Why Many Don't Understand Pentecost
Do
you realize thousands of Worldwide Church of God members assemble on
the day of Pentecost without really understanding what this Holy Day
really means? Test yourself. Read this article and see if you do.
WE
SIMPLY CAN'T understand WHY we observe the day of Pentecost just by
reading the scriptures that apply specifically to that day — or apply
specifically to all of God's festivals, for that matter.
You may
read these specific scriptures alone and learn that you are COMMANDED
to keep them. Actually that's what Mrs. Loma Armstrong and I did.
Do
you realize that we kept all these Holy Days alone, by ourselves, while
the Church of God members we then knew and fellowshipped with (Sardis
era, Rev. 3:1-6) "mocked us to scorn"?
"Laughed to scorn"
It
was history repeating itself. King Hezekiah of Judah had discovered
these days ought to be kept — after both Israel and Judah had ceased
observing them for a long time. The Temple at Jerusalem, through
disuse, had been filled with filth. Hezekiah had the Temple cleansed.
He sent out proclamations to keep the feasts of God. Judah did.
Hezekiah
sent messengers up into Israel, the northern kingdom, from city to city
in Ephraim and Manasseh, to teach them God's Holy Days must be kept:
But "they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them" (II Chron. 30:1-10).
I
had learned in my intensive, almost night-and-day study of the Sabbath
question that we are commanded also to keep the seven annual Holy Days.
I DID NOT KNOW WHY! I knew only that God said, "DO IT!" My wife and I did — alone! For seven years!
Parent Philadelphia church kept them
It
was not until God used me in raising up the first and parent church of
this "Philadelphia era" (Rev. 3:7-13) that they joined with us in
keeping these days. At first we kept only the seven annual Sabbaths. It
was yet another seven years before God revealed to meTHE REAL MEANING
OF THESE DAYS — and that we should keep the entire Feast of Tabernacles
— seven days plus the final eighth day, a Holy Day.
For 14 years we kept these annual days holy BECAUSE WE SAW THAT GOD COMMANDED IT. We wanted to obey!
In
due time God revealed to me, and I to the Church, WHY! And even then
many in the Church refused to keep more than the Holy Days!
And
I feel many observing these festivals today do it because the Church
does but do not fully understand WHY — the REAL MEANING and God's
PURPOSE in commanding them.
I think of the millions observing
Christmas, New Year's, Easter, etc.— days that have NO REAL MEANING.
God's days have MEANING, and this MEANING God wants us to understand.
That's why they are repeated yearly.
You need to understand what
went before. Again I repeat: It's like tuning in on a movie in the last
10 or 15 minutes of it. Not having seen what went before — what led up
to it — WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT — you can't understand what you see — you
are CONFUSED — it's MEANINGLESS!
Angels first
Few
know it, but God placed angels on earth long before He created the
first man and woman. They were spirit beings, composed of spirit — not
matter. This earth was to be their PROVING GROUND.
We need to
understand that CHARACTER, either good or bad, cannot be instantly
created by fiat. It must be developed by experience over a space of
TIME. So God created angels with MINDS that could have knowledge, could
THINK, reason, come to conclusions, make decisions. God told them of
His GOVERNMENT that He set over them. To achieve God's PURPOSE —
eventually to finish the creation of the entire UNIVERSE — it was
necessary that they all pull together, in harmony and unity. His
GOVERNMENT was THE WAY to provide that — and also THE WAY to develop in
them holy, righteous and perfect CHARACTER!
God set a super
archangel, the cherub LUCIFER, on the throne of the earth over the
angels — probably a third of all the angels. Even the creation of the
angels was not complete until CHARACTER, good or evil, had been SET in
them. That required their thinking, reasoning and final decisions as to
whether they would choose God's way, which for brevity I call "GIVE,"
or the evil way of "GET."
God's GOVERNMENT is based on His LAW —
the way of "GIVE." It is the way of LOVE. It is GIVING first of all a
return of the LOVE OF GOD that God gives His creatures, -- giving it in
obedience, reverence, worship, walking in fellowship with God, in a
close contact with God.
But Lucifer led the angels into the
opposite way of "GET." This is the way of vanity, lust and greed,
jealousy, envy, competition, strife, violence, destruction, resentment
and bitterness and rebellion against God and His authority over them.
The
angels SINNED (II Pet. 2:4). They SET their character as EVIL. Lucifer
was disqualified to administer the GOVERNMENT OF GOD, but his
jurisdiction was the entire earth, and God would not remove him TILL a
successor QUALIFIED to RESTORE the GOVERNMENT OF GOD on earth, and also
had been INDUCTED INTO OFFICE.
God to reproduce Himself!
This
left God (Hebrew Elohim, including God and THE WORD, who also was God
and later became Jesus Christ — John 1:1-14). The uniplural GOD
(Elohim) was the ONLY being who could be relied upon never to violate
the law of God's GOVERNMENT — for it is IMPOSSIBLE for God to sin.
Now came the MOST STUPENDOUS, AWESOME PROJECT OF ALL!
God would REPRODUCE HIMSELF!
He
would do this through creating MAN in His own image, but out of matter.
Spirit cannot be changed. But matter could be changed from the "GET"
way to the "GIVE" way. This required repentance to be granted by God,
and the human repenting, and with God's help CHANGING to GOD'S
character. After this mortal MAN could, by a resurrection, be changed
to SPIRIT composition, with holy, righteous, perfect CHARACTER, made
then IMPOSSIBLE ever to sin — born a Child of GOD! WHAT a fantastic,
AWESOME PROJECT!
Angelic sin had wrought great devastation to
the earth (Gen. 1:2 — Hebrew tohu and bohu, really meaning "waste,
empty, decay"), and I think it is indicated this same state of waste
and decay occurred simultaneously to all planets in the universe, since
they were LUCIFER'S potential jurisdiction.
So in six days God RENEWED (Ps. 104:30) the face of the earth for occupation by MAN.
The
earth was formed of MATTER. God formed MAN of the dust of the ground.
WHY? Because, as explained above, matter is subject to CHANGE — spirit
is NOT. Once a spirit being is CREATED, he is immortal — changeless —
can never be changed. Lucifer's and his angels' creation was not
completed until THEY made their decision, choosing which CHARACTER they
would SET in them, good or evil. They chose evil and can NEVER CHANGE.
LUCIFER'S name was changed to SATAN the DEVIL. The angels that sinned became DEMONS.
But
now, once again, in renewing its face God made the earth BEAUTIFUL. He
created fish life, bird life, animal life — each after its own KIND —
then said, "Let us [not ME] make MAN in our image, after our likeness"
(Gen. 1:26). In other words, after the God kind — GOD WAS REPRODUCING
HIMSELF.
That meant ultimately to produce Beings LIKE HIM,
actually BORN OF HIM — in HIS FAMILY, and He, GOD, was to become the
FATHER of the divine FAMILY, each born of Him, becoming one of His
CHILDREN.
For the formation of CHARACTER, man must have MIND —
capability — as had the angels, to KNOW, to THINK, to REASON, to COME
TO CONCLUSIONS, to MAKE CHOICES AND DECISIONS.
To give mortal
human MAN this MIND power, God put a human spirit in every man that
imparts INTELLECT to the human brain. A number of animals have BRAINS
of larger or smaller size — otherwise approximately equal to human
brain — EXCEPT they lack spirit to impart powers of INTELLECT.
But
this human spirit does not SEE — the BRAIN sees through the eyes. The
BRAIN hears through the ears. Knowledge may be stored in the human
spirit, working as a COMPUTER to supply instant recall for THINKING.
But the spirit is NOT the MAN — only something ADDED to him. It is
capable of receiving and storing knowledge only through the human BRAIN
and therefore is CONFINED to PHYSICAL KNOWLEDGE ONLY. The spirit does
not impart human LIFE. The LIFE resides in the BLOOD, and is oxidized
and keeps the man alive by breathing AIR — the "BREATH OF LIFE."
BUT
- one of the WONDERS of the mighty God — this human spirit was made to
NEED ANOTHER SPIRIT TO JOIN WITH IT — the HOLY SPIRIT of GOD. This is
the very LIFE of God — immortal, divine God life. Once a man receives
God's HOLY SPIRIT as God's GIFT, he is BEGOTTEN (not yet born) as a
CHILD OF GOD. He becomes an HEIR — not yet an inheritor — of God. But
God's HOLY SPIRIT, imparted to man, joins with his human spirit. ("The
Spirit [God's] itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the
children of God" [Rom. 8:16].) The HOLY SPIRIT adds power to comprehend
— to UNDERSTAND — spiritual knowledge and spiritual principles, which
carnal man with ONLY the human spirit cannot know.
"For what MAN
knoweth the things of a man [unknown to animals], save [by] the spirit
of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but
[by] the Spirit of GOD" (I Cor. 2:11).
The Holy Spirit imparts spiritual UNDERSTANDING, the LOVE of God, the FAITH of Christ and POWER to overcome.
In
the Garden of Eden were two trees. One was the "tree of life," which
symbolized the Holy Spirit. Adam NEEDED this Spirit, beside the human
spirit already created in him. God offered it freely. But Adam had to
make a CHOICE. Also in the midst of the garden was the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. To take of it was to REJECT God's HOLY
SPIRIT — GOD life, God's divine LOVE to fulfill God's law, spiritual
knowledge of good and evil — deciding FOR THEMSELVES what is right and
what is wrong — whereas God's LAW defines that — and the tree of LIFE
also symbolized God's LAW and GOD'S GOVERNMENT, which Satan had
rejected.
In effect, Adam said to God, after being instructed by
Him and tempted and misled by Satan: "I choose to go MY OWN WAY — to
DECIDE FOR MYSELF what is right and what is wrong. I want to be free to
DO AS I PLEASE — not bound by and obedient to YOUR LAW. I want to RULE
MYSELF — I reject you as ruler over me."
As the fountainHEAD of
the entire human family, he thereby CUT ALL HUMANITY OFF FROM GOD — CUT
HUMANITY off from access to the HOLY SPIRIT and any contact with GOD.
God
then sentenced him and the human family to 6,000 years of being CUT OFF
from contact with God. God adopted a 6,000-year "hands-off" policy
toward human affairs.
In effect, God said, "Go, form your OWN
governments, your OWN religions, your OWN forms of education,
knowledge, production, your OWN society and civilization."
Adam
probably did not realize it, and MAN, since, has NOT realized it, but
SATAN has been subtly working in the minds of all humanity, swaying
humanity HIS WAY — the way of "GET" (Eph. 2:2, II Cor. 4:4).
But
— after the 6,000-year trial to PROVE that the way of "GET" leads only
to unhappiness, discontent, sorrow, pain and suffering, disease and
frustration and DEATH — God's MASTER PLAN called for 1,000 years of the
RULE OF THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD and the establishment of the KINGDOM OF
GOD.
God reserved the prerogative of intervening at any time He
deemed necessary for His ultimate PURPOSE—to REPRODUCE HIMSELF and HIS
PERFECT, HOLY, RIGHTEOUS CHARACTER in humans, changed FROM the "GET" to
the "GIVE" way and finally made immortal.
Where the Holy Days come in
Now,
HERE'S where the annual HOLY DAYS and FESTIVALS picture to God's people
annually God's MASTER PLAN for working out HIS PURPOSE here below!
Up
to this point I have given you the BACKGROUND without which you simply
CANNOT fully understand the annual festivals. So here, in order, are
God's HOLY FESTIVALS!
THE PASSOVER. This first Festival is NOT a
Holy Day or annual Sabbath, but a festival nevertheless. It reminds us
annually that Christ died for our sins — for ALL have sinned — and His
death paid our penalty in our stead. Jesus was God as well as MAN. God
was His only Father. He was begotten in the womb of Mary, not by a male
human, but by God the Father through the Holy Spirit. Thus He was able,
even though tempted like all other humans — actually far worse — for He
had to meet Satan head on in spiritual combat, to overcome Satan and
QUALIFY to restore the GOVERNMENT OF GOD on THIS EARTH. Until He had
qualified, the assurance of the KINGDOM OF GOD to replace Satan's
invisible rule over mankind could not be announced.
At this
point it might be well to explain HOW Satan has ruled MAN. He did not
say to Eve, through whom he caused Adam to sin, "Choose MY government,
based on 'GET,' instead of God's government, based on 'GIVE.' " He led
her, and through her Adam, to believe they were simply setting out ON
THEIR OWN, deciding for themselves what is right and what is wrong,
actually setting up their own human rule. So man has actually believed
ever since. He has been deceived. He does not know Satan is his real
ruler.
HOW Satan sways man
Satan
is subtle. He DECEIVES. A deceived person does not know he is deceived
— that he is wrong. He thinks he is RIGHT! Satan has DECEIVED THE WHOLE
WORLD (Rev. 12:9). How?
Satan is a SPIRIT being. He is the
prince of the POWER OF THE AIR (Eph. 2:2). I told you about the human
spirit in every human. When God wanted to communicate with Cyrus, king
of Persia, to move him to send out a proclamation to move a contingent
of captive Jews back to Jerusalem to build the second Temple, "the Lord
stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a
proclamation throughout all his kingdom" (Ezra 1:1), saying God had
charged him to have this Temple built. God moved Cyrus through Cyrus'
human spirit to do His will.
Likewise, Satan, a powerful spirit
being next to God in power, and prince of the power of the air, is the
SPIRIT "that NOW worketh in the children of disobedience" — that is,
all humanity. I could not have understood that until I myself began
BROADCASTING by radio and television. Every human spirit is TUNED IN ON
HIS WAVELENGTH. He does not broadcast in words or music or pictures.
You hear no sound. He broadcasts in ATTITUDES — attitudes of vanity,
lust and greed, envy and jealousy, the spirit of competition, strife,
bitterness and anger, hatred, violence, rebellion against GOD.
Thus
he is the god of this world, who has been able to have "blinded the
minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel
of Christ . . . should shine unto them" (II Cor. 4:4). Yes, he is the
god of this world's many religions. They know not the TRUE God.
So
has Satan continued to RULE THE WORLD, still on the throne of the earth
where God placed him when his name was LUCIFER. It is so cleverly done
man thinks he is ruling himself.
Christ in the Bible is called
the "SECOND ADAM." Where the first Adam fell before Satan's subtlety,
the second Adam chose the "GIVE" way and conquered Satan, qualifying to
RESTORE THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD.
Just a few words at this point of
events between the first and second Adam. God must have revealed some
truth and His PURPOSE and PLAN to a few, from the time of Adam and Eve.
Abel was called righteous by Jesus. Enoch walked with God. Noah was
perfect, not only in his generations (ancestry), but in obedience to
God. God spoke direct to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and blessed whatever
Joseph did. Then God intervened in this world's affairs by miraculously
leading the slave descendants of Abraham out of Egypt. And God began
revealing His truth IN WRITING through Moses, who wrote the first five
books of the Bible. And here we find the first record of the annual
Holy Day festivals. Yet we must put Leviticus 23 and the other sparse
notices of the festivals with other scriptures, as I am here doing, to
perfectly UNDERSTAND THEM and their REAL MEANING.
God called
Israel, NOT for spiritual salvation, but as a carnal people of THIS
WORLD, to whom He could reveal certain knowledge and laws, and test
their willingness to obey — to demonstrate that, WITHOUT the Holy
Spirit, the natural mind of man is wholly carnal (physical, material,
fleshly).
God gave His Holy Spirit ONLY to the prophets of His own choosing for the purpose of doing God's WORK as assigned to them.
The
Passover commemorates the Passover night in Egypt, when the death angel
flew over Egypt, killing the firstborn in every house where the BLOOD
(lamb's) was not on the side posts and upper doorpost of the houses.
The Israelites killed and ate roast lamb that night — a type of the
crucifixion of Christ, called the Lamb of God.
Therefore the
MEANING of Passover is to remind us yearly of Christ's death in payment
of the penalty of our sins. But Christ's DEATH does not save us, by
imparting ETERNAL LIFE. It merely RECONCILES US TO GOD. Those so
reconciled are no longer CUT OFF from God. Through Christ they have
been restored to CONTACT with God, who has eternal life to GIVE. Read
Romans 5:8-10. We are finally SAVED by His RESURRECTION, not His death.
The "blood of Christ" is the START toward eternal life, not the
completion of it.
Now we come to the SECOND Festival — the SEVEN
DAYS OF UNLEAVENED BREAD. Remember, the first step is coming to Christ
and accepting His shed blood as payment for our sins.
But Jesus
said plainly, "No MAN CAN COME TO ME, EXCEPT THE FATHER WHICH HATH SENT
ME DRAW HIM" (JOHN 6:44). THE WORLD IS CUT OFF FROM GOD. The only way
to reestablish contact with God (the Father) is through CHRIST. And
except the FATHER DRAW HIM, by means of His Holy Spirit, NO MAN CAN
come to Christ.
Jesus selected and directly called His disciples. "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you" (John 15:16), Jesus said.
ONLY
THOSE SPECIALLY CHOSEN (predestinated) BY THE FATHER could, in the day
of Jesus and the apostles, come to Christ. So it has been through this
Church age; God IS NOT TRYING, now, to get the world saved. Rather, we
are STILL in the 6,000-year time when MAN IS CUT OFF from God. And GOD
IS DRAWING to Christ ONLY those PREDESTINED (CHOSEN) by God!
It
was GOD'S PURPOSE that MAN should write the lesson in human experience
that the "GET" way leads only to unhappiness, discontent, suffering,
frustration, destruction — and DEATH! Man has WRITTEN that lesson in
human anguish, but HAS NOT YET LEARNED IT! God is going to PROVE, once
and for all time, that only His WAY and HIS GOVERNMENT can produce
PEACE and HAPPINESS and things GOOD!
Now, for those
predestinated and CALLED, and DRAWN to Christ by the Father, the Feast
of Unleavened Bread pictures PUTTING SIN OUT OF OUR LIVES. Leaven puffs
up, as does vanity and sin. It is a type of sin — not wrong in itself,
but putting all leaven out of our dwellings for seven days pictures
putting the "GET" way out of our lives — turning from "GET" to "GIVE."
This is the BEGINING OF BUILDING INTO OUR LIVES HOLY, RIGHTEOUS,
PERFECT, GODLY CHARACTER.
Seven is the number that denotes COMPLETENESS. So it means complete change.
Also,
it begins the 15th day of God's sacred year, first month, NISAN, the
anniversary of the day the Israelites started out of Egypt BY NIGHT.
Egypt also is a type of SIN.
The first of these days and the seventh are annual HOLY Sabbaths.
The
THIRD annual Festival is PENTECOST, so called because of its use in
Acts 2:1. It MEANS "count 50." This one Feast God leaves it to us to
COUNT for ourselves, beginning WITH the morrow after the Sabbath during
the Festival of Unleavened Bread. Forty-eight years ago I checked with
every translation into English of the Bible, and every translation of
that time said count 50 FROM the Sunday following the weekly Sabbath
during the seven-day Festival. Then we discovered — and I forced men on
the committee that translated the Revised Standard Version to admit --
that it is a misleading translation to those who speak only English and
are not familiar with Hebrew usage -- that it should be translated "on"
or "beginning on."
Originally this Feast was called Feast of
Firstfruits, because it portrayed the very FIRST spiritual harvest of
God's begotten children.
All seven festivals were based on the
annual MATERIAL harvest in the"Holy Land." There were the two harvests
yearly — the first the early grain harvest, early summer; the main
harvest being the fall harvest, with four festivals coming in the
seventh month of the sacred calendar. Thus, the annual festivals use
the MATERIAL harvest to picture the SPIRITUAL.
FIRST group to receive Holy Spirit
REMEMBER,
Adam cut mankind off from God. Man must have CONTACT WITH GOD THE
FATHER to receive the Holy Spirit. The "tree of life" in the Garden of
Eden meant God freely offered Adam — and his children, who form
humanity — the Holy Spirit, but Adam had to make a CHOICE between that
and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life
represented God's Holy Spirit and the "GIVE" way of life. The other
tree represented Satan's "GET" way of life. Adam chose, for the human
race, the "GET" way. Then God drove MAN (representing humanity) from
the Garden of Eden, "lest he . . . take also of the tree of life, and
eat, and live for ever(Gen. 3:22).
True, God Himself gave Abel,
Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the prophets His Spirit for
SPECIAL PURPOSES and to enable them to do THE WORK He assigned to them
— of His own choosing. Otherwise none can come to the Father but
through CHRIST. And Jesus said plainly,"NO MAN CAN COME TO ME, EXCEPT
THE FATHER WHICH HATH SENT ME DRAW HIM"(John 6:44).
It is PLAIN,
then, that spiritual salvation was CLOSED to all humanity, except those
I have mentioned, until after Christ's ascension to heaven.
Jesus
had said to His disciples on the eve of His crucifixion: "But now I go
my way to him that sent me ... It is expedient for you that I go away:
for if I go not away, the Comforter [Holy Spirit] will not come unto
you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you" (John 16:5-7).
It
was on the day of Pentecost, 50 days after Passover week, that the Holy
Spirit CAME and entered into those of the CHURCH — numbering 120. It
was the FIRST TIME there was any spiritual GROUP salvation. It was the
day the CHURCH OF GOD was begotten. Three thousand more were ADDED.
These were those God had CALLED — had been predestinated to be called
THEN and not in the Millennium, when EVERYBODY LIVING will be called.
On that day Peter, now inspired by the Holy Spirit, said, "For the
PROMISE [of the Holy Spirit] is unto you, and to your children . . .
even as many as the Lord our God shall call" (Acts 2:39). And in verse
47, "And THE LORD added to the church daily such as should be saved."
The apostles did not go out soliciting converts — God CALLED them — it
was GOD and not the apostles who ADDED to the Church.
A day or
two later 2,000 more were added. Then for a VERY short while the Church
membership MULTIPLIED. But soon the persecution SCATTERED the converts,
and the growth apparently diminished. Soon the true Gospel was
SUPPRESSED. It's possible the Church membership is the LARGEST today it
has ever been. For THE PURPOSE of the Church is:
1) To stand
back of the apostles in prayers, tithes and offerings in getting the
GOSPEL ANNOUNCED to theWORLD — and it's a BIGGER WORLD to be reached
today.
2) To DEVELOP HOLY, RIGHTEOUSAND PERFECT CHARACTER in
those called and to sit with Christ on His throne when He comes to rule
the world and to be given power to RULE the WORLD.
So REALIZE
THIS! Pentecost is to remind us every year that we (the Church) are
only the FIRST small harvest of God's calling people for salvation OUT
OF A WORLD THAT IS WHOLLY, except for us, CUT OFF FROM GOD, AND THAT
HAS BEEN SINCE ADAM! The WORLD as a whole is still CUT OFF!
We are those who have been PREDESTINATED to be called NOW!
We
have been called to receive the HOLY SPIRIT. WHAT IS the Holy Spirit?
It is that second Spirit man needs to go with the human spirit in every
human. It is the impregnation of GOD life, which makes us His CHILDREN
NOW, even though only begotten and not yet BORN — HEIRS, not yet
INHERITORS — begotten into the GOD FAMILY.
It is the Spirit of
UNDERSTANDING, imparting to the physical brain SPIRITUAL INTELLECT,
ability to comprehend SPIRITUAL knowledge. It is the LOVE of God placed
within us — divine LOVE. It is the FAITH of CHRIST, the same FAITH with
which Jesus performed His miracles, now given to us — placed within us.
It is also spiritual POWER to overcome. The spiritual POWER to help us
turn from and resist the "GET" way and turn to the "GIVE" way.
It
is the POWER by which we may develop the HOLY, RIGHTEOUS, PERFECT
CHARACTER, which is GOD'S PURPOSE for having PUT humanity on the earth
— that GOD MAY THUS REPRODUCE HIMSELF!
First of the AUTUMN
festivals is the FEAST OF TRUMPETS, on the first day of the seventh
month, sacred calendar. This represents the COMING OF CHRIST IN SUPREME
ALMIGHTY POWER AND GLORY to set up the KINGDOM OF GOD, to RESTORE THE
GOVERNMENT OF GOD.
The fifth Festival is another one-day HOLY
DAY — the FAST day — picturing the putting away of SATAN, since his
Successor has not only QUALIFIED (more than 1,900 years ago), but now
is INDUCTED INTO OFFICE. AT LAST the world is rid of Satan — at ONE
with God.
On the 15th day of the seventh month begins the FEAST
OF TABERNACLES — the MILLENNIUM — the time of the physical FALL HARVEST
in Jerusalem and environs and the time when ALL THEN LIVING SHALL BE
CALLED and given the chance to repent, believe and receive salvation.
This Feast lasts SEVEN DAYS, with the first day an annual Sabbath.
This
is followed, the very next day, by a HOLY DAY, picturing the GREAT
WHITE THRONE JUDGMENT — the time when ALL who ever lived and were not
CALLED shall be RESURRECTED MORTAL, just as they were — human flesh and
blood. They will be able to see and KNOW the results of the 6,000 years
of the "GET" way of man, cut off from God, as well as the 1,000 years
of the "GIVE" way under Christ. Then will every one be "CALLED" — given
opportunity to REPENT and BELIEVE and receive the Holy Spirit and
eternal life in the KINGDOM OF GOD!
That concludes the Festivals
of God. They vividly picture His MASTER PLAN. All that remains will be
the resurrection of those who WERE CALLED but, like Lucifer, rejected
the call and the KINGDOM OF GOD! They shall go into the LAKE OF FIRE —
the second death for each — to become ashes under the soles of our feet
and all memory of them blotted from our minds.
On beyond this,
we, the GOD FAMILY, BILLIONS of us, all of us possessing HOLY,
RIGHTEOUS AND PERFECT CHARACTER, all of us UNABLE TO SIN, shall then go
on and COMPLETE THE BEAUTIFICATION AND CREATION OF THE ENTIRE VAST
UNIVERSE, constantly looking forward in joyous anticipation and ecstasy
to still GREATER and more marvelous and awesome things to do throughout
the whole endless UNIVERSE — always looking back on supreme and
glorious accomplishments that only an ALMIGHTY GOD could do!
And THAT is the awesome human POTENTIAL!
by Herbert W. Armstrong Good News - May 1981
