like a wild thorny vine it covers everything. It

encroaches on the good. It makes all things reprobate. They teach evil for good and good for evil. Sin is established. It is incorporated in every institution of this world. Like a wildfire it grows and destroys all that it touches. Darkness prevails. It is a time of great sorrow and despair.

Looking to the east we see the sky changing. We look and hope for the first light of day. What will the dawn bring? If Christ comes first within his children, should we not look to our own hearts and the Spirit of God within us to see the first dawning of the day? Within us the word of God stands sure. In our distress we grow, we prosper, we have fruitful harvests in a time of drought. The truth sustains us, the Holy Spirit remains within us. We know that as darkness grows in the west that the sun shall rise in the east. We look to the east where our hope comes from. We look to green pastures, and blessings and all good things promised by the Father.

In conclusion, the evil root remains. Today it still remains. Of far greater importance though, the Seed of Righteousness remains. It remains within us. We are the children of our creator, the Seed of the woman who bruised the serpentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s head. The evil root is weak and limited. It endures for a set span of time, a time allotted by the Father who has measured all things according to his most excellent wisdom. It cannot continue beyond that time nor can it revive itself in the children of God. It exists in an individual man only as long as their common life exists, and then in mankind only until the times of restitution in the end. It did much damage and caused much grief and hardship in the

world and in the kingdom of heaven, but its judgment was set from the beginning. The Father had all things well in hand. Christ is the victory.

Our faith is the victory. Within us therefore is the victory. We have the victory inside, the victory over sin and death. We are the children of the latter days, the children of the winter. We are also the children of a great people, the children of prophets, priests, kings, apostles and saints. We are also the children of slaves and of those who had to endure the hardships and terrors of this life and survived, so that we could survive. But we do not count our heritage from father to son. We did not begin from Adam. Adam was the first man, and the father of the common man. We begin with Christ who is the second man Adam and the father of the sons of God. Our genealogy was lost through the ages.

We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even know what tribe we are from. We know only the most important thing, that we are children of God. We count our heritage from the true beginning, from the commandment of the Father who placed us all in the book. In that way he created all of us at the same time, before the earth was formed. Time, distance and the generations of mankind, the deception of race, and the mingling of many nations could never alter or change the law that the Father made before the world was created. I am who he created me to be. You are who he created you to be. We are Israel, Prince of God. We are the children of the kingdom and the church of the living God. Amen.

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2014 Church Calendar Purim………………………………………………………February 15 Passover first day…………………………………….April 14, Monday Passover last day……………………………………..April 20th Sunday Pentecost………………………………………………..June 8th Sunday Wisdom’s Day…………………………………………..August 2nd Sabbath Trumpets…………………………………………………September 25, Thursday Atonement………………………………………………October 4, Sabbath Tabernacles first day……………………………….October 9, Thursday Tabernacles last day…………………………………October 16, Thursday Dedication……………………………………………….December 20, Sabbath

New Moons 11th Month January 1

6th Month August 25

12th month January 30

7th Month September 25

Veadar 13th monthâ&#x20AC;ŚMarch 1

8th Month October 23

Abib March 31

9th Month November 22

2nd Month April 29th

10th Month December 21

3rd Month May 28th 4th Month June 27th 5th Month July 26th