Global Perception of Man's Journey

What a great inspiration! What a wonderful start! I appreciate the Feast of Tabernacles so much in seeing all of you, seeing people I hadn't seen in a long time. One person in particular was our piano player. I was her pastor in Paducah, or actually in Madisonville, Kentucky, years ago. And this is the first time that we have seen each other in 20 years. And her husband, Mark, it's been wonderful to see her. It's been wonderful to see many of you that I hadn't seen in a long time. It's been absolutely a wonderful, wonderful experience to be here. As Mr. Ost mentioned, we have never been to Florida for a feast. Our churches in Kentucky at times were assigned to St.

Petersburg back in olden days. But for some reason, I can't remember all the reasons why we went to the Lake of the Ozarks and most of the time when I was in Kentucky. Never had been here to the feast in Florida, and it certainly is a marvelous experience with this hall, hall completely full, and then we have our Amen section here to the right, which on cue they will help me through my sermon today. I'd like to also welcome all those who are listening on the webcast, listening and looking at us on the webcast.

Also, special greetings for those who were not able to make it. We've had a number of people with serious health issues, including a number of pastors who had serious health matters come up just before the Feast of Tabernacles. If you're listening to this particular webcast, our love and greetings from Panama City Beach.

I want to thank all who are involved in the preparation and making this festival site work. I know that I could make a long list of names, and usually what I do is I forget somebody's name and then it looks bad. But I do want to first of all just thank Jerry Ost and his wife Marianne for the work that they have done in organizing the feast. It's a lot of work, and I see him screwing around here with all the details that have to be done.

And it's amazing to see it all come together. I'd also like to give special credit to the technical group. Those are my co-workers at the home office that have come down here to make the webcast work, make the special webcast on the Sabbath work, to provide the sound. Technology is marvelous, but then there are times when it doesn't work. It's frustrating. And bugs have to be sorted out on the fly.

But they do a tremendous job, and I love that group. I really do. I enjoy working with them. One of the highlights of my working at the home office is the group that I work with who are here. I truly sincerely mean that. Also, I want to thank those who put those decorations up front here.

I just admire the special taste, the special feeling for the Feast of Tabernacles that is shown here by the way the decorations are set up. Also, all the support in back, ushering, helping with parking, and all the other things that have been taking place. Also, I complimented Mr. Ost on the production of the Festival brochure or the Festival program here. Just a very, very fine 20-page piece that has been put together, and it's very, very nicely done.

Also, there are many others here who are sharing not only this Feast but with others on certain social media. We have chosen hashtag UCGFOT, which you might have seen on the screen after the services. Probably will be shown again. Hashtag UCGFOT. If you write on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, if you include hashtag UCGFOT, you can see what everybody else who uses that hashtag sees at the same time.

It's already been wonderful to take a look at the various feasts around the country in Pigeon Forge, in Ocean City, other places. In a sense, it brings a sense of community and a sense of being together. The passage, in having Mr. Bornhorst speak to us earlier, that came to mind with just everybody being here, and the feeling that I get right now, just in talking to you, comes alive when I read Hebrews 10 and verse 23. Hebrews 10, verse 23, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is a manner of some. One of the purposes of assembling ourselves together is to stir up that love and good works, that not only good feeling, but a motivation to do right and good. And already I see this here with a number of people, the discussions I've had, people I've run into. It's been absolutely wonderful. It really does bring out the best in us. So much of the year, the worst is brought out in people's lives because of the challenges, the frustrations of life in general.

But an assembly like this brings out the best and brings out commitment to do well. So this is just absolutely wonderful to have this Feast of Tabernacles this way. Well, today is day one of the Feast of Tabernacles. The seven-day Feast of Tabernacles, which begins with the annual Holy Day, which is today, pictures the thousand-year reign, the millennium, of Jesus Christ's rule over the earth after His second coming.

We've said that so many times, and you would think that we'd be so inspired that we would just live every day of our lives in anticipation of that. But we have to repeat it year after year after year to be motivated to believe those things that have not yet happened, but that we have faith in. This is a celebration of the Kingdom of God coming to the earth, and an answer to our prayer, which is at the very top of the list next to praising God in the way Jesus Christ taught all of us how to pray.

First of all, we praise our Father, which art in heaven. But then, the next item on the model prayer is, Thy Kingdom come. That's something that we should consider every day. It's at the very top of the list. God begins by teaching us how to pray, by giving us the vision statement, His vision statement, Thy Kingdom come, which suggests that it is not here yet. Believe me, it's not. The Kingdom of God is not on this earth. This is not God's world. What we're celebrating is something very special, the coming of God's kingdom, God's government, God's rule, God's presence, seeing God face to face to this earth.

That's what this is all about. Leviticus 23, verse 34 and 35, we read this because this chapter, Leviticus 23, contains the list of the Holy Days. So I want to read it, even though we read it so many times, but I think it's important to see it in the context of all the other days that God gives us to observe. Verse 33, Leviticus 23, then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month, that's today, shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days to the Lord.

On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work in it. It's a holy day. It's a day of special note to God. There are seven annual holy days, and this is one of those seven special high days of the year, which God has given for us to observe in a very special way for a special purpose. Yesterday, so very well brought out by Pastor Rick Beame, was Revelation 20, verse 4, talking about the thousand-year rule of Jesus Christ. The thousand-year rule. And from this we have the term millennium. Zechariah chapter 14, I should say, in verse 16.

We link the Old Testament to the New Testament. I'll be talking more about what the Feast of Tabernacles is about in its linkage from the Old to New. But here's a prophecy of the coming keeping of the Feast of Tabernacles in a future time, a time that has never yet occurred. It shall come to pass, verse 16, that everyone who has left of all nations which came against Jerusalem, this is talking about a future time, shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts. This is Jesus Christ, who is King, Lord and King of the earth. And to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles has a future. This was an event that is spoken of not only in Leviticus 23, but in other places, which give a little bit more insight into the keeping of this day. Deuteronomy chapter 14, I'd like you to turn there, please. Deuteronomy chapter 14, in verse 22. These are bedrock scriptures that we need to understand and be able to articulate and to be able to explain to anyone who asks us for the reason of hope within us. Deuteronomy chapter 14, verse 22, as to why we keep the Feast of Tabernacles. Instructions, verse 22. So here the financial plan is given as to how it's to be financed. It's a tithe that you have set aside through the whole year you have taken 10% of your income for being able to come to the Feast of Tabernacles. And it has a very special purpose. There are two purposes mentioned in this section. That you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. That's the first and primary purpose of the Feast of Tabernacles, to learn to come and to respect and deeply acknowledge, understand and fear the Lord always. That's why we came here. Now, I know that Florida has an allure for the beach and the water, the sand, all the wonderful restaurants and all the wonderful fellowshipping that we'll have. But the most important aspect of the Feast is to come here to learn to fear the Lord your God always.

Everything else is secondary. Everything else is icing on the cake. But the most important aspect, the real nutrition, what the takeaway is, is not to talk about all the wonderful things that we did, but the wonderful things that we learned. And the wonderful things that we have become as a result of learning. That you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. And you shall spend that money for whatever your heart desires. It's a time of year where we can afford to spend a little bit more, to spend it on others, to be able to have a good time. Where through the year we economize and are careful and budget and so forth, here we have that money already set aside so that we can enjoy it. Enjoy this experience, the Feast of Tabernacles. You shall have spent that money for whatever your heart desires, for oxen and sheep, for good meat, for wine or similar drink, and for whatever your heart desires. You shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice you and your household. It's a time not only to learn but to rejoice, but to truly be happy, to stir one another up, to love and to good works. It's to rejoice, it's to really feel good, if I can say that, to really feel good, to enjoy the experience, and just to be happy, to be joyful at this time of year. And for many of us, it is a special time, it is a special getaway from our work, to be with people of like mind, and to be able to spend the hours that we do during the Feast of Tabernacles. I'd like to make a point about the Feast of Tabernacles as we observe it in the New Testament.

This is not a Jewish festival. This is one of the feasts of the Lord. The Lord takes ownership of these days. They don't belong to the Jews. They belong to the Lord. And these are the feasts that the Lord is giving. And these are the feasts that are listed and part of the Bible that Christians own and consider the sacred Word of God. These are not Jewish harvest festivals. And we're not keeping Jewish holidays. We are keeping the feasts of the Lord. Timeless observances for mankind. I'm sorry to say, but we don't keep Rosh Hashanah. We don't keep Yom Kippur. And this is not Sukkot. Sometimes people send me Rosh Hashanah cards, and I say, well, this is not what I'm observing. I don't observe the traditions associated with that. It's on the same day. But I observe the Feast of Trumpets. I observe the Day of Atonement. I observe the Feast of Tabernacles.

Jesus Christ observed these days. We see Him with various references to keeping Pentecost, Passover, the last day, the Feast of Tabernacles. He was there, and He spoke about spiritual principles. There's an excellent article in this current issue of the Good News by Darris McNeely about Jesus Christ being the center of the Holy Days. You should read it. It's very, very important to understand that, because what a story I want to tell you leads to understanding that principle. Since 1991, we have made contact with large pockets of Sabbatarians in Ukraine. Especially after the fall of the USSR in 1991, we came into an open discussion with Sabbatarians now who were free to talk about their beliefs. Actually, the first ones I had come into contact with moved to Port St. Lucie, Florida, and I came into contact with them in 1991, the same year that the USSR imploded.

The discussion was most interesting because they talked about what they believed. And we were right on as far as so many core doctrines. The nature of God, we believed in God the Father, we believed in Jesus Christ, we believed in the Holy Spirit as being the power and essence of God. We were right on together. We both kept the Passover. We did the foot washing. We understood the state of the dead. The dead are asleep until the resurrection. They do not go to heaven. We do not observe the Roman holidays. We did not have the sign of the cross as our symbol. And as they so well put it, they said if Jesus were killed by a gun, would we have a gun as the symbol of our faith?

The cross was the most despicable symbol of the most excruciating death that one could suffer in the Roman Empire. Why do we have to have that as being the symbol or the representation of our faith? That was something they brought up. But one thing that they resisted was the Holy Days. That we just got nowhere in talking about the Holy Days. I was there in 1992, and I spoke in their churches about why we keep the Holy Days. They were stoic. They had no comment. I was surprised because they liked to talk about things to the nth degree, but the Holy Days, they did not want to talk about them. But I've been to Ukraine many, many times, and subsequently over time it became clear as to why they resisted the Holy Days. They said, all we know about the Holy Days, we have Leviticus 23, as much as you do. Then I said, well, why do you draw a line after the Passover? Why do you draw a line and say, we don't observe anything beyond those days?

They said, you know, there are some of us who have, particularly in Romania, that started keeping the Holy Days. And once they started keeping the Holy Days, they got so excited that they started growing beards. They started growing sideburns. They started wearing black caps. And the most horrible thing of all, they got circumcised. They said, we just... this is not us. And he said, what we're afraid of is that once people adopt this appearance, Jesus Christ will get pushed out of the picture. And we don't want Jesus Christ to become a carpenter again, as they put it. He is the center of our faith. And the few who had made a false start into observing the Holy Days actually gave them a bad reputation. The fear was that the Holy Days would take people away from Christ, when, in fact, the Holy Days should bring people to Jesus Christ and explain him further. In 2006, I was in Ukraine just a week after Pentecost. Pentecost was on Sunday, and I left a few days afterwards and gave a sermon, which was my Pentecost sermon in Ukraine. And I spoke about how the New Testament church was established not on the Sabbath. It couldn't possibly be established even on the weekly Sabbath. It was established on Pentecost. And I explained how Christianity started on a Holy Day. Well, the pastor who I had spoken with the subject for ten years previously, or for ten years we carried on a dialogue and talked about these things, said, You know, a light has gone on. I just never understood that this is the truth, that Jesus is the center of the Holy Days. He said when we were so concerned that Jesus would be pushed out of the Holy Days, he said, we are happy about this. So he started keeping Pentecost, and he started looking into what the other Holy Days were. I said, look, every single one of the Holy Days in the New Testament has a Christological component to it. Look, Passover. Jesus Christ is our Passover. Pentecost, the New Testament Christian church, was established. And it goes on from there. The Feast of Trumpets, the return of Jesus Christ, the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus Christ's reign on the earth. All of the Holy Days have something to do with the reign of the Kingdom of God on the earth. This pastor, who is still a very good friend of mine, started keeping the Holy Days. Of course, once people don't do something for a long time, it's very difficult to change. But slowly, more and more people have started keeping the Holy Days. The Sabbatarians, and there are 3,000 of them in Ukraine alone, 4,000 of them in Romania, and 3,000 in Moldova. About 10,000 of them in that region of the Trans-Carpathian Mountains on mostly the West Side. And more and more of them are keeping the Holy Days. We translated our booklet, God's Holy Days, or Christian Holidays, which, or Holidays, or God's Holy Days, which, into the Russian language. It's been a big hit over there, because these things very clearly explain why we do things. Because it was in this sermon of 2006, I explained how Jesus Christ is a heart and core observance of the Holy Days.

There are two things that are vital for Christian orientation of the Holy Days. First of all, Christ is a heart and core of all of them, and His presence, Jesus Christ, permeates the understanding of everything that's in the Holy Days. The Holy Days bring out Jesus Christ, the past, the current, and the future of Jesus Christ. We are a Christian Church. We are the Church of Jesus Christ. We are the Church of God. And the Holy Days bring that out in an organized fashion.

Number two, the Holy Days lay out a coordinated plan by how God is working with you and me, and mankind from the very beginning, and how He shows how it all will end. And by rehearsing it year after year after year, we should be able to come to understand that more fully and more deeply, and be able to say, This is a heart and core of my belief in Jesus Christ. But I understand from the Holy Days beginning with a Passover.

Now, people say that somehow the Holy Days take us back. This argument comes back all the time. But it's interesting to see when the light goes on in people's minds that the Holy Days actually lead us to Jesus Christ. It opens up a whole new world of things that we hadn't understood before.

The Holy Days, starting with the Fall Holy Days, which is a completion. I won't cover the earlier ones. Talk about the return of Jesus Christ, the establishment of the New World Kingdom, and also what's going to happen beyond the Millennium. One of the first questions I had when I began to understand the Millennium, Christ will come for a thousand years, and I thought, Well, after that, then what? Is it over? A thousand years? I'm sure that's a nice long time, but it'll come to an end. No, it's just the beginning. And there's more after that, and a lot more even after that. That's just the beginning of what Jesus Christ is doing. And also, beyond what we have here, pictured by the Feast of Tabernacles, we have a period by the last Holy Day that pictures salvation being opened up to all. Frankly, brethren, that Holy Day was the most exciting one to me. An old article years ago, which I anticipated when I got in the mail, I was so excited about, is this the only day of salvation? Because it really did a couple of things. It showed that God is fair, just, and loves others as much as he loves me. And that he wants to make the way open for all mankind to be saved, that everybody will have a chance, no matter what society or what religion or what circumstances they came to in this world. Everybody will have a chance. And it really made sense to me. It really made a lot of sense. And to me, this was one of the most beautiful aspects of understanding the fairness and the love of God for mankind. The Holy Days answered the biggest questions about human existence. For the remainder of the sermon, I want to take you on a global trip, man's journey. Not only your personal journey, but the entirety of the history of mankind. Let's see if I can do that in 25 minutes. Because the end of this journey is what this day is all about. Turn to me, please, to Acts 3, verse 19. Acts 3, verse 19. This is a continuation of Peter's sermons and messages as the New Testament church is underway. The message from the very beginning, from Christ's ministry, onto the first message of the New Testament church was, repent. You can't come as you are. You have to change. You have to be different. And everybody I see here has had to do something different in order to be here. In fact, quite a bit different from those around. Being different in a very good way of obeying God as he tells us to. But Peter says, repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. So the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.

And that he may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you, whom heaven must receive, which it did just a few days before, ten days before, Pentecost, the first time, until the times of restoration of all things, until the time of the restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. This passage is so important in that the Apostle Peter is talking about changing your lives so that we can be prepared for the time when there will be a period of restoration of all things that were spoken of by the prophets. A new world, a new government, those things that were sung in the Hallelujah chorus, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the establishment of his government and kingdoms, words from Isaiah, words from Zechariah that we just earlier heard, by the mouth of all his prophets. This was not hyperbole by Peter. This was bringing to the fore from the only scriptures they had at that time about what Christianity was all about. Jesus Christ has just left us now ten days ago, and he's coming back to restore all things that were spoken of by the holy prophets. What a story! What a promise! Do you believe it? Do you live it? Do you pray that when you say, Thy kingdom come? Well, that's what we should be looking at. That's what we should be saying.

We're here celebrating this event of Acts chapter 3. There will come a time when the knowledge of God will fill all the earth. But right now, we don't have it. Right now, people are devoid of knowledge. You know, it's surprising. We live in the information age. We have more knowledge. We have more information than ever, not only in books. But I'm finding that almost everything that I do as far as research or things that I need for my daily work, I get on the Internet. Through Google, through Yahoo! Search, and through other search engines. There is so much information available, and it's easily accessible. I can be at the Notre Dame Library, right in the middle of it, screwing around in its writings and manuscripts. I can be just typing in a few key words and finding information about anything I want. Anything I want to build. Anything that's been done similar to what I've been thinking is out there. It's amazing that we have so much knowledge and information. And yet, God says, I am going to fill the earth with knowledge in the world tomorrow, because there's a lot of knowledge that's missing. There's a lot of missing links in knowledge. In Hosea 4 and verse 5, my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.

You know, brethren, I know that may sound pretentious to say that we have special knowledge. The things that I believe right now are the things that I first came to understand 52 years ago about man's purpose and why we're here on the earth. And it has been supported by the teachings of the Bible, and particularly by the panorama of the Holy Days.

Sometimes I feel, how can it be so simple? Why don't others get it?

I was attending the University of Minnesota. I was in a carpool. And I was so excited about the Passover. I was so excited about the Holy Days.

I was so enthralled about the coming kingdom, Jesus Christ standing on the Mount of Olives. Why? Because it's in the Bible. And I wanted to tell everybody about it. I wanted to tell my piano teacher about it. I told my carpool about it. I knew I'd have a good audience because we had a Jewish girl in our midst. But I get dropped fast. I talked about the Passover. I thought she would love it. Here's something. Get this guy out of here.

We may be also spurned by those around us for what we do understand. But it's not something to be ashamed of. It is something that God has given us to understand. We have that knowledge. And that knowledge will be given to others. I'm just amazed as to how the things that we have, which are not rocket science, as far as which day we observe, the day of rest. And why we don't do other things that the world does because they're not in the Bible. I was a devout Christian at one time. Well, Christian not in the truest sense. But I was orthodox in my faith. And I was very active in our church. I was the head of our youth group. And I had a very, very good relationship with our priest. He was just a tremendous person. He used to talk to him a lot. He used to come out to the house a lot and talk to my parents and to us in a social way. Really thought he was a great guy. But, you know, I tried to talk to him about the things that I was learning in the book of Revelation. I tried to talk to him about the Sabbath and ran into a stone wall, into a brick wall of understanding.

That's why I left, because the things that I was reading, which were so crystal clear to me, were things that he didn't understand, or gave me stock answers that didn't make sense, which I had heard those answers before. Brethren, we do have knowledge. Knowledge that's been made clear to us from the Word of God. I would like to do a little Google Earth experience here with you. I have, as many of you have used Google Earth, where you can go into the various little neighborhoods. You can see your house. How many of you have seen your own house on Google Earth? There's a lot of people here. I've seen our house on Google Earth. It showed four cubic yards of mulch in the driveway for two years. You can see a lot. What I did enjoy with Google Earth is that I could zoom out and zoom from my house to somebody else in Oregon, or to one of my brothers in New York or Spokane, and go to their house and go right away. Then I could zoom back further and see the whole United States. Then I had another program that you could zoom out to see where the Earth was in the solar system. Then you could see our galaxy and zoom out further and further and get the whole picture. There are just different dimensions and different things that you can see. I'd like to see where, with Google Earth, you could even see in some very remote places like Africa and Ukraine, I could see the homes, actually, of some of the people that we live in. The streets weren't named too well, but at least I could kind of find my way around.

One of the problems that we have in our understanding of things is that so much of what we think in the world can do daily is so much on the individual small scale. We don't see a bigger picture. We don't really see anything that tells the whole scope of what God is doing.

The Holy Days are like zooming out and being able to see the whole picture of what God is working with, beginning to the end.

Our perception of the universe, too, is that at one time it was very, very miniscule as to what we understood. At one time, not too many centuries ago, we just knew that there was an Earth, there was a sun and moon, and the stars were out there somewhere.

Until about the early 1920s, we did begin to understand more about the planets and about our galaxy. We thought that was the entirety of the universe. Until Hubble discovered this fuzzy little whatever he thought was a gaseous structure out there, trying to be another galaxy just like ours, Andromeda, which had more stars than the Milky Way. But wait! He found other galaxies close by as well. It was found that there are not just three or four other galaxies, but billions of galaxies. It was a far bigger expanse than what he thought. And did you hear two years ago that there were 600 septillion stars found? It didn't change the way I lived or what I did. There's a lot of stars, a lot of heat out there, but it didn't really change too much about what we did because it is so vast and so huge of what God has in mind. I want us to think in bigger terms of what God has for us, because as we live our lives and go through the troubles that we do and paying our bills and the relationships that work and worrying about what the world is doing or what's going to be happening next year, what's ISIS going to do? Is Russia going to take over Ukraine? Is Hamas going to actually do something more to Israel? Will Iran get the bomb? We worry about all these things. But when you have a bigger picture of what God is doing, it does create an entirely different picture. Well, the Bible is a book that gives that big, big picture from the beginning to the end.

You know, it's amazing, the Bible, which is the book that we use as a reference to everybody who that we use to give as a reference book to everybody for what we believe. We have no writings of any author that we offer up front and say, yeah, there's the Bible, but then there's also these works. Or there's the Bible, there's also these current philosophers. No, we don't have it done quite that way. We say the Bible is complete, it's inerrant, and it has an amazing story. And as much as the Bible has been attempted to be stamped out over time, it has thrived, and it's inerrant, and it's almost perfect as far as the translations that have come through. It's amazing that a work like this has been able to continue. Every year, more than 100 million copies of the Bible are sold or given away. 100 million. If a person has a million-seller of some book, that's a big thing to have a million-seller. But the Bible, year after year after year, is able to be given out and made available to 100 million more people. The Bible now has been put on by YouVersion onto 150 tablets and cell phones. It's been translated into three and a half thousand languages and dialects. Including Morse code and other languages and other means of communication. There is no other book that's been so translated. It's been written by 40 diverse authors over a 1500-year period that ranged from being slaves to kings. It has a chronology and a design. From Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, no one human being could put together the table of contents to the Bible as we have it right now. That details and explains where man came from, who God is, what God is doing with mankind, and how it's all going to work out. And if you take a look at the Bible, just like you take a look at the universe, of backing away from it and seeing the whole picture, it is an amazing, amazing story of not just looking at one verse or one thought or thinking these are disconnected things. It's an amazing story about life. In Genesis 2, a tree of life was offered to man, which was made after God's own image, made after God's own likeness, made to be like God, having creative abilities, having reasoning abilities, having conscious abilities that no other form of life has. And God began to talk to mankind in Genesis 2 and verse 8.

The Lord planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed, the creation of man. And out of the ground, the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There has been so much said about these two trees, because in your life our destiny is all shaped by these two trees. The tree of life suggested the perpetuation of life, and God told mankind that He was not to eat of the tree or the knowledge of good and evil, because in the day that He did, He would surely die. Genesis 3. Mankind was in the Garden of Eden, had a personal relationship with God. Adam and Eve both saw God. They talked to Him. God gave them instructions and gave them dominion over the earth. Already God was delegating. Not only was God giving mankind God-like characteristics, but He was giving man dominion, the ability to govern and manage. But in Genesis 3, the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field. We have the entrance of evil, which had preceded the creation of man by who knows how many eons of time.

And He, the serpent said to the woman, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

He was quite subtle and cunning. He came to the woman, she heard Him, and He asked her a question that she would answer, yes, to. The way any good salesman does when he comes to sell you a vacuum cleaner or whatever, a car. How was your day? Isn't it a beautiful day? How are we feeling today? I sure like the way you look. Getting them to become engaged. And He asked the woman, has God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? The woman said, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. The woman was naive and simple and just telling the serpent just what she had learned. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said you shall not eat of it, nor shall you touch it lest you die. That's the one tree that we can't eat of, the tree of the knowledge of good and even. The serpent had the woman hooked. He had her engaged. He had a discussion going with her. No doubt, this is just a very, very, very short version of it. Then the serpent said to the woman after he had her confidence, You shall not surely die, after she began to trust in Him, after she began to answer His questions, and they both agreed on certain things. You shall not surely die. For the Lord God knows that in the day that you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil, and begin to spill out lie upon lie of things that God had not said or intended, and she believed it.

Well, man, listen to the lie, and death came, and it passed on to all of us. Thank you, Adam. That's why we live, and that's why we die. And an age of regret sets in. And we are now in that age. We are in that age of regret, of groaning and regret, because man was driven out of the garden of good and evil.

Man was then told that you've got to make a living from the sweat of your brow. Before, he had a well-watered garden. Now it was a garden, now it was fields of thorns and thistles, and life was to be hard. Genesis 3, verse 17. Then to Adam, he said, Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, you have eaten from the tree which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground for your sake, and you shall eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles. This world has barely supported a lifestyle that's been good for all. We live a wonderful lifestyle. We're living a foretaste of the world tomorrow, right here at the Feast of Tabernacles. But so much of the world is hungry. 21,000 people die of hunger every day. Two and a half million children die of hunger every year. We are facing mortality. We don't have a relationship with God in the sense that we can talk to him just the way that Adam could talk in the Garden of Eden. But the end of the story is we zoom from Genesis 3 all the way to Genesis, Revelation, chapter 21. Just like in Google Earth, we can zoom from one area out and take a look at the end of the story. Revelation, chapter 21, verse 1. Revelation 21, verse 1. Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. And then, Revelation 22, verse 1. And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was a tree of life. What human author could put it together just this way? The Bible was canonized over various periods in history of people that didn't know each other, people of various occupations, of various economic standing, that put this together where he had Genesis 1, the tree of life brought in, the tree of life being cut off from mankind, man being outside the realm of God, where man had to now figure it out for himself, economically, governmentally, educationally, how he would survive. And the reason the world is in the state it is, is not because God wants it that way, but because man made that choice. He was made right there in the first chapters of Genesis. But God had a plan of redemption, because the end of the story is told in Revelation 22.

Verse 2, in the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was a tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. The tree of life appears again. I look upon this as an absolutely marvelous revelation.

A marvelous revelation is right there at my fingertips, on my tablet, in my library, at my home. It's something I could look at, meditate, and read about, about what has happened. Now, between Genesis 3 and Revelation 22, there's a lot of things that happen. In the history of mankind, it's the period, or it's the era of groaning, of mankind being outside the realm of God, where he has to figure it out for himself.

The plan of redemption, the plan of bringing it all back, really centers around the Holy Days, of how God has not forgotten mankind, how he did send Jesus Christ, as the Passover, the Redeemer for mankind, which is the first festival of the year, how he did establish his church and has given mankind the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, how he will bring Jesus Christ back to this earth, the Feast of Trump is at the last trump, the dead shall rise, how that force of evil, that serpent, and all that he represents, will be set aside forever.

The Feast of Tabernacles, God's rule on the earth, is coming back. And ultimately, the Tree of Life being brought back in. It's a fascinating, fascinating story. Every time I think about it, I shiver. You've got to say, is it that simple?

The Bible was intended to be understood by everybody at every level of intellect, by people of every nation, of every color, of every culture.

And you do understand that. And we should be thankful for God on this day. One of the purposes of our being together here is to stir one another up to love and good works of these wonderful truths that God has given. The Apostle Paul understood the era that we're in, in Romans chapter 18...8, I should say. Romans chapter 8. I'd like you to turn there, please. Because the Apostle Paul understood, when he was speaking to people in Rome in one of the most oppressive governments on this earth, where there were Christians, probably wondering the same questions that you have about, where is this world going? I consider, verse 18, that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly awaits, for the revealing of the sons of God. This whole world is just wanting to bring those sons of God out. God hasn't forgotten us.

When we pray, Thy kingdom come, read these verses as well. For the creation was subjected to the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope, because the creation itself also be delivered from the bondage of corruption, of decay, into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit. Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly awaiting for the adoption, for the redemption of our body. That's what this is all about. And this is a story that's repeatedly told through the Bible over and over again. But in between that time, we live in this age of regret and this age of difficulty. Man has tried to feed himself, barely. I'm so sorry to see people who hunger. I'm so sorry to see famines, natural disasters. I'm very sorry to see the wars that take the lives of, quote, innocent people. I know it all has its place, but you know, because you understand the whole plan of God, it really does make sense as to how it's all going to work out and how it fits into the fairness and the equity of God's thinking for mankind.

Man has tried various economic systems, which have had their strengths and weaknesses. God had his own. He had his own way of how man was to make a living, tithe, and so forth. But man has had his own ways. He's tried this, and he's tried that. I still think of a Polish proverb that's a very interesting one. When the Communists took over, the Poles had a proverb that, under capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism, the opposite is true. Mankind has destroyed his ecology. Mankind is aging. Mankind dies.

You know, once I understood what death means in the plan of God, I actually rejoiced. I rejoiced in understanding the resurrection, understanding a new body, a new life, a new purpose. One of the purposes of our being together is to wake up and get it even further, about what is actually God doing to us, and where we are right now, where it all fits in. This is part of learning to fear the Lord your God always as you rejoice. I'll have to say about my life. My life has been a life of many things, good and bad, that have happened. A life of groaning, even within the ministry. But you know, I've always seen the light at the end of the tunnel. I see how it's all going to work out. I've always been able to see Revelation 21 and 22. And I've been able to have the underpinnings of God's Holy Days, starting with Jesus Christ giving his life for me, and then giving me the Holy Spirit, and returning and setting up a government on this earth to give me hope. And when I pray, Father in heaven, great are you! How great thou art, as was in our special music! I say, Thy kingdom come. That's the vision, that's the thing that we should be seeing in front of us continually. We could go through the whole history of mankind. All this between Revelation 3, let me show it to you right here. And right here is instructions. It's a history of why we are where we are. The history of this world, of man trying to figure out for himself. Why Israel was put into captivity, why Jesus Christ had to come, why the New Testament church was established, prophecies to give us hope and assurance. It's all there. It's all so beautiful. We can kind of see it and rejoice in it. In 2 Corinthians 5, verse 2, 2 Corinthians 5, verse 2, the Apostle Paul mentions groaning once again. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation, which is from heaven.

One thing about the Apostle Paul, he talked with great hope to whether they were in Judea, the people, they were Christians in Judea, whether they were in Asia Minor or they were in Greece. And here he's talking to the Gentile Christians, primarily. We're groaning right now in our society, in our work, and in our aging, and in our trials. If indeed having been clothed, we will not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed that mortality may be swallowed up by life.

And one thing right now that I'm talking to ministers about, and to an aging church, is about the fact that we, as far as physical life is concerned, are at the end of our careers. Probably the thing that we're doing right now, for many of our ministers, over 60% of our ministers, is their last assignment. We, of course, talk about bringing on new people, bringing on new leadership, which we are very, very thankful that we can in the church. We're so very grateful for the new leadership that this church will have, because I have no idea when Jesus Christ will return. I'll be speaking about that on my Sabbath sermon. You could come within this next year. It could be another generation. People say, what's your plan? Well, I have a short-term plan and I have a long-term plan. We've got to be ready. We also have to plan. We have to be so doing the gospel. But right now, I'm involved in some very, very delicate conversations with ministers who are talking about themselves and their spouses, and how much energy they have, and what they can do yet, and how they can continue, and how shall I or how should I continue after age 75, after 80. Could I do a dance card when I'm 80 years old for a teen dance? You know, it's just our ministry is getting older.

Our people are getting older in the church. But I'm not discouraged. I look upon it as a challenge that I face, that we face, at the home office. Because we have a bigger plan. We have Jesus Christ, who is the heart and core of our life. And there's been a whole plan, from the creation of man, to God's bringing his kingdom to this earth, and creating the new heavens and new earth, in which all this fits. This all fits into a greater plan.

And if there's anything that I can make clear to you today, is the fact that when we have this greater plan, that we can Google back and see the whole picture, but then we can Google back into our streets and live our lives, but then we can zoom back out and just see life from Genesis to Revelation, or stay in a scripture in Proverbs, or read a psalm, or read something from Colossians. We have to have this ability to zoom in, zoom out, see the big picture, live our lives. I hope that I can make this very, very clear, as we live right now, in this groaning stage of life. Let's allow Jesus Christ to come into our lives.

You know, one thing that I have prayed for, and I have prayed for somewhat recently, God give me a new conversion. And when Peter said, repent and be baptized, and 3,000 people immediately, you know, heeded the call.

But repentance is not a one-time affair, or something that we do as a program, a six-week program, a 12-week program. It's an ongoing, lifelong process. It's something that we need to continually be aware of, and practicing and doing. We need to be continually preparing for the return of Jesus Christ into our lives. We cannot be like the virgins who fell asleep and who had no oil. I can honestly say that maybe I have fallen asleep. I hope that I have had oil, so that when he comes in the midnight cry for the great wedding supper, that I can be among those virgins that, what? No, but I'm prepared. Because there will be virgins, half of them, who won't be prepared.

Because they've not had these things on their minds. They're here for the wrong reasons. They're in the Church for the wrong reasons. There have been people that have not followed what the Church and what we've been taught.

But it's he who endures to the end, who will be saved. The part that endurance process is seeing the big picture, and being encouraged by that big picture. There have been times when I have been looking up a cliff, and saying, how can we resolve this? How can we solve this? One of the cliffs that I've looked up is, how can we train a new ministry? We have no college. We have no way of doing it as we had done in the past, but that we don't have to do it that way. We've been able now to have an online training center for two years. We want to expand that and do that. I know that we will. I look forward to growth in the Church. Growth spiritually. Growth in our mission, in what we're doing, in the people we reach. And the people to whom we can share the same hope that we have of salvation, of things that are so clear, biblically, to us. Again, I'm not ashamed for getting it. And I'm not going to apologize for the fact that I get it. I know that I can't talk myself blue to somebody about the things that I get. And they don't get it. But I'm not going to veer away from it because there's more of them, more than of me, who understand what God has revealed to us about what man is, why I was born, what I'm supposed to be doing, what's ahead of me, and what the great plan is. It gives me a great deal of pleasure and joy. So, the Feast of Tabernacles, no doubt, will be hearing... I wish I could be here for the whole feast to hear all the sermons. But be here to listen to sermons of inspiration about who you are, what you should be doing, and most importantly, what God is doing. When the biggest questions of life come to be answered. May God bless you. I am looking forward to chatting with you in the hallways, in the aisles, after services. My wife, Beverly, and I are very, very happy to be here. And may God bless you all.