Anchor Yourself on the Kingdom of God

Happy Sabbath, brethren! And a special happy Sabbath to those of you online who can't be with us today. But it's great to be back here again in the Phoenix area. It seems like you can't get rid of Mary and me. We spent a number of years here, and we have relationships. And I think back of the relationships we have. You know, the Tuck family goes back to when we were teenagers in God's Church. And the families here in Phoenix East go all the way back to just after 9-11.

And we have some wonderful relationships there. Monty and Susie Knudsen and the Knudsen family are individuals that we have worked with and grown together with for 24 and a half years. And continue to serve as the Tucks have served in many areas. Monty Knudsen serves as a pastor here. And for those of you in other parts of the state and other parts of the world, he's a very dedicated servant.

We interact occasionally with things to do with especially the international work and some of the challenges that go on there. But a very dedicated person and the Sabbath letters that he sends to you each Friday, I receive those. And I'm very thankful for the focus, the godly focus that we have as God's people. And I hope that you'll appreciate the leadership that you have that is there to love and serve you and help ensure your best possibility for being ready when Christ returns.

When he returns to be able to stand and be planted in the kingdom of God forever as divine spirit beings. That's what God has given his all for and that's what we need to be involved with as well. We have just completed our annual festival season of God's Holy Days. And that's exactly what all those seven festivals teach us about every year. And we might think, oh, well, we've kept that feast every year.

But when we get to each of those feasts, we find meaning and depth and a focus there that starts us through the Passover once again and the great gift that God gave through his son, Jesus Christ. And Jesus gave in giving his life so that you and I wouldn't have to give ours eternally. He gave his life once so that we could begin a relationship with God.

And that rolls out into those God is calling in this age in the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And we then begin to emulate and model Jesus Christ and put out other concepts, other mindsets, other deeds.

As we mirror that unleavened bread of Jesus Christ, we put it in all seven days and we strive then to become Christ-like. And in doing so, it sets us up for a harvest festival, which is Pentecost. And through the gifts of the Holy Spirit and God's laws being put in us, we become godly-like enough to where he identifies with us and considers us firstfruits at the resurrection, the first resurrection at the seventh trumpet.

So when that seventh trumpet blows in the Feast of Trumpets, we rise under with Jesus Christ, changed and ready to work through that transformation of his blood, applying, as the Day of Atonement shows, to the rest of humanity in the Millennial period and also at the second resurrection. And we are part of those events. We are there with Christ, always serving with him as a helper and a bride, all the way not only to the end of physical time, but throughout time in the future.

We see that bride reflected in the new Jerusalem that's the eternal city of God as we are with Christ, forever with him. So what a beautiful experience these feasts teach us. And as we come back now from these feasts, we find that it's a very enjoyable time. And it was wonderful to hear that you're going to have that annual occasion of, hey, let's remember the feast, let's bring some photos, let's share some gifts, let's remember the joy. This coming Monday, the Home Office staff will have a breakfast. They'll do the same thing. Nine o'clock Monday, everybody will have a breakfast together with things and experiences and things about the feast sites they attended, wherever they went around the world.

This is a time when we're just so excited about God and his plan and his way of life. But the interesting thing is, we have now entered a phase of darkness for humanity. The sun is showing up less and less from now until about the Passover time, especially the first part of the year.

And what are we seeing? Humanity. If you look on the lawns and you look at the houses, you see demonic, satanic death things showing up. And a great celebration, everybody's cheering on Satan and demonism, and movies and horror films and twisted things are just captivating people and churches of all things. Following that, you have this celebration of a Babylon-ish celebration at the darkest time of winter, Saturnalia, celebrating solstice and praying to fake gods and asking that the sun would come back. And that is again celebrated by the world as the greatest thing, and they're just busy spending money.

I saw a sign the other day in a store that said, it's beginning to cost like Christmas. Everybody knows that's what it's about. And it's followed by the festival of Bacchus, a time of a flip in the Roman Empire of rule and law to lawlessness. A revelry where the one in charge was essentially dethroned and they put up some lousy rule-breaking laggard as the head of the country for a few days while everybody got drunk.

And of course that is in one way followed up by some fake Romani stuff and followed finally by another sort of a moving of the sun. And you get enough light coming back to where things begin to come back to life. And so there is a celebration of sexual immorality called Ishtar, the feast of Ishtar or Easter of the immoral fertility of things. And that was all wrapped up in religion. And so between the end of the feast of the last great day, the eighth day of the final festival of God, and the Passover, you have all of this dark, twisted stuff going on.

Now what about you and me? We live in a world where we are affected by society. Believe it or not, we will tend to be so saturated by things in society, we'll come to sort of see that as a norm around us. Not that we necessarily copy it, but it becomes such a norm that it's almost normal.

And if we're not careful, we might forget what we have become as God's people and what we have learned and what we have internalized and what we have celebrated and what we've declared by attending those seven festivals. As we look at the seventh festivals, there's a few things I would like to remember, and I've got five points a day, but three key things are the festivals teach us, teach us from God about His plan of salvation.

Nothing that the world celebrates, teaches, they have no concept of what God's plan of salvation is, but we have just been taught and learned and accepted and dedicated ourselves to God's path for our own salvation.

Those festivals also, and us keeping them, clearly reject society's view of truth. It rejects it. And society in turn rejects God's truth and thus us, God's church. So we need to understand that some people say, oh, they're Christian, we're Christian, forget it. That is nonsense.

Christ and God have a set of laws and commands and a mindset that is not of this world, not of Satan's world. And they reject God's truth. They'll use elements of it. They'll quote a scripture here and there, and they'll talk about Jesus, and they'll talk about whatever.

Well, that's just part of deception. That's part of any kind of falsehood. A little bit of truth and a little bit of error, you mix it together, you bake the cake, as it were, and it kind of tastes good.

But God's church is the vehicle by which God gives direction for daily, godly living. Yesterday, today, in the future, and forever.

God never changes. His way never changes. And God is resolute. So, as we see in our world, society has its winds blowing. And I guarantee you, the winds are intensifying, just like the weather is intensifying. Society is drifting quicker and quicker, and godlessness is intensifying throughout the world's societies. You see it everywhere. You see it in everything. Certain things that just never would enter our minds are now commonplace. In fact, they're almost required by society.

It is mind-boggling, some of the things that we see, just mind-boggling, until they're not mind-boggling anymore. We see them so much, and they make sure they are reinforced so often, to where they then become sort of normal. Just normal. Like the proverbial frog in the pot. And the frog is in there, and the temperature begins to rise. And yes, it's different, but the proverbial frog gets kind of used to every degree all the way up until it's boiling and it's cooked. Of course, that's a total misnomer. Frogs would never do that. Frogs actually have no way to generate heat themselves.

And so God made them with incredible sensory nervous system that detects heat in small amounts. And the frog has to maintain a certain body heat to be comfortable, and so it works its way between sunshine. If it gets a little warm, it goes into shade to cool off. It bounces back and forth between the two. If the weather gets a little hot, it'll get into water. And if the water cools it down enough, it's great. If it gets too cold, it'll get out. It'll get back in. If the water gets hot, it'll go find some shade wet, get some wind. Frogs are incredibly sensitive to temperature, and there's no frog that would ever stay in a pot that's starting to get warm. It wouldn't happen. It never did. Well, it did back in the 1700s when some doctor saw patients who were out of their heads screaming in agony and just wanted to do something about that. So they began to experiment. He began to experiment on frogs, and he would put them in water. And of course the frog would hop out if you change the temperature, but he kept taking out parts of the brain until the frog would not hop out of water anymore. Of course the frog wouldn't do much else either, and so they started doing that to humans, and up through the last century they were doing lobotomies. And people in sanatoriums who were crazy and deranged and exhibiting great pain and mental anguish, they would take parts of the brain out until they didn't exhibit those things anymore. Of course they didn't exhibit much else either, but nevertheless we need to be like frogs. When the temperature changes, we need to be aware of those things. We need to be like real frogs. The temperature is rising in society and in this world, and we need to come out of that. Let's go to Revelation 18.4. Revelation 18.4, we see as society cranks up more and more and more through the prophecies of what the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement picture, we see here another voice from heaven saying, come out of her, my people. Hop out of the water. It's changing temperature. It's the wrong place to be. Why? Come out of her lest you share in her sins, lest you boil like the rest of them, unless you receive of her plagues.

So God wants us to assess, to be aware, to discern the times. It's vital for you and me to conceptualize who you are. And I don't think we cover this enough in the church. Who you are in God's eyes is very different than how you and I see ourselves. We tend to see ourselves as stumbling, bumbling, which in a sense we are. But we see ourselves wondering if we'll be in God's kingdom. We see ourselves assuming we probably won't be, getting discouraged that, I don't know if I'm going to make it, I don't know if I can get through all that's ahead and things in my life. And that's exactly what Satan wants. And the reason for that is we don't know who we are. We do not identify who we are. So let's look today at who we are and where we're going. The title of this message is, Anchor Yourself in the Kingdom of God. Anchor yourself in the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is more than just a destination. The kingdom, the word kingdom, if you look it up means the authority, the rulership of God. You are part of that right now. That is in your mind and in your heart if you have God's Holy Spirit. If Jesus Christ is your Lord, your supreme authority, if you are following God, obeying Him, if you are baptized and have His Holy Spirit, you are His son, you are His daughter, you are betrothed bride of Christ. That's who you are. That's who we are. We are first fruits being prepared to fulfill their greatest dream and that is having more of them. We are on target for realizing their dream. Let's realize who we are and be confident. We are not of this world. We are not in the world, we are not of the world, we don't have the mindset of the world, we don't have the values of the world. Let's not think that we are somehow mired or conflicted or compromising. And where we find we are, great. We've got a feast coming up called the Days of Unleavened Bread. And we can reassess as we should each day and we can get more of that out. But we are the people of God.

In contrast, in Proverbs 14 and verse 12, it says, there is a way that seems right to a man. Now, let's look at this verse a little more carefully. Proverbs 14 and 12, there is a way that seems right to a man.

You know, the church was first called the way. And that's what it is. We talk today about God's way of life. The church is the way. We are living the way. That's who we are.

And so it says, there is a way. Looks like there are two ways here. Are we going to be part of another way or the right way? We were all part of this way once.

There is a way, a way of life, a way of living that seems right. Those three words, that seems right, are the Hebrew word, yashar.

And it means correct, pleasing, just, fitting, proper, straight, level.

If I ever do anything, and I work around the house, and I'm building something, Mary always comes along and she looks, she's a builder's daughter. She looks at that, she'll look at that. I know it's going on her mind.

Is that level? I have multiple levels, believe me. I put levels on her. I have little level, and I have big... Believe you me, I'm... Yes, dear, that is level. Really? Because it doesn't quite look level.

See, there's something about level in humans. We want things right. And so, there is a way that looks, that seems level.

We like things that are fair and just. There's a way that seems just. If you look at some of the things going on in society, well, it's not fair. Or it's not just that we put God's laws into place, that we expect people to obey God's commandment.

That's not level, that's not fair. And so, there's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way. Oh, there's that way again.

That way, that broad road to destruction, Jesus talked about, its end is the way of death. That word, way in the Hebrew, means the road, the course, or the customs.

The customs. You see, society has its customs, doesn't it? It has its level. It has what looks right and seems fair to it.

So, I'd like to give you some points. Point one is, we must remain on God's way of life. Right? We are different. We're God's people. We're going to see this in Scripture. It's all through God. It's all through Scripture.

You see from Genesis, he's calling people the sons of God. You go all the way to Revelation, and you see the children of God.

And you see the family of God, all between. God is talking to his family, his people. You are one of those. Think of yourself like that.

And we must remain on God's way, his path, his way that is pleasing, just, fitting, proper, straight, and level, according to his word, according to him.

We find in Jeremiah 17, verse 7, Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord.

We don't have to go into science. We don't have to go out there and try to figure out what's happening and what might be best.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord. You know, all the festivals really require trust, don't they?

You have to trust that Christ died, that he forgives your sins, those horrible things that you repented of.

You have to trust that those are done away with. Get him out of your head. That's no longer you. It's not part of you. Get rid of it.

You are not that person. Not anymore.

You go into unleavened bread. You have to trust that Jesus Christ is who you want to model.

He's not like our carnal human nature would come up with a way of living.

You have to trust that there's a resurrection, a reward for living right.

You have to trust that you're going to come up at the most terrible time in history, at a time when humanity is trying to exterminate itself. You have to trust that through all of that, God's going to figure out where you should be, what you should be doing, how you'll be doing it, and you'll show up at the right place at the right time.

He doesn't tell you how, but he says, trust me, it's going to happen. And so on and on it goes.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose hope is in the Lord. Not in the stock market, not in gold and silver, not in, I don't know, maintaining your health or getting some status or stature. Verse 8, for this person shall be like a tree planted by the waters.

See, I wouldn't say a tree planted by the waters is necessarily a place you want to be, depends on what that river is doing. Sometimes it erodes trees and they fall in the water. But the one thing about that tree is, if it's planted by the waters, by God, the waters here is referring to His Holy Spirit, a connection with God. This tree and God are one.

And it spreads out its roots by the river. The source is God and it's sourcing God. And it will not fear when the tribulation, sorry, when the heat comes, when the trials come, when the storms and the raging winds and the floods come, it will not fear. Don't need to fear. Don't even think about it.

You're tapped into God. But its leaf will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit. We will keep building fruit even though there's a drought, a dearth of the word, a famine of the word, of the hearing of the word. Nobody wants to hear it. You know, in the church today, our biggest challenge at the Home Office is trying to get the message of God's word into people's ears. And people increasingly don't want to hear it. Less and less. It's like, well, we're chasing you on every app, every application, every medium that we can, trying to get it in ways and places people are going. They're not interested. They just don't want it. Keep canceling subscriptions. We write better and better. We produce better and better. They don't want it.

And there ultimately is coming a famine of the hearing of the word. That means none. Basically none. So we've got to realize that if we are yielding fruit, that's precious fruit to God. Precious fruit. So we need to stay attached to the vine. We need to grow on that vine. And bearing much fruit really pleases God, because there's just not much being developed in this age. So God-centered is what we are. No compromise with the world. Don't start bringing it in. Don't compromise with other religious ideas. Don't bring the sand in from the desert, as we've talked about in the past.

Don't try to match the correctness of the world.

If we go to Ephesians 2 and verse 1, we find that you and I have been made something different right now than the rest of humanity.

We need to embrace that. Ephesians 2 and verse 1.

Second word is you. And you he made alive. Not everybody. This you. Focus on how special you are in God's eyes, how special this calling, this opportunity is. Grab it, hold on to identify with it. You have been made alive, who were once dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the way, the course of this world.

The one, as we read before, that seemed right, that seemed good to us. But it was according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit which now works in the sons of disobedience. Verse 3, in whom we also once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, it's about me, desires of the flesh, about me, and of the mind, about me, and children, nature's a wrath, me, just like everybody else. But God, who was rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved, you, us, us. At this point in time, remember, this is a time for you to have an opportunity to be called and chosen and become faithful. Once he called, he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, has made us alive together with Christ. You and Christ are together. You are bonded in a covenant. You are in a marriage covenant. You are the bride-to-be. He is very excited. He's cleaning you, he's dressing you, he's getting you ready for that wonderful resurrection and that bridal event of the wedding supper. And who knows what goes on, because he doesn't tell us. You need to show up.

Verse 6, and he's raised us up together and made us to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

In his focus, you are with him. We are with him. We are one with him.

Verse 7, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us in Jesus Christ.

You're about to be revealed as the most supreme human beings that will ever enter the kingdom of God. No one else will ever be elevated like you will be. If you really embrace this, you really get serious about it. You really devote yourself to being the bride of Christ. Everyone else will come in, they'll get eternal life, but nobody will be the bride of Christ except those who enter the marriage supper.

And the annual feasts of God center on, this is our time to be called.

All are going to have a similar opportunity in their time, and that's why we have the other festivals.

So in the meantime, we need to ignore things outside. Societal comparisons, opinions, scientific conclusions, human reasoning, spiritual ignorance, other books, other things. Oh, have you read this? Have you heard this? Here's some creature, some guy wrote this. Ooh, this is kind of interesting.

Stay focused on God and His way. It's straightforward. It's straightforward. It's in His word.

Point two, let only the church of God be judgmental. Don't let anybody else out there critique what you do.

Don't let them sort of get into your head and make you think that, oh, maybe I'm not doing something because nobody else is.

Everybody else is doing something different. Other people are always trying to give me their ideas and knock mine, knock the churches.

In Colossians 2, verse 16 and 17.

Colossians 2, verse 16, So let no one judge you in food, pork, shellfish.

Well, my wife and I just came back from a whole part of this country where it's hard to find anything clean to eat.

I mean, seriously, we went to one restaurant. It was a nice restaurant.

About all we could do for dinner was to get a salad and ask them to put a piece of fish on it.

Everything else, the whole entire menu, was just stuff that God says, don't even go there.

It was tough. There were times it was very, very difficult. Let no one judge you in food or in drink. Some people say, well, you shouldn't be drinking this or that.

We're better because we don't do this or we don't do that.

Well, what does God's word say? You know what God's word says, do that.

Or regarding a festival. Well, which festival? Any festival. Maybe judging you for your festivals or judging you because you don't keep their festivals.

There's pressure on my wife and I right now because we're in a community of lovely people all around us.

Everybody's very friendly and they would like to get together and everything.

But here we come, right into the holidays. And you know what's going to happen.

Especially if they like you. You're going to be treading, not treading, you're going to be navigating some challenging walks.

Or waters.

Or a new moon.

Some say, oh, like back in their day, the church in Colossians, the Jews are saying, why aren't you keeping the new moons like we do? Well, the Bible doesn't say to, so we don't. Or Sabbath.

These are a shadow of things to come, but going on. But, or accept, let no one accept, no one judge you except the body of Christ, the church. Keep it internal. This is the only group that has the understanding.

The body of Christ in Greek is soma Christu. It's the same expression Paul uses over in 1 Corinthians 12, 27 for the church. Let no one judge you except the church.

In Colossians 2, verse 6, it says this, As you therefore have received Christ, Don't worry about other people. As you therefore have received Christ, Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. Verse 7, Rooted in Him, and built up in Him, and established in the faith, as you have been taught.

As you have been taught. You know, we in the ministry often say it's been years since anybody darkened our door wanting to be taught. People today come wanting to teach us. They come in with this or that or some tassels or some other idea and they're new and say, Oh, let me teach you. Yeah, I want to teach you guys how to change things. It used to be a few decades ago people came and they wanted to learn.

We have a tab on our website called Learn. I'm going to talk to our team about that. I just don't think that's probably a repelling term today. People don't come to learn. Maybe we should change it to explore. I doubt that tab gets tapped as often as we would like by people who are just coming there the first time. But we need to learn.

He says, verse 8, Beware, beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men. What do you have? All religions are just doing traditions.

I mean, look around you in the room. What do you see here that's of the Bible? It's traditions. Traditions of men. People will hold up, for instance, the Jews. Oh, the Jews or maybe the Jewish teachers, the rabbis, say this. Well, why don't you look in God's Word? God never had the Jews teach anything.

It's not to the Jews to teach. It's to the Levites to teach. Rabbis today aren't Levites. Look it up. So the Jews have always had these teachings down through time, but they're not the Levites, the teachers of God. Let's go over... Well, I'll just say this. In the Bible, it shows that in Hebrews 7 and verse 12, for the priesthood being changed, the Levitical priesthood was changed in the new covenant. Hebrews 7 and verse 12, for the priesthood being changed, of necessity, there is also a change in the law.

Verse 13, for he, Jesus, of whom these things are spoken, belongs to another tribe from which no man has officiated at the altar. And what does Jesus teach? Matthew 19, 17. If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments. Not the traditions. Not these funny little things and little celebrations and little lighted candles and little traditions that they have come up with. You look at the book of Esther, for instance, the word God doesn't appear in the whole book. And they have a nice tradition that has sprung out of that that is done. Or other traditions, because somebody fought off a battalion or two of the Greeks, and so they got another tradition for that.

There's a lot of traditions, but don't let anybody be judging us other than the New Covenant Church.

Point 3. God is sovereign over everything. We might get the idea that, well, this is Satan's age, so God isn't really in charge of anything. God isn't, you know, he's got to left it all to Satan. Well, God is sovereign over everything, both in heaven and on this earth. And the underlying message of end-time prophecy is that God always has been. And he may take hands off for a while just to let humanity run its course, that he knows it will under Satan's inspiration, influence, I would say, influence. But at the seventh trump comes a news flash to humanity, and that is, your theory of evolution is a hundred percent false. Right at the seventh trumpet we read in Revelation 14 and verse 7, the angel goes around the world and says to every living person, worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water. That's how the Bible begins. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

We find that in Psalm 24 and verse 1, this earth has always belonged to the Creator. He's its sustainer. Everything isn't just out there staying alive and the animals functioning by themselves. He sustains life. Psalm 24, 1, the earth is the Lord's and all of its fullness. The world and those who dwell therein. See, even the people are God's. Verse 2, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters. You know, when you look at the end of the Bible, this goes all the way through the Bible. When you go to the end of the Bible, what do we see? Revelation 21, I saw a new heaven, new heavens and a new earth. In verse 5, Revelation 21, then he who sat on the throne says, Behold, I make all things new. And he said to me, write, for these words are true and faithful. God is the creator of everything. He is the sovereign ruler of all things. And in our just completing the observance of seven annual festivals, we just anchored ourselves to God and Jesus Christ. We just anchored ourselves. We rehearsed their plan of God's offering eternal life to all humanity if they wanted.

Point 4. God teaches us all that we need. Now, humanity always loves to add stuff. In the New Testament church, there was the Gnostic ideas. It's almost like a version. Well, today's Mormon teaching is very Gnostic. And it's not just the here and now. There's this mystical, you used to be in the heavenly realm, in which you have to take a turn on earth. And so you sort of drifted down here, and the various elements influenced you in your horoscope where the planets were aligned, and you got this personality. You've got to spend some time here. You've got to help other people get down here, too. So I have a bunch of kids, and at the end, you'll have passed through this phase, and you'll go back, and you'll do some more. That's just Gnosticism. Plain and simple. But humanity is always looking for a little more, a little more. We could even get into that sometimes with prophecies. Well, if I could just understand a little more prophecy, if I could just glimpse it, just a little more understanding, I'll somehow be higher than others. Paul addressed that in 1 Corinthians 13. Though I have the gift of prophecy to understand all mysteries, but I haven't developed agape love. I haven't developed that holy, righteous character of God. I am nothing. So the point is, God teaches us all that we need. Keep the observances that God commands in the Bible, and only those. In Deuteronomy 12, in verse 32, notice these words. Deuteronomy 12, verse 32, God says, Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it. You shall not add to it or take away from it. Again, this is the point that God teaches us all that we need. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, that the man of God may be complete. It's right there in the Word of God. It's right there in the Bible. Don't fall for other things. What are we to do? What are all the things that God wants us to do? There's a good synopsis in Ecclesiastes 12, verses 13 and 14. You want to just sort of boil it all down. Jesus boiled it all down. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments. Elsewhere he said, Here's all the commandments. Love God with your heart, soul, and might. Love your neighbor as yourself. Here's another encapsulation in Ecclesiastes 12, verse 13. Breaking into the verse, verse 13, Fear God and keep His commandments. So that word fear, as I've covered before, has two meanings. Pick your meaning. You can pick either one you want. You can fear God, just be in terror because of what God's going to do to you. Or you can revere God. Your choice. Depends on how you live your life. But if you revere God and keep His commandments, that's what He wants. That's revere God. It's being reverent. It's worshiping. It's acknowledging. It's thanking God. It's looking at Him as wonderful and holy.

So revere God and keep His commandments, for this is man's all.

For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. So that kind of wraps up Scripture, doesn't it? You can just work your way through all the Bible, backward and forth. And there it is, in two sentences.

When we go to Hebrews 10 and verse 21, we find that our relationship within the kingdom of God, and I say, you know, we're not in the kingdom, we're not spirit beings in the divine kingdom of the realm, but the kingdom of God, you just saw, extends to earth in all the fullness thereof and all the people. In other words, that rulership of God, Jesus Christ is our King and our ruler.

It says here in Hebrews 12 and verse 21, and having a high priest, Jesus Christ, over the house of God.

You and I are the house of God, the spiritual temple of God. You are a living stone built in that temple. See yourself as that. Don't leave the temple and go somewhere else with your stone. Don't get corrupted into some other building. No! We have a high priest over the house of God. Verse 22, Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith and trust in God, having our hearts sprinkled, cleansed from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. When you are baptized, all your past sins are forgiven. Since then, every time you repent, you're striving to change, they're all gone. What do you think God sees you as? He sees you as righteous and holy, just and good. That's who you are. You have His Holy Spirit. So you are holy. You are godly.

Verse 23, Let us hold fast. That means grab onto it. Hold fast our confession of our hope without wavering. You will be in the kingdom of God as much as God can make that happen. You do have a responsibility to it, but God is doing everything He can. So hold fast the confession of your hope. What is that? I'm going to be in God's kingdom. I am a son or daughter of God. I am a member of the bride of Christ now.

And do it without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. It's going to happen. Unless you decide to abort, run away, that's not going to happen.

Verse 24, These pressures are mounting on us. And so, let us consider one another. We can't do this alone. We need each other. The pressures from the outside are strengthening. And we don't need to be part of those, but we need to be part of us, don't we? We need to be part of the house of God. We need to be a living stone, loving and compassionate.

Let us consider one another in order to stir up agape and good works. Stir up that mindset of the God family, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, because these are commanded assemblies. They're not options. God, Jesus Christ as our Lord, has summoned you and me to attend every Sabbath and every Holy Day. And we have a lady here who sets us an incredible example. She is over 101 years old, and she is here, every Sabbath she can be. This year at the feast, we had a lady, I think she's 98, from the South. She came with her walker, and she's been over, and she was there at the feast. You can think of a hundred reasons not to be at the feast. I could think of a hundred reasons not to go to the picnic on the beach. Like, why do I need to go to the beach? I mean, sunny, hot, sandy. Mary, do you want to go? I don't know. Do we want to go to the beach? I don't know. Well, God's people are going to be there. Let's go. We go. Guess who's on the beach? Walker. Walking along. I want to put my feet in the water and feel the waves. Wow! She blew me away. Of course she wanted to be there. So, we exhort one another, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another. And so much more as you see the day approaching. We need each other more and more, and we're going to need each other more and more.

Very encouraging. Very encouraging.

Satan is doing something else outside. In 2 Corinthians 4, verse 4, it says, "'Whose minds the God of this age has blinded.'" See, there's a stark, stark line between those who have God's Spirit, those who are in the body, those who are in the temple, and those who the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe.

They can't see that Halloween's bad. You just don't get it. It's like, really? They don't care. They know that these things are... They know Christmas is pagan. They publish it every year in the newspaper. It's kind of an interesting little tidbit. Even religions talk about it. No, that's all right. So what?

They have this satanic, demonic Halloween. They have this Bacchus festival of New Year's, sexual promiscuity portrayed by Ishtar. And then they proclaim heaven to the observers.

Hmm. And it works! Wow! Somehow it works.

Point five. Stand fast and be anchored in Christ.

The takeaway from all the feasts is this. Psalm 24 and verse 3. We've heard that... we've already read that God is going to hold us accountable for every action, every thought, whether good or bad. So God just has to make a judgment. But as we are forgiven of those, they're a race. No longer part of the record. If you were to go to heaven right now and look at your file, guess what you'd find in your file?

Only the last thing since you repented. That's all that would be there. God puts our sins as far away as east is from west. We are clean. That bride... she's spotless! She's doing righteous acts. She's honored and glorified.

So in Psalm 24 verse 3, who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Who's going to ascend to the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in His holy place?

He who has clean hands and a pure heart.

Do you have clean hands and a pure heart? Of course you do. Do you have other things wanting to get in there? Of course you do. I mean, don't think for a minute that we're not here growing and overcoming. But God is really pleased. Just like we have a little child, maybe we're a baby, and they're learning to walk. And the child falls down. I was watching someone the other day, and they're on a bicycle. A little bicycle. It didn't have training wheels. And his kid crashes, gets up. Mommy, I fell. Yeah, good. She says, good. That's great. Do it again. And he writes crashes. Mommy, I fell. Perfect. No, you're doing great. That's what you expect at that age. You expect it. Who has not lifted up his life to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully to get something? Verse 5, He shall receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. That's how God sees you. Let's pick it up mentally. Let's get rid of some of the cobwebs. Let's get rid of some of the dirt that we carry around and see ourselves as the true children of God. In Hebrews, as we begin to wrap this up, let's look at three more scriptures. There are two more scriptures. Hebrews 6 and verse 19. We look at God's kingdom and we look at the plan of salvation that we've just rehearsed. And we're going to come back next week and celebrate again. This hope, it says in verse 19, this hope we have as an anchor of our life, it says of our soul. It's the anchor of our life, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the presence behind the veil. We go right to our Father in heaven, right to the throne, the presence behind the veil, where the forerunner, Jesus Christ, has entered for us, even Jesus, having become high priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. That's who you are. That's your Father. That's your family. In 1 John 5, verses 19 and 20, this is what we need to internalize as we go forward into these feast-less months. Well, they're not really because we have a Sabbath every week, don't we? But until the annual festivals, that half a year of annual festivals begin again, let's go forward with this. 1 John 5, verse 19, we know that we are of God. Now notice the line drawn by the comma.

We know that we are of God, comma, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. It's a clear delineation. We're not of that. Don't go there. Come out of that.

And we know, verse 20, that the Son of Man has come and has given us an understanding that we may know Him who is true, and we are in Him who is true. Give some time to what it means to be in Jesus Christ and one with them, and have them dwelling in us, and dwelling, us dwelling in them. Give some thought to that. Try to wrap your mind around what that means.

Think about a relationship that you have that is strengthened and strong. It's done by communication. It's done by a relationship. It's not done by a bunch of little deeds only. It's done in a relationship of reciprocating, just like in a marriage or a good friendship.

We are in Him who is true, in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. You and I are attached to it. We are anchored to it. We are part of it. So, in conclusion, remember what you just learned at the Feast. What you rehearsed.

Be convicted. Convicted. Take it to a new level. Be strong in it. Someone asked where you went. Don't say you attended a convention. I attended the Feast of Tabernacles. What you think about that is irrelevant. Right? Okay. Live your faith from Scripture and relegate society's opinion of you and about you to the trash. It's all it is. It's just garbage.

In conclusion, let's go to 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 9.

No matter how smart people are, no matter how great society's minds are, or civilization's architects that are trying to take it in a certain direction, or the geniuses of science and anthropology that think things originated or headed a certain way, they cannot yet see salvation. They cannot yet see God's road, the path. And I use the word, yet. Because it's coming for them. Now is not the time. This is your time. 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 9. Let's wrap this up. But as it is written, eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. They can't see it now. Verse 10. But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit teaches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. They can't understand Him. Don't even need to go there. So, verse 12. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things which have been freely given to us by God. Shown in the festivals, shown in the weekly Sabbath, shown in the Scripture. Verse 13. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. We're in a different box, a different category. We're talking about spiritual things, things related to God, the mindset of God, the kingdom of God, the family of God. That's where we live, mentally. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for their foolishness to Him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. Don't need to go there. Don't need to argue. Don't need to try to convince. Certainly not be dissuaded from what you know to be true. So, brethren, let's go forward. Let's reject society's opinions of you, the godless customs that other people have, or the self-appointed things that they feel make them better in some way. You are a son or a daughter in the family of God. You are a betrothed member of the Bride of Christ. And you are a living stone in His temple. Congratulations. Let's go forward.