Are You Living God's Word?

When you hear the term Bible study and studying your Bible, it sounds like a really in-depth event. A picture of maybe a scholar with books piled around, and maybe you hope that those who are teaching you have lots of books to go with that Bible commentaries and various other compendiums and whatever, lexicons. Perhaps Bible study conjures up in the mind a better understanding of God's Word through utilizing other sources to really mine and get the real grasp of what God is saying in every passage in the Bible. While that may be a reasonable definition of Bible study, it's certainly incomplete. No matter how much we learn of this Bible, the learning itself is incomplete, woefully inadequate for what we have been called to do. Bible study should equip us with the knowledge and the understanding by applying it to actually live the Word of God. Today's feast is a very special event. It celebrates the coming victorious transformation of those who have lived God's Word into the very divine children of the Son of God. It's a special event, but it's only for those who are living, effectively living, the Word of God. It's not just those who studied it, those who knew it, those who maybe appreciated it. But when you and I think of ourselves in the church with the truth and we understand the Bible, we're not like those who are blinded. The question then comes, what are we doing with that truth? What are we doing with that Word of God? I'd like to notice a few things about the special event today. One comes from Exodus 23, verse 16, where it says, God called this the Feast of Harvest, the first fruits of your labors. When you dwell on that and you think about it for a minute, it's the Feast of Harvest, the first fruit of our labors. In other words, this is a type, something that we participate in physically so that we can understand a principle that's spiritual. It's a first fruit of your labors harvest festival, which is symbolizing another farmer, a spiritual farmer, who has a crop of first fruits that he is going to harvest.

We hear about that crop in 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 20, where it says, Oh, there's more! It wasn't just Christ as the first fruits and that's it. No, he's the first fruits of somebody called those, those who have fallen asleep. And verse 23, Now, he comes at the seventh trumpet.

And so we begin to see this harvest that we are celebrating now, pictures of spiritual harvest of those who are Christ at the seventh trumpet.

Paul talks in the 15th chapter that the seventh trumpet will sound and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we go over to Revelation chapter 14 in verse 1.

And we find that, as Paul said, Christ the first fruits and afterward those who are His at His coming, we go look at the coming in Revelation 14, verse 1. Then I looked after the seventh trumpet was blown.

Then I looked and behold a lamb standing on Mount Zion. He had come and He now stood on Mount Zion. And with Him, 144,000, the those are standing with Him.

We've identified who those are.

Those, having His Father's name written on their foreheads. Verse 4 at the end of the verse, These were redeemed from among men, being first fruits to God and to the Lamb.

Yes, we are picturing the first fruit of our labors. These are the first fruit of His labors, of what He is doing now, the work that God and Jesus Christ have been doing. This will be the first fruits of their labors. This feast is picturing the harvest of the farmer who now awaits the precious fruit of the earth.

It pictures an ultimate destiny for humans, a destiny that is greater than anything we can imagine. And thus, God doesn't even really describe it for us in the Scripture. It is not seen, or ear heard, nor entered into the hearts of man what God has for those who He has called. But then it goes on to say, well, He's put it in our minds to a degree. He's opened our minds to a degree. But then in Revelation 20, in verse 4 and 6, the angel says, Oh, how supremely blessed are those who have a part in the first resurrection. Wow! This is over and above what even the angels are imagining. The actual revealing of the sons of God, the children of the divine family at that family level.

But wait! There's more! Mr. Armstrong always used to say on the Feast of Pentecost, when I was around him, in some years, he'd say, you know, the important thing about the Feast of Pentecost is it's the little harvest! It's just the small harvest! It's really, really small! What's really important to God is the big harvest later.

The first harvest is important because the bride helps Christ with the second great harvest. It's a necessary harvest. It's an important harvest. It's really something that God is expectations and very excited about. Because these are workers. These are giving, serving, sacrificing people who have become Christ-like, who have begun to internalize the Word and with the Holy Spirit. They're utilizing it and they're turning into real little people of the mindset of the family of God that can be elevated.

And they're excited about that. But the whole idea is for more work to serve and to help others come into the family of God as well. In James 5 and 7, James alludes to this harvest from God's perspective, where he says, therefore, be patient or more correctly, persevere, brethren. We need to persevere.

There can be some patience, but we're not just waiting around for the event of the seventh trumpet to blow. We need to persevere. In other words, Jesus said, endure to the end, and growing, and watching our spiritual state, and overcoming what this period of time from the days of Unleavened Bread of putting sin out of our life, but then putting the righteousness of God and Him living through us, and the bread of life, and internalizing that, and each of us becoming bright lights and examples, and growing in righteousness.

Doing that for this period represents our life, and then today, now it's time for the rewards. Now it's time for the harvest. And so James 5 and 7 says, therefore, be patient or persevere, brethren, until the coming of the Lord, that seventh trumpet. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth. That's how God sees you and me. Potentially precious fruit. Eating patiently for it until it receives the early and the latter rain.

We're receiving the early rain, and then we're going to help a greater harvest that receives the latter rain. Now remember Jesus Christ gave the parable of the sower and the soil. So, you have been sown as seed, and he is watering that seed with his Holy Spirit. What are you doing with that seed? What kind of soil are you on? What kind of fruit are you producing for the kingdom? What kind of fruit are you producing for this harvest that's coming up that God is so expectations about? You might ask the question, how's your barley stock growing? We need to look at our barley stock.

We need to pay attention to our barley stock. We need to take stock. We need to watch it. We need to examine it. We need to feed it, dig and dung it. We need to grow and produce some five-fold, some ten-fold.

He's looking for a head of barley that's fat with little pieces of grain. Lots and lots and lots of grain. That's what God is looking for. It's up to each one of us as to what actually happens. You know the various types of seed, or various types of results of seed that fell on various types of ground. Some of it was what the farmer was wanting and is wanting, and some of it isn't. But that's our individual responsibility.

So rather than just understanding the word, we can all come to a very good understanding of the word, and we can start maybe comparing. I think I know the word better than you know the word. No, I know the word better than you do. We can all have little word comparisons. Well, none of that is very effective, is it? Because it's not about what you know. It's about what you do with what you know. Same for me. And so when I look in the Word of God, and I hope you do too, I hope we see it as like a two-edged sword that rightly divides ourselves up and slices and dices and lays us out on the table and opens up every joint and every marrow and exposes, Ah!

There's some rot in the vine. We need to clean this out. There's some sin. There's some crumbs here and there. Look pretty good on the outside, but inside there were some things that were pretty stinky. And as we do that and as we work throughout our life and apply this word, then we're growing by it.

We're growing how? We're growing away from the mind of selfishness and Satan and towards the mindset of the family of God. And that pleases God very, very much. Rather than just Bible study, we ought to be people of Bible living, living the Bible. We should be encouraged and encouraging others to spur each one on more and more, even more as we see the day approaching, to encourage one another to stir up ourselves for living this word.

Today, let's examine some pertinent directives from God about this festival that will prepare us for what this feast is about and prepare us for the day that that harvest will take place. Historically, the Church of God has always been very good at producing truth. You can walk through the New Testament accounts. You can walk through the journals of Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong. You can walk through the literature of the Radio Church of God and then the Worldwide Church of God.

And back during those days, we always said, it's great to know the truth. It's great to have the truth. You know, other people have their eyes closed, but we have the truth. We named our magazine The Plain Truth. We're all about truth. You could read here, there, and everywhere how more accurate we were in our understanding given by God. And now as we come down in the United Church of God, we get accolades.

Whenever people bump into our literature and say, wow, your literature is some of the best that exists as far as preaching and teaching the truth. However, that's knowledge. What do you do with spiritual knowledge? What am I doing with spiritual knowledge? Are we piling up this truth in stacks and do we have it all categorized? And are we just proud of ourselves because we have the truth? Is it about that? There's an interesting scripture in 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 21. It says, Prove all things, hold fast to that which is good. Hmm. Well, let me think about that for a minute. Prove? The word means to test by doing.

So it's not just proving, well, okay, let's check this, let's check that. Yeah, I proved it and it's right. It's not what it's saying. The Greek here means to test by doing, to try it out, to put to use, to experience firsthand. We are to test, try out, experience, live the Word of God, and hold fast to that which is good.

All of the Word of God is good. We're to hold fast to it, not let it go. Not let society get us to compromise, not water down, as most of our brothers and sisters in the faith have done and gone years ago. Remember, we represent probably a tenth of what there used to be 20, 25 years ago. And Satan is more voracious now against those of us that remain.

We've got to hold fast to that which is good. The Festival of Harvest, also called Pentecost, in the Greek meaning 50th, or about counting 50, this faith has long been associated with law on the one hand and the Holy Spirit on the other. If you think of these together, the law, as was given on Mount Sinai, especially the Ten Commandments that God wrote down, the people got the law, they got the truth, but they didn't want to hear it. And then later, in Acts 2, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the faithful, they were not only able to understand it, but they began to live it and it transformed them.

You look at the life of Peter, just days before, in Petrus Peter, verses on the first Pentecost. You look at Paul, or Saul, persecuting the church, verses just a couple of years later, after he's trained by Christ and let loose, he becomes a totally changed and different individual. But these weren't just individuals who received the truth, it transformed them because they lived the truth. They became examples of this way of life, imperfect, just as you and I are, but nevertheless, examples.

So the law is important, whether it was given on Sinai, on that first festival of harvest recorded in Exodus, or not, we don't know, the Bible doesn't say that, but there's Jewish tradition that it was given on that day. It seems to fit well enough. And the Holy Spirit, whether it was first given, or whether it was just poured out in great volume on the Pentecost, nevertheless, these two went together.

And the result was, Acts chapter 3, repent. Repent! And people repented, and they were baptized, and they received the Holy Spirit. And what did that do? That enabled them to begin to put sin out of their lives. By the time you get to Romans 6, you begin to find that you can be buried with Christ and walk a new way of life. And this new way of life, then, as Paul exemplified, becomes a race, it becomes a battle, it becomes a war. It's something you wrestle with your whole life, and in the end, you are considered righteous in God's eyes.

Through Jesus Christ washing us, and through our showing our great desire to embrace godliness and reject Satan's mindset. And so God is very gracious in the end, and we certainly don't earn anything ourselves. But it's rewarded or awarded to those who are really actively living the Word of God.

When we look at John 14 and verse 23, Jesus himself said, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. He won't just know my word. He won't just say, oh, that's wonderful. No, he will keep. The word there means to observe. It means to do. So if we love God, first great commandment, we will keep this word. We will live it. Going on. If we keep his word, he goes on, and my father will love him. Sounds kind of conditional, doesn't it? A lot of people say God's love is just unconditional, and you're going to go to heaven no matter what, and just goof off and do whatever you want to do, and you're going to get what you want. Wow, Jesus uses a lot of ifs and things. If you love me, if you do that, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word. He'll live it. My father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. One follows on to another. So now they're living in a home where they're well received, this temple of the Holy Spirit. They're going to dwell in us, in part, through the Holy Spirit, and what's the result going to be? Living the Word, eating the bread, living the Logos, Jesus Christ, and the written Word. And this forms a dynamic family relationship that goes towards what Jesus prayed in John 17 about God and Christ being one with us, and us being one with them, that unified mindset. That's the ultimate goal that we grow towards, and then ultimately it does happen once the resurrection takes place and the firstfruits are united with the first first fruit, Jesus Christ.

There's a commission to the ministry in Matthew 28. I'd like to notice from God's perspective what that commission is about. Matthew 28 and verse 20. Let's just look at it straight from the Bible and see what the purpose, the end result of God's commission to the church is. What is God looking for? We know from Mark 16 that we're to go into the world, preach the Gospel unto every creature. In verse 19, go therefore, in Matthew 28 and 19, the preface is, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.

What does God want? He wants disciples. Disciples, using a modern term that is inaccurate, are clones of the master teacher. They're discipled. They're not just taught. They are discipled. They have been mentored. They are mentees who have learned to become like the teacher.

When you see a disciple, you'll recognize the teacher. If you love like I've loved you, they will recognize that you are my disciples. They'll see the teacher in you. So he says, you now have been discipled by me. You have been mentored by me. You now go and make disciples of others in all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Why? So they can grow and live this. Notice verse 20. Teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you. That is what God wants for the commission of the church. He's looking for fruit for the first fruit's harvest. That is his goal. That goal is accomplished, we read in Revelation, because in all nations, tribes and tongues, there are individuals who are part of the First Resurrection, who stand before the throne of God. So it will take place. It does take place. But from God's view here, he wants people who observe all things I have commanded you. That's what he wants from you and me. People who observe. In other words, live the Word of God. It's a combination of understanding the commandments, coupled with God helping us live the commandments. We have the helper. He becomes our helper to keep those. In 1 John 3 and verse 24, when you get to the end of the New Testament, what happens is the opposite of what happened at the beginning. When it started out at the beginning, the church grew by leaps and bounds, and everybody was with one accord. By the end of the New Testament, you have the reserve, the reverse. You have the unraveling of the church. Many false teachers, Peter said, have left and gone out. Many have left and gone out. You had the Gnostics taking people out. You had people with the notion of Judaism taking people out. You had people coming on and using the words of Paul and trying to take away God's Word and replace it with something else.

Replacing it with lawlessness and saying that that was okay. Then you have Peter and James and John and Jude screaming out and crying out and saying, you know, we've got to stop. Even Paul was telling Titus and Timothy, you've got to have people stop this nonsense. You have to reject divisive people. By the time we get to 1 John here, John is probably writing on the island of Patmos in about 90 AD. I'm not 100% sure on that, but that's when he was writing Revelation. And this is later on. So what we have here in 1 John 3, 24, he is explaining now, he who keeps his commandments, not knows them, not hangs them on the wall, not reads them. He who keeps the commandments. You know, sometimes we have problems keeping the commandments, even though we are the people who have the most accurate treasury of spiritual knowledge. And you say, well, what's he talking about? Well, let me just talk about me for a minute. Or let's talk about you for a minute. That which we say we do, we don't always do. You know, the first commandment, have nothing before the true God. Sometimes we put our career before the true God. We put activities before the true God. We put on the Sabbath day our own thoughts before the true God, and things come out of our mouth. On days of the week, we'll run off and maybe give God five minutes before we go to bed. See, what are we putting before the true God? It might be another person we put before the true God. There are many things, if we really examine ourselves and let this word open us up, that we really need to recognize, even with commandment number one. Let alone other symbols, the looseness by which we might say the word, and whatever follows that typically is using God, a name of God, a word that begins with a consonant that would represent Christ or Jesus or God, something with a gah, kah, kah, you know. It would be some slur, something that comes out, especially if you say, oh my, and it could be something in heaven on earth or an individual or some slang name or something that slightly resembles it. And there we go, just the people of God with the word, slashing the third commandment. Because, you see, that's what society does, and everybody does it, and it kind of enters the brain. And then we roll into the Sabbath, and the Sabbath, once again, we, oh yes, we keep the Sabbath. Oh, we all keep the Sabbath, do we? I don't think so. We might keep the Sabbath, but that's not what the Bible commands us to do. Jesus said, or I should say, the God of the Old Testament who became Jesus said, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Do you and I keep it holy? Hmm, there is that one word, isn't there? Keeping something holy that God is in that is precious and holy because He is there, and He tells us not to put our foot on, we should take our shoes off because He's in it. It's something we don't always even recognize, begins. Take a group this size and watch the sun set and see if anybody even knows that the sun is set. We often don't. We're here, there, everywhere, talking about things, doing things, and we kind of blunder in and blunder out of it. Honoring our father and mother, the spirit of murder, or not loving your brother, or having something there. What's our favorite form of entertainment on the planet? Oh, that would be murder, followed by the next one, adultery. But we're okay with that. I mean, it is a... well, I don't really testify to murder. I don't like that. But it's a crime movie. It's about crime, solving crime, which is about always murder and thievery, and it's about this. Well, I don't go to hear that. I don't go to hear the profanity and see this and that.

What about Satan? What about the demons? So much entertainment now is about demonism, spiritism, the spirit world, with magicians and witches. And we kind of pat ourselves on the head and give ourselves a pass. And, you know, what are we doing? What are we doing? So right here, he says, he who keeps his commandments abides in Christ and Christ in him. There's a condition. Christ doesn't abide in me if I don't keep his commandments, going by these passages. And by this, by what? By keeping his commandments, by this we know that he abides in us by the spirit which he has given us.

The spirit is not a he, it's not a she, it's not an individual. And I hope that those who are preaching and teaching will learn to transcribe those words when you come to some of these passages. Because in some languages there's no it, there's no nude or gender. You know, in Spanish, for instance, your maquina, your car, has an A at the end, therefore it's female. We all drive female cars. You might not have known that. Your house, your casa, ends in an A, so it's female. Your toro has an O at the end, so it's male. And so on and so forth. Well, maybe in the translations, though it's argued, the translations may call the spirit a he or himself or whatever, but it's not. And I'm just telling you, the spirit which God has given us. Chapter 4 and verse 1, Beloved, do not believe every spirit. Ooh. Here we're talking about a feast day where God's Holy Spirit is very present and very enabling for us to obey. And yet He says, don't believe every spirit, but test the spirit. You know, there's a lot of teaching that goes on within the church, and Jesus said the church will be filled with false teachers. We should be able to know that by testing. How do you test a spirit? Well, is the spirit encouraging you to do and keep the law? Or telling you, oh, you don't really need to keep the law. You don't need to struggle so hard. You know, just grab a bucket of grace and pour it over your head. You know, go do what you want, and you'll be fine. Well, you have to watch these spirits, because He says, test them whether they are of God, because many false prophets, false teachers, have gone out into the world. Who's gone out into the world? False teachers. Why did they go out into the world? Why did they leave? Well, if we look in 1 John 2, verse 19, He says, they went out from us, so they were in the church. They went out from us, but they were not of us. Of us. That's how you test the spirits. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made known or manifest, that none of them were of us. Verse 20, but you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. Yes, we know. We're set up to do, and now it's our responsibility to do. Developing God's holy, righteous character is the ultimate Bible application. If you want a Bible app, applying the Bible in your life and developing that nature of God, that's a challenge. That's very difficult to do. But it's got a wonderful payoff. Oh, how supremely blessed are those who rise and meet Christ in the air.

They're children of the family of God. Wow, that is great. You know that scripture study to show yourself approved? That's a King James Version translation. Let's read it in the New King James Version in 2 Timothy 2.15. 2 Timothy 2.15 reads this way. Instead of study, it says correctly, Be diligent to present yourselves approved to God a worker. Hmm. We are called to be workers. We are called to be doers. We are called to join Christ in work, to be agents of service and serving. A worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Now, he's saying this to a minister. Not everybody can rightly divide the word of truth because if you look in various parts of the Bible, you'll find that that's a role that Jesus Christ ascribes to the true ministry, and he will inspire at that level what he will not on other levels. But moving on, verse 19, That's the work. Departing from iniquity is putting on righteousness. It's repenting. That's our goal, is to become more godly, more Christ-like. So Bible study is to move us to those who are his and those who are departing from iniquity. And we should internalize this Bible. We should let it speak to us very, very personally. Now, I'll share with you a concept. I could give you a handout on this, but I'll perhaps do it another time. We need to understand who we are. There are two fathers of the faithful, and there are two Jesus Christs in the Bible. And we've got to understand which one we're from. They both came from Ur, the fathers of the faithful did. One was named Abram. God had his father take him out, moved to Haran, eventually took him down, gave him the land of Canaan as a promise. His followers haven't been that faithful always, but you and I are in that lineage, and we are being faithful. And he is the father of the spiritually faithful, those who are led by the Holy Spirit and are growing.

And when the end comes, we will stand with Christ on the Mount of Olives. Now, on the other side, you have a father of the faithful named Nimrud. He also came from Ur. And he set himself up as a god and his wife as a goddess, and they had a child. And if you came down through time, you have Babel and then Babylon, and the increasing of this mother, child, son, god, down through Greece and into Rome.

You have these powerful Roman figures. And all during this parallel, the one is killing the other, and it's attacking the other. And it's drawing God's Israelites into bondage and slavery, and then it's killing the prophets. And when you get to Jesus Christ time, they kill Jesus Christ, the Romans do. They then kill the apostles one after the other, except for John.

They then go after anything that looks Christian in the Colosseums and attack that. Then around 300 AD, they flip, grab the name officially of Jesus Christ, and name their religion Christianity, and continue killing the church and persecuting the church right down to the end time. When you get to the Great Tribulation, this Christianity develops a Jesus Christ.

Jesus said, they'll come in my name, declaring that I'm the Christ. And you have this one standing in the temple declaring himself as God, and what's the first thing he does? He says, you must worship me. He's called the man of lawlessness, the man of sin, or I will kill you. The church is decimated by this individual. The power of the holy people are completely shattered. The truth, there's a famine of the Word that takes place for three and a half years.

Those who don't go to the place of safety, Satan goes after them. We see an innumerable multitude that are killed and give their lives during that time. And this Christ, this Jesus, and his Christianity continue to murder right until the very end. And where does it end up? This fake Jesus gets all the armies of the world to join the Christian movement to fight the Jesus that comes from heaven with you and me.

And our Christ throws their Christ in the lake of fire, and that's the last event of the Book of Revelation in chapter 19. We've got to understand who we're related to and not be deceived across the lines by the names, by the books, by the emotions, by this or that. It's not that we just keep a different day. And you could go into great detail in all of this throughout the Bible. There are two lineages in this small persecuted church of Jesus Christ, ultimately will be successful with those who endure to the end, who do not buy in or receive the mark of the beast or join in with that false prophet as Jesus Christ names Christianity as Babylon the Great Mother of Harlots.

We have to understand what we're doing and who we are, a worker of God. In 1 John chapter 1 and verse 5 and 6, John pleads with the church. This is one of the final writings in the Bible, as I understand it, as we get down to the end of the Bible. 1 John 1 verse 5, he pleads with the church, I plead with you, lady, he says, I plead with you, ten virgins, he might have said. Not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning. This lineage goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden, from the very beginning, that we love one another.

Put it more clearly, that we agape God's mindset, one another. That we are transformed in our thinking to something that is powerfully miraculous from God living in us, which is His very mindset. Verse 6, this is agape, this is the mindset of the God family, that we walk according to His commandments. Notice the motion, that we walk.

We're on a journey out of our Egypt, we're on a journey to the Promised Land, we're on a journey from the old man to the new man, the old woman to the new man, and that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment that you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it. The harvest is coming. You know, Jesus gives lots of parables and lots of warnings about what's going to happen when that harvest comes.

When that trumpet blows, everyone's going to receive the rewards for the way they've lived their life.

How can we walk in God's commandments?

Paul talks about a path. He talks about a race. Jesus talked about a path. The Bible talks of the way. In fact, the way was the first name of the church in the New Testament. It was called the way. It was like the road, the highway, the way, the path, because that's the way people were living.

Hebrews 6, verses 1-8 talk about six doctrines of the church, six basic doctrines. Faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Spirit, being given eternal life or eternal judgment, eternal death, as it were.

When we go to Hebrews 10, a little bit further into Hebrews, and Hebrews 10, verses 15-18. Hebrews 10, 15. But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us, for after it had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, said the Lord. Notice it's not in that day. It's not in the day of the millennium. It's not in the day of the second resurrection. It's not in the day that Christ died. It's after those days. I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them. And he adds, their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. This takes place after those days of your life where you have lived carnally, where you have gone your own path, and God calls you, and he illuminates in you that you are sinning and that you repent. And then if you receive God's Holy Spirit after baptism, after making a covenant contract with him, that you will spend the rest of your life becoming godly and putting away sin, then their sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more. Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.

Having brethren boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he consecrated for us through the veil that is his flesh.

Matthew Henry's commentary is a very carnal Protestant commentary from long ago. But notice what even Matthew Henry could see about what Paul says in Hebrews. He says, God once wrote his laws to his people. Now he will write his laws in them. He will give them understanding to know and to believe his laws. He will give them memories to retain them. He will give them hearts to love them, courage to profess them, and power to put them into practice.

See, this day isn't just about the spirit and understanding or just having the law, putting them into practice. And he goes on, this is the foundation of the covenant. And when this is laid, duty will be done wisely, sincerely, readily, resolutely, constantly. People will do this. Of course, he himself didn't do it. Most people just say, oh, it's all done away with you. You don't have to do anything. I think it's interesting that he even said that. In Hebrews 10, verse 22, going on, Let us consider one another to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another.

And so much more, as you see the day approaching, the day is the day of the seventh trumpet, the day when the first fruits harvest will be reaped by God. What an exciting time that is. That's the process enabling us to know, to walk, to do. But do I do, or do I just know? You know, we can take a lot of comfort in just knowing, especially if you know prophecy. Now you're, you know, you're head and shoulders above the rest if you know prophecy.

And if you know a few other little tidbits, then, you know, you're even higher on the chain. We feel that. Or if you have this many booklets piled in your house of truth, you know, I know, and I feel comforted, confident about that. Well, there's some things that we need to assess. Verse 26, notice, for if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. Oops! Wow! It was going along real well there. And then if we sin willfully, that's it.

That's it, folks. Wow! No longer a sacrifice, verse 27, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and a fire indignation which will devour the adversaries. This is serious stuff with God. When Jesus Christ talks about the harvest coming in and the wheat and the barley are piled up and then the winnowing fan takes the chaff away and the chaff is burned, I don't want to be there. I don't want one of you or anybody that has the opportunity to be part of this first-fruits harvest to be there.

So let's dig in and let's be livers of the truth, not liver organs, but livers, people who live the truth. Jesus in John 6, 63 said that His words are spirit and they are life. We eat them, we live by them, and they will result in life. He talks about eating in verse 48 through 51, eating Himself, His flesh as it were, not literally of His body, but that of what He was and what He is, consuming that and the written Word and internalizing that.

You see, this is God's laws, His mindset, His plan of salvation. It's everything. Through faith and repentance and through Him washing us and Him forgiving us, they want to give us the gift of sonship within the family. If we simply know, and here, however, we build our house on sand. We'll see that in a minute. Now, I'll give you a little comparison here. It's not a good comparison, okay? I know that already, but it's the best one I could come up with. There is a speedboat called an XR 1800, and it's dubbed as the world's fastest, most powerful twin-engine jet runabout.

It comes with a manual, an operations manual. It tells you how to operate the boat. It comes with another manual called a maintenance and repair manual. It tells you how to maintain the boat.

It actually has a third manual. It's a small manual. It's the warnings about what will happen to passengers in the boat or people outside the boat if you do or don't do certain things. It's quite a boat, all right? And so it has these manuals.

It's a boat that an individual and Chandler here, a family, bought back in 2001, the last year of its manufacture. It was only manufactured two years. And this family really enjoyed the boat. This boat will do 100 km an hour, plain out on the water in 3.4 seconds.

This boat has some interesting abilities. At full speed, under full power, the boat can be spun, as it were, turned very, very sharply. And there are warnings about people being ejected in that particular situation, though the boat is built to try to contain them and keep them in.

The XR-1800 is a great boat. The family enjoyed it, but they never read the manuals. They just went out and did what they wanted to do and had their fun. And over time, in about five years, the boat developed some leaks.

The gas tank filled up with 21 gallons of water, rainwater. One of the engines filled up with water and rusted out the main crankshaft and the bearings underneath. It developed some other issues and problems that were neglected.

And the family basically, hmm, you know, just let this wonder of a thrill machine sit out and bake in the sun.

That's what you and I can do with the privilege of being the children of God to have an opportunity to be a God-being that can create a universe if given the authority to do so, or a lot of other things in between. The power to zip and go fast, be transformed in and out of the physical realm, to go across space and time. This is quite a machine. It comes with a manual. Not that we have the machine yet, but we have the opportunity to even live now in a little bitty version of it. If we use the operating manual, if we use the cautions that are there, the warnings that are there, because there's a lot of danger, a lot of danger, even in the version we currently have. It's thrilling! It can be the best life on earth! Or you can crash and burn and lose your life eternally. Now, better to be that than one of the poor souls that never knows the excitement of the highs and the lows. That's the way I feel about it. This is quite a calling we have.

This boat kind of reminds me of the attraction of becoming a first fruit in the kingdom of God. It's exciting. Ultimate performance. And it's also a bit death-defying, if you know what I mean. That's kind of what we're all up against. And it's not about the death, it's about defying the death. And we can have confidence that you can define the death. You know what the XR 1800? If you read the manuals, all three of them, and you apply them, you can defy death. And it's a blast! It really is. Because I own the boat. Alright? But this boat, like I said, kind of reminds me of being a potential first fruit in the kingdom. The operations and maintenance on the boat are complicated. I like complicated. Pilots like complicated machines. You go into a cockpit of a jet airplane or a king air or something, and it's nothing but gauges all the way up and all the way down. They're like salivating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is really difficult. This is going to be great. You might not even be able to get on the ground. You might crash. But that's why we're here. Try not to.

It's risk management is what it is. That's why you jump out of airplanes. You know, you're going to be like, 11,000 feet. You're going to die. Whoo! But you know, you check the chute first, a bit of risk management. And it's pretty cool. That's what we're doing here. We are defying death. We're, in a sense, risking ourselves right now to eternal death in the lake of fire, according to the Bible. But we're managing that risk, hopefully, by applying the manual, the operations manual.

This boat has two accelerators, has 255 horsepower, two stroke engines, six oil injectors, six carburetors, six power valves, two internal impellers, two catalytic converters, and two water cooling systems. Now, the one thing about the boat you need to know is it has no steering whatsoever when you're not blowing water out the jets. There's no rudder. There's no things sticking down like on a common engine. There's nothing. And you have twin accelerators. This is a very complicated boat. Now, that's what makes it attractive to me. It reminds me of the attraction of being a member of the body of Christ. It's very complicated. But the complications and the potential for those complications, to me, is so much greater than a guy going by with one throttle and a steering wheel that just, you know, well, you go from here to there. I don't want to go from here to there. I want to go from here to there and back, back, back, back, back. Woo-hoo! But it's complicated. You've got to pay attention. See, our involvement in this complex life brings a better life, a relationship with a very divine family of God, either for good or for cursing.

So I've memorized portions of the operations manual for this life and for the boat. But what do I do with them? Sure. I have other commentaries and technical journals and modifications from various companies who have analyzed this boat and found deficiencies in it.

And other ministers who've analyzed this boat and found deficiencies in it and shown where those deficiencies are and where certain modifications need to be made. Now, we can all be knowledgeable about that, but are we doing it? See, are we doing it?

I'll give you an example. There are some here, Peter said, have taken themselves to destruction using the writings of Paul. They've taken themselves to destruction. Shipwreck was the term. It's a boat term. Shipwreck. You can do shipwreck.

It reminds me of the XR 1800. See, down underneath the waterline, built into the back of the boat where you can't see unless you disassemble the swimming deck. Two exhaust ports about that big. And those metal exhaust ports run along the outside of the hull and they bounce and they rub on the hull. And you never see them. And they rub holes in the hull. It was a design flaw. And when you get holes on the inside that you don't see on the outside, the boat sinks. And where those big tubes attach to the outer edge of the hole, they attach underwater. And there's a design flaw in the clamping system that holds those big pipes to the hull and they detach. And when you have a hole this big underwater in your boat, the experience say it takes about two minutes for that boat to be on the bottom of the lake. And you never know what hit you. There's a lot of stuff like that in XR 1800. There's a scupper on the outside that if you live in an area that has a lot of sunlight and heat, the scupper tends to just fall off. Just fall right off because it's plastic. The scupper holds about an inch and a half in diameter under the waterline. It's more than a bilge pump. You go down in about 15 minutes, I hear, with that one. There's a lot of things that are hidden and out of sight. You see, you have to open yourself up. You have to have God look at you. Show me where my flaws are. Show me. I don't want to suffer shipwreck.

But as we do that, as we manage these risks, as we find and we address those things, guess what? It's a thrill to have the XR 1800. That's just one way of looking at it. The question is, what about God's Word? It has a great appeal for power, both now and in the future.

It can bring one's salvation. It's complicated. It's complex. Mr. Herbert Armstrong said, unless knowledge is used and acted upon, it is of no practical value. We've got to do that. It's no practical value unless we act upon it. Let's go to Jesus' parable of the house, Matthew 7, verse 24. Let's hear it from him directly.

Matthew 7, verse 24. Sometimes we read these parables and we read over the obvious. Matthew 7, verse 24 says, Therefore whoever hears these sayings of mine, Oh, we can all put our hands up. That's us. We have ears to hear. And does them, Oh, there's that part, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock.

Verse 26, But everyone who hears these sayings of mine, that's me. And does not do them. Well, I mean to do them. I want to do them. I'll get around to doing them, I hope. But if we don't do them, I'll liken him to a foolish man who built his house on the sand. Because the storms of life are going to blow. The rain will descend, the winds will blow, the floods will come, everything's going to beat on that house. And it fell, and great was its fall. We don't want to be there. He doesn't want us to be there. He doesn't want you or me to be there. So he's saying, don't just read the manual, don't just hear. Do it. Apply it. Live it.

I'd like to give you a quick five points on how to live the Word of God. You'll have to write fast.

Living the Word of God, by the way, to me, is the most powerful, exciting example of God's existence. Don't talk to me about evolution. We can argue all kinds of paleontology. We can argue religion. We can argue all kinds of theory. It comes down to, if you live the Word of God, you have the most, to me, the most dynamic, personal, irrefutable proof that there is a God, that this is the true God, and that what he says is absolutely going to come to pass. And it all relies right there in living it. So how to live the Word of God? Number one, let God speak to you personally through the Bible.

Take this as the tool by which God speaks to me personally. The second point is, give respect to what he's saying to you. Let's take our shoes off and say, this is the Holy Word of God. The book is, the paper isn't holy, but the words on it are. God is in the words because God spoke the words. He inspired every word and it's truth. So don't take exceptions and say, well, I don't know if that's going to work out in my life. I think I've got a better plan than what it says here. No, respect that. Trust it. Third point, think of all the ways you can apply everything in here to you. Don't say, oh, wow, Harry, I've got to show him this verse. Sally, I mean, wow, this one's just for her. This one's for those people over there in, I don't know, Timothy's time or James' time. See? Use every word for yourself. Apply it to every facet of your life. James 1, 2 says, be doers of the word, not just hearers only, deceiving yourselves. We don't want to do that.

Fourth point, this comes from David, hurry up and live the word. David said in Psalm 119, verse 60, I made haste and did not delay to keep your commandments. We've got to hurry up and do it now. Today, don't say, well, tomorrow I'm going to make a list. No, this moment, start doing everything God says all the time and always do it. And the fifth point is follow Christ's truths, not some illuminated individual that is not his direct representative. You know, Ephesians 4, verse 11 through 15, defines those who he put in the church so that they would teach in order that doctrines and winds of doctrines wouldn't blow around. That's where Christ inserts the truth, whether you like it or not. He doesn't do it over there. He doesn't do it in spurious teachers. He doesn't do it through us as individuals. He puts it in through the evangelists, the pastors, the prophets, the teachers that he placed so that there would be a prevention of the winds of doctrine blowing through the church. Remember in 2 Timothy, we read, Paul told Timothy, you are responsible to rightly divide the word of truth. That is a minister's responsibility to rightly divide the word of truth and to teach as we have been taught. So today, here we are, the Feast of Pentecost, which really doesn't have much meaning in the name. But it's also the Feast of the Harvest. The Feast of Harvest, God called it, in the first instance. Another place is called the Feast of Weeks because you count seven weeks, kind of like Pentecost, counting 50 days. The Harvest of Firstfruits. It isn't simply about the giving of the commandments at Sinai. Abraham kept them very well long before there ever were Israelites. The Feast isn't simply about the Holy Spirit. Again, it's the Feast of Harvest of the Firstfruits of your Labors. And it mirrors the Harvest of the Firstfruits of God's Labors. Let's conclude by turning to Revelation 22. Begin in verse 7.

We need to listen to God.

We need to respect and obey His directives. We need to apply them every minute, live them, and thus be generating that fruit, that fruit of holy, righteous character that God so desires, as the farmer who is waiting for the precious fruit of the earth.

Revelation 22, verse 7, Jesus Himself says, Behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is He who keeps the words of this book. Keeps, observes, lives the words of this book. Oh, how supremely blessed is that individual. Verse 12, And behold, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to everyone according to his work.

Verse 14, Blessed are those who do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city, the city of New Jerusalem. So it begs a question of us, brethren. Is God's Word living in me?