The Eighth Day

Here we are on the last day. Well, actually it's a separate feast attached to the Feast of Tabernacles, the eighth day. And when you go back to Leviticus 23 verse 39, that's what this day is called, the eighth day. And we call it the last great day because of the importance of it. You know, if you read through the Old Testament, it's just called the eighth day. And among the, if you look at Christian commentators, and you read their commentators on this day, they have all kinds of ideas of what this day was about. Very few find any real prophetic meaning in it, or any real deep understanding of what it means. You will find some Jewish sources, some understanding, but that is very, very minimal in understanding what this day means. We have a unique way of looking at why we keep this festival, and why this festival is important.

And to really understand it, and I told my wife, I said, I always hate speaking on the last day. Everybody's tired. Everybody just ate lunch. And I figure what I'm going to do is go through so many scriptures, you have to stay awake turning pages, okay? Because in order to understand this day, we have to start in Genesis 1 and end in Revelation 22.

To really understand all of that, we start at the beginning and we end at the end. Because this is the day that God's looking forward to. This is the reason for all of it. So if we went back to Genesis, you don't have to turn there, but you know it. It talks about how God created human beings, and says He created us in our image, or in His image. We were created in His image. Every human being was created in the image of God, yet we don't look like the image of God, do we? We don't act like the image of God. What happened to us? We know the story, but we have to make sure we don't let this deteriorate into a myth. It started because there was a man and a woman in a garden, and that was reality. And those two people were there, and they were made in the image of God. They weren't exactly like God. They weren't eternal. They didn't have all power, they didn't have all righteousness, but they had intellect. They had creativity. They had self-awareness. They had the ability to do things that nothing else that God had created, physical thing He created, could do. Mathematics, physics, literature, music, were truly unique. In those ways, we are like God. The ability to have relationships based on love and trust and loyalty and sacrifice. And that way, we're like God. And when God created Adam and Eve, He said, this is very good. When God looked at them, He said, I do good work. He didn't say, oh, they're bad, they're evil, there's something wrong with them. He said, this is good. This is what I want. This is the beginning of what I want. And at that moment, God's kingdom was still on His earth. God was here. He was ruling everything. And then God allowed Satan to come along and to talk to them and deceive them. It is very important for us to understand that God wasn't surprised by this. How did Satan get in the garden? If I would have known that, I'd have put a higher fence around it. God allowed him to do that, and he deceived those first two people. And remember, God kicked them out of Eden. They didn't walk out of Eden. God removed them from Eden. He said, if you really want to go that way, go. Go that way. And He kicked them out. And God's kingdom no longer, at that point, was being ruled on this earth. Now, God's kingdom didn't cease to exist. God still sits on His throne. He's still in heaven. He's still in charge. Satan didn't grab this away from Him. God allowed him to do it. God will take it back whenever God is ready to take it back. And so, Satan now took humanity away from God. And up to that point, they had only known good. As long as Adam and Eve only knew good, there was no arguments, no fights, no problems, no greed, no... just anger, no hatred. None of that existed. No coveting. And then they became a mixture of good and evil. And they became under the rulership of the God of this world. Now, we know this, but if we're going to understand this day, we have to start. How did it get here? How did humanity get where it is? And what is God going to do to save humanity? This one we heard about lost. There's billions of people. They are lost. They don't know which way to go. It's the way it's always been through history. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. 2 Corinthians chapter 4.

Probably in the sermons and sermonettes you hear back home, this is one of the most quoted passages. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Lest we forget. Verse 3. But even if our gospel is veiled, we're going to talk a lot about the gospel today, because this day is about the gospel. This is the day about the good news. It's very interesting when we do the television programs, we talk about how difficult it is. It'd be so nice to be a televangelist that can just get up there and say nice things to people. That if we're going to give them the good news, we have to give them the bad news first. And the bad news is, poor you people messed up. And I know because I'm messed up too. And somebody's helping me. The best description of the gospel I've ever read is, it is a starving man telling another starving man where to find food. That's what it is. You can never forget that we were starving too. Or we'll end up looking down on the world as worthless, instead of seeing them as what? How God sees them as lost, yes, a depraved, sinful people. That he wants to what?

He wants to get them to this day. He wants to get them to when this day is actually fulfilled in prophecy. So, he says, But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are dying, who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel, the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. We're going to talk a lot today about the image of Christ, or the image of God in Christ. What's that have to do with the last day of the feast? This last great day, this eighth day? What's that have to do with any of this? We need to look at it. Because when God kicked Adam and Eve out, He didn't go sit down with all the angels and say, What are we going to do? Satan somehow got in, took my children, my creation, and what am I going to do? He told Adam and Eve, I'm going to kick you out, and life's going to get real tough. The God you're following isn't going to give you a life, a good life, like I would have given you. And then your progeny and their progeny and their progeny are going to live terrible lives. But there's something else. One little statement. We have the first statement of the Gospel in Genesis 3.15. So let's go to Genesis 3.15.

Genesis 3.15.

God says...

He's talking to Satan here. I will put enmity between you and the woman. Talk about Eve and her children that would come after her.

There would be a warfare between Satan and humanity, and between your seed and her seed. And he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. Now you stop and say, wait a minute, wait a minute. There's a seed of the woman who is going to bruise the head of Satan.

Now Satan's going to bruise his heel. Satan's going to do some damage to him at some point. But he's going... You know, I'll never forget one time I was standing and looking at a rattlesnake. I find snakes fascinating. I just don't like to touch them. And a guy was standing beside me and he had cowboy boots on. And he was tired of looking at it. So he just stepped on it. Right on the head. And it was dead.

And he's going to step on his head. Now, that little statement right there. He says, now I'm kicking you out of the garden, but I am through the seed of a woman. I am through someone who's going to come and be a human being. I'm going to fix this. Of course, we know from the New Testament, he had planned to fix this from the very beginning. He set up, okay, once human beings decide, that's the problem with free choice. Guess what happens when God gave human beings free choice? Sooner or later they were going to make a bad choice. It's a problem. So sooner or later I'm going to have to save them. And it didn't take long. It didn't take long. And he says, okay, I've already got this set up. A seed of a woman is going to fix this. Satan, the God of this world, is going to be removed. So let's jump now to John. Let's move up to the New Testament. John 1. I want to tie this all together with this day, but we actually have to touch on all the other Holy Days to get there. We can't go through the meaning of every Holy Day in death, but we have to touch on every other Holy Day to get to this day. And what it means. John 1, verse 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And He was in the beginning with God. John 1, verses 1 and 2. The Word there, of course, most of us don't know too much Greek, but most of you know, oh, that's logos. I know what that means, right? They express thoughts of God. Now, there's a lot of philosophical ideas that people try to read into this, what it means. But the really important word is with in Greek. Because that word literally means most intimate communion.

So here we have the logos, who are the thoughts of God, but it's not just His thoughts. It's a person. It's a being who is in the most intimate communion with God. He is God, and He is with God. Let's go on.

Let's skip down to verse 10.

And that's the English use of His name. It's pronounced different in Arabic or in Hebrew, but Jesus. He comes into the world.

His own did not accept Him. The people of God who were supposed to prepare the way for the Messiah. You know, Genesis 3, 15, is the first Messianic prophecy. The entire Old Testament is filled with, I'm going to fix this, and I'm going to fix it to a person. The anointed one, the Messiah. And He's going to come into the world.

He comes as King, but if you understood Isaiah 52 and Isaiah 53, you realize He also comes as a suffering servant.

And people, you know, are there two Messiahs in the Jewish world? There are some believe that there are two Messiahs. One comes as the King, and one comes as a suffering servant. How do you put those two things together? How can the anointed one who comes to save the world come as a suffering servant to be beaten, emulated, and die, and as the King? How can he be both of those?

When He came into the world, the people who were supposed to prepare the way for Him rejected Him. Verse 12, But as many have received Him, to them He gave the right to become Now this is real important. The right to become the children of God, to those who believe in His name.

This day is all about why God did all this.

Why would you do all this? What was God's purpose? They just one day say, Hey, look, I'm going to make an earth.

What was His purpose in creating the earth?

What was His purpose in putting the sun and the moon and the... You know, just everything set up just right, creating life the way it is, and why did He put human beings here? It stays all about that.

In fact, everything God's doing is aimed at. This is the goal. This day is the goal of everything He's doing.

Or it pictures it.

So He gives them the right to become the children of God, who were born out of blood, or the will of the flesh, or the will of man, but of God. Verse 14, And the Word became flesh.

Well, yeah. Genesis 3.15 told us that would happen. But this just wasn't any man.

This was the being who was God and with God, who became flesh, who came here to be like us. That's a fascinating idea. We could talk for a whole hour of why He had to become like us.

The whole concept of, in order to be a family, you know, brother has to mean something. Father has to mean something.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, and the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. That's an interesting phrase there in Greek, the only begotten. It means He's unique. There's nobody like this.

This relationship He has with God, and the fact that He became flesh, is absolutely unique.

He goes on and talks about how John talked about Him and told people about Him.

Verse 18 says, he's talking about John the Baptist, No one has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son who was in the bosom of the Father. He has declared Him.

We have, when we keep the Passover season every year, we understand that Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Christ, He wasn't just a man.

He was God who became flesh.

What's amazing is every year when I read at the Passover in Isaiah, where it says, and it pleased Him to have Him suffer. It pleased God to have Him suffer. How could that be? Because God says, this is how I've got to buy them back. And there's a reason for that. What this day shows us is that God is a God of love and a God of justice, both in equal perfection.

Equal perfection.

His genius, His righteousness is beyond our imagination.

How He can do what He does in absolute perfect reason, and it just amazes me all the time. And this day pictures us and gets us focused in on how great God is. Perfect love, perfect justice, the way it can't be.

Every one of us, we know every Passover season, we understand that we deserve death. Justice deserves death. God won't erase His law, so guess what we deserve?

So He sends His Son to die for us. Perfect love. Justice is served, and love is served at the same time.

To show us who He is and who Christ is, so that we understand that character.

I would have never thought of that, would you? How would we ever come up with that kind of plan? And yet when we stand back and look at it, wow! What amazing love that God has for us. And as we go through the days of Unleavened Bread, and we eat that Unleavened Bread, we're no longer... On the Passover night, we're what? We're looking at His broken, beaten body when we eat that Unleavened Bread. During the days of Unleavened Bread, we're looking at Christ in us. When we read that every year, we go to the Scriptures, how we must eat Christ, so He's alive. So we understand. He died, He was resurrected, and now He's going to be working with us. And here's why. When God kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, they were no longer in the image of God.

If they looked like the image of God when God created them, when they left, they were like someone took a hammer and just beat that up, so you couldn't even see that was the image of God anymore.

Their nature became a mixture of good and evil. Your nature, my nature, is a mixture of good and evil. That's why. This has to be more than just keeping the law. I love God's law. I strive to keep God's law. I also know my nature is so corrupt that unless God changes me, my law-giving or keeping cannot get me into the kingdom.

There's something too corrupt inside of me. I have to be changed. What this day really shows us is that salvation is an act of creation.

God's taking marred images of Himself and recreating them into His children.

Let that sink in.

God's taking marred images of Himself that Satan took and just beat up and destroyed and recreating them. Salvation is not just an event in your life.

It is being recreated into what you were created to be at the beginning.

It's why you were born. To be given the right.

It says He gives us the right now to be His children.

And so we come along and we keep those spring holy days, and we remember what it was like to repent. We remember what it was like to turn to God. We remember what it was like to accept Jesus Christ as our Passover.

And that He must live in us.

And then we get to the Feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Church. Well, let's go to Colossians 1.

See, these aren't usually the Scriptures we cover on the last eighth day of the Feast. Well, that's because we haven't gotten there yet.

We're just the Pentecost.

I find the letter to the Colossians very interesting, because we have... We're always interested in the Church of Laodicea, in Revelation 3. There is no letter to the Laodiceans that has been canonized and put into the Scripture, but Colossians, twice in this letter, they are told, read this to the Laodiceans. So if you want to understand the problem in Laodicea, read Colossians.

Colossians 1, verse 12, breaking into the middle of a sentence here. But Paul writes, "...giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light." He said, we need to thank God because He has given us something.

Partakers of this inheritance will know by the end what the inheritance is. "...He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." You and I lived in the kingdom of Satan. Now, God's kingdom isn't established on this earth yet, right? Jesus Christ isn't here ruling yet. But there are little pieces of light all over the world where people are living by the standards of that kingdom. That's who we're supposed to be. When God looks down on this darker world, He should be able to see little pins of light all over the place.

Little pins of light. Remember, one time I went, I visited a Sabbath-keeping church that doesn't keep the Holy Days. And I was talking to the head of their ministry. And He said, why do you keep the Holy Days? And this was a profound experience. It was the Seventh-day Baptist Church. And He said, why do you keep the Holy Days? So I took about four or five minutes, real short, and just gave how each Holy Day pictures the work that God is doing through Christ.

And when I was done, He said, can I pray? Sure. He laid His hands on me and He said, God, You give each of us little pieces of light. Please let these men not to give up the pieces of light that You give unto them.

Pieces of light? Wow! The Holy Days picture of Christ! What God is doing through Him. Don't let Him give this up! It was a profound experience.

He goes on, He says, In whom, verse 14, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, tying that into the spring Holy Days again, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. I'm going to stop there because some people say, Well, this means that God created Jesus, that He wasn't the Logos who lived forever with the Father. But look down to verse 18 because it says, He is the head of the church, or the body of the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. How did Jesus Christ become the firstborn? Because He died. He's the first one who was resurrected. At that point, He became the firstborn.

Before that, He wasn't the firstborn.

He became the firstborn. He had to show us the way. This is how you get into the kingdom. You are changed.

And so He died. Let's go back up to verse 16. For by Him all things were created. Here Paul wants to go back to, Let's remember how God's doing this. This is why collages are so important. In the Laodicean Church, Jesus Christ is standing outside knocking on the door, because they have forgotten the preeminence of Christ and the plan of God.

Now, Christ leads us to the Father, right? When you pray, you pray directly to the Father. You have a relationship directly with the Father. He wants the Father to be the center of your life. But we can't forget how we get there. You and I can never afford to forget the privilege it is to go before the Father and how we get there. And it's the holy days that tell us how we get there.

For by Him all things were created, that are in heaven, that are on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. The Greek word there consists, it's interesting, because it basically means everything holds together. By Him everything is held together. He is the head of the body of the church. It was the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have free eminence. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out. And the church was began, didn't it? We think about God working through His Spirit on that day, and how the church is formed, and how on that day a body was began to be created, that God wanted to use and be part of the first resurrection. But the Pentecost also tells us there's somebody that's in charge of the church. That person is Jesus Christ. So He's our Savior, He's our Passover, He's the head of the church. Okay, I want to skip trumpets a minute. I want to just go into a tomelet. We'll come back to trumpets, okay? I can stand up here for another hour and talk about all the ways that the Day of Atonement pictures Jesus Christ. The sacrifices, the blood, the goat that is sacrificed, the other one representing Satan is dragged out into the wilderness, right? But there's something else about Atonement that's very, very important. And it's summarized in the New Testament in the book of Hebrews. In the book of Hebrews, there's three or four chapters. I want to just go through great detail about the activities that went on during the Day of Atonement and how they picture Jesus Christ. I want to read just a couple verses. Hebrews 7. I told you I was going to keep you turning pages. At least I don't have a PowerPoint like Friday night, where you just... Hebrews 7, 22. But how do we get to this day? What is God doing? Hebrews 7, 22. Once again, we're breaking into the middle of a thought, actually the middle of a sentence here. But he says, By so much more, Jesus became a surety of a better covenant. Also, there were many priests because they were prevented by death from continuing. There were many high priests throughout the history of ancient Israel and ancient Judah. They all died, so a new high priest would have to come along and continue the work. But he... Remember now, the reason I read verse 22 is we need to know who the person he's talking about here is Jesus Christ. But he, because he continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore, he is also able to save to the utmost those who come to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. For such a high priest was fitting for us, who was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens, who does not need daily, as those high priests did, to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins and then for the people's. But for this he did once for all, then he offered up for himself. You know, Jesus Christ right now is carrying out the Day of Atonement every day in a very small way. Now, there's still a future that has to be fulfilled. This is why all of the Holy Days are still shadows of things that come. Not one single Holy Day has been completed yet. But it's interesting that all the Holy Days have a past to them, and they have a future to them, but they have a present to them. If you don't recognize Jesus Christ as your Passover, and you only see a past and future in that, you won't live as a Christian.

If you don't keep the Days of Unleavened bread, seeing that your Christ is supposed to live in you, then you won't live as a Christian. If you don't, as you partake of Pentecost and worship God and praise Him on Pentecost for receiving the Holy Spirit, don't realize, oh wait a minute, yes, I'm now part of the Church, and Jesus Christ is the head of the Church, you will not function very well in the Church. Jesus Christ right now is the High Priest. And there's a lot of things He does every day for you, between you and your Father. Working tirelessly, doing what He's supposed to do, and many times we are ignoring what He's doing. We get to run right to the Father, forgetting there's somebody there that's making this possible. The Logos, who was God and with God, and was willing to become like us. That blows my mind sometimes when I start, what is it like to be God and get sleepy? What is it like to be like God and eat something and get an upset stomach? See, I'm not downgrading Him, I'm saying that's what He willingly became. What is it like God to watch somebody about to hammer a nail through your hand, and you've been God before, and it's like this is really going to hurt. What's that like? I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine that. And He's there being your High Priest, the Head of your Church. He's there being your Passover. He's there doing it every day of your life. Because He's working for this day. He's working for this day. Now let's go back to the Feast of Trumpets. Revelation 19. Because the Feast of Trumpets really pictures future events, although we have to understand, if Jesus Christ fulfills this role in the future, if you and I are now ambassadors for the kingdom of God, then this is to be fulfilled in our lives already in a very limited way. Revelation 19, verse 11.

This is called the Word of God. This is the Logos, the Logos of God. He's not the Father. He is the One who was in communion with Him before time began. He's the One who emptied Himself, as Paul says, emptied Himself of His privileges to be like us. And He's coming back on that day of trumpets to establish God's kingdom on this earth. Verse 14, So here's another role of Jesus Christ. The Father doesn't come on the day of the people asking all the time.

Well, are you a Republican or Democrat? I always love when they ask that question, because I always tell them I'm a monarchist. I have a king I vote for. He doesn't even my vote, but I'm all waiting for my king. So I don't need any Republicans. I don't need any Democrats. I don't need any Independents. I have a king. It sort of shuts down the conversations. I don't know why. People really won't want to talk much after that. We are. We're monarchists. We have a king we're waiting for.

You live today. I live today. We're supposed to live for that king today. Absolute humble homage to Him and what God is doing through Him. That's why we're told to pray in His name. Jesus told His disciples, when you pray in my name, I won't answer you. The Father will. Because you pray in my name. He said, I'm going to take you right to the Father. You're going to be right before His throne, and I'm standing right there taking you there.

That's why it's important not to forget who's taking us there. And these days remind us. They focus back in. Oh, yeah. Every Holy Day is about what God is doing through Christ to fulfill, Yeah, I kicked you out, but I'm going to bring you back. I kicked you out of Eden, but I'm going to bring you back. Satan only gets you for a while.

And when you've learned the lessons, when you're really tired of it, I'll come get you. We've already read this morning in Revelation 20, there is a resurrection at Christ's return. But, you know, that resurrection is a very specific resurrection. It is of the saints. Now, that was mentioned this morning, too. Now, when you go to 1 Corinthians 15, we will now have to go there, where it describes the resurrection of the saints.

1 Corinthians 15 is called the resurrection chapter. Paul is asked, and remember, 1 Corinthians, he's actually answering questions. That's why 1 Corinthians is difficult. He got a letter. He wrote answers to the questions, and he always didn't tell us what the questions were. It would be a whole lot easier if Paul said, the first question, here's the answer, but he didn't. And so he's answering questions. And then he said, well, some have asked, well, what kind of body are you going to have in the resurrection?

You have to realize the importance of that in a Greek world. Right? A court sits right in the middle of Greece, okay? The idea of a resurrected body was a strange idea to them. Because you had an immortal soul. The soul left the body. According to Socrates, the whole purpose of philosophy was to prepare your soul to leave the body. And all the pagan religions, basically of Greece, you had an immortal soul. And, wait a minute, what do you mean? What kind of body do I get? So they asked him that. And he said, well, let's put it this way. Look at the moon, and look at the sun.

This is the human body. That is what it's like to be in the resurrection. It's just this beautiful example. And actually knowing what we know now, what he didn't know, they didn't the science to know it, you're looking at a rock that reflects light, and you're looking at something that produces light. So, I mean, the reality of it is even more profound.

Right now, we are rocks. We are dirt that reflects light. There's a time when we have life that generates its light. That's what we're looking forward to. That's what that first resurrection is about. So the first resurrection takes place, and Christ establishes God's kingdom on this earth. We just spent seven days going through that, didn't we? Okay, now we're finally ready to talk.

Let's see, I've got 20 minutes. We're finally ready to talk about this day. We have to understand. The sermon this morning was like, oh, good. Because I get all these scriptures and tell my wife, there's no way to get through all this. Well, they just filled it right in. I started wiping out scriptures as we went along. Because I thought, good, that's covered. That's covered. That's covered. We get to the end of that time, the end of the thousand years reign, and we get to the great white throne judgment.

Now, this was read, but I want to read part of it again. Let's go to Revelation 20. Because this time pictures a lot. If the first resurrection has taken place and the millennium's over, then we get to verse 7. The thousand years are expired, and Satan is released again for a short time. Okay, so this time period is like the Feast of Trumpets isn't about a day or a trumpet.

It's about a whole series of events and a whole bunch of trumpets. This isn't just about a day. I can remember once seeing a tract, and I think there's a way a lot of people think about the great white throne judgment.

It used to be when I was a kid, you'd go into restaurants and stuff, and there'd be little tracts all over the place. I used to save them. I thought they were pretty cool. And this one, and I'll never forget this, it was the Judgment Day. And God's sitting on the throne, and he looked a lot like Abraham Lincoln. You know, at the Lincoln Memorial? And he had two levers. And if he pushed one, people were floating up into heaven, and he pushed the other one. They were going down a chute into hell. And that's how the people think, well, that's the great white throne judgment. God's sitting there pulling these levers, right? Now, why look like Abraham Lincoln? I never figured that out. This isn't what the great white throne judgment is. It starts with, Christ has ruled on the earth for a thousand years. It's perfect. It's at peace. Yet there's no crime. No one even knows what the word divorce means. Unless we've prepared them for it, as one of the sermons brought out, right? And Satan's loosed, and he messes things up for a little bit longer. And then God says, okay, that's it. Satan's removed forever. So we get down to verse 11. I saw the great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven flood away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged according to their works, but of things which were written in the books. Now, either this means that everybody's standing before God, and God says, okay, Hindu, hell. Right? Buddhist, hell. And he's pushing the levers.

But there's a problem with both the concept of love and justice in this.

If you think about it, nobody, and we understand this in terms of justice, say someone has organic brain damage, and so they have an IQ of 70, and so they're not even like a small child, and that person picks up a rock, and throws it and hints somebody and kills them. We would not condemn them for first-degree murder.

That wouldn't be just. Why? We know that the person has to know the difference to be judged.

They have to know the difference. They actually have to make a choice to be judged. Even in our judicial system today, which is a very bad judicial system, it's just the best one on the earth, right?

It's interesting when I look through the law of God. The law of God is set up for human beings, and you have to have two or three witnesses to condemn somebody for a capital offense. You know what that means? It was better for the guilty to go free than for the innocent to be punished. As long as human beings are involved, you're going to have at least two witnesses before you can condemn anybody. That means every once in a while a guilty person is going to go free. He said, I'll take care of that. That's better than punishing the innocent. When you read God's law, the genius of it is amazing to me.

There's justice. There's love and mercy and justice.

Now, what do we do with these people, then, if they've never had a chance? Let's go to Romans 5.

We say, well, you believe that people get a second chance? No, we don't. Everybody gets a chance.

But you have to have been touched by God to know the difference.

Romans 5.8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Before you repented, God was offering you forgiveness.

Before you repented, God was offering us forgiveness.

Much more than having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more having been reconciled we shall be saved by His life. Well, of course, He's going to live in us now. We don't worship a dead Messiah. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation. Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all have sinned.

Paul, in his normal way, he rambles on. He gets fired up and he goes...

I love the way Paul writes at times. He writes like a rabbi, but the problem is that the next sentence he's writing like a Greek philosopher. And he has no problem jumping back between the two. I can't keep up with it.

Slow down, Paul. Let me work through this.

His personality... I want to meet this man someday. His personality must be fascinating.

But, okay, through Adam, one man, he says, once Adam sinned, Adam and he sinned, sin now was... You know, human beings were just going to sin. We're under Satan's control. Some place in our early development, Satan gets a hold of us. I sometimes think it's probably in the womb. He just starts messing with us so early on. And what happens? It doesn't take long. You know, he had this beautiful little baby. Then one day they decide to throw a fit, and they start throwing things at you, and you think, what happened to my baby? Right?

Ah, there's now a marred image of God. That's what happened.

They're not an exact image of God. And as they get older, pretty soon we look at ourselves in the mirror and say, I don't look like God's supposed to look at all.

I don't look like a child of God. This is what God says a child looks like.

He goes, verse 13. Paul writes, For until the law sin was in the world, but sin was not imputed when there was no law. Well, what in the world does that mean?

Verse 14 says, Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who was the type of him who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the offense, for if by one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God, and by the gift of the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, abound to many.

Sin, now I'm going to use Paul's argument that comes up here in chapter 7. Okay? Law is a definition of sin.

Back to one point he says, if you read Romans 7 and 8, he says, I would not have known sin except by the law. Now we know God didn't say sin doesn't matter.

So the law still exists.

Okay? I mean, one of the most ridiculous arguments I've ever heard is that Jesus came to nail the law to the cross.

Well, then he didn't have to come. All God had to do was say, I do away with the law. Well, he had to be killed for our sin. Well, if there is no law, we have no definition of sin.

But Paul's argument is, let's go back before the law was given on Mount Sinai.

Guess what? People didn't know the law.

And they still died, which is the result of sin.

They still suffered, which is the law because of sin.

And we begin to understand here that what Paul's saying is, there are two kinds of judgments. And I'll tell you why. It says here, but sin is not imputed where there is no law.

What's that mean?

The Greek word imputed there means, it's not put to your account.

It's not put on your account.

Now, did those people suffer because they sinned? Yes. So we get two kinds of judgments.

If I go out here and get drunk and drive my car into a tree at 100 miles an hour, there is a judgment. It's the natural result of me breaking the law of God. And it's not going to be very pretty, right?

There is also the natural judgment that God will do. You know, the sermon this morning talked about natural judgments from God, like the flood.

That's a temporary judgment.

He didn't say those people were gone forever. Temporary judgment.

We all, you and I, live under temporary judgments all the time. And yet, every one of us here knows.

That as long as we stay with God, our salvation is assured.

We have to choose to go away from this. You can still choose to do it, but you have to choose to go away from it.

Your salvation is assured as long as you hold on to God.

But you still sin, don't you?

And you get a temporary judgment because of that.

Something bad happens.

And you go and beg God forgiveness, and He says, I forgive you, and the eternal judgment, the negative eternal judgment, is not there.

We always think of judgment in terms of negative. It doesn't have to be negative.

I think I've lost some of you.

There's a temporary judgment, and there's eternal judgment.

When He says it wasn't put on their account, He didn't mean that they didn't die. He didn't mean that they didn't suffer. He meant, eternally, they're not judged yet.

The world is not being judged yet.

We are.

But they're not.

So they suffer, and they die, and they don't even know why.

They suffer, and they die, and they don't even know why.

But God doesn't put that to their eternal account yet.

That's why, when we look at this last day, this time of the Great White Throne Judgment, it can't be God with two levers just putting people, you know, eternal life, you know, eternal death. He's not doing that.

People have to learn.

They have to come into a relationship with God.

They have to have access to God's Spirit.

Remember what was read this morning in Ezekiel?

I will resurrect you, and what are they? They're physical.

That can't be the first resurrection. The first resurrection, according to 1 Corinthians 15, is spiritual. You get a spiritual body.

It is physical.

And then what does God say to those people? He's saying it to Israel there, but whatever happens to Israel happens to everybody.

It just usually starts there.

But it happens to everybody. He says, then I will put my Spirit into you. What happens when God's Spirit is put into us?

We are now in relationship with God.

We now have the ability to learn and the ability to choose.

Everybody gets the right to choose.

That's justice.

Everybody gets the right to repent.

That's love.

Because we're already guilty when we show up.

So I always tell people when they're being baptized, Christ calls Himself your advocate. He's the defense attorney. He's the only defense attorney in history that appears before the judge, which is the father, and says, Oh, my client's guilty of sin.

Deserves death. That's your defense attorney. And then He says, apply my blood to my brother or sister.

That's amazing.

That happened to every one of us. One day we appeared before God, and our defense attorney said we were guilty, and then said, apply their penalty to me.

We all went through that.

And He's going to be reigning on this earth.

But at the end of that thousand years, at the time of the great white throne judgment, when all of humanity is brought up, and I hope all of you get a chance to look at this painting. You know, it's not exact. I mean, theologically, they all come up at the same time. But how do you show that?

All these people are coming up, and there are different stages of coming up.

There are some funny parts to it, too. I like the part where there are, I think, twelve British soldiers all marching together. They must have all gone down together, okay? And they're just walking around. Here we are.

The whole point is that all these people come up who never had their chance.

It's not a second chance. Under Satan's rule, they never had a chance. Do you realize how wonderful this is? Do you realize the teaching of Christianity throughout the last 1800 years has been the great majority of humanity who has ever lived is tortured forever and ever and ever in hell, and God likes it?

God likes it. That's the belief of common Christianity for the last 1800 years.

Well, the truth is, they get to choose.

Now, some will not choose the right way. I can't imagine it, but the Bible says they don't.

Because there in Romans, or Revelation 20, it says, they will be thrown into the lake of fire. Now, the question is, okay, who makes this judgment? Let's go to John 5.

Sort of wrap it up here. John, chapter 5.

John, chapter 5.

I want to picture this day when all humanity finally learns and chooses. God's Spirit has been poured out, and there's judgments now being made that are eternal judgments, not temporary judgments. God makes temporary judgments all the time. He may decide to let you suffer in order to learn something. That's a temporary judgment. And when it's done, you say, oh, I get it. I've wrestled with God many times, saying, this isn't right, only to find out later, boy, that was smart.

Because I don't see this bigger picture.

John 5.22. For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son. John 5.22. That all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. Ooh, that's a pretty strong statement. That's why we can't forget who got us here.

He goes on and talks about how He is going to make the decisions. He's going to give eternal life.

Verse 27 said, He has given Him, talking about Himself, authority to execute judgment also because He is the Son of man. Do not marvel at this, but the hours coming, which all who are in the graves will hear His voice. Verse 29, And come forth those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation. But verse 30, that is very interesting. I can of myself do nothing. As I hear I judge, my judgment is righteous, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me. He says, Now when I am making these judgments, remember, I am in intimate communion with my Father.

And my judgments will be exactly what my Father wants. But remember, to stand before the one who gives us either eternal life or the lake of fire will be Jesus Christ, because He is the one who paid the price for every one of us. Anyone who denies that price will have to stand before Him and receive a negative judgment.

But you and I don't have to live in fear if we have accepted and understand what God is doing. And we go to God and say, My Father, and have a relationship with Him because your brother is there with you. You don't have to worry about the negative judgment. There is the judgment of eternal life. The judgment that Christ says, you get eternal life in the family of God.

But that isn't just for us. If we make this all about us, we miss the point. We are called now for one reason, because we're so weak and small, we are the proof of the greatness of God. If God can make us His children in Satan's world, He can do it with anybody, anytime. Don't ever forget that. You're called now to prove the greatness of God. When we think this is about us, we've missed the point. That's what God is doing, at our submission to it, and looking forward to this day, when all humanity gets their opportunity. At the end of this day, there is a lake of fire.

But it's not the complete end of this day. I mean, I'm saying, day, when this is fulfilled. Because we know there is a lake of fire. Let's go to the Scripture. I've got just two more Scriptures here. 2 Peter 3 Verse 10. Verse 9 was read this morning. I'm going to pick up right where it was left off here. But the day of the Lord, verse 10, will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away.

Now this isn't talking about, you know, the day of the Lord is any time of judgment. Now we generally think of the specific day of the Lord, which has to do with the seven trumpets. Because so many prophecies are about that. There was time when ancient Judah experienced the day of the Lord. There's a time when ancient Israel experienced a day of the Lord. Well, there is another day of the Lord. There's a time of judgment. It is when this time is fulfilled, when all humanity is given their opportunity.

That's why I don't know how long this period lasts. You know, we look at Isaiah, where it says an old man will die at 100 years. We say, well, maybe it's 100 years long. That's as good as time is we can come up with. I don't know exactly how long this time is. 100 years is as good as anything we come up with. But the point is, it is a time period. It is a time period where people have to learn, and people have to make their choices, and people have to receive God's Spirit.

And then there's a point where God says, okay, the choices are made. We now make this decision. And then, everybody's changed who are going to be changed. There are some left on this earth, and this is what happens.

The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and with the elements will melt with fervent heat. Both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Verse 11 is an important message for us.

Peter says, Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you ought to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat. Nevertheless, we look according to His promise. We look for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. A new heavens and new earth. When that lake of fire takes place, the whole earth is going to be destroyed, and then God is going to really start creating.

This whole time period, during this time period of Satan's rule, is God creating. What He's creating? An individual here, and an individual there, and an individual here, and bringing them together and saying, Okay, I'm recreating you into what you should be. What happens on this day? He has billions and billions that He's recreated into what they should have been to begin with. And they'll be saying, Yes, Lord, I don't ever want to go another way again. Whatever it takes, I will be your child. I'll be your daughter. I'll be your son. He has a family. In fact, in Revelation 21 and 22, it talks about God bringing His throne to earth.

That's this day. It's at the end of this day that God brings His throne to earth. The great white throne. Judgment happens. The lake of fire destroys the earth, and He begins, Okay, it's time to really get to work now. See, this is the beginning of the story. This is just the preamble to the story. The story begins at the end of this day. We've got an universe now. I've got a family now. I have no idea what He has in store for us.

But when I look at how He worked this out, it's going to be incredible. It's got to be absolutely incredible. He finally says, Good. I can have some fun now. We got rid of Satan. I've got my family. We can go on. And He has a whole universe to do it with. And there's one last thing at the end of this day that Jesus Christ has to do.

Let's conclude with that. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 15. There's one last thing He has to complete. 1 Corinthians 15. Verse 23 talks about Christ coming and the firstfruits. Well, we've talked about that. We've talked about Christ. We've talked about Pentecost. We've talked about the first resurrection. Verse 24, Then comes the end, Paul says, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father.

When He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. And the last enemy that will be destroyed is death. After the lake of fire there will no longer be death. For He has put all things under His feet. He's quoting here from Psalms. But when He says all things are put under Him, it is evident that He who put all things under Him is accepted. That's Paul's way of saying, now when God put Christ in charge of everything, He didn't put Him in charge of Himself.

That's Paul's way of saying that. He said to the Logos, you will be in charge of everything. You will prepare the kingdom. And then when you're ready and you get it done, you bring it to Me. And we have a family. Verse 28 says, Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him. That God may be all in all. God's Spirit will be in every...all of us. God's Spirit will be throughout the universe. God will be all in all. Then we know no part of this universe which God does not reign over.

His kingdom will be every place. And it will be His family. And at the end of this day, we always think of all this day, okay, there's great white throne judgment, and then there's the changing of everybody that's accepted God, which will be the great majority of humanity. I mean, that has to be. Then there's the fire. Oh, but that doesn't end it. There's still something else that happens before the sundown goes down, so to speak, on this day.

It is that God brings His throne to earth, and Jesus Christ is waiting and we're saying, here it is. I did it. No, we didn't. Christ never says, aye. We did it. I was the Creator. I was the Passover. I was the, you know, the Unleavened Bread. I was the Head of the Church. I was the High Priest. I was the King of Kingdom, Lord of Lords.

I was the Judge, and here it is. It's yours.

That's the goal. Actually, that's the gospel. What I told you today was the gospel.

The holy days are explained in the gospel. It starts with Genesis 1 and ends with Revelation 22.

It's how God takes this evil mess and He works it out.

He does with it what He had planned to do, which was create children. That's the purpose. That's the hope that you can go home with now.

That's the purpose and hope so that you will be here next year. So that you can be here next year, someplace, keeping the Feast of Tabernacles, someplace, keeping the eighth day and realizing, this is it! This is the goal. This is everything. This is why God's doing all this. Because at this point, at this time, Christ looks at the Father and says, Let me present to you your family.

Let me present to you your family.

He'll be excited to do it.

We should be excited to be there.

I hope you return home from this Feast.

Spiritually rejuvenated, I am.

I found this Feast to be spiritually rejuvenating in so many ways.

And rededicated. There's a lot we have yet to do. There's a lot of conversion we have to go through yet. There's a lot of learning to get along with each other we have to do yet. And there's an awful lot of people who need to hear the Gospel yet.

He'll say, There's not very many of us. Well, this is a whole lot better when Jesus looked at 12 guys and said, Go to the world! They must have looked at each other and said, Is he crazy? I guess he means maybe like the outskirts of Jerusalem. I mean, what in the world does that mean?

God did it through them. He'll do it through us. And remember, there comes a time. There comes a time when you were there with Christ, when this day is fulfilled. The bride of Christ prepared for him. You've spent a thousand years, we've spent a thousand years helping prepare that family. We will continue to work through the Great White Throne Judgment. You think it ends like, Okay, the millennium's over, we all get to take a nap. No, we just have billions of people to work with. And we will be there watching him. This is our goal. This is what we want. Present us and the rest of the children to God. And God will say to him, and what all of us want to hear also, is well done, my good and faithful servant.