Basic HTML Version
Brethren, God is not slack concerning His promises to bless us. He does
far
more than HIS part. He always will. What matters is how much we do OUR part.
As the chosen apostle and servant of Jesus Christ, in His name I want to
thank all you brethren from the bottom of my heart for your joyful response--
first,
in getting our own lives back on God's track, and also in standing so solidly
and
loyally behind me in God's Work--by far the most important activity on earth
today.
BUT WE CAN, AND MUST, DO MORE! We must sacrifice even more--roll
up our sleeves, so to speak, and each do his part even more than before.
Even as we have been striving, these Days of Unleavened Bread, to put sin
out of our lives, we at Pasadena have been striving, too, to get all leaven out
of the
Church and the Work.
The central message from God to all of us, during this first of God's
annual
festivals, is this:
After angels under Lucifer, who sat on earth's throne, had rejected and
rebelled against the Government of God, God in six days renewed the surface of
the earth FOR MAN. God was then starting His SUPREME, GREATEST
PROJECT--to REPRODUCE HIMSELF through MAN.
God formed MAN out of matter--from the ground--gave him a temporary
physical existence. He did not give man, at that time, real LIFE. Man's
existence
came from the physical energy supplied by food and water from the ground, and
by the circulation of blood oxidized by the breath of air. Man's average span of
this physical-chemical existence averages around 70 years. God offered the first
man, Adam, LIFE, through the symbolic tree of LIFE in the garden of Eden. But
man DISbelieved God, believed Satan, rejected God's Government and way of
life--chose to take to himself the knowledge of how to live. He made the CHOICE
for his entire HUMAN FAMILY. God shut off real LIFE from man (Gen. 3:22-24).
God postponed JUDGMENT on Adam's family--which is the whole world.
Judgment is a trial to determine whether we shall choose to live GOD'S WAY (His
Law) in eternal life, or take the penalty of eternal DEATH. Judgment could not
begin for the sons of Adam UNTIL Christ the Son of GOD had come in human
form, lived the perfect life and then paid the death penalty for humanity so
that,
when man is judged, he may REPENT and be reconciled to God, who alone has
LIFE to give.
Judgment--the time of trying and testing to determine whether we will
choose and walk in the way of GOD'S LAW of His GOVERNMENT--began
therefore, with the CHURCH OF GOD, AFTER the crucifixion and resurrection of
Jesus Christ. Only the prophets were given LIFE through God's Holy Spirit prior
to that time.
The Church is merely the FIRSTFRUITS of those God will call to repentance
and the GIFT of eternal LIFE. The world is not yet judged--though it is held