No. 73 - WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW By: John J.Blanchard Tuesday, October 18, 2005 Feast of Tabernacles There is a lot in the news. History is being made around the world. Setting aside the disasters that we see, we can certainly look with interest at what is going on in Iraq. We see they are a subjugated people who lived for many years under a tyrant, they have been freed and they are now diligently working toward a constitution. I believe they are still counting the results of the election this weekend as we speak. Earlier this year they had their first free elections to elect actual governing officials to replace tyrants and punks who had been put over their areas of the nation. They voted in the people that they desire to have rule over them and to help them get their feet back on the ground. THE PACE OF CHANGE It was a dark period of tyranny for that people, and it has ended. We are watching on the news with amazement people adapting to new ways of life. They were people who were always told what to do, where to go, who to fight, who to lay down their son’s and daughter’s lives before, and their lives have changed entirely. They now get to say something about who is going to rule in their respective areas. They get to come up with a constitution to live by. Of course, we have Americans over there helping pave the way and protecting them, but that is a temporary state. Eventually they are going to have to wrestle with all the things America and every other free country had to wrestle with. How do you deal with freedom of speech? Do you let your enemy or the person you disagree with have as valid an opinion as you? These are things they are going to have to wrestle with because they always had to tow the party line before. How do you deal with freedom of the press? Can you tolerate people putting you down in the press or disagreeing with you before the nation? How do you handle a free-market economy where you can actually take advantage of a situation to better your life or the lives of your family? How do you handle women’s rights when women did not have rights before? There were some limited rights in Iraq, but a woman could not cross the line very far. Terrible retribution would come on her. How do you handle religious tolerance? There are different ethnic groups that do not get along because of their religions. This has been an earth-shattering event for the people of Iraq. We are watching it on television! You can actually watch it on television or pick up a newspaper or news magazine and watch this thing unfold. We are seeing Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds (mortal enemies) forming political alliances. They are saying if you help us with this, we will help you with that. They are learning to get along after centuries of hatred. It is remarkable, brethren. They are learning to settle their differences peacefully without the point of a gun except for the few terrorists who want to ruin the whole thing. No longer is a tyrant ruling over them, keeping the masses downtrodden, ignorant, anxious or fearful. This is a major transition. That is one country. We, ourselves, have become almost desensitized to the major changes that are taking place in the world. It is ho-hum when nations go through these earth-shattering events. If you stop to think about the last twenty or twenty-five years, brethren, we have had the Solidarity Movement in Poland in which one man decided this is not right. Because of his voice, people gathered around and eventually that country was set free. It led to the entire unraveling of the U.S.S. R. (the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). It led to the unraveling and dismantling of the Warsaw Pact and eventually the destruction of many, many megatons of nuclear weapons! We saw the reunification of Germany in which the free Germans had to absorb people who no longer knew how to think for themselves. They were people who had to learn how to work and how to provide for their family without the government subsidizing everything. People had to unlearn communism and relearn freedom and democracy, personal liberty and personal responsibility. We are so desensitized. I was thinking about this and trying to write down some of the countries. I was realizing I could go on and on and on, but it is hard to remember these earth-shaking events even though they just took place. The Ukraine, Rumania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, one after another throwing out the dictators and setting the people free! It is an amazing time to be alive. We have witnessed the largest, most populous country on earth (Red China as we used to call them) now selling us a lot of our clothing and electronic goods. They are allowing our auto makers to set up companies in their country. They are now a mover and shaker on the world scene and who last month renounced the first use of nuclear weapons. That is the first step in them saying we are looking for a better way, this obviously is not going to work. They are actually allowing a free-market economy to take hold in that country. The pace of change has been mind boggling, so I think we tune out. We forget how different the world is today. My children have just graduated from college. Never once did they have to get training to get underneath a desk in case of a nuclear attack or to get into the basement of the school or to know where the nearest nuclear shelter was. They never had to deal with that. I did! You did! It is a changed world, brethren, and we have to recognize that. Everywhere people are adapting to new-found freedoms, personal responsibility and a better way of life. I read an interesting article that said in the last twenty-five years more people on earth have come out of poverty than in the entire history of mankind preceding that! Many people are getting a better life. There are problems. We can focus on those problems, but there have been tremendous advancements. Everywhere people are changing and adapting. Change is scary. It is really why the terrorists are blowing people up. They are afraid of change! They are afraid of what this new world is going to be like. It is scary to have change and it is unsettling, but it is very exciting. I know if I lived in a third-world country living on a dollar a day and all of a sudden I had a chance to use the talents that God may have given me, I would be able to do something better for my family! What an opportunity that would be, but it is scary. Vaclav Havel, the poet turned president of a fledging democracy, had this to say: “I am not an optimist because I am not sure that everything ends well. Nor am I a pessimist, because I am not sure everything ends badly. Instead, I am a realist who carries hope, and hope is the belief that freedom has meaning…” I thought that is very telling. They do not know what is going on around the world, but they see huge changes. They see that it comes with some hard things and some scary things, but it comes with hope and it comes with a chance at a better life. Brethren, what the world is going through is profound, but little does it know it is just the beginning! This is the tip of the iceberg. There are changes in their future that will truly boggle the mind. Our presence here today is their assurance that everything will end very well. It is going to be a wonderful world, and it is just ahead! THE GREAT MILLENNIUM Today represents what in the future will be another profound change for mankind. It will be the inauguration of a new season in the affairs of the human race. It is the great Millennium! It is the seventh Millennium since Genesis. But it is the great Millennium, and it is the Millennium when God rules the earth and when God’s firstfruits bring peace to the world! Last week on the Day of Atonement we had a glimpse into that future just a little bit. We saw the removal of the ultimate tyrant, the master puppeteer of all tyrants, Satan. We pictured him getting put where he belongs into a pit and locked away along with his source of darkness, ignorance, oppression and evil. All of his evils were bottled up where they cannot get at mankind. What an awesome day! The world cannot even picture that yet. We know it is coming! Just as they did not know all the things the Church has gone through for the last couple thousand years, they have been waiting and groaning for the revealing of sons of God. Let’s go back and look at Isaiah 14 like we did on the Day of Atonement and review what is going to happen to Satan, and why the world will be set free from him. Let’s look at the effect that it will have on people. Isaiah chapter 14, verse 12: “‘How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God…”’” (which means above all the angels) “‘“…I will also sit on the mount of the congregation…”’” (which is the Church of God) “‘“…on the farthest sides of the north…”’” Verse 14: “‘“I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.” Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit. Those who see you will gaze at you, and consider you, saying: “Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world as a wilderness and destroyed its cities, who did not open the house of his prisoners?”’” Indeed the world will gaze at him and wonder how could this being have done that to all of us? “To gaze at and consider” in the Hebrew is shagach and biyn which means to narrowly look at and separate mentally so as to distinguish and understand. The masses that we see just coming to freedom, (many of them having the right to own a Bible for the first time) will look at that being. They are going to sort out in their mind what he did. They are going to look at him narrowly and say how could you have done that to us? How could you have deceived us into allowing our sons and daughters to be killed in horrible ways? How could you allow such oppression to guide us into such pain and misery? How could you have done that to us? They will understand that this was evil and evil is locked away. They will understand now we are not just free politically but free to pursue the truth of God and get rid of all ignorance. This day that we are observing here for services pictures the start of that great Millennium when that truth of God will be covering the entire earth. Everyone will have the opportunity to learn of God! The world will have its time between the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles. It is a five day period on God’s yearly calendar, which probably represents five years. That five day period is when Satan is locked away, and people have probably five years to sort things out in their minds. Giving up the Koran will not be easy. They will be giving up Buddhism, Confucianism and hatreds and animosities that go back centuries. It is going to take a while to be converted and to forgive a lot of slaughter. It will be easier once you know that my village was slaughtered because of that being I had the chance to gaze at on the Day of Atonement. It will be a lot easier to forgive one’s enemies when you can say they were duped and tricked, and so was I and my people. We need that knowledge, and we need to see that being locked away, so that the earth can settle their differences and sort all of this out to be converted and form the innumerable multitude. THE FIRSTFRUITS WILL NEED TO TEACH As I say, in that period of time they are going to need some people to help them, the firstfruits. They will need to teach them and guide them in the proper use of liberty. A stunned but very happy world will be free of ignorance. On this day very shortly in the future, they will keep the Feast in concert. The entire world will keep it in peace and harmony for the first time. That is what we are picturing. We are picturing the start of the Millennium when the entire world on this day will be gathered for holy day services, having been set free from ignorance, oppression and tyranny. What a day that will be! We are here portraying that for them. We are here hanging on to the truth that we had delivered to us, so that the gates of hell will not prevail against God’s Church. God needs loyal people to hang in there. It does not matter what the number is. God knows the number. We realize it gets small. We realize the power of the holy people gets shattered and scattered, but God promises to never leave or desert us, and He won’t! Let’s look at some of the scriptures that tell the story in advance. They are scriptures that we know, but they will firm up in our mind what this day represents and what the world is looking forward to. Turn, if you would, to Leviticus chapter 25. Read verses 8-10. When that trumpet sounds and the announcement goes out, seven testing periods will have been ended. I believe there is a strong case to be made that they are the seven Church eras of God, each having been tested and passed their test. Ours is the last test to get passed. We are on the verge of the announcement that the earth is going to be set free. What a time that will be! Turn, if you would, to Romans chapter 8 where it speaks of what the earth is waiting for and what these people (the masses) are longing for without even realizing it. Romans 8, verse 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.” They do not know us yet. They do not know the six eras that preceded us, but they will have that revelation some day. When they see Satan locked away, they will also see the Church of God revealed, those who have hung in there to the end of their natural life or Christ’s return. Romans 8, verse 20: “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. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.” They are still groaning and still waiting, but the wait is almost over! Soon, at the resurrection, they will see the revealing of the sons of God and be released into the liberty of the children of God! The sons of God are God’s firstfruits. We have the opportunity to be among them! We have the opportunity to help bring this wonderful liberty to the world and to help teach them the ways of God. Turn to Isaiah chapter 61. Our calling sometimes did not seem real to us did it, brethren? But what we have gone through in the last number of years has helped it become very real if we allowed it to, and we see that there is a tremendous sacrifice that we have to make. It is maybe a little different than the previous eras, but it is no less terrifying. In some ways it is more terrifying. Isaiah 61, verse 1: “‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prisons to those who are bound…’” Jesus Christ was given that job. He was anointed to do that job, but He now has a body of Christ. He has been working through that body to continue to proclaim this message for the last two thousand years. Continue reading Isaiah 61, verse 2: “‘…to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion…’” Zion is the Church. We are in mourning. But all who mourn are the whole world, those people suffering from the tsunami, those suffering from the earthquake in Pakistan, those in New Orleans and Mississippi. There are people in Iraq who are getting killed for no reason but being in the wrong place at the wrong time while another misguided individual, fooled and tricked by Satan, gives up his own life with a bomb. This is going to end, brethren, and God is going to bring comfort. The Book of Revelation says every tear on every face will be dried. Continue reading Isaiah 61:3-5. The whole world will come to a knowledge and understanding, and the physical wilderness (the devastation) that we see out there will be transformed. The spiritual wilderness will be gone too, for darkness and ignorance will be gone. The light of the truth will be everywhere to be had. It will be a marvelous time to be alive. We are the verge of it, brethren. We are on the very verge of it happening! We are seeing in verse 4-6 the relationship between the firstfruits and the innumerable multitude. Let’s continue reading in verses 6-9. All the world will see that the firstfruits have been blessed by God and given a double portion because of their sacrifice. They will be blessed because they laid down their lives and fought to overcome while the tyrant was still here. They fought and overcame the pulls of the evil one while Satan’s influence was still present on the earth, and they are blessed by God. The Gentiles of the world (the whole world) will witness this and take of the portion that they will then have and live in the peace of the Millennium. What a wonderful time that will be, brethren. Continue reading Isaiah 61:10-11. The Church was the first to get clothed with this righteousness. The Church was the first one to bud and bear fruit for God (the fruits of the Spirit). We were the first one with the opportunity, but soon the entire world will praise God and bring forth fruits for God! We are portraying that now at the Feast. It is the feast of fat things. It is an abundance of everything that is good for our physical bodies that we partake of now, knowing we are just picturing something that the world will see spiritually and physically in a very short time. That is what we are doing here today. We are hanging in there because God said the gates of hell will not prevail against My Church. Some will love the truth so much that no matter how weak the Church gets they will not give up. God will not forsake us, brethren, in our attempts. THE ABUNDANCE OF THE SEA WILL BE CONVERTED Turn, if you would, to Isaiah 60. It is speaking of the resurrection and when the world will learn about these saints. Isaiah 60, verse 1: “Arise, shine; for your light has come! And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people…” That is the state they are in now. “…but the Lord will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you. The Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.” That is the resurrection, brethren, when the world will be able to understand who the firstfruits were, and they will pour their hearts out to them. They will seek them to learn. Watch in verse 4! Verse 4: “‘Lift up your eyes all around, and see: they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from afar, and your daughters shall be nursed at your side. Then you shall see and become radiant, and your heart shall swell with joy; because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you…’” The abundance of the sea is the people of the earth turning to the truth and being converted. They are those people going to the individuals with the responsibility over their jurisdictions to learn of God, so that they can partake of the Millennium. Over a five year period they are going to be learning all of the ropes of what God wants, and then there will be a declaration that this is the year the Millennium starts. All the world will partake of this in concert and in harmony. What a time that will be, and we are picturing that this very day. It will be the culmination of six thousand years of work by God but two thousand years of work by the seven eras of God’s church, which we are privileged to be in the last era. It is a marvelous calling to draw up the end, to be the rear guard and to help finish the project for God. LIBERTY FOR THE CAPTIVES Turn now to Luke chapter 4. Jesus Christ launched the Church in the direction it should go by being the leader. Read Luke 4:16-21. The Church is still proclaiming this. Liberty to the captives is about to come. Not just for the firstfruits to be set free from sin and to be set free from the influence from Satan, but the entire world will be set free. It is the ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy because of Jesus Christ working through His body, the body of Christ (the Church, the firstfruits). The whole world will be set free to imbibe in the words of God, to own a Bible and to understand it. The whole world will have their eyes unveiled so that they may see. THE WORLD NEEDS GOD’S TRUTH II Corinthians chapter 3 speaks of a veil. It is a veil that hides the truth from people. II Corinthians 3, verse 12: “Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament…” This is speaking of the blindness that ancient Israel had, but look at the blindness the world has. They do not understand the Old Testament. They do not understand the New Testament. They need people with that truth within them to teach them. Verse 14, last half: “…because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Those are the firstfruits being transformed into the very image and likeness of Jesus Christ, to eventually share the truth with the entire world when the veil is taken off their eyes and they are able to imbibe in the truth. Like it said in Isaiah 60, turn to God and be converted. It will be an overwhelmingly happy time! John chapter 8 tells us that it is the truth of God that will set the world free, and it is the Spirit of Jesus Christ that leads us (and eventually the world through us) to the truth. Read John 8:31-36. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, has His brethren. We have the opportunity to be sons of God, and we have the opportunity to be set free forever. We have the opportunity to share that truth with the world so the world will be set free from sin, from the tyranny of Satan and from his downward pull. No longer will the world be held prisoner. The next time you see the news of people adapting to liberty and to new-found freedoms, think of what today represents. It will be a whole world adapting to unparalleled freedom. It will be a time when no tyranny will exist anywhere on earth, and the knowledge of God and His truth will cover the earth as does the sea! This is what the world needs now!