Arrival of the King

Good afternoon, everyone. It's good to be with you here in Ravenna on the Holy Day of Feast of Trumpets. Follow you from North Canton and Cleveland and anyplace else where you may be. So it's good to be here with you once again. I think we were here about a year and a half ago for one of the spring Holy Days when you had a divine congregation. We seem to come back to North Canton quite a bit. Those of you there probably get tired of us being there so often, but it's almost like a home for us. But it's good to be here on the Feast of Trumpets. I had to kind of look over and smile at Mr. Thomas with both the ladies, his daughter and his wife up here in the choir. Grandpa had all the grandkids, and he did a good job. He kept them all in line. They were safe until everybody got back.

Good job. Great. You're on top of things there. I will say hello from the staff at the home office where I have the opportunity to work. We are gearing up ourselves, as you are, for the Feast of Tabernacles, which will be upon us in just a few days. About two weeks from today, we will be starting that. Everybody will be scattering to various locations from the office and supporting, in some ways, sites like Cincinnati, which a number of you will be attending. I understand. And then also down in Gatlinburg, we send some support staff down for that and other places as well. But it's hard to believe the Feast is here so quickly. Two weeks ago, we started the Ambassador Bible Center's... This is our 15th class.

I have to stop and think. We have 14 pictures hanging on the wall at the office for the classes that have been there through the years. And so this is the 15th year that we have had an Ambassador Bible Center class. We have about 43 students, I believe, that are currently enrolled, which is one of our largest classes, if not the largest that we've had. I was in class yesterday before driving up, and I saw a young girl sitting at the back I had not seen the week before. I found out she had just recently arrived.

I'm teaching right now doctrines or fundamentals of belief class, and I've gone through a section of introduction before we actually jump into each of the fundamental beliefs. And I gave them a test at the end of class yesterday just to see how much they've been listening or, in some cases, how much they haven't been listening.

And this one girl, she had even been there for at least more than half the material she'd missed. She did get half of them right, and I said, well, that's pretty good. You've got half of them right, you haven't even been here for half the classes yet. So she's doing fine. I think we're going to even be receiving one other student after the Feast of Tabernacles. A young man from Kenya is applied late and been able to get a visitor's visa into the country, and hopefully he'll be coming after the Feast of Tabernacles in a few weeks, and he'll be a late enrollee, which will probably make this about the largest class that we will have had during these years.

But it seems to be a good class, an interesting class, as they all are. But it's always encouraging to be able to teach the Bible to young people, and some older ones who come as retired people to the Ambassador Bible Center, but to teach them about the Bible and various things. It's through the nine-month curriculum. It turns out to always be a very enjoyable situation. In the media area, I can just mention one or two items. Since I worked with the Beyond Today program, and as an associate media producer, we are kind of excited coming off of last weekend's telecast, which was one on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse that we had done.

This was kind of a remake about six years ago. In the early days of Beyond Today, we did a program on the Four Horsemen, but that was prior to going on WGN, and it was kind of in our rookie years. We've learned a lot about production and presenting since we first started, so it was not necessary to do a second version of the Four Horsemen. We took our time on it, and the staff that worked with me on the script really did a good job in helping to craft it.

But they really went above and beyond. They wanted to kind of do a program that kind of stood what would stand the test of a number of years, both on television and on the Internet. So we got some horses. We did a reenactment of the Four Horsemen. If you saw the program, you saw that. The horses belonged to Steve Myers, one of the other co-presenters. He and his son kind of have a horse operation there in Cincinnati. So they took their horses out to a member's farm on the east side of Cincinnati about a month ago and did the filming.

They were up most of the night doing that filming. They took a smoke machine out there to create all the effects of the smoke. And they bought Halloween costumes for the rider to be dressed up in. So there is a value to Halloween costumes. We're not going to wear those here next month on any other activities, so don't worry about that. They'll be put away and maybe come out in some other form. But Steve Myers' son James was the rider of the horse.

And with a little bit of colorizing on post-production, they were able to get the colors in and actually do a very good job to create the images of the Four Horsemen of Revelation and the Fifth Horseman. So that was another part of, I think, that enhanced the program. Plus, we also offered a booklet we had never offered before. The booklet that was offered, The Four Horsemen of Revelation, is actually a reprint of a series that we had had in the Good News and the Old World News and Prophecy publication. And it's been on the Web for about 10 years as a downloadable PDF file that anyone could download.

But it's not been in a prominent part of the Web. We took that and just pulled it forward, turned it into a brand-new booklet, put the Beyond Today logo on it. We didn't rewrite it at all. But then we printed a few thousand, I think about three or four thousand copies. We offered it as a limited edition. But get it now, never to be offered again type of booklet to try to enhance a little bit of interest in the audience.

And it will always be available as an e-booklet, but we only did a small print run, and that was expensive to do at that point. But we experimented with that. And the initial responses broke all the records that we had. We'll probably have around 2,000 responses just to the one Sunday's airing, and that was over the Labor Day weekend. So we were very, very pleased. Kind of broke through a ceiling that we'd been at for a long time in our response rate for both the web and telephone calls on any given week.

So we are really excited about that. And we anticipate that if we re-air that again in a few months, probably during the winter months, it will – should receive another good response, maybe even bigger than before. But that was encouraging to us. So I think the combination of a new booklet and the special effects that we did with the horsemen really helped to enhance that program and take it to another level, and hopefully will help us in learning things as we go forward with that.

But we appreciate all the support that you give to us, and as all of us go out on the staff and visit with congregations and at the Holy Days, we certainly all receive a lot of very positive feedback about Beyond Today and what it is doing. And we do appreciate that, and your prayers and your support, certainly your offering this morning, and your ties and offerings through the year helped to make that possible along with all the other operations of the church.

And we do appreciate that very much and your involvement. Most of all, your prayers that God would bless the efforts that we are making in our media department to preach the gospel. The website continues to increase in terms of people who are being drawn to the website. I didn't have any chance to talk about that.

We have our television program. We have all of our print efforts, the Good News magazine, the booklets that we have. But then the Internet is another large portion for us as well, because both the booklets and Beyond Today are on the web 24-7 for people to access. And our rankings in the web field, especially for religious organizations, continue to increase. Our UCG United Church of God website is at our last counting, we are number 13th most visited website among religious organizations.

We are number 13th, which we continue to increase. Now, to be real honest, don't look for us to become number one next week, or even number five, or seven, or eight. Because once you break into the top ten, you're going up against the Mormons, the Catholics, and they have multiple sites within those rankings.

And they have a lot more money that they're pouring into those and a number of other factors. So we are, we're pleased with where we are for the size of the operation, and if God allows something beyond ourselves to gain a further increase, then certainly that will be His doing. But with what we've been able to do thus far in incremental improvements and phases, we're very pleased with what we've been able to accomplish, and at least where we are within religious organizations on the web.

We do continue to have some very, very good responses there, and they all three work together, the web, the print, and the television. We will likely never get away from print. I don't think we will see the day that we would stop printing something and putting it out for a number of reasons. A lot of people still read and want something in their hands, and the United States Postal Service is still in business. And there is something about, just in terms of the way people respond and what they support, they will support something that is very tangible in front of them in hard copy.

As they receive a letter, a booklet, a magazine, and if there's an envelope stitched in there, there's a reason for all of that. When a letter goes out, we put an envelope in there, people tend to return that envelope with something in it. And that not only increases our ability to continue sending it out, but also indicates an interest level that people have when they put a few dollars or whatever it may be toward what they are receiving, that they value what they are receiving.

So it all works together with the mix that we have in the media, and we work very hard through the years to refine that. Just a little bit of thinking behind what we are doing and why we have the particular process that we have right now.

But please continue to pray about that. I could comment about other things. We just completed a leadership weekend that was held over the Labor Day. Labor Day has been an annual production. Mr. Thomas was down to teach a class, and I had a couple of members here. The Scapuras from Cleveland and the Coonses from North Canton were down, I believe. I don't think anyone else was from this area.

I think you won't leave anybody out. It's always dangerous when you start mentioning names that you're going to leave people out. But that was well attended, and from all reports, well, very much appreciated by those who attended that particular weekend. And so it's on to the feast. But we still have a few hours left for the feast of trumpets here today. Speaking in the afternoon on trumpets or any holy day is always a danger. The guy who speaks in the morning can take every scripture that you plan to give, and he gets you when you're fresh, vibrant, alert.

The guy who speaks in the afternoon has to keep you awake, on papa keeping himself awake. So let's work and help each other as we get through here this afternoon. A few years ago, we attended the feast in Jordan, the Feast of Tabernacles. One of the trips that we took after services one day that year was to an ancient city just north of the city of Ammon called Geras. Geras is a well-preserved Roman outpost from that part of the world, which was one of the easternmost outposts during the period of Roman's heyday.

And it has been excavated and restored somewhat. And if you ever go to that part of the world, you want to see Geras. There was a feature there that at the time we were there, it was being restored. It was a great triumphal arch at the city gate, at the opening to the city, that eight years ago had scaffolding all over it, and they were restoring that arch. This arch was built in the second century AD.

It was built at a time when the Roman emperor Hadrian was making a visit, a tour of the empire, and he was going to visit Geras. They wanted to put on the dog for the ruling emperor who was coming to their city, and they built this huge arch. It's very similar to when you may have seen a picture of the Arch of Titus in Rome, and if you've ever been to Rome and seen that arch, it's the same style, same gigantic size.

And when you start to look at how that visit for Hadrian would have gone and what would have been the protocol for the city at the time to have a visiting emperor come, it's very interesting. It's also instructive. The city fathers, the mayor, the alderman, the councilman, whatever they had in Geras at that time, would have known the day and the hour, approximately the hour of the arrival of the emperor, and they would have gone out through that arch down the road to meet the emperor Hadrian on his approach to the city.

And there probably would have been a greeting and a ceremony at some point, a mile or so, perhaps, distant from that arch, and then they would have all turned and they would have come back after meeting the emperor. They would have come back into the city and had a triumphal entry with a parade and music and whatever else through that arch into the city and the official visit of the emperor would have begun.

He would have been properly welcomed in by the city fathers and it would have all been done fine. That would have been repeated city after city, wherever an emperor at that period of time would have gone on any major visit that he would have been making.

It was the custom for the citizens to go out, greet those emperors, and bring them into the city. The emperor had come. He had appeared at their door, if you will. He had appeared at their gate. And that was the way that they would have brought him in with great pomp and circumstance. And it was a very important matter to the city. When you understand that and you then go back to one of the key scriptures that we always read on the Day of Trumpets and was read this morning, but we can read again from a different perspective.

1 Thessalonians 4. If you would, please turn back there. With that story in mind, you can read this account with a little more information and from another dimension. And I think, give us a deeper understanding of what the Apostle Paul was really saying to the church when he wrote what he did here in 1 Thessalonians 4, beginning in verse 13. He said, I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who fall into sleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus, the resurrection, those who sleep, who are dead in Christ. And if we believe that he died and rose again, central thought, very central teaching of the New Testament, in fact of Christianity. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15 that if he did not rise, your hope is in vain. You're dead in your sins, all of us are. The fact that Christ rose central to our teaching and understanding of anything in the New Testament. And if we believe that he died and rose again, then it leads on, as Paul writes here, even so God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus. There will be this resurrection.

This then sets the scene for the Feast of Trumpets. And it helps us to understand that Christ, at his return, will raise the dead in what is called the first resurrection. And another location, a better resurrection. A long, hoped-for event, in the hope of every Christian. A resurrection from the dead. And this is a fantastic, marvelous matter. The great question of the ages will definitely, at that moment, begin to be unveiled for so many to see. This hope, this truth, that if we die, will we live again. Questions that have been asked from the very beginning. Questions that have been looked at from the very beginning. You go all the way back to Genesis in chapter 3, at the very creation of Adam and Eve. And they are told there by the deceiver, the serpent, that if they take of the tree the knowledge of good and evil, or the fruit of that tree, that they will not die. They will not die, because their minds and their eyes will be opened, and they will be as God. They are told that. And that, in a sense, sets a lie into place, into the human family. Because man could and he would die. God intended that man would die and then live again. That is his plan and that is purpose. But Satan confused the point by implying that there was something about man that would not die, and a soul that would live on. Something inherent within him that would live on forever. And from that point, confusion set in. And ideas of an immortality of the soul, or reincarnation, or some, as we have today in differing ideas, a new age melding into some type of a larger existence at death that people will have and will go into. And of course, people who don't even believe that look at that there will be kind of a Darwinian nothing into which they will go. But the idea that there is something, and even the hope that there is something, has led to so many differing ideas. And it is one of those truths that is very plain in Scripture, but sometimes for, again, a mind that has not either been opened or perhaps clouded by deceit, is willing to entertain differing ideas. The truth about the resurrection is central to the understanding of life's purpose, and it's very clearly revealed in the Bible. And it's an important part of the meaning of the Feast of Trumpets. In Job, Chapter 14, Job talked about an awakening from the dead. He said, if a man die, will he live again? As he was pondering his own life and his own situation at that moment, and he was talking about a change that would take place. Throughout the Old Testament, there is clear reference to a resurrection. In Daniel, Chapter 12. You can just hold your place here, and we'll turn back to Daniel, Chapter 12. Verse 1, it says, At that time, Michael shall stand up. The great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people, and there shall be a time of trouble. Such as never was, since there was a nation, even to that time, and at that time your people will be delivered. Everyone who was found written in the book, and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth, shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt.

Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. Very clear reference to the resurrection that the prophet Daniel had. Other prophets talk about it. Ezekiel spoke of a vision of the valley of dry bones, and speaking of an even yet different resurrection there. Isaiah talked in Isaiah 26, verse 19, he says that the earth shall cast out her dead. Those who sleep in the dust of the earth will be cast out. The earth will cast her out, an allusion to a resurrection as well. So the Old Testament talks about this. We know that it is also central to the teaching of the New Testament, the resurrection. Very clearly. It is central to the New Covenant experience and teaching that is there. Christ clearly showed that man would live through a resurrection. And he spoke to that. He was asked how one might live forever and attain to eternal life by an individual. And his answer was to live righteously according to the law, which requires repentance and obedience and baptism, which is all a picture of the death and the resurrection. If you turn to Romans 6, you will see where the Apostle Paul spoke to the resurrection. In Romans 6, verse 4, he says, Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death. That just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection. As baptism, pictures are death and burial with Christ coming up out of a watery grave through the baptismal picture showing us a connection to Christ's resurrection. We are united in that likeness of his death, and certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection.

That is a very beautiful picture of how it will all play out. As God gives his Holy Spirit, we have the down payment of eternal life. And that Spirit that he gives to us upon repentance and baptism, laying on of hands and the obedience, Romans or Acts says that God gives his Spirit to those who obey him.

And so there is something that we must do. There is a righteous life to which we must attain and live by. As Jesus said, keep the commandments. When the man asked him, what do I do to live forever? He said, keep the commandments. So God's Spirit is given as a down payment. And that is a key to living a very different life, once God gives us that. The spring holy days that we have already gone through this year, again, each one showing a picture of Christ's death, putting out of sin, the receiving of the Holy Spirit through Pentecost. All of this shows the mechanics of all this in action and these things that we're talking about here in Romans 6. And the receipt of that power from God of his Holy Spirit to live a very different life in the midst of a world that is not a very nice world at times. It is, remember, the world that is built upon the roots of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There's a mixture of it all, in and around all of us. And it is our life within that world that is what you and I are working through in all of our years of experience in this relationship with God. And especially with the use of God's Holy Spirit. We are called to live a very different life today, led by his Holy Spirit in the midst of a world that is not completely of his making. The life is one of putting on the character of God, taking it on one day at a time, one piece like an article of clothing at a time, being formed in the image of God. It's a lifelong process that we begin. It's what we might call conversion. There's another term as we talk about being converted, becoming like Christ, overcoming. These are the terms that we use in our life to explain what it is that we do at times and what we are involved in. But at the heart of it is that spirit, a part of us, giving us the power to live a different life.

So when we come down to the day of trumpets, this very day, and as the Scriptures we read this morning point us to, a resurrection and a transforming of our own bodies at a time of the sounding of a trumpet. We had the requisite sounding of trumpets with an actual shofar and a brass trumpet here this morning by the two individuals to picture and remind us of what was done on this day, what this day does picture, and as was read out in Numbers 10, even done at various other times within ancient Israel by the sounding of trumpets as people moved here and there, or as they were called to alarm, as they were sounded to assembly. A trumpet accomplished a number of different goals. As we focus in on the seventh trumpet, and its sounding upon the day of trumpets, it really should serve for you and I annually as a kind of a spiritual wake-up call, a reminder of, again, this very process to which we have been called. And we look at the idea of the dead awakening to a trumpet blast, as it said there in 1 Thessalonians.

The dead awakening to the blast of a trumpet, and the kingdoms of this world becoming the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. In Revelation 11, with the sounding of the seventh angel, in verse 15, we find this very event right here in this one verse.

This one verse is electric in terms of its impact and its meaning. The sounding of the seventh angel, the seventh trumpet, the kingdom proclaimed, a little hitting I have on my New King James Bible, Revelation 11, 15, it says, Then the seventh angel sounded, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever. The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. That one sentence, that one phrase, brethren, signifies the biggest, largest, most massive, Can I think of any more superlatives here?

Transfer of power in world history.

You talk about kingdoms being overthrown in our own day, the Soviet Union being ripped apart a few decades ago, Nazi Germany being defeated in a world of cataclysm.

Further back, whatever empire you want to look at and study that was torn down, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, nothing compared to what verse 15 describes, where all of the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.

All of that power goes back to God. That's the sounding of that trumpet. And what takes place from this point on in the book of Revelation to chapter 19 and the appearance of Jesus Christ on that horse, that it describes, is just like that in one sense. As those final trumpet plagues are poured out and these events rush to a final culmination, it all begins to be wrapped up within the plan of God and the dead rising to the sound of a trumpet.

So what this day pictures, what it symbolizes in that plan of God, brings us back again to large events, but also the hugeness of an ongoing event in your life and mind that began when we were baptized.

When we said yes to God, I repent. I desire to change my life and to yield myself to you and to ask forgiveness of my sins and accept Jesus Christ as my personal Savior, my Lord and my King.

Did you get that word? I don't know if you remember, but it was said to you when you were baptized.

It was said to you, it was said to me, you accept Jesus Christ as your King, your Lord, your Master, your soon-coming King.

We accept Him as our Master in our life, to have that blood applied to our sins, and then with the laying on of hands to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the very power of God.

And we ask that that be given to us to help us to overcome sin, to live a righteous life. For the rest of our life, how many years have you been doing it?

I've been doing it now for about 43 years. Some of you I know have been doing it longer. I don't know how many more years I'll be doing it.

I plan to be doing it until I die, is what I'm saying. And I'm sure you do as well.

Sometimes we say, how much longer, Lord? And we wonder. But that's what we set our hand to.

And we ask God to come into our life, not just symbolically, but actually, literally. Because by the Spirit of God coming into us, God comes into us.

Jesus Christ begins to live his life within us.

Now, we think about that on Passover, when we take the bread and wine, and what we ask for, and what we rededicate ourselves to. And we certainly should think about that during the days of unleavened bread, as we strive to put out sin and eat unleavened bread during that period of time. And the sinless life of Christ within us, symbolized by that unleavened bread.

And then we go on to Pentecost and the power of the Holy Spirit and what it teaches us there as firstfruits.

But that's an ongoing, day-by-day, year-long matter with us.

And when we come to trumpets, there's a culmination of this.

Because what has been taking place within our lives during this process of time, will then become manifest at a resurrection.

And would you think about that? That'll be our day of judgment.

Everything we've done up to that point, it's a sign sealed and delivered.

At the time that trumpet sounds and the dead are raised in Christ, we rise in the air.

If we're dead, and if we are alive and remain, we'll be a little bit behind those who are coming up out of the great first, according to 1 Thessalonians.

But our judgment will be set and sealed at that point.

In a sense, our period of judgment will be over.

Because 1 Peter 4 says that judgment must begin now at the house of God.

Judgment is upon those who have accepted Jesus Christ as King today.

And as we live these weeks and these years of our life, this is our time of judgment.

As God sifts us and sorts us and works with us and forgives us and empowers us and strengthens us.

And as we develop character and as we... that life of God and Jesus Christ within us is nurtured and grown. It develops.

And when this day comes to its fruition, what has been developing in your life and mine and anyone else in that category, the first fruits, it will then be made manifest.

It will then be made known. The works will be there. Those are what those scriptures that judgment are describing. We will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.

And so every year on this day should be kind of a wake-up call for us.

And that piercing sound of a trumpet should kind of go right down to the soul and marrow of our lives and jolt us a bit and realize another year, another time, bringing us closer to the reality of this day and help us to awake to the reality of our own life and what this day means.

Because on this day, we will see God as He is.

Turn over to 1 John 2. 1 John 2. verse 28. And now little children abide in Him, that when He appears, and the word here appears is a word we'll come back to. It's a Greek word.

It's a word that means a coming. It can also be translated a coming.

Or when He appears, when we see Him. Just as Revelation 19 tells us of Christ appearing on a white horse.

Or 1 Thessalonians 4, we rise and meet Him in the air and we'll be with Him wherever He is.

Here it says, as he puts it, when He appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.

If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.

Beloved, verse 3 and 1, the thought really carries on here.

What manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God.

Therefore the world does not know us because it did not know Him.

The world kind of looks at us today and people who know that you are here this afternoon, all day, from your work, from your family.

You are here trying to be a Jew in their eyes.

What are you doing here today? They might be saying.

You are trying to be a Jew? The Jews are down the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah. This is their big day.

What are you trying to do?

It's like the study hall teacher that told me one year when I brought my pink slip back after going to the Feast of Tabernacles.

And I wrote on there, went to the Feast of Tabernacles. Big mistake.

She looked at it and she says, I didn't know you were a Jew.

And I said, I'm not.

That was the first time that something like that had ever been said to me. And I said, I'm not a Jew, but I was keeping the Feast of Tabernacles.

To her it meant that I was a Jew.

You being here today, to someone who can't know what this day is all about, thinks you're trying to be a Jew.

And you know, people who may have served us today or rented us this hall or whatever.

What are they doing? What's going on here?

And just what he says, the world does not know us because it did not know him. That's okay. God knows us. And we know him as we observe this day.

And the fact that the Church has kept the festivals, all of them, historically, year after year, you've been faithful to them. Helps you to know God, helps you to know His plan, helps you to know where we are in that plan in the world today.

Mr. Deemer is talking in his sermonette about the dangers of our world almost at war and rumors of war and what's going on there.

Yes. We can look at that and we can, in a sense, kind of monitor it from a prophetic point of view without getting all then out of shape and worry about it.

Because by keeping the Holy Days, we can have a general sense of where we are, prophetically.

And as we can do the work that God has given to us, it helps us to stay tuned to that.

Not overly fearful, not overly speculative, but vigilant, aware and alert because of what we do by keeping the Holy Days.

Very, very important in many dimensions to a Christian, to the Church of God, for having kept these. So, going on back here in verse 2. First John 3, verse 2. Beloved, he says, Now we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. But we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

When Christ is revealed at His coming, at His appearance, we shall be like Him, and we shall see Him as He is. That's a profound thought. We will be like Him through a transformation from flesh to spirit, 1 Corinthians 15 talks about.

In a moment, a twinkling of an eye, this corruptible will be turned into incorruptibility, this mortal change to immortality. We will be like Him, and then we shall see Him as He is. But right now, we don't see Him as He is, do we? We don't see God.

Back in 1 Timothy 6, we know why.

1 Timothy 6, verse 13, Paul writes, I urge you in the sight of God, who gives life to all things, and before Jesus Christ, who witness a good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep His commandments, that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ appearing. Again, there's that word again, appearing, His coming, which He will manifest in His own time. He who is blessed and only potentate the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.

God dwells in an unapproachable light, and no man has seen that. We haven't seen it at this point in time, but we just read in John that when He appears, we will be like Him and we will see Him as He is. Not even in the past. Moses just caught a glimpse of God, the backside of God, by his own request. But no one has seen God.

We can't see the spiritual in that sense. But by the change that we will have at the resurrection, we will see clearly. Even Paul said, we see today through a glass darkly about so many things in that realm. And that's precisely true. Paul, with all the insight that he was given, didn't see at all. He said, we see through a glass darkly. Even today, there are many things that we don't fully understand, we'd like to know about, in terms of that period of time and what it will be like as a spirit being, and even some of the events surrounding the appearance and the coming of Christ.

We sometimes would like to know more about. We always have to be very careful because what God has not revealed, we don't need to go into and think that we can discern it with a complete accuracy if God's not completely revealed it. There are some things. That spirit world and that timing even that God has reserved to himself. He's given us enough to get there, right at the threshold, but he's not told us everything in his word.

It's just enough. It's almost like, you do this, and I'll fill you in on the details later. Sometimes in people's vanity and ideas, they want to speculate, well, what's this event going to be like? Or what does this mean? They can build sometimes theoretical scenarios to try to go a little bit further than where God has actually revealed to us. We need to be very, very careful about.

There is enough of the glory for us to understand, to inspire us, and to motivate us this side of the appearing of Christ for all of our lives. When we talk about the coming of Christ, we're talking about a cosmic event. We just read Revelation 11.15. I'm not going to turn to Revelation 19, except to refer to it.

But the heavens unfurl, and Christ is pictured on a white horse. We talked about the fifth horse in our program this week. If there's four horsemen in Revelation 6, and we talked about a fifth horseman. Well, you know who the fifth horseman is. It's Christ in Revelation 19. I was a little bit abused. You see, we wrote the article that we were giving out. We wrote that about 10 years ago. And in that article 10 years ago, we started talking about the fifth horseman.

But some people were saying, I never thought about the fifth horseman. And I want to say, read it! We wrote about it in the good news, in the articles a number of years ago. Just read your Bible. If you only focus on the four horsemen, you don't get the whole story. Revelation describes five. Yeah, there's four in the seals, and called the four horsemen of the apocalypse. But the fifth one is the most important. And you'll notice we didn't try to portray the fifth one. We're not going to go there. Can you imagine the mail we would have gotten if we tried to portray the fifth horseman? Idolatry and everything else.

We won't do that. It's enough just to imagine that. But you read Revelation 19, and Christ appearing on a white horse. And this great event, it is a cosmic event far beyond anything that we can imagine. Steven Spielberg cannot come up with any special effect to properly do justice to that. What the Scriptures describe as the key event of all time. Even the language of the Bible is not really enough to describe and to help us to wrap our minds around the appearing of Jesus Christ. That's the sounding of that trumpet. And in that event, and His coming as King of Kings.

It refers to the appearance and the presence of God. That word that we read about, if you go back to 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 15, those who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord. That's the same word we've been reading about in these other verses where His appearing. The word is parousia. P-A-R-O-U-S-I-A. It's a Greek word. And it means, it can be translated coming, the appearing, revelation.

It refers to, certainly as Paul uses it here, Christ's coming and His appearance upon the world scene. It can also actually be used in the New Testament to refer to the very presence of God, even in your life and in mine. Because, after all, as I said earlier, when we're baptized and we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, we do have a unique matter within us.

And that is Jesus Christ's life, the Holy Spirit. Which is, as Paul described in Galatians 2 and verse 20, the life we now live, we live by the faith in the Son of God who died for us. It is Christ's life within us. And this concept is very, very important.

Now, when Paul uses it here, his audience understood exactly what he meant. When I go back to the story I told of the citizens of the Roman city of Geras, welcoming the emperor Hadrian, they understood what to do when the king came. You go out in your meeting. You escort him in. What Paul is describing here in 1 Thessalonians 4 is what we will do at the sounding of the trumpet, and the king appears and comes. We will rise in the air to meet him, and then we will descend, we will come back to his rightful place, which is this earth, and there we will be with him as the king.

Just as the town council in Geras rightfully welcomed in the emperor who was their king and held title to their city in literal fact, they welcomed him in, and there they remained with him. We will welcome Christ in as our king, as the king of kings, and come back to his rightful inheritance, which is this earth.

The people in Thessalonica understood that. They had no thought that they were going to be raptured back up to heaven with him. As Christ was making a near swoop over the earth, a low-flying jet pass like the Blue Angels might make at an air show, and swoop everybody up and then jet off into the wild blue yonder.

They didn't understand it that way. They knew exactly what Paul was saying, because they understood how a king in their day, an emperor, was welcomed into their midst. So they understood it very clearly, and that was an electrifying message.

Notice where we read this? It's in what is called 1 Thessalonians, written to the members of the church in the city of Thessalonica.

If you go back to Acts 17, you can go back there very quickly, you will find where Paul visited the city of Thessalonica, and actually had to leave town because of the impact of his message. It created such an uproar.

In Acts 17, beginning in verse 1, it tells of the story of Paul going to the city of Thessalonica in what is now Greece.

And he reasoned with them in verse 2 from the Scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had a suffer, rise from the dead, and saying, This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.

Within that one sentence, Luke is basically telling us that he was telling them, This is the king.

This is your Lord and Savior. This is Jesus Christ. This Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, long prophesied to be the king.

And that was the message that he gave them. Now, it stirred up an assault upon him as you read on through, because some of the citizens of the city got wind of what Paul was preaching, and the power of the words were so strong that they actually, in the case they drug a member out to the rulers of the city in verse 6, crying, These who have turned the world upside down have come here too.

This is the impact of the message that Paul preached of Jesus Christ being king, and it created an uproar in the streets.

In verse 7, they said, Jason, this member, has harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying, There is another king, Jesus, another king.

This tells you just how powerful was the message that Paul preached, not only of the kingdom of God, but of the reality of Christ as the king of one's life.

Because this was considered treason in the Roman Empire, because Caesar was king, and people actually made sacrifice to Caesar in the temples.

And now they're being told a different message, this Jesus of Nazareth, He's king, not Caesar.

Jesus is in, Caesar's out.

Jesus is it, Caesar, you're not it.

It's like a game we play as kids.

I'm it, you're not.

When you're it, you're it.

Jesus is it.

That's why people got killed for believing in the Gospel of the kingdom of God in the first century.

There was no Roman Emperor who lost any sleep over a writing by some Gnostic teacher, who later on made up some story that was added on and was false about Jesus.

No Roman Emperor ever lost sleep about a Gnostic Gospel.

But they did lose sleep when people turned and read the Apostle Paul, because it meant Caesar was not to be worshipped as king.

And that's why people got killed.

That tells you how powerful the message was in that day and in that place, and why members would be dragged out of their home because of what the Apostle Paul taught.

Also tells you just how different our world is today.

Because we could say that and people don't care.

They don't understand at heart the implications of the Gospel.

Now when you go back and you put this together with what we read in 1 Thessalonians 4, and the impact of what Paul was saying under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he was wanting to convey to these people in Thessalonica and for all time under God's inspiration the truth of the coming of Christ and the power of the resurrection, the event that brings change and allows us to see God.

That's why Paul used this word coming and parousia, parousia, whatever, however you want to pronounce it.

And it's why he used that word because his audience in that day understood it as a presence of God in one's life, as well as the appearance of the King at the time of the sounding of the seventh trump.

And what Paul was saying in 1 Thessalonians 4 was that Christ will one day appear in the power of the universe as the ruling Lord with all the attendant consequences, which means that the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. And they will all be overturned, and He will bring judgment upon the nations, and a radical transformation will occur.

And that's the power of these inspired scriptures.

And that's why I said, emperors put to death early Christians because that message was so powerful.

No other text from that period of time speaks with such plain language in that way.

That's why they got concerned when people read the Apostle Paul, or when they listened to him preach, as they did there in Thessalonica.

1 Thessalonians 4 is a very strong statement of rulership and testimony of the coming King.

And brethren, it is also a very strong testimony to you and I, to the power and the presence of Jesus Christ in our life today, as our King, through the Holy Spirit, changing our lives.

And when we get our eyes firmly fixed upon that and we understand that truth, then it changes our life every single day.

Because it is by that power that we will be raised to a spirit life.

Just as it raised Christ from the dead, it will change us. And then we will be like Him and we will see Him as He is in His divine glory.

But it will have already been working in your life and mind. That's the point.

Because it is working in your life now, as you've been baptized and as you've received that gift of the Holy Spirit.

And as we have yielded our lives day in and day out, year after year, to God and ask Him to live His life within us, to forgive us of our sins.

To give us the power to overcome. And to give us the power to be like Him.

It is that same power that will transform our lives when we are at the resurrection.

And then that's why we will be like Him. Because we have already become like Him today.

And He has appeared to us, He has come to us through the power of the Holy Spirit and His life has been living within us. That's the beauty. That's the awesome grandeur of what He has been doing in our lives through these years.

And what we asked for when we asked for baptism. And asked for the strength of the Holy Spirit.

Turn over to Romans 8. Let's read these words with that idea in mind. Because this speaks to what is dwelling within us.

Romans 8, beginning in verse 9. You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed, the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, He is not His.

Very simple, straightforward teaching. We must have God's Spirit to be His, to be Christian, to be saying legitimacy in that relationship.

And if Christ is in you, verse 10. The body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

He will give us life today and forever through that transformation at the time of the seventh trumpet.

We will see Him as He is. We will be like Him and see Him as He is by that very power.

As that present ruling in our mind and in our heart becomes apparent, we then are one of the saints of God. We are His elect and it is by that process. And this is really what Paul is speaking to here. It's at the center of our life and of our incredible potential, the incredible potential that we really do have.

In 2 Peter 1, Peter speaks to this nature. 2 Peter 1 and verse 4.

By which we have been given to us, and let's read verse 2, grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ. As His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue.

By which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. We are partakers of the divine nature. Another way to say that is we partake of a godly nature, Christ in us by His Holy Spirit.

Mr. Thomas alluded this morning briefly to the spiritual Wi-Fi apparatus that Satan uses to deceive the world and work into the sons of disobedience. So a profound understanding that the Church of God has had is how we acquire human nature.

He said it from the very time of birth, and he's not too far off. I don't know when a little bitty baby starts to acquire that. You can't imagine. I mean, listen. When I looked at my grandkids that first day in the hospital, they were the sweetest things in the world. They didn't have good human nature. So sweet, cuddly, warm, dribbling, gooey, doing all the other things. They're lovely. You've got the greatest grandkids in the world, cutest, and so do I. And at some point, though, they acquire human nature.

Now, if it's from the first day or second, I don't know. I did see a study on 60 Minutes sometime the last year. There were some Harvard doctors looking at babies, and it was fascinating to see this whole study they were doing. And all the babies they were studying were under a year, and they were demonstrating that these babies were focused on themselves and had certain virtues about them that weren't all that good. They were doing their own selflessness, etc. And I thought, wow! And they were showing it through some of their little experiments. So it's not very long after birth that they began to acquire the nature. I think we rightly have said, Mr. Armstrong said years ago, that they are not born with human nature. We're not born with original sin. But we begin to acquire it through this spiritual Wi-Fi system, and it begins very young. Even science doctors are beginning to see that. But then at some point, as God calls us and gives us forgiveness, and we have this change, then as Peter writes, we begin to acquire the partakers of the divine nature. We begin this process to reverse all that has been taking place. And then we have the opportunity to become the children of God and to use the spirit of God. That's what this time and this place is all about, leading up to the time of the seventh trumpet. This is the little yet developed, in my personal opinion, area of understanding, perhaps, for the church to develop for the sake of all of us. And that process of how is it, what we need to yet grow in understanding and knowledge and grace is about taking on God's nature to actually achieve the incredible human potential that every child of God has, every human has. That to me is a little unfinished business, perhaps, for the church to focus on for our benefit, because that's at the nexus, the juncture of what this is all about. What this Christianity, this conversion, this whole experience that you and I have been a part of for all of our lives, these 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 years of what I call the Church of God experience in our time, unique in all the history of the church of what we have been a part of. Stragglers, survivors, whatever you call yourself. We're still here. We're still learning. We're still obeying God. We're still here on the Sabbaths and Holy Days. We're still going to the feast, and we're still looking for the kingdom. And what this is all about is right here, that we are partakers of the divine nature, and we put this on. Because there's going to come a day when Christ appears, and what has the King, who's been our King today, whose life has been lived within us, then will be made manifest to the world, and even more so to us, because we will be like Him and we will see Him as He is.

One day, our world and that spirit realm will be integrated, fully visible, creating a transformation to glory that Paul described, that John attempted to describe, and it will all come clear. Brethren, that's why we're here on this Feast of Trumpets, and that's why we'll be here for the Day of Atonement. That's why we'll be at the Feast of Tabernacles, and observing God's whole, all of God's holy days, and doing that because Christ is our King, and one day He will appear, and we will be like Him and see Him as He is, and we will rise to meet Him in the air, and it will all be worth it when that day takes place.