From Division to Harmony

When the record of human history opens, we see mankind in the Garden of Eden living in tranquil harmony. Harmony with each other. There are only two of them. Harmony with the animals, the plant world, and with their God. But then we see Satan enters, and suddenly Adam and Eve rebel against their God. We see them separate from the closeness they had and are hiding. We see them trying to clothe themselves. We see a relationship between them and God fractured, and God ejects them. It says in the Bible that, so God drove out the man. Just think of the terminology being used. God drove out the man. That is, fracturing relationships. And then, as if to form a wall, a wedge, a barrier, a separation, a division, it says, and he placed carobim at the east of the Garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way back to that tree of life. Next, the family of man got selfish. It says Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, who he was close to, and he killed him. And then humanity got selfish. We can pick up the story in Genesis 6 and verse 5. Genesis 6, beginning in verse 5, says, Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. Wickedness means things that hurt other people, offend other people, that drive wedges, barriers between people and between people and God.

And that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. That's what man wanted to do. Evil, breaking relations, fracturing relations, dividing apart, separating. Verse 12, So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, verse 13, The end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them. And behold, I will destroy them.

This is the ultimate fracturing. There was violence among the people, and there was violence between them and God to where destruction came in the form of the flood.

Selfishness, thoughtlessness, putting first one's own desires and lusts, has separated relationships right from the very beginning, right from the very first two individuals that God put in the Garden of Eden. Mankind has been on opposite paths from each other. Even close people like brothers, you see them fight in civil wars. You see them fighting now between various factions of their own tribes. And yet, they've also separated themselves and are on opposite paths from God. Imity against God, hostility. The consequences are relationships everywhere that are fractured. You can't even find a country that you might say is good, where the leaders aren't fighting and arguing and slicing and dicing. You can't turn on a radio show and hear anything good say about anybody else. Even people of the same party that have the same values, essentially, are cutting each other up in various forums that they get in, tearing down, fracturing relationships through hatreds. Mankind is hateful, and they've invented attorneys to help them with their revenge. And fighting and violence is common. And it escalates to where countries have standing armies and weapons of mass destruction proliferating so they can hurt more people and offend more people. There are walled borders and fences going up. Walled cities are a fact of life going way back through town. Today, we have walled housing compounds and gated communities around the world where people can get inside and close the gates and have protection from their fellow citizens outside those gates. There are locks. There are guns. But that's not as far as it goes, is it? Because we have divisions in God's Church.

Really hits you in the stomach when you think that within the brotherhood and sisterhood of the children of God, there are divisions.

And people will say things that fracture and wall off and divide to where some groups won't even allow their grandchildren to speak to their grandparents. It goes deep.

That's still not as far as division goes or will go.

Things will fracture more seriously. Even within the Church, Jesus said Himself. Let's go back to Matthew 24 and see the fracturing that lies yet ahead and the depth of those torn, ripped-apart relationships before it's all over. In Matthew 24, verses 7 through 10, Jesus said, For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines.

Famines aren't caused today by weather. Weather generally has no effect whatsoever in famine. Because our world is so interconnected with transportation, it really doesn't matter if an area over here has no rain or water for 10 or 20 years. It's irrelevant. Because container ships are right there with food and international commerce provides food. We have people starving to death by the tens of thousands, in some cases hundreds of thousands, in countries that have plenty of money and plenty of infrastructure and plenty of food that is actually being brought in.

And yet they are dying from famine because of politics. Those who are in power will not let the food come through. And they let the people starve. That's the sad thing about famines and the resulting pestilence of the animals, the vermin that come in and bring the disease.

Well, there's going to be various problems. Verse 8, all these are the beginning of sorrows.

But notice verse 9, then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, you nice folks, you loving folks, my disciples, he says.

And you'll be hated by all nations for my namesake. But that's okay because we're not of this world. And he said, they're going to treat you just like they treated me if you're like I am.

So we can accept that, but the next one's a little tough.

Verse 10, and then many, we assume this is talking to the church as he's talking about you.

Many will be offended. How do you get offended?

You can really, I don't think, can be offended if you are strong spiritually. They couldn't offend Jesus Christ. Look at all they did to him. He wasn't offended. You can only be offended if you're looking out for yourself. Oh, that offended me. What you said about me. What you did to me. Oh, I'm thinking about me. I'm me, me, me, me, me, me, me. See? That's how you get offended.

Somebody doesn't have God's Holy Spirit really flowing, and it's all about them, and they got the little tentacles up waiting to be offended. And so many aren't really led by the Holy Spirit, are they? Because it tells us in Philippians that we were called to tribulation. We were called to offenses like Christ. That's part of what we are. That's what we do. We should do it well. And yet, look here, many are offended, and will betray one another, and will hate one another. Ouch! See, breaking apart, breaking apart. We're warned in Daniel that the power of the Holy People will be completely shattered. Is this the time? Probably is. Through these kind of events, it just fractures and breaks down, as it were, any sort of organized religion or preaching of the Gospel, light to the world during the end time. It all gets very dark.

You think that's the worst that division gets? Nope. Let's go to Revelation 16 and verse 14, and see sort of the apex, if you will, of the division that started in the Garden of Eden and is fomented and grown and spread. You know, when Satan knows he has a little time, he's going to encourage a lot of splintering and division.

Revelation 16, 14 says, For there are spirits of demons, performing signs which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world. This is going to go out to everybody to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. You know, after a third of the earth dies from this, maybe another third from that, and all the things that are going on, that's not enough division. That's not enough just shaking and crushing all the cities of the great earthquakes going to do. That's not enough. Let's divide it up some more. Let's get them all together and fight Christ. Joel 3, verse 9 through 11 speaks of this time. And notice the verbiage here. It is really insightful as far as what is going to happen, as far as dissecting, slicing up, dividing up. Joel 3, verse 9 proclaim this among the nations, prepare for war.

You know, let's not just deal with all these issues we have and all the victimization that's gone on through the Great Tribulation. Let's take it up to another level. Let's sharpen up our knives and our guns and let's go after who's left. You know, if there's any groups that remain, let's go slice those up too. Wake up the mighty men. Let all the men of war draw near. Let them come up.

Verse 10, beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Get everything you can, anything you can, make it into a weapon. Let the weak say, I'm strong, I'm good for this.

Assemble and come all you nations and gather together all around. Can you imagine a more divided, convoluted, hostile situation among humanity anywhere at any time? And it's just absolute bedlam. Can you imagine at that point in time, after all that's gone on, far too many people to ever think about burying, all the atrocities that have happened, the worst time that has ever, ever happened with atrocities that are unmentionable and yet the Bible doesn't mention them, some of them? Can you imagine how people feel about one another at that time? Do you really think that a millennium is possible? Do you really think you can take all of those people who have lost all that they have lost and hurt so many others and people have hurt them and somehow make a utopia out of it? Will humanity always be divided? Will they always separate themselves from each other and have hostility to God? Today, I'd like to examine a plan that God has to bring reconciliation between all humans and their Creator. The title of the sermon today is From Division to Harmony. What seems almost impossible, and it would be, even thinking it through, it would be impossible, will become a reality. But it won't become a reality just because Jesus Christ comes back with his little wand and bing! We've got a magic kingdom and sprinkles everybody. Nor is it magic for there to be harmony within the body of Christ today, just because we're all baptized and because we all know the truth. There actually exists a process by which harmony is created, and it's something that you and I are to be involved with now.

And if we are good at it, if we are successful at it today, we will be teachers of it in the world tomorrow. Humanity continues on a path of lawlessness. That's the rebellion against really any law. It wants to tear down any law. It wants to break any law. You see more and more examples in society of people who just defy the law to the extent that the law, the police, can't enforce it anymore. They don't even really try. The little fine parts of the laws of the road or even the laws of the land just get ignored. And you can see this almost in any country you go to. There's a mentality of lawlessness. Rules are out. My way is in. Humans totally, totally reject God's way of humility. That's stupid. That's foolish. Humility? No. Thinking of others as much as the self. Giving honor to a God, to a Creator, giving honor to leaders, to those who are trying to provide within the context of a government goods and services for its citizens? No.

Exalting someone else more than self? That's out. And so Job asks an interesting question in Job 15 and verse 14. He says, what is man that he could be pure? It's not possible. And who is born of a woman, in other words, human, that he could be righteous? In verse 16 of Job 15, how much less man who is abominable and filthy, who drinks iniquity and sin like water? That's what we do as humans, you see.

Now, we begin to see right there the connection, don't we, of a fractured world and sin?

The cause being Satan, the source being Satan, the result being rebellion, being walls and cities and armies and warfare and brokenness and broken that. You get the distinction right away that man is tuned in to sin and he drinks it like it's water. We know the statement in Romans chapter 8 and verses 7 and 8 that says, the carnal mind is enmity against God. The word enmity means hostile, hostility. Our carnal human nature is actually hostile to God. Hostile doesn't mean, I don't know if God exists, no, it means hostile. I'm against God, I'm against what God stands for. I might say I like his name, but in reality what I practice is the opposite. I'll use the name Jesus, but I'll do all the pagan stuff. I won't do anything God tells me. I will require myself to break his laws, and all religions do that except for the true religion. They all make excuses for doing so, but it's part of religion. You have to, it's enforced, be hostile to God and his laws. It's not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they who are of the flesh cannot please God. You see, God is love. God is about agape love. God is about humility, about serving, about sacrificing for others. And God has a result of love and joy and harmony. That's where harmony comes from. It comes from godliness, living it, doing it, not just hearing about it and liking it. Cardinal human nature, on the other hand, is about take. I want that. I'll take that.

I want that. I'll somehow have that. I will focus myself on that which I want, and I'll let nothing defer me from it. The result is unhappiness and division. So you have love, joy, peace, take, unhappiness and division. Now, which are you of? See, well, look at your relationships. Do you have strong relationships with God and with other people? If so, you'll tend to fall in the outgoing love, humility, give, serve, joy and harmony. If your relationships are always a little bit edgy and fractured or broken, take a look for taking, self-focus, unhappiness and division.

Because those are the fruits of two spirits. The spirit in man, the carnal human nature that we've developed with the spirit of man and the spirit of God's Holy Spirit. They're indelible. You can argue, you can fake it, you can make excuses. That's how the chips fall. You reap what you sow, the Bible says. We all do. Sometimes one wonders why God went to all the trouble to create men. Job wondered, he says, what is man that you should exalt him, that you should set your heart on him? Why bother? That you should visit him every morning and test him every moment?

Man actually is very important to God, but Job says, why? It's hard for him to realize, because if you don't understand that God is trying to develop a family, God wants children who think and act like him to come on up, as it were. We might miss why we are called and the purpose of our calling. It's not to believe in God. It's not to preach the gospel. It's not to believe in the truth. It's to become like our Father in heaven is. It's to obey the gospel.

It is to live the truth. It is to become like the family of God. And those who do have the harmony, the intimate harmony and unity that the family of God has because of what they do. They are humble. They are self-sacrificing. They are serving. They are loving. And harmony results.

None of us are perfect. All of us, at the best of our attempts, fail miserably. But are we interested in being like Christ? Are we interested in Christ-like service and Christ-like thinking and having the mind of Christ? If so, we will tend to be trending towards godliness and being like God. What is the cause of our broken relationships? They are defined for us in Isaiah 59 in the first two verses. Isaiah chapter 59 verse 1. It says, Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor is ear heavy that it cannot hear. This deals with one level of the relationship. This is the ultimate level. But it is all the same. There are two great commandments. You can't separate them. We have to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. And here he is saying, there is a problem here. You have a broken relationship. There is a division between you and God. What caused this? Well, that carries right on over. If you don't love God with your heart, soul, and mind, and keep His law and His commandments, you are also offending and breaking the relationships with people. Because you are not loving your neighbor as yourself. You can't do one and not the other. And so we can see this on two levels. The Lord's hand is not shortened that it can't save, ear heavy that it can't hear, neither is your neighbor's hand shortened that it can't befriend you, and is ear heavy that it cannot hear you. Something is wrong. And the idea is wrong. And He identifies it. Your iniquities have separated you from your God. When we sin against other people, it alienates us. And when we sin against God, it alienates us. All sin alienates, and we are separated from those that we should love and need to be loved by, by our iniquities. And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear. And sometimes people will hide their faces from us so that they will not hear. Now I understand that there is a caveat to this. This is Satan society, and sometimes people will separate themselves from truth and right, and want nothing to do with it. Will, you know, disavow you or, you know, just have, disinherit you, whatever it is, you know, because they don't want anything to do with right and truth. But eventually that should come around, and I'm sure you probably have examples in your life that initially someone will say, I don't like your religion, so, you know, cut you off. But later they say, you know, you're a very nice person. I guess we're going to have a relationship after all. But I don't want anything to do with your religion, still. We can understand that. But a loving, humble, serving person is going to endear themselves to God and to the fellow man, normally.

Humanity has always messed around with a different God. Right from Adam and Eve, they messed around, played with the enemy. They've smashed any relationship they've had with God. The religions of humanity that they have invented, every one of them has invented, especially Christianity has invented. Big mix of paganism, big mix of of, uh, syncristic ideals that date way, way, way back in time, all the way into Egypt and Nimrod, and it's God and goddess, aren't Jesus and Mary at all. And the days and the celebrations, it's terrible. And it's required that under the banner of the cross you go out and war and fight and kill and lie and be deceitful and your strategies of warfare.

That's being a good Christian. And who is the author of lies and murder? It's the one with the little g on the God. The second Corinthians 4-4, God of this world.

No, mankind breaks God's law and they justify it and they flaunt it. It's demanded.

You can't even be a good Christian or any other religion unless you break the laws of God. It's curious, but it's required. You must not keep all of God's law in order to be good in any other religion than this one. But society doesn't realize that and they don't care.

They don't care either because you see the carnal human nature is all about me and the religion is all about me and the politics is all about me and the lack of religion, the evolution is all about me and the commerce and the careers is all about me. Who's to blame for being the source of misinformation, the lies, the law breaking? Well, the answer, of course, is the one that Jesus told us about in John 8, verses 42 and 47. John 8, beginning in verse 42.

Jesus said to them, if God, capital G, or your father, capital F, that God and that father, if that was your true pater, your influencer, the one that you're trying to model your life after, you would love me, he said. For I proceeded forth and came from God.

Verse 43, why do you not understand my speech? Because you're not able to listen to my word.

Verse 44, you are of your father, small f, the devil. You're of your pater, the Greek word. You are of your influencer. You are following the mentality and the mindset of the devil, and to the desires of that influencer, that mentor, you want to do.

He was a murderer from the beginning. He does not stand in the truth. There's no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the pater of it. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? And if I tell you the truth, why do you not believe me? Verse 47, he who is of God hears God's words, therefore you do not hear because you are not of God. Now that really divides up humanity. There are those who can hear, and they are of God. And those who do not, they are of a different God with a small g, a different father influencer.

With all this confusion, all this division, people wonder where the true God is, and they try to make him part of it. Well, yeah, the real true God and the real true religion is here, and we've just got to fight harder. You know, we've just got to go out and slaughter more people.

And we've got to make more chaos for our God. It's kind of the mindset.

It says in 1 Corinthians 14 and verse 33, God is not the author of confusion.

God is not part of this. He didn't author it. He is not the pater of it. He didn't devise it.

The Greek word for confusion means disorder. God is not the author of disorder. See, broken, fractured relationships, all the disorder that exists. But he is the God of peace.

Greek word, irene. It means to have harmony, is what it means. To have a harmony that is stitching together.

The Greek word irene means to join. Here you have fracturing and disorder. God is not the author of that, but he is the author of to join in the English. That's what that word means, translated peace. As in all the churches of the saints. Ouch. There it is. There it is. God is not the author of disorder, fracturing. I've talked to people who are leaders in splinter groups before they leave, while they're leaving, after they leave.

The major splinter groups you know about. It's always a justification.

God is not for the... Oh, yes, he is. Oh, yes. God wants us to be separate. God is not the author of disorder, but of joining together. How can we be tearing apart relationships at home, relationships in the church, relationships in society, international relationships, relationships between man and God, and say, oh, this is of God.

Mankind's good at doing that. You know, we've done it going back since Adam and Eve. Somehow okayed it. Yeah, this is right. This is good. At least it's good for me. But it says, in all the churches of the saints, those who are led by the Holy Spirit, God is the author of joining.

So when we look at the fractured world and we ask, how could this ever be put together, it has to rely on the one, the Father, the pater, the influencer, whose being is about joining. Because love creates joy and it creates joining, which we know is the word peace in English.

Why in the churches of the saints is there this peace, this joining? And nowhere else.

Well, the clue it gives us is about how harmony is created. You and I need to understand how harmony is created. We find this not from our own deductions or some human understanding, but from the words of Jesus Himself. He said in John 14 and verse 17, talking to His disciples, not the Pharisees, not everybody else, but His disciples who had been baptized.

John 14, 17. Peace I leave with you. Remember, this is the word that means joining or harmony.

Harmony I leave with you. My harmony I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. And we might say, well, that's nice. That's nice. He gave us peace and harmony. Poof.

Isn't it great? Wait a minute. It doesn't work that way.

He gave us the ability because it's not really that simple to say, have peace and harmony.

Now you have it. It doesn't work that way. Nor is he going to come back in the world tomorrow at the end of the great tribulation after everybody's just, you know, slaughtering everybody and say, have harmony. Jesus Christ's peace, harmony, is a result of something. It's not some gift He left behind. Notice the context. We just read in verse 27, this harmony I leave with you. My peace I give to you. But this is in a context of the previous verses. This is the result of what He said we have to do before. Let's back up a little bit and see this. Verse 21, He who has my commandments and keeps them is He who loves me. What were His commandments? The new commandment I give to you, that you love one another like I have loved you. Self-sacrifice, deep humility, serving, giving, sacrificing your life for other, obeying God fully in every detail as commanded throughout the Bible. Not one mistake. That's what I leave you. Go do that. Verse 23, if anyone loves me, He will keep my word. He will keep the logos and the printed word and what Jesus said orally. He will treasure the Holy Spirit, that mind of God inside. He will keep that logos. And my Father will love Him. And we will come to Him and make our home with Him. You can't just even get God's love and you can't go anywhere by just His commandments. You have to have God come and live with you, abide in you. Make their home in you. Really become your mentors. How you think and what steps you're going to take.

Verse 26, the help or the Holy Spirit, which the Father will send in my name, it will teach you all things and bring to you remembrance all things that I said to you. Like the two great commandments, agape, love your Father more than anything. Agape, love your neighbor as yourself. Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. And what's the result? Next verse. Harmony, I leave with you.

If you do those things, the result is harmony. God's way and the human way of carnal human nature stand in stark contrast to each other. Stark contrast. And anyone who tries to say that God sort of mixes it up, bends the rules, is a liar. Because notice in Proverbs 6 and verse 16, we'll find exactly what God stands for and what He doesn't stand for. And I'm not going to stand up here today and lie to you that any human attempt that would cause the offense between man and God or man and man is somehow of God. Because that's not what God stands for. Let's notice in Proverbs 6, 16, these six things the Lord hates. Now, do you want God to hate something that you have or that you are or you? That would be bad. I don't mind if my neighbor hates me. I do a little bit, but I don't lose sleep if my neighbor somehow hates me. I would be in big trouble if God hated me. Big, big trouble. God is everywhere. God is all-powerful. There are six things God hates. Yea, seven are an abomination to Him. Maybe if I put my garbage out a little too early on the curb and my neighbor doesn't like it, that's one thing. When God says, I hate what you're doing and it's an abomination to me, that is an all-different category.

Here they are. Verse 17, a proud look. Look this up in Brown Driver Briggs, looking up the Hebrew definition. The proud means to rise up, to be high, to be lofty, to be exalted. It's about me. I'll do what it takes to lift me up. A good way of doing that is to cut you down. You just slice and dice everybody. The only one looking good, oh, it happens to be me.

God hates that. Next, a lying tongue. Things that are not truthful. It says, let God be true in every man a liar. I expect that every man is a liar to a degree.

I think it's very hard for us humans, I find in my own life, to try to be accurate in every detail. You know, I sweat the details when it comes to sermons and I try to be accurate in every little detail and then it seems like afterwards I'll find something in there, oh, that wasn't quite as accurate as it could have been. Oh, oh, wretched man that I am. You know, who's going to deliver me from the body of this death? We are imperfect, but those who just speak lies, a lying tongue, casually slaughtering others, didn't check the facts, but doesn't hurt me. God hates that. Hands that shed innocent blood either kill innocent people or they call it character assassination. They kill people's character in the eyes of others, their stature, their status, that which they've worked for their whole lives and trying to be a person of substance. Somebody comes along and cuts you off at the knees or you cut them off at the knees just casually, oh, that person is a fill in the blank and there that person's life and value and contribution goes just down the drain, down the sewer. God hates that. Heart that devises wicked plants.

I'll sharpen this up and I'll figure out how to do this and I'll get what I want.

Feet that are swift and running to evil. You know, people right in the church devising ways to steal chunks of money and slip it away into other accounts, steal property, just absolute theft, embezzlement, and move it out.

See, we can use this at the world, but when we talk about it in the church, then somebody puts a stamp on it and says, oh, but this was for a splinter group. This is for a godly reason. What does God say? This is wrong. Verse 19, a false witness who speaks lies, somebody who says this minister or that person, this lady in the church, this long-term individual, they are, fill in the blanks, leaving the faith, going to break the commandments, going to go to this, going to go to that. Speaking lies, a false witness. I know they are.

Well, you're believable, so I guess they are. And off they go.

And one who sows discord among the brethren, one who comes into the harmony, the harmonious group, and spreads the discord, guess what it does? It creates the divisions, breaks it up.

Oh, but in our case, my case, God likes that. Because I have a better brand. I have a better doctrine, or I have a better this, or a better that, or especially a better leader. That's usually the one. So it's okay in this situation. It's godly. See, that's a lie. That's a bald-faced lie.

God hates seven things, and they are abominations to Him. It doesn't matter who does them.

It doesn't matter where they are, what status they have. God is not a respecter of persons. God is looking for people who are like Him.

These will not be practiced by those who enter the kingdom of God. Does John Eliot say so? No. Bible does. Let's go back to Galatians chapter 5 and see where that stuff is all going. We all need to repent of it. We all need to get rid of those things that cause fractures and divisions because we are to be like God, and we are to be the agents of harmony in the world tomorrow. If we are breaking it up now, we're going to be breaking it up then.

Notice Galatians chapter 5, verse 20 and 21. I'm going to read this from the modern King James version, so you can just listen if you want.

Hatreds, Fightings, Jealousies, Angers, Rivalries, Divisions, Heresies, Inveings, Murderers, And things like these, They who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

No blank check, no special pass, no get out of jail free.

God is not about those things.

He is not about those things.

Now, what will be done about this date of separation from God and godliness that exists all throughout the human record and that will especially exist when Christ returns? What will God do about that?

God has had a plan from the beginning. I'm going to read you three passages.

Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in Agape.

That is what we were chosen before the foundation. He's had a plan since He ever made this planet.

And those He has called now were chosen before then. He intended to call people. I don't even know if He knew who they were at the time. He could very well have.

There was a plan. And that we should be before Him with His nature, with His mindset of Agape love. We would be here during the present evil age.

That's from Ephesians 1.4. The next scripture. Then the king will say to those on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before, or from the foundation of the world. God has prepared a kingdom for the firstfruits, for those individuals who were chosen.

And He's planned that all along.

How is it possible for sinful man to reconcile with God? This great division that we have.

The clue is found in just one more scripture about before the foundation of the world.

Talks about the lamb slain from the foundation of the world in Revelation 13.8.

It was also planned that Jesus Christ would die before the world was ever created.

The process of forgiveness being available for repentance, for a different mindset to come from God, a new God, a new Father, a new Father from above that would influence humanity, is part of this process.

The Feast of Atonement contains a ceremony that involves two goats.

It also depicts something that was planned from before the foundation of the world. Those two goats depict something that God had already planned before He ever created humanity.

They show and symbolize who would bear the sins of mankind, and also how man would be cleansed from sin. When you look at those two goats back in Leviticus 16, we find that Aaron cast lots and two goats, very special goats, were selected.

And it says in verse 9 of Leviticus 16, Aaron shall bring the goat on which the Lord's Lot fell, and offer it as a sin offering.

But the goat on which the Lot fell to be, it says the scapegoat, but that's not what the Hebrew word means. If you check the Hebrew word, you find it's an odd actual translation. It means complete removal or entire removal. The modern King James version actually translates it like this, but the goat on which the Lot fell to be the complete removal shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement upon it, and to let it go for a complete removal into the wilderness.

There's going to be a complete separation, a complete removal of Satan, of his influence.

And he also is going to have the sins of humanity confessed upon his head, as it were, in this goat representing that. And he's going to be removed, though Jesus Christ is going to die for the penalty of our having sinned.

We find in verse 15 of Leviticus 16, verse 16, He shall kill the goat of the sin offering which is for the people, bring its blood inside the veil, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat.

Verse 16, Because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions, and for all their sins. So we're going to get the penalty, we're going to get forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ. Verse 21, this second goat, it says, The goat of complete removal shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land, and he shall release the goat in the wilderness.

This is very reminiscent of Revelation chapter 20, in verses 1 through 3.

Revelation chapter 20, An angel came down from heaven, having a key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

And he laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who was the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. And he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more.

The removal is complete. There's a separation there.

And through those two things, an atonement, an atoning for the sin, sending away of the source of sin, becomes possible.

God wants to reconcile with us so badly that entitlement has allowed He wants to be at one with us, but we have to also have the same desire. We have to want to walk with Him. Isaiah 55, verses 6-7 says to seek the Lord while He may be found. And I will add, if you care to. Some people don't want to. There will be some that will just get burned up in the Bible. But God wants to reconcile. He shows how badly He wants to reconcile by all that He's doing and all that He's planning. But do you and I want to reconcile with Him and with each other? If so, seek Him while He may be found. Some humans need to reconcile, but they don't really want to reconcile. They just never talk. They don't want to. They just want to reconcile. Some humans need to reconcile, but they don't really want to reconcile. They just never talk. They just never talk. And then one of them dies. And He says, oh, I guess the opportunity never was taken. The same thing can happen with God. We must desire to walk with Him. So seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. It requires action. Let the wicked forsake His way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let Him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on Him. That is our responsibility. For He will abundantly pardon. If we turn to God and repent and change to be like God, then He will repair the breach that exists between us.

He will heal it. He will stitch us back together. Because He is a joiner. Fasting is a great tool for that. Humbling of the self. Getting off our mental perch. Sometimes we're kind of like the prodigal son. We think of ourselves as, oh, I've got to get out and fly. I've got to go out and spread my wings. I've got to go do something else. Something other than what God commands. Something other than what the church teaches. Something other than what my parents teach. I had to escape the rules.

And the result fractured from his family. It fractured in the relationships that he had. And the man ends up... this is a little graphic, but the Bible was graphic. He ends up in the barnyard going through the droppings looking for the kernels of the barley. So he can wash them off and have something to eat.

Not very pleasant, is it? But people have done that in history. Poor people. People who haven't had anything else to eat would do that from the Roman army, from the horses. Now, at some point, he wakes up and says, wait a minute here. As I'm going for another meal, it's worth some dumpster diving. It's doo-doo diving, you know. As I'm going for another meal here, back home, there's good food. Back home, they're eating well. Back home, there's peace, and there's harmony, and there's joy, and there's music, and there's partying.

What am I doing? You and I need to come to that place in our life regularly. And we can do that through fasting. And we can say, you know, look at... what am I doing? God, show me here. Bring me back into the fold. And so the lesson of the prodigal son is, the guy realizes what's going on. He repents. He goes back home and says, look, I'm not worthy to be brought back. But he's embraced, and an animal is killed. It could be symbolic of the sacrifice of Christ. But an animal dies, and great rejoicing takes place. That's available to you and to me and to anyone that God will call at any time, now and in the future.

But we have to be willing to take that step. In 1 John 2 and verse 2, we find that this is all possible through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He has already stepped out and sacrificed for you and me on his side of that relationship.

He's providing an open way and an open door for reconciliation. 1 John 2 and verse 2, and he himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sin. And not for ours only, but also for the whole world. This is the great starting place when the world finally repents his atoning sacrifice, waiting for them to cleanse them, to forgive them, to forget. God is a forgiving God. It's part of his nature to forgive. It's got to be part of our nature.

We can only be forgiven if we forgive or as we forgive others, because that's the way God beings are. Verse 5, Being in the true church means being there, sitting there with God's Holy Spirit, wrapped in a napkin, doing nothing, and Christ saying when he gets back, I don't know you because you're not like me.

I'm looking for my brothers and sisters who are of the family here to bring them up, the bride that's like me. We have something in common. We're compatible. But we have to not just believe and to know, we have to walk as he walked. Humble ourselves, serve, sacrifice, give to others, embrace God, embrace our fellow man, whoever they are.

Reconciliation and harmony comes through thinking and then living and acting like Christ. It's the process of spiritual maturity. It goes on through a lifetime as we become, like Jesus said, become you therefore perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. Perfect meaning mature or complete, growing up into Christ. It's Christ's sacrifice combined with our repentance and then our humility, our faith. These wash us clean from sin and remove the wall of separation, this wall of partition. Soon God's going to do the opposite of what he did in Eden.

If you think about it, when human history begins in the Garden of Eden, you see things breaking apart and the humans are getting expelled. When Christ's kingdom begins, it takes the reverse order. You see, relationships start beginning to form and the God of this world is expelled. The mind set, the mind giver, the painter, the father of this world has gotten rid of. And it goes back in reverse order from a fractured state to a state that begins to rejoin.

Forgiveness is there for everyone. And as everyone begins to learn to forgive others and begins to put on the nature of God in the sense of, hey, it's not just about me and me getting, it's actually, I need to think about others as much as myself. I need to begin to love God and embrace His way. As this knowledge of the Lord covers the earth, we begin to see things start stitching together. It's a very interesting process. The result is what you would expect. Agape love, joy, and peace. Harmony.

I'd like to take you forward to the very end of time. We saw those armies are amassing for battle. They're sharpening everything they can find. They're getting ready to do the all-out kill-off, if possible, of Christ and the saints.

Now, if you can step right into that chaotic scene, can you imagine? Now, imagine what we're going to go celebrate at the Feast of Tabernacles.

Unity, harmony, prosperity, and everybody getting along. Just the wonderful world tomorrow, peaceful state. How do you get from that chaotic place to what we're going to go celebrate?

Imagine this scene from Isaiah 19, verses 23-25. Remember the war that's going on. Remember the people that are involved in the battles and the atrocities and the worst that it's ever been. And now in Isaiah 19, verse 23, "...in that day there shall be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrians shall come to Egypt, and the Egyptians into Assyria..." Oh, they're friends. "...and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians..." Serve with the Assyrians? These people have never been about serving before. It's been about taking and tearing down and ripping apart anybody and enslaving everybody. That's different. Verse 24, "...in that day shall Israel be a third, the third with Egypt and Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land..." The descendants of Israel, by the way, we're talking about the 12 tribes, they've never been a blessing to any land. They've always been a cursing to any land. They can sharpen the knives better, they can make the better weapons, they can make the better merchandising, the better economics, they can enslave more people, they can extract more natural goods from around the world and pile it up within their borders than anybody else. So you've got the war-faring people who are jealous, and you've got these other people who are the entrepreneurs, and it's all a big basket of selfishness, and suddenly, all three of them, it says, are a blessing in the midst of the land. Verse 25, "...whom the Lord of hosts shall bless..." Wow! Not only are they getting along, but God is getting along with them. Saying, God says this, "...blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance." It's hard to grasp the arch-enemies and the arch-rivals of the kingdoms that have existed in the last two, three thousand years, being all harmonized, especially with God. Even the animals, then, will be friends. "...when the wolf and the lamb feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox, the dust shall be the serpent's food, they shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountains," says the Lord. That's from Isaiah 65. It's an amazing time of harmony. Harmony within the environment, harmony within the people, and harmony within the spiritual realm. And it all takes place through a process. In conclusion, at-one-ment is taking place between the saints and God at this time. Eventually, this is going to spread as they mentor the whole world. The process is the same. The same by which you and I need and are being unified through God, through humility, through repentance, through adopting His mindset and living it. And that Holy Spirit, that mindset of God, will ultimately bring an at-one-ment type of unity everywhere. Jesus Himself desired this from John 17, verse 21, That they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us. That is the deepest form of unity that's possible. Not just with or associated, but actually in. All within the same mindset, within the same family, and connected spiritually. So, brethren, as we look forward to a great future, a future of unity, a future of harmony, let's participate by battling Satan in every aspect of your life. Fight that pater, that father out. Get rid of those concepts. Don't let them settle into little pockets and pat them on the head, because you've got some sort of religious connotation with them. Get rid of them. Unseat Him as a captor of any part of your life. Be liberated by the Savior, who will wash you clean and put a new heart within you. Repent and harmonize with the mindset of the family of God. And when we do that, we will all be at one.