No. 11 - WHAT TO DO NOW
By: John J. Blanchard
Saturday, April 20, 2002

If you recall, I talked about the fact that we need to build character of gold and silver because we are part of God’s temple. We are part of the temple of God; and, as such, we need to be developing character of gold and silver and precious jewels.

Now let’s look at a couple of scriptures: I Corinthians 3:9 “For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay or straw, each one’s work will become manifest; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is.”

Verse 14: “If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”

So it is undeniable that God is building a temple in these last days. And the temple is composed of human beings that are characterized as blocks or building bricks, or stones that are made of gold, silver or precious jewels or poorer quality materials like wood, hay or straw. What we are made of will be revealed and will directly impact the reward we will receive. Many will suffer loss, which means a much, much lesser reward. We do not fully comprehend what that means but we have some very good ideas, which we discussed in the past. I would like now to go to I Peter 2, just to nail this point home solidly. This is a scripture that we have looked at several times in the past. Let’s refresh our memories.

I Peter 2 starting in verse 4: “Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore it is also contained in the Scripture, ‘Behold I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame.’ Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone;’ and a ‘stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.”’ They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed.” So some who were appointed were disobedient to the word.

Verse 9: “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.”

I do not know if I will be able to fully go through what I want to in these couple of scriptures right here today. We might touch on it, but be thinking about us as living stones (verse 5) and that we are a “spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.” We may touch more on that today. This is incredibly important, otherwise it would not be here.

Rereading verse 9: “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” So brethren this refreshes our memory on the temple.

I want to say at this point that this knowledge of the temple and the priesthood, I believe, is so critical to our understanding that if we do not believe it, it will become an impediment to our spiritual growth! It will become an obstacle to us and could actually directly cause us to lose part of our reward!

I say this only because that is exactly what it says in I Corinthians 3. I am not saying something that is not in the scriptures. We are using the scriptures but we are looking at it a little differently. I will explain why. I will explain why first, then we will look at Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong’s letter a little bit. Afterwards, we will go into the sermon. I am going to reverse this order a little bit because I think we will understand this better if I say why.

Go to Revelation, chapter 3 which will help clarify, very well, what I was trying to say. These scriptures have been right in front of our face since the 70’s. Really only one man had a grasp of it, and it was a good grasp; but because of the time he was in, it was not a complete grasp. That man was Mr. Armstrong. Since Mr. Armstrong, no one has really understood this. It was always there for us to see.

I want to read a scripture for you in Revelation, chapter 3, starting in verse 14: “‘And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, “These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God: ‘I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing” - and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked - I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.”’”’

I guess the best way to say this, so I do not offend anybody, is that I am going to put my name in here. I am going to say that I was poor, blind, wretched, miserable and naked, and I did not know it. You think about yourself. I am going to say that I was pretty busy studying the news and looking at the world and saying it is too bad that they do not repent. You know these Chinese, Pakistanis, pagans everywhere, gay people and all these terrible sinners out there, if they would only repent, then they would be protected like I think I am going to be protected. In other words, pointing the finger at everybody else and saying if you would only repent, you would not have to go through all the things that are coming. I am going to a place of safety and I am going to be taken care of.

I never really felt that I was poor, miserable, wretched, blind and naked. I never felt that I was richer than everybody else and I never thought that I was self-righteous. But now I realize I was. How can some poor Chinese man or some Pakistani who has never heard of the name of Jesus Christ truly understand and repent? How could we hold these people responsible and say, “repent”? How can we say, “You know if you people would straighten up, God would not have to punish the world!” What do they know? They know nothing! We are held responsible, brethren, for what we know. Who knows more than the Church of God, us? Nobody! So who is held to the highest standard? Us! We are going to see this today. We are held to the highest standard, and we live in the Laodicean era.

Christ is telling us here in Revelation 3 that because you are lukewarm...and are poor, blind, wretched and miserable and naked... “‘I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.’”

Continuing in verse 20: “‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”

So Christ is knocking on each of our doors, I believe. He wants us to open that door up so He can sup with us and feed us spiritual food and anoint our eyes with salve so we can see. I believe this is starting to happen now. I believe we are going to be able to see things that we could not see before; if we open the door and allow Him to feed us. That is basically the gist of what I am talking about today.

So what I am saying is, up to now, we understand some basic things that we want to hold the rest of the world accountable for, but they do not understand. We know that the world is deceived. The basic things that we understand are these: God has a plan, that plan is to reproduce Himself. I think we would all agree that we understand that. He has given man 6,000 years and then there will be a 1,000 year millennium of God’s. These are pictured by the Sabbaths and the holy days. These picture God’s plan. The weekly Sabbath pictures it in microcosm. The holy days are in consecutive order of the way God is doing things: Passover (and our High Priest), Days of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, Trumpets, Day of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles and Last Great Day. We believe that Christ is our High Priest and we are firstfruits. These are basic.

In a minute we will look at Mr. Armstrong’s letter, but let’s turn now to Hebrews, chapter 5. Now after a discussion of the High Priest, Melchizedek, and this new priesthood, we are told this in verse 12: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”

Hebrews chapter 6, verse 1: “Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.”

We are told here that you guys are stuck in the first grade! What is your problem? These are the basics. We all understand the basics. We were baptized, we had hands laid on us, we understand the resurrection, we understand there will be eternal judgment, we have accepted the holy days and the Sabbath. We are told that these basic doctrines is first grade, elementary principles. We need to grow beyond that. If that is as far as we get, we are stuck in kindergarten or the first grade. We are not growing!

Mr. Armstrong used to say, “I don’t think half of you get this. I don’t think 10% of you get this.” What was he talking about - the Sabbath or the holy days - no, not directly. What did we not understand - that we need to be baptized or we need to repent? We understand these things. But there is some significant truth that he understood some twenty years ago that we have basically forgotten that would help us understand what God is doing today. As we have just read in I Corinthians 3 and I Peter 2, we are living stones in the temple. So, I refer, as you know, often to this letter of Mr. Armstrong’s of March 19, 1981. I want to read a little bit of this again.

Mr. Armstrong, commenting on his work, stated there were two aspects to what he was doing: (1) He was to proclaim to the world the gospel message that God sent to mankind, by Jesus as God’s messenger, (He quotes Malachi 3:1.) of the coming kingdom of God. (2) He was to call and prepare a chosen people to be born as immortal spirit persons in the God family. They would rule all nations of the earth, (ruling with, and under, Christ) and judge all who have ever lived in a judgment day when they shall be resurrected after the coming 1,000 year reign of God’s kingdom of all nations of the earth. Those people now being called and prepared will constitute the spiritual temple to which Christ shall come the second time in great glory. Now those are the two jobs that Mr. Armstrong said he was given to do.

Now I go to page three of this letter. He states, “REMEMBER GOD’S PURPOSE WORKS IN A PROCESS OF DUALITY! John the Baptist was a TYPE, or forerunner, of one to prepare the way for His second coming. Jesus is to come to His TEMPLE (Malachi 3:1). He came to a material temple of stone, wood, gold and materials in 27-31 A.D. To what temple will He come IN OUR TIME, SOON NOW?

“Hold this prophecy of Malachi 3 in mind, and turn to Haggai 2, beginning in verse 3. Zerubbabel was governor of a colony of Jews sent from Babylon back to Jerusalem 70 years after the destruction of Solomon’s temple, to build a new temple. This also was the day of the prophets Ezra and Nehemiah. Zerubbabel was the builder of this second temple. It was the temple to which Jesus came to at His first appearing as a human.

“Verse 3: The former temple of Solomon was then as nothing as compared to its original physical glory.”

Why don’t we go back and read Haggai, chapter 2, starting in verse 3. This will give us the context of what Mr. Armstrong is talking about here.

Haggai 2:3 “‘Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory?’” In other words, who is still alive here who saw Solomon’s temple and is now watching Zerubbabel’s temple get built or get finished here? “‘And how do you see it now? In comparison with it, is this not in your eyes as nothing?’”

So we are told here that when Zerubbabel’s temple was finished and it was a refurbishing, or rebuilding of Solomon’s, it was a piece of junk compared to Solomon’s temple!

Verse 4: “‘Yet, now be strong, Zerubbabel,’ says the Lord; ‘and be strong Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; and be strong, all you people of the land,’ says the Lord, ‘and work: for I am with you,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so My Spirit remains among you; do not fear!’ For thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Once more (it is a little while) I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land; and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple with glory,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine,’ says the Lord of hosts.”

I believe that is referring later to I Corinthians 3 where we are the silver and the gold being built into the temple.

Verse 9 of Haggai 2: “‘The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘And in this place will I give peace,’ says the Lord of hosts.”

So obviously that did not happen yet. Christ did not come to a temple more glorious than Solomon’s yet. He did not restore a temple that would be full of peace that would be preceded by a shaking of the earth. We understand this to be Christ’s second coming. So, obviously, we are waiting for His second coming yet, but this temple has to be built for Him to come to.

Now let’s go back to Mr. Armstrong’s letter, “Verse 3: The former temple of Solomon was then as nothing compared to its original physical glory. God commands Zerubbabel to be strong and work to build the temple (verse 4). Verse 6 goes into a far-future prophecy of a time just before Christ’s second coming, when God will shake the earth and shake all nations, and the ‘GLORY OF THIS LATTER HOUSE SHALL BE GREATER THAN OF THE FORMER.’ (verse 9). The temple Zerubbabel built of stone, wood and physical materials was nowhere near as glorious as the former temple of Solomon. This is a PROPHECY speaking about the temple to which Christ shall come the second time, in supreme POWER and GLORY - a temple far more glorious than Solomon’s.

“To WHAT temple will Christ come very soon now? Are the Jews going to demolish the Moslem temple, Dome of the Rock, which stands on that site now, and build a new super-glorious new temple? NO! Turn to Ephesians 2:19-22.” We will in a moment. Continuing with Mr. Armstrong’s letter: “The church at Ephesus was composed of former gentiles. They are no longer foreign gentiles but fellow citizens with the saints - a spiritual NATION. They are also a FAMILY - of the ‘household’ of God - the GOD FAMILY. As a BUILDING they are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone. As a BUILDING, they are fitly framed together (in UNIFIED ORGANIZATION) growing into a HOLY TEMPLE!”

This is the temple that God is building. But we have forgotten this. We have focused once again on the Dome of the Rock getting destroyed and a physical temple getting built in Jerusalem and all the end time prophecies associated with that. While Mr. Armstrong clearly understood twenty years ago that is irrelevant. That is not the temple God is building now. God is building a spiritual temple, a spiritual house that Christ will return to. And He will fill this house with far more glory than Solomon’s temple every had!

So this is where I have been poor, blind, wretched and naked. For a long time I was looking at Israel and Jerusalem. Are they going to destroy the Dome of the Rock? Is there going to be a big war over there? And “Wow!” are they getting materials together to build a new temple? I was focusing on things like that while watching the news. I was not taking care of this particular block or brick in the spiritual temple of God. It is this particular block or brick that God says you had better make sure it is made of gold and silver and precious jewels if you want to be in My temple. So, my focus was in the wrong direction.

Mr. Armstrong was saying, “Look, I don’t think any of you get this.” he goes on to say in this letter here. I do not have time to read this whole letter, but it is fascinating, simply fascinating! Here is what he says: If we lose sight of this temple, we were warned what was going to happen. Page 6: “Further, ‘The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house (the first temple); his hands shall also FINISH IT!’ So far as I know, GOD HAS NOT RAISED UP ANYONE ELSE TO FINISH THIS WORK HE HAS USED ME IN DOING!

“God could take my life in the next breath - or He has power to keep me on the job as His instrument for as long as He deems necessary. I have NEVER SAID I expect to live until Christ comes. But, just in case of my disability for any reason, to prevent Satan from causing division, I feel God has inspired me to delegate power to the Advisory Council, during any such complete disability, to take full charge of the Work and all of its assets and activities.

“The CHURCH must not be scattered. It must not become scattered because there is no COMPETENT, CHRIST-CHOSEN SPIRITUAL SHEPHERD, to BECOME MEAT FOR BEASTS (human) OF THE FIELD. (See Ezekiel 34:5). This is a safeguard for YOUR protection.

“This letter is already overlong, but I felt important. Brethren, NEVER were your prayers so URGENTLY NECESSARY - both for YOU and the Work - and for me! My life has been threatened - but by faith in God it shall be spared until my work is complete. I now have to ask you to sacrifice and send in special EXTRA generous offerings more than ever before. Time is short. Soon there shall be a FAMINE of hearing the word of God (Amos 8:11). If we work harder now, SO WILL SATAN. So PRAY AS NEVER BEFORE!”

Well, brethren, he said it, we heard it, we read it and we forgot it. I forgot it, and some how God inspired me to save this letter, save some tapes and eventually go back and restudy those things. Now I realize, when I look at the scriptures of God, of course, what happens to that Moslem temple is meaningless. The former temple of Solomon’s and Zerubbabel’s were examples for those upon whom the ends of the earth have come. They were what we used to look at and learn from. But the real work of God is the spiritual temple that He is building and that Christ will soon return to. Now that was understood twenty years ago.

I was blinded and could not see that is what I was to focus on. So obviously, I was not doing the job. I would say any of us who are alive today should realize we are in the Laodicean era and we are Laodiceans from the point of view of what time we live in! But we do not want a Laodicean attitude. We want to have our minds open. We want to have eye salve put on our eyes, so that we can have garments that are clean, so we can have understanding and so that we can help God.

Remember in I Corinthians 3, we are co-workers with God at building His temple. There is one thing Christ and God the Father cannot create and that is holy righteous character. Holy righteous character requires the free-will of the human beings being worked with. In that regard, to build the temple, we are co-workers with God the Father and Jesus Christ. As co-workers, we need to think of ourselves as part of the builders in the building project. Paul said that clearly, we are building on the same foundation. I lay blocks, I lay stones, another man comes behind me and lays more stones and we are building a spiritual temple which you are that temple. Perfectly clear.

We want to give God and Jesus Christ materials that are suitable to work with to go into the temple. We want to give Them stones of gold, silver and jewels. I do not want to give Christ myself and say, “Here I am - a piece of sod, dirt, junk, straw; see if you can use me in here.” Now isn’t that poor, blind, wretched and naked? I want to tell God, “Look, you can have me, you can have me completely and totally.” (Just like it says in Galatians 2:20: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”) You can have me, and I am going to work with You as a co-worker. I am going to make my individual building, my individual temple of gold and silver. I want my character to be that pure and clean, so you can use me to do something useful with. So I present to Jesus Christ and God the Father a useful building material.

Being in the building business, I know what it is like to try to work with inferior material. Some of you are in the building business, and you know what it is like too. When you try to build concrete forms with twisted lumber, what does the concrete look like after? A mess! You have to have good material to have a good project. The great project that God is doing, the increasing of His family, the building of a temple that His Son can come to, must have good materials. I Peter 2 tells us, we are those materials. I Corinthians says we have to build with Him as co-workers, a suitable temple that Jesus Christ can come back to. We are the priesthood. It says that in I Peter 2.

I Peter 2:9 “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

We are a special people, a royal priesthood that God is working with. Let us go back to Hebrews, chapter 4. Hebrews 3, 4 and 5 talks about Melchizedek and the priestly order under Him, the order of Melchizedek. It says that we have a High Priest of the order of Melchizedek starting in verse 14 of chapter 4.

Hebrews 4 verse 14: “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Hebrews 5 verse 1: “For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also beset by weakness.”

Our Savior, Jesus Christ, understands what it is to be human. He is our High Priest, as Aaron was high priest of the Levites. Dropping down to verse 5 of chapter 5: “So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He who said to Him...” (God the Father said to Him) “‘...You are My Son, today I have begotten You.’ As He also says in another place: ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’”

When you look up the word “order” here, order means ranked according to character. So Jesus Christ, the High priest, is head of a priesthood called the order of Melchizedek, which is composed of individuals who are living stones in the temple who are ranked according to character. How much gold, how much silver, how many precious jewels are in our character? Or, are we composed of wood, hay or straw? Now this priesthood reflects a change in the priesthood, in which the Levitical priesthood under Aaron became the spiritual priesthood under Jesus Christ to build a temple that He can return to.

Mr. Armstrong was Zerubbabel. He built and finished the temple but he did not clean it up. This is the problem. We have a temple building that needs cleansing. We can see that in Revelation 11. The temple must be cleansed. And how do we cleanse the temple? The example is in the priesthood, the Levitical priesthood.

When Solomon’s temple was in existence on earth, who cleansed it? The high priest cleansed it. Only the high priest could go in and cleanse the sanctuary and the tabernacle of the temple. So who cleanses the spiritual temple today? The High Priest, Jesus Christ, cleanses it. What else went on in the temple was work to help cleanse the priesthood and the people, which was done by the priesthood.

We have a tendency to think of ourselves as pieces on a chess board and we have nothing to do. This is the problem when we just believe the basic doctrines. We think we just go to Sabbath services, go to the Feast of Tabernacles, send our tithes in and do what we are supposed to do. We were just clearly told in Hebrews 5 and 6 that this is the basic elementary stuff. You are not going anywhere! If that is all you are doing, you are not going anywhere! Now we must be about the business of finishing the temple cleansing so Christ can return to a clean temple.

Every day we need to go before the High Priest. The high priest, morning and evening, did what they call the daily sacrifice, to cleanse the temple. Every morning we need to go to Jesus Christ, and every evening we need to go to Jesus Christ, our High Priest; and have Him cleanse our individual temple, which is a building block in the overall temple that He is building to return to. That is our job: to get cleaned up and develop character of gold, silver and of precious jewels, which belong to Christ. It says in Haggai to finish this temple, cleanse it so He can return. This is an awesome thing to be aware of because now we have something we CAN do! Something very important to do!

I want to show you a chart I have made on this grease board. There are two columns. On the left column, I have titled it, “Old Covenant, Physical.” On the right column, I have titled it, “New Covenant, Spiritual.” You can duplicate this on your own paper if you like as I talk about each column.

On the left, we have Solomon’s temple. On the right, we have the body of Christ. The right side is the spiritual and the left side is the physical. The example of Solomon and his temple is to teach us what God is doing today in the body of Christ which is us, the spiritual temple. In this temple (left side) worked Aaron, he was the high priest. In this temple, (right side) works Christ, our High Priest. Under Aaron were the Levites. Under Christ is the order of Melchizedek. This is the priesthood. We just read the scriptures that we are this order of Melchizedek under our High priest, Jesus Christ. The Levites performed the same function. These worked in the temple and they interceded for the people.

Now all scripture is given for inspiration and instruction of righteousness, all inspired by God. Now these are the duties of the priesthood. We are co-workers with Christ on the temple. We work on our character and we intercede for the people When the Church fully understood this, under the apostles, healings and miracles were constantly taking place; because they had the understanding of the temple and they knew what their job was. As we learn, we are going to see miracles reinstituted and lots of signs and wonders because the prophecy is there. When we come to the proper understanding of the temple and our role as the priests in the temple (to cleanse ourselves individually and intercede for the people), we will see miracles once again. In Daniel it says we will do great exploits. We will see many, many things done. I think we are on the verge of that right now!

Christ cleanses us from our sins, but when we pray for someone, even for healing, (it says in James 5 pray that their sins will be forgiven) we intercede for people. We cannot forgive their sins, but our High Priest and God the Father can. But we do need to pray for them. We need to. With this knowledge, brethren, we can change the course of history! We have talked about this before, and I will review this in a little bit before we are done here. When our prayers are answered, we can effect people’s lives, in fact, whole nations and cities! But we have to understand that is what we are doing. We are interceding. So this is the work that we do.

We call this developing, as we practice faith, belief and obedience - developing holy righteous character. That equals bearing fruit. Christ said, “bear fruit.” Bear fruit 60 and a hundred fold. We must be attached to the vine to bear fruit - our High priest. We must be connected with Him in order to bear fruit. He is the vine and we are the branches. Here is where we keep going. The physical temple stops here. They could not truly get their sins forgiven. That is why they had to keep doing the sacrifices over and over again, they were imperfect. They could not develop holy righteous character. Their physical example halts here, but it is for us to go back and study, so that we know what to do here in the spiritual temple.

We go on to bear fruit. We are, indeed, called firstfruits, firstfruits with Christ. We are the firstfruits, starting with those called and given the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. We are the firstfruits that the earth has produced in the family of God. Very simple! When you look at the Old Testament scriptures regarding the temple, we can understand what God is doing with us and what we are supposed to be doing because we are co-workers. We are part of the project. That is why Christ says we must love one another.

The body of Christ cannot be composed of people where the eye says to the hand, “I do not like you, I want to cut you off.” Well, how can the eye then look at something and grasp it if it has no hands? The body of Christ is fitly framed together. Being fitly framed together, each member of that body has a significant role to play. We have to be loving of one another, accepting of one another and encouraging one another everyday. It says in Hebrews 3 and 4, while it is still today, encourage each other, love one another and help each other. Forgive each other their trespasses, if we want to be forgiven. This is a living, dynamic work of God! This is the project. This is what the holy days are talking about. This is what we have to be doing. We have to do a much better job at it than we have in our individual lives. We have to let Christ come in, because we can then do something that can possibly change the course of history and reduce the sufferings of millions, maybe billions of people!

I would like to turn to I Corinthians 13, verse 1: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become as sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” So we can have all the knowledge that you can imagine. We can understand prophecies. We can be willing to sacrifice anything, including our lives! But if we have not love for each other, it is a waste!

Verse 4: “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth, bears all thinks, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.”

“Prophecies will fail.” What does that mean? I looked up that term, “will fail” and that means “rendered unnecessary.” There are prophecies that we have focused on, assuming that they have to take place, that do not have to take place! If the temple of God is ready, they do not have to take place! Mr. Armstrong understood this. How many of you remember him saying in about 1978 or 1979 that we have preached the gospel to the whole world and Christ could come back but has not? He is holding things up, and I do not know why. He could come back. As a matter of fact, there would not even have to be a tribulation, if we were ready and Christ could come back! Do you remember him saying this? I have read it and I have heard it. He understood this and we did not get it! We run around acting like the hammer has to fall and it does not! It depends on whether we are co-working with God to get this temple ready! Because when the temple is ready and cleansed, Christ can come back!

We look at all these poor Chinese, Pakistanis, and Hindus and we say, “repent” and you will not have to go through the tribulation. They do not know any of this stuff. This is Greek to them. We are the only people on the planet that understand this. We are the ones held responsible. God is talking to us saying, YOU get the temple ready, YOU repent and maybe the earth will not have to go through these curses. Prophecies will be rendered unnecessary.

You remember Malachi 4 where it says, “‘...he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.’” Well, I looked up what the curse was. It is the tribulation. If we turn the hearts of the fathers and the sons and the children back together, we can avoid the tribulation! That is one aspect. I want to show you one of our key scriptures about the tribulation. Turn to Leviticus 26. I think we are going to make it through the whole thing in principle here.

We always said that Leviticus 26 portrays what God is going to do in the last days to the nations, specifically Jacob, the nations of Israel. Leviticus 26:1 “‘You shall not make idols for yourselves; neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves; nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the Lord your God. You shall keep My Sabbaths…’” (which means holy days and the Sabbath) “‘…and reverence My sanctuary: I am the Lord.’” That is referring to the inner part of the temple. Now, we are told to keep the Sabbaths and revere the sanctuary and not follow idols and pagan gods.

Leviticus 26:3 “‘If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. Your threshing shall last till the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last till the time of sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid; I will rid the land of evil beasts, and the sword will not go through your land. You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.’”

Verse 9: “‘For I will look on you favorably and make you fruitful, multiply you and confirm My covenant with you. You shall eat the old harvest, and clear out the old because of the new. I will set My tabernacle among you, and My soul shall not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves; I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you walk upright.’”

Now Mr. Armstrong said we were called out of Egypt, out of Babylon, out of the world into the truth. Who has a covenant agreement with God? Is it the Chinese, the Pakistanis, is it the Hindu people? It is us! We are the only people on the earth with an agreement with God. All that is showing us, that in the Old Testament at Sinai the people who are our example, said to God, all that you say, I will do. At baptism, the new temple, the spiritual temple, we tell God, all that you say, I will do. I accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, I accept my High Priest. I will live accordingly. I will repent when I fail. We have the agreement. God says He will dwell with us. He says, now you revere My Sabbaths, My holy days and My weekly Sabbath. You revere My sanctuary, My temple but we forgot! I forgot. Now you look at all these punishments. It is as if we stop revering the temple, we stop revering the Sabbaths. This is what the punishment is for. They come on the nations, as well as the people. The nations are the Abrahamic people, but they are not covenanted with God. They got a physical blessing. We have a spiritual blessing. They do not understand the sanctuary. They do not understand the Sabbaths. They do not understand the holy days. They are not baptized. They do not have an agreement with God, other than to receive the blessings of Abraham, which was unconditional. We are the ones among them that God is working with, NOW!

Leviticus 26, verse 14: He says, “‘But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments, and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant…’” (break our agreement) “‘…I also will do this to you: I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which will consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. I will set My face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you.’”

The Church, by and large, is ruled by enemies today. Most of our brethren are underneath enemies. Mr. Armstrong characterized it in his letter that the Church must not be scattered, but it happened because we forgot the biggest part of what he was trying to tell us. So, the Church is scattered. Christ says here in Leviticus 26 that after all this if you do not obey me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. If you understand, this is seven years but a hundred-fold increase punishment. I will break the pride of your power. I will make your heavens like iron, your earth like bronze. It goes through this four times, saying if you do not obey Me, if you do not repent, if you do not change, I will do this. Each time worse than the time before. But the biggest little word in the English language precedes everyone of those. “If” you do not obey Me, “if” you do not repent. But what if we do? We are talking about the people who revere the sanctuary and the Sabbaths and who have an agreement with God.

What if we do? What if we open the door and get the eye salve put on our eyes? What if we start bearing fruit and start building this temple and start using gold and silver? What if we get cleaned up so that God can put us in it, use us and return? What if He can send His Son to a bride without spot or blemish? Could it be that we could lessen the suffering of all the earth? Yes, that is what Malachi 4 says. “Turn the hearts of the fathers.” This is what we are told here. Obey Me and repent; if you do not, this will happen and that will happen.

Turn to Matthew 24, verse 21-22: “‘For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.’” It did not say how short, but they will be shortened.

I want to show you graphically once again. Then we are going to look at another prophecy. If I have a time line here and this is the 7,000 year plan of God, the last 1,000 years is the millennium. This 6,000 years is man’s time. If God is going to cut time short, where do you cut it short? Do you drop Adam out, do you get rid of King David? No, you drop time off at the end. That is why Christ said I will cut time short at the end, or else no flesh would be saved.

With the tribulation and everything that could possibly happen to get mankind to repent (the Day of the Lord), this earth would look like the moon! There would not be a living thing left anywhere on it. That is what Christ is saying here. If I have to do everything to get this temple ready that I am willing to do if I have to, no flesh will live through it. But, He says I am not going to do that. I will cut time short, here.

How short, one year, two years, three years? It depends on His co-workers! It depends on you, me and anybody else who has been called into the Church of God and has the Holy Spirit. That is what He is saying. Get the temple ready and I can come suddenly to My temple. If you had known when the strong man was coming, you would have been ready. Get ready and I can return to My temple and cut time short. If you do not repent and obey, this, this, this and this will occur. But IF we do, time gets cut short. We can effect how short by how quickly we get ready and take this job seriously and get it done.

This is a hopeful thing. And it is why we can pray for the people out there and give them hope. This is very, very significant. Let us look at Joel 2. I found many scriptures, but we do not have time to go through them all. I am going to give you the most significant ones.

Joel 2:1 “Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the Lord is coming, for it is at hand: a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like the morning clouds spread over the mountains. A people come, great and strong, the like of whom has never been; nor will there ever be any such after them, even for many successive generations. A fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns; the land is like the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; surely nothing shall escape them.”

Verse 4: “Their appearance is like the appearance of horses; and like swift steeds, so they run. With a noise like chariots over mountaintops they leap, like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble, like a strong people set in battle array.”

Verse 6: “Before them the people writhe in pain; all faces are drained of color. They run like mighty men, they climb the wall like men of war; everyone marches in formation, and they do not break ranks. They do not push one another; everyone marches in his own column. And when they lunge between the weapons, they are not cut down. They run to and fro in the city, they run on the wall; they climb into the houses, they enter at the windows like a thief.”

Verse 10: “The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble; the sun and moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness. The Lord gives voice before His army, for His camp is very great; for strong is the One who executes His word. For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; who can endure it?”

Well, no one! Verse 12: now notice the turn here. “‘Now, therefore,’ says the Lord, ‘turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.’ So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the Lord our God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm. Who knows if He will turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him - a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?”

Verse 15: “Blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly; gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and nursing babes; let the bridegroom go out from his chamber, and the bride from her dressing room.” Who is the bridegroom, Jesus Christ. Who is the bride, the Church.

Verse 17: “Let the priests, who minister to the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar; let them say, ‘Spare Your people, O Lord, and do not give Your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, “Where is their God?”’”

We are not just talking about the Church. We can intercede for the nation, Jacob. Spare Jacob, spare our nations all this that is going to happen because we are going to get ready. We are going to fast and pray and get cleansed. “That the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’” Why should the nations eventually find out that they went through all this and said where was your God? Wouldn’t we be ashamed if we said you know the earth had to get completely destroyed because we did not get ready until the very end!

Now I am not putting too much guilt on anybody here. I do not mean to do that. I am trying to help us feel hopeful because there is something we CAN do. We did not know this. This is not a downer. This is exciting! This is wonderful! This is happy! This is why our beliefs are worth dying for. This is why when we believe and understand what God is doing we can have the peace and joy that passes all understanding. I cannot tell you how happy I have been since I have learned this, because now I can do something besides sitting here waiting for the hammer to fall. I can DO something; indeed, I MUST do something.

Verse 18: “Then the Lord will be zealous for His land, and pity His people. The Lord will answer and say to His people, ‘Behold, I will send you grain and new wine and oil, and you will be satisfied by them; I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations. But I will remove far from you the northern army...’”

We are told plain as the nose on our face that if we get ready, if we repent, if we get cleaned up and we intercede for the people, God will hear. But if we stay poor, blind, wretched, naked and miserable, God will not hear. He will spew us out of His mouth. The choice is up to us.

I would like to conclude in Romans 8:18. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”

Verse 22: “For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. And not only they, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees?”

Brethren, the whole world is groaning, waiting for us to be revealed. Romans 8:25: “But if we hope for what we do not see, then we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

Verse 27: “Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

And that is us! We have been called according to His purpose, and all things will work to the good. God will use us for good. But the entire creation is in bondage, waiting to be liberated because of what God is doing through us, His temple. He must be able to come back to a clean temple. Even the animals, the whole creation groans, everything is suffering out there, but it is about to end! And I think we can hasten it a lot! We have to get busy and do this!