God Knows

Well, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the eighth day of the Feast of God. Great day it is. It's good to be here to come to this last day of the Feast. Appreciate it. The choir's music here and all that they have done this week to provide that special music for us. A very nice piece here this morning. My wife Debbie and I have thoroughly enjoyed our time here on Jekyll Island this year. And from the comments that I've heard from many of you, you have as well. And that's great. It's been good to come back and see a place that you're familiar with as we have, having kept several feasts here through the years. And to meet old friends and to meet new friends and to make acquaintances and to get to know all of you. And we appreciate that very, very much. And certainly appreciate the work that Mr. and Mrs. Martin have done to produce the feast here. I'll take my one last opportunity to do that. Mr. Martin is a low-key type of individual and yet gets it all done. And a very smooth-running feast of tabernacles like this is to his credit and all those that have helped him. So I appreciate watching and just being a part of it here. It matches the relaxed mood of the island. I did want to make just a comment here before I get into my sermon. Several of you have asked me through the week about the progress of our new media facility, the center that has been completed and been built there at the home office over the last several months. And so I thought I would at least give one last comment about it for the benefit of all of you. We have taken possession of the new facility. It's been added on to the back corner of the existing home office facility in Milford, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. And it's basically at this point, it's just a shell, but everything is completed in there and all the details have come together. We will be receiving the new set a week from today. It all goes well. That's the delivery date for a set that's been professionally designed for us by a company that does this kind of work for television stations and other media production companies. They're headquartered in Philadelphia, so they have built the set that we've designed with their help in Philadelphia. They will bring it out next week and spend a few days, Monday or Tuesday and Wednesday probably, installing it in the new facility. And then our staff will come in and then run all the wires, the cables, the cameras and the lights that have to be installed to make everything work. And that'll be quite a busy job over the next few weeks. We do hope that by the last week of November, the week after Thanksgiving, that we will begin a production of our new programs in the new facility. So you will see a format change. We are planning to do the majority of our taping now before a live audience. We're going to be bringing in members and ABC students and even inviting Beyond Today subscribers from the Cincinnati area to come and to be an audience of anywhere from 25 to 35 or so people who will be there watching us as we tape. And the presenters then will be doing a live extemporaneous presentation. Up to this point, we've done a scripted presentation that's been read off of a teleprompter. Our plan is to do this now in more of an extemporaneous style, kind of like we do with our sermons and sermonettes speaking every week off of notes.

We'll have some large monitors out in front of us with an outline of our presentation. And we'll basically be doing what all three of us have always been doing for years, and that's preach. You know, talking to a live audience, kind of like this right here. We think that's going to give us a bit more of an engagement factor with the audience, and it will alter the format to that degree.

But that will be what you will see as those programs are edited and rolled out probably by the 1st of February of 2019. And we also have other plans in terms of other productions. We begun to work on a documentary. We want to do an hour-long documentary about every year and a half to two years that would take a topic like the Kingdom of God or the festivals, and do a different type of treatment to it that would be up to an hour in length. That would allow us then to maybe put that on Netflix or Amazon Prime, for available in that area of the Web. A lot of our programming going forward is going to be produced for the Web. We will continue with the WGN presence and cable television for the time being. I anticipate that in time, the Beyond Today program will likely be solely on the Web. That's not going to happen immediately, but I would anticipate in time that will be what we wind up with as that continues to develop there. So at any rate, we were looking forward to getting into it. We appreciate the support that so many members made and very generous financial support to make that facility possible.

We do appreciate your support and certainly your prayers for the continued work that we do with Beyond Today, both on video and the Web in print and all the different forms in which we engage the world today with the gospel of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. Because of the Web, we are able to really punch above our weight in terms of the size of the organization, the financial resources that we have.

We can reach a worldwide audience, primarily through the Web and through print, but the Web is the key thing. We continue to develop and enhance our efforts on the Web, and I think that you will see more of that in the coming years, one to three years, with some of the plans that we have for other products that we will be producing for Beyond Today to help the church in its work of preaching the gospel. So again, please keep us in your prayers. As we keep you in our prayers, we appreciate your support and all that is being done there.

A few months ago, back during the Spring Holy Days, Debbie and I had a chance to go down to Alabama and Mississippi to visit with a few of our congregations in that area, pastored by Gary Beame and with the able assistance of his wife, Rhonda. We enjoyed thoroughly meeting the brethren in that area. While we were there, between the last day of Unleavened Bread and the Sabbath on that trip, Gary Beame wanted to take us over to the place in Tuscumbia, Alabama, the home of Helen Keller. How many of you know the story of Helen Keller? How many of you saw the—have ever seen the movie The Miracle Worker? It came out a number of years ago. Plays have been done, but The Miracle Worker, the movie, book, and stage plays tell us the story of Helen Keller, this remarkable woman who was deaf and blind. And her story is remarkable, and I didn't know all the details of it, but I learned a lot more on that visit to her home, a place called Ivy Green in Tuscumbia, Alabama. We spent about a half—good half a day there, and many of the furnishings and actual sight as it was when she was a little girl. She was born, I think, in 1880, and for the first six or so years of her life, she was a normal child until she developed what was likely a form of meningitis. And she then became—as a result of that illness, she became deaf and blind. And she could not hear. Her speech then just faltered, and the lights went off in her world. Her parents had a very difficult time dealing with her. As the movie tells, she was quite a wild child in that. And it was almost hopeless in terms of just where she was and her ability to communicate and know what was going on.

Her mother pushed her—her—the father to take Helen to a doctor in Baltimore, Maryland, with the hope that perhaps there was something that could be done. And after examining her, the doctor concluded he couldn't do anything to reverse the blindness and deafness. But he suggested that they get in touch with a school for the deaf and blind in Baltimore and engage someone there to help the young girl learn to communicate. And that is where the story then is added—or the name is added to the story of Helen Keller—the name of Annie Sullivan, who then—who was a young Irish immigrant, who herself had some visual impairment. She went to live with the Kellers, and she became Helen Keller's companion for virtually the rest of her life.

But as the storyteld is told, it was a very, very rough start in getting the attention of this wild little child to begin to associate hand language with people, with water and all of that in the very famous water scene at the well. You can kind of see that in picture because the same well is still there. And on one remarkable day, Annie Sullivan made a breakthrough and was able then to break into the dark, silent world of Helen Keller and begin to bring her out. As the story went on, she eventually went to one of the women's colleges in the Ivy League section of the East Coast. She was the first woman to graduate from college. She went on to a remarkable career, wrote many books, traveled the world, and it was a remarkable story in life before she died in 1968 after a very full life. After I walked through her home and rehearsed her story, it began to just dawn on me that had it not been for Annie Sullivan or Helen's mother prompting her to be taken to a doctor in Baltimore, and so many events that took place, but eventually perseverance and chance, and this girl then was able to be brought out. And then she would not only learn to communicate, but then she went on to a remarkable life that you and I know about.

And I began to think, how many other Helen Kellers in the world, throughout time, do we not know about? Because they were considered unreachable in the time and in the place of their life, in a different time and place where people looked upon those who were challenged in such a way as hopeless. Or you can add all the words that how the society will just toss those people off to be forgotten, and they live out a miserable life and die unknown. But I came to realize we know Helen Keller, and we know her because of certain events, and I began to think, God knew her too. God also knows everyone else like Helen Keller that we don't know about. He knows all the other Helen Kellers, the unnamed of history who lived and died, who have been forgotten. God knows them all. If there's one lesson for us to remember from our observance of this eighth day, is this. God knows. God knows. God knows all who've ever lived and died. We may know them for what they did, the famous. We may know someone like Helen Keller because she was pulled into the world by remarkable efforts and went on to achievement, but we could just as easily have never known them. Such is the way life turns. How many have we never known? How many have been forgotten?

Well, the reality is that God knows everyone who has ever lived. He knows the dead, small and great. Let's turn over to Revelation, Chapter 20 this morning. Revelation, Chapter 20 is this remarkable passage from the book of Revelation that gives us so much insight into not only the millennium, but it's a thousand years. That's what the word means. The word millennium means a thousand. So the only verse in the Bible, as it was pointed out earlier, this feast, that does specifically denote the length of this period after Christ's return in the plan of God, a thousand-year period.

That is described beginning in Chapter 20, where verse 4 talks about the thrones and those that settled them who had been beheaded for the witness of Jesus and the Word of God. They lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. And then verse 5 tells us of something else. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.

The first resurrection is what is described in verse 4 of those who were resurrected at Christ's coming and set on thrones with Christ for a thousand years. This inset passage of the beginning of verse 5 tells us that there is a category of those called the rest of the dead who will not live again until after that thousand-year period is finished.

This passage, this part of Revelation, is where we get into something that we should understand this, brethren. This is very specific wording and language to describe something. It's a resurrection. There's a judgment. There's a thousand years. This is not allegory.

This is not some myth, mythical language. This is not some poetry that John somehow concocted after a bad night of dreams to describe something. No, this is too specific to be that. There's other places where there's examples of poetry, Hebrew poetry, and other places.

There's other parables and other things that are clearly stories that tell us a larger spiritual principle, but that's not what this is. This is God laying out for us with specific detail what will happen. It's too specific to be just wished away. Don't let anybody ever tell you that Revelation, this part of Revelation... Oh, that's allegorical. That's not really what it means. No, it means exactly what it says.

The rest of the dead will not live until after this thousand-year period. And he talks about those who are blessed and holy as a result of being a part of the first resurrection. Verse 7 begins to talk about Satan being released from his prison and one final period of deception where there will be another purging of mankind at the end of that period of time.

And then in verse 11, John says, I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven, fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were open. This is where we pick up the thought from back in verse 5 of the rest of the dead who did not live until the thousand years were finished. This now gives us more of that detail. Of the dead, small and great, who stand before God, the books were open, which is referring to the books of Scripture, the books of the Bible, are opened. And they're open for their understanding for the first time in their lives. And they will begin to know the one true God and his Son, Jesus Christ, whom he sent. And they will understand the plan of God. The books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. A book of life will be opened. The dead were judged according to their works by the things written in the books. Just as we are being judged today, in our lifetime, by the Word of God, the things written in the Bible today, they will have their time of judgment for eternal life and for salvation based upon the Scriptures and the teachings of God, just as we are today. And it talks about the sea giving up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. All of the graves will open. And all of the seas, and we look out here at the Atlantic Ocean here off this island, and we see the breadth of it and the wonder of it. We're staying up here in one of the hotels, and every morning it's just been great to walk out and watch the sunrise over the ocean, and just to look at that expanse of sea and think about it and talk to God and feel a little bit closer to God. At that point, you just kind of see a sky and sea and clouds, and it's an awesome experience. It's one of the reasons we came to Jekyll Island, as have you for so many times. The sea will give up those that are dead there, and the earth and the graves that have long since been forgotten.

They will give up their dead, and they will judge each one according to his works. It's a remarkable time. As I said, judgment, a thousand years, a resurrection. These are very specific matters about this, and here we have something that is so remarkable in the whole passage of Scripture for us to consider.

What this day pictures, with that time of the dead, small and great coming up, and people having their opportunity for salvation, is one of the defining teachings that we have in the Church of God today. I have not found anything comparable to it in all my studies and all my readings throughout my life. I've read a lot of philosophy, history, religion, theology, and I've not found anything that comes close to this. The closest, actually, I've found of people speculating about something to happen comes from physicists and scientists who understand a little bit about the workings of the universe. And some of them have come up with actual mathematical formulas that they say, actually, that everyone who's ever lived will come up at what they call an omega point, an ending point in the universe, and everything will come back to life.

Now, they're looking at it purely physical, materialistically, but not with a spiritual dimension. But they see that the way the universe is designed, there's something that will have to happen. I've read those, and I thought, well, that's remarkable insight, at least into the physics, absent what Scripture reveals. They don't know why. They have no purpose. God's Word gives us that purpose.

It is then to further the plan of God. But no one that I've been able to find defines it in the way that God has revealed to His church about the meaning of this eighth day. Jesus Christ spoke to this time of judgment several times. We can go back to the book of Matthew, chapter 10. Christ made certain statements that can only be understood in the context of what we just have read here in Matthew, chapter 20. They make no sense otherwise. In Matthew, chapter 10, He sent His disciples out beginning in verse 5, and He tells them to go to the way of the...

not to go in the way of the Gentiles or the Samaritans, but rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and tells them what to say as they go. And in verse 14, if they don't receive you or hear your words when you depart, shake off the dust from the feet. So it was a short-term journey or mission that they were given to go specifically to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

And He says if they don't receive you, then in verse 15, I say to you, they will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.

So if the city of Israel will not receive you, He said just shake the...you know, just keep going. Don't spend any more time. Go on to the next one. It will be more tolerable in the day of judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah.

What does that mean? What day of judgment other than what we just read in Revelation, chapter 20? That time of judgment that encompasses all the dead small and great. Because Sodom and Gomorrah, we know the story of what happened there, they were obliterated back in the time of Lot and Abraham. And they have become a byword of depravity and immorality and sin that God will not tolerate. And yet there will be a time of toleration for them in the plan of God. What did Jesus mean? Well, He meant that they will come up in a day of judgment as He later defined it through John in the Revelation.

Now, also in chapter 12 of Matthew, beginning in verse 41, when He was challenged by some of the Jews who wanted to see a sign from Him, and He gave them the sign of the prophet Jonah, who was in the belly of a great fish for three days and three nights. And He said, I will be as well in the earth for that period of time. And because of the inability of this group of Jews who were there with Him at this moment, they would not grasp who He was, and they were somewhat skeptical.

He says this in verse 41, The men of Nineveh will rise in the day of judgment with this generation and condemn it. There's that word again, in the judgment. They will rise and condemn this generation Christ was speaking to of Jews who have been a part of the covenant people, the chosen, the seed of Abraham, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and indeed, a greater than Jonah is here.

And of course, you remember the story of Jonah, where he did go finally to the city of Nineveh and preached, and there was a brief repentance. It was not final because they reverted back to their bad ways. In any study of the Assyrian people, Nineveh was the capital of ancient Assyria. In any study of the Bible and from history, it's easy to see that this was another group of very, very bad people. The Ninevites and the Assyrians, they were the biker dudes of the ancient world. Times 100 of any biker gang you could imagine today.

When they rode, it was a scorched earth policy. There's a picture in the British Museum of one Assyrian king who's wooing this woman who's pictured in front of her. The Assyrians, they etched these big pictures in stone in their palaces. That was kind of the Instagram of the day. They recovered those and the British Museum has a lot of them.

There's one that shows this king, Assyrian king, and he's wooing this woman who is obviously a captive. But behind him, on a pedestal, is the skull of another king. Just a skull. And you get the picture there that this king who cut the head off of this other king, his enemy, is trying to woo probably the dead king's wife in front of her dead husband's head. You talk about romance. But this was the type of people that the Ninevites and the Assyrians were.

Christ says, it's going to be more tolerable for them in the day of judgment than for you. So on one other occasion, three times in the Gospel, Christ refers to this event. These are two that we can look at that is described. A time when all nations, all people who have never known God, who have never known the one true God, who have never known the God family, they will come to know the full truth and understanding of who and what God is.

And Christ was saying to some of Israel at that time, they're going to have a leg up when this time comes on this generation, because in essence, he was there as God in the flesh, and they could not see it. You know, Israel didn't accomplish what God wanted it to accomplish. In Romans 11, the Apostle Paul anguished over his people. He begins a remarkable talk here in Romans 9. He takes three chapters, as we have it divided, in chapters 9, 10, and 11 of Romans, to talk about his fellow Israelites. And he mourns over their rejection, their fate, by having had to have gone into a previous captivity. And now in Paul's time, they were under the Roman yoke, and Paul's preaching was not being received among his fellow Israelites, his fellow Jews. And he's looking at their story, and he's wondering, and he's trying to sort it all out. And he knows that they have, in a sense, been rejected, and he knows he's an Apostle to the other nations, and he's taken the gospel there, and he's seeing God begin to work with all peoples from all races and tribes of the earth to bring them to salvation. And yet he's anguishing over his own people. And in this part of the Bible, he comes to a point where he knows that they're not been rejected, not fully. In chapter 11 of Romans, in verse 11, he kind of comes down to this point. He says, I say then, have they stumbled, meaning Israel, that they should fall as in a complete and total fall? No. They'd only stumbled for a brief time. And Paul was figuring it out. There was a reason for that. He said, certainly not. But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Through Christ's life, death, and resurrection, now the door of salvation was open to all nations, not just those of the family of Abraham. The spiritual promises now were open to all. And that's what he's saying. And he says, if their fall is the riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness? Paul is getting on, stumbling onto something that there's yet a future time of Israel's restoration.

Even though at that moment in time they were a people, a nation in Judah, but it was a mere shadow of what they had been, and he knew that all those promises had not been fulfilled completely, that God had made through Abraham and Isaac and to Jacob. He goes on and says, I speak to you Gentiles. And as much as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh, meaning his own fellow Israelites, and save some of them. He's saying, look, my fellow Jews, my fellow Israelites, God's opening the door to salvation to the Gentiles. Wake up! This is really what he's saying. But he knows that there's a bigger plan and a bigger picture. For if they're being cast away as the reconciling of the world, what will be their acceptance but life from the dead?

Paul is hinting at, and perhaps he didn't fully grasp all of it, but he read the Scriptures in Ezekiel. He knew the teachings from the Scriptures that Israel had not been completely cast off by God. But God was doing something even bigger, and that Israel would one day be grafted back on. And he's cautioning the Gentiles not to get too haughty themselves, because it will be life from the dead. And the world has gone on for 2,000 years. We're in that time of the first fruits harvest, as we understand, by keeping the Feast of Pentecost. The time of the fulfilling of God's promises to Abraham's descendants continues on, and we're living in the midst of that.

This was brought out in the Bible study here on Friday night. God has kept all of his physical promises to Israel, but the whole world has not possessed neither the physical nor the depth of the spiritual promises. We've gone through 2,000 years since Paul wrote these words of wars and religious confusion and deception.

The truth has never died. The Church has always lived on, but the Kingdom has not yet come. And that fullness that Paul speaks of hasn't yet happened. You have to keep the Holy Days to understand that. Time will yet come when the full plan of God comes to pass. You can't understand these passages of Romans, chapters 9, 10, and 11, without an understanding of this day. You just cannot. Scholars, theologians can write some very helpful, insightful information about all of Romans and these three chapters in particular, but you will not understand the fullness of these three chapters without the knowledge of this day and by keeping this day. You have to have that. That's the added dimension that unlocks what Paul is really talking about here. What is the depth and the riches? He goes on to conclude chapter 11 with, of God's plan that are unsearchable. They're unsearchable by a mind that is not led by God's Spirit to be able to see the truth. The fullness of God's plan has not yet come to pass. The festivals that we observe every year, the Holy Days, tell us each year the meaning of God's plan, and we step through it. We've come now to the eighth day, which is not the end. It's really an opening. This is not the end. There's a whole lot more beyond this day that we are only given kind of a crack in the door of understanding about at the end of Revelation. We'll learn more about that this afternoon. But if you want to know where we are in today's world, in the plan of God, if you want to know where we are in history, if you want to know where we are in prophecy, you must keep the festivals. You must keep the Holy Days.

To have a proper framework on which to place everything.

All of the prophecies of Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Revelation, Daniel, you must keep the Holy Days as your framework to understand that. Otherwise, you will go off at the critical points, and you will not see the whole picture. You will not see the whole plan and truth. Paul talks here about, at the end of verse 15, Israel's grafting back on will be meaning life from the dead.

Ezekiel 37 talks about that.

Ezekiel, let's turn back to Ezekiel 37.

You know this passage. We read it on this day of re-year, as we should.

Ezekiel 37. The vision of the valley of the dry bones, to which Ezekiel was led, in the Spirit, it says in verse 1, he said, The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley, and it was full of bones. And so he has a vision.

A remarkable one here. And he caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were many in the open valley, and they were very dry. They had been there a long time. Generations and generations had gone, and they were dry. And he said to me, Son of man, can these bones live?

And so I answered, O Lord God, you know.

God knows.

God knows it all. God knew whether or not these bones could live. God knows his plan.

God knows the dead, small and great.

Ezekiel said, O Lord God, you know. And he said to me, then prophesy to these bones, Say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Just love that song that comes out of these verses. One of these days we need to have that as special music, I think. Maybe on some nice rendition of that.

And so I prophesied. Verse 6. I'm sorry, verse 5. Thus says the Lord God to these bones, Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. Life from the dead, that Paul described back in Romans 11.15. Life from the dead. This is a physical resurrection. This is not a spiritual resurrection as described in 1 Corinthians 15, or 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, or even what we read about in Revelation 20. This is a physical resurrection. It's the one that we just read about there in the verses in Revelation 20, speaking of the rest of the dead.

Who lived after that period of time. I will put sinews in verse 8 on you, and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin, put breath in you, and you shall live. So it's a physical resurrection back to a physical life. For these Israelites who then will have a fullness of understanding of the plan of God, and what they were supposed to have lived up to in their heyday, when they were a sovereign nation, then they will know.

And he says, Then you shall know that I am the Lord. And so it goes on. The prophecy was made, and those bones came back to life. And in this remarkable vision, Ezekiel is given to know something that he likely didn't fully grasp. But I think he had a measure of hope, because he saw that his own people, who were then in captivity, would one day rise and live again.

That their story was not over. In other words, God knows. And just as he knows the bones, those dry bones of those Israelites pictured here in this vision, he knows the bones of every other person who has lived, from every other nation, from every other tribe of people that has ever lived on the face of the earth since Adam.

God knows. God knows you. Our calling is unique. What he has called us to understand is very special. It's a once-in-a-lifetime event, the calling we have. Our time is right now. This is our time of judgment. As we've accepted that calling, repented, laid our life before God, and sought repentance, and then granted that gift of repentance, and then upon baptism and the laying on of hands, received the Spirit of God, the very essence of God's life in us.

Joying to our human spirit, that is our calling. A remarkable, remarkable, once-in-a-lifetime event that we do not take lightly. As we sit here today, and we ponder these words of life, and these words of eternity, and these words of meaning that describe God's plan, our time is now.

History may never know us, no matter how much longer we have. You see, the people of God have been persecuted and marginalized throughout time by the world, by those who did not know them. When you turn to Hebrews 11, I want to read the last few verses of this faith chapter. Paul gets down here to just a kind of a catch-all, but he tells us something remarkable about the story of God's people beginning in verse 35, where women received their dead, raised to life, others were tortured, not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection.

Still others had trial of mockings, scourgings, yes, of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, slain with a sword, wondered about in sheepskins, goatskins, they were destitute, afflicted, and tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth, and all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise. God, having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us. The people of God down through these ages have not been treated well by the world.

Satan's society has treated the Israel of God, the people of God, very poorly. He has ground them into the dust of history, enslaved them and beat them, killed them, and ground and scattered their bones to the winds and to the heavens. But God has been writing a different history. He's been writing a history that we would never study in the schools and books available to us today about His Church. Scriptures give us a broad outline about it. We can pick up bits and pieces throughout secular history of these last 2,000 years. But it's very difficult to put together a clear, definitive history of the Church from the history that we do have available to us from the time of Christ forward.

In fact, the true history of the Church of God has been suppressed. And I'm not sure that it can all be found and clearly pieced together. We can find bits and pieces here and there through the last 2,000 years to give us understanding that the Church has endured. Faith and truth has not been obliterated. But God knows. He's always known. The reason the Church has never disappeared, the reason that there will be a resurrection of the just and of the unjust, a resurrection of the dead, small and great, is because God knows.

And He's been writing that history. Some have had their names put into that book of life. Others will have it written into it at a later time. Behind every story, there's every name, there's a story. There's lots of stories. Two years ago, Debbie and I had a chance to go to the south of France for the Feast of Tabernacles. And on the last day of the Feast, several of us drove a few miles from where we were staying in the south of France to an American military cemetery.

It was called the Rhone Military Cemetery. It's a small one. There was an invasion of the south of France about two and a half months after the Normandy invasions in the north of France in 1944. And there were a number of American soldiers killed there, and they were buried in an American military cemetery. If you've ever been to one of the many American military cemeteries around the world, they're in Asia, they're in the Philippines, they're one in Hawaii, several in Europe. It's a remarkable experience. They are the most well-tended, manicured pieces of land that you will ever find on any place in the face of the earth.

These graves of American soldiers laid to rest where they died. The Rhone Military Cemetery was no exception. But it goes a little deeper. We got a personal tour by the superintendent of the military cemetery that day. And as he took us around, he showed us various gray markers, and he not only knew it was that traditional white cross of a fallen soldier with a name on it, they knew the story behind a lot of those names.

They tell us, this was Herbert, this was Tom, and he was from Iowa. And his children, his grandchildren, his nieces and nephews have come to visit his grave in the subsequent years, and they've left scraps of stories about this person. And they talk about them as if they are alive.

They will not let their story disappear. It's a remarkable calling that these people who tend these cemeteries have. They took us to one grave, and they stopped in front of it, and there was a red rose, fresh red rose. His name was Ward Sackle from Connecticut. And they told us the story of Ward. Ward died, a young man, and sometime in the years after he was buried there, his high school sweetheart, his high school sweetheart, learned where he was buried, and she funded a red rose to be kept at his grave in perpetuity.

Now, this was two years ago when we were there. Now, I looked at the dates of what he would be if he were alive today, and I'm thinking, man, if she, and the red rose was still there, she must be up in her 90s. They never married. They were high school sweethearts. But she wanted to keep alive. Something about the connection that she had there.

I don't know if I went back there today if that red rose, a fresh red rose, would still be there. But I thought, how remarkable. You know, in a cemetery like that where fallen soldiers lie, stories are kept alive.

But I had to think, there'll come a time when even here, with all the care and the meticulous effort by these good people to remember these fallen soldiers, somewhere, as time goes along, they will be forgotten.

But God knows them.

God will not forget.

No matter if the weeds grow up and the graves are untended and crumble, and something else is built over, should time go along, as it has happened with so many other cemeteries, God still knows.

And it's comforting and it's encouraging.

What does God know about your life?

He knows everything.

He knows everything about my life.

We sometimes walk along in our life and we think we get away with it.

You know, we can practice a form of atheism when we do that, when we think that, well, God doesn't know.

Think about it.

God does know.

He knows our life.

He's working to perfect your character. He's working to perfect you for the role in His kingdom that He plans for you.

He knows our hearts.

He knows our lives.

Remember the story of the woman that was taken in adultery there in John 8?

That was on the eighth day when those Pharisees drug that woman, caught in adultery to Christ, and said she should be killed.

And He stooped and He rode in the dust.

And one by one, they all left. Do you remember the story?

And Jesus turned to her, where are your accusers? Those who would condemn you?

She said, well, they've gone.

And He said, well, I don't condemn you either. Go and sin no more.

He could say that. He told her, don't sin anymore.

But go. Get on with your life.

Draw a line over the past. Don't sin any longer. I'm not going to condemn you either.

I have to think that He knew her heart.

Whatever had led her to practice the life that she was practicing, He knew that there was something better there.

I think God knew her. He knew her heart.

He knows yours. He knows your life. He's working with this.

God knows the plan. And He's working that plan.

Christ is building His Church, and the Father is bringing all things under Christ.

I get around to a lot of congregations in the last few years, having the opportunity to work out of the office.

And since I don't have one congregation that I'm assigned to, I've been able to travel quite a bit, Debbie and I, for the last three or four years, and make church visits. And we've got around to a lot of congregations.

Both in America and Canada, Africa.

And I talk to a lot of people.

And it's encouraging. It's always interesting. I love being able to do this.

The number one question that I get as I travel around, the number one question, and it's the number one question that I've had this week, wasn't just, when are you going to start taping in the new media facility?

I'm going to start this as I've talked to some of you.

What do you think that number one question is that I always get, no matter where I go?

People wonder about the state of the church today.

And they have family, and they have children, and they have had friends who are no longer with them where they are. Some are in different fellowships.

Some are not in the faith at all.

People wonder about the state of the church. They wonder, why is there such division?

Why? And what's the purpose? And is there anything we can do?

There's one church that I've gone to two or three times in recent years in your area.

And there's one individual I know when he comes up to me. I know exactly what he's going to be talking to me about.

What are you doing to bring back together the scattered people?

If I went to that congregation next week and I talked to this and I know that's what he'd asked me.

And that's okay. But it's almost like it's my fault.

And I'll accept a measure of blame. I don't have a problem doing that.

I moan. I grieve over the current state of all of what we have.

When you talk about that, you ask me about splits and about divisions and the impact that it's had.

I want to ask you to raise a hand, but so many of us here have friends or family that don't attend the church.

Will you attend? They are with another organization. They're not here with you here. They're with another organization's fisight.

Or they're just nowhere, for whatever reason. And why is the question?

What's the solution?

Frankly, I can only say, God knows. Because I don't.

And I think that that is a true statement. But I also know that it's not satisfying.

By some, it might be considered a cop-out. And yes, I can accept that, too.

But it's true. I don't know why I can point to this. I can point to that. I can point to this personality, this situation.

Going back seven years ago, going back 23 years ago, going back 45 years ago.

And I can say this and that, and this individual, and whatever, but it's happened.

And I thought about that. As you have, and I've cried about that, as you have, is there something we should do?

Stan Martin said yesterday at the conclusion of his sermon that our job is to bring a message of healing to a world that needs the kingdom of God. That's true. Does not the people of God, those who are anticipating the kingdom, and those who are anticipating being there on this day to be maybe even at that grave side of their father, their mother, their aunt, their uncle, their best friend, who got killed, life cut off short, and help them out of that grave, and to say, here's the way.

Here's what I knew. Here's what you ridiculed me about. Now let's learn it together.

Is there yet something for us who are anticipating all of this that we need to? Perhaps some healing?

You know, in Ezekiel 34 we were there, a few chapters before we get to the vision of the valley of dry bones. God says something about the scattering of his sheep in Ezekiel 34.

And there's some very strong words for both of the shepherds and the sheep. We don't have the time to read it all. But, he said, Son of Man prophesy, Ezekiel 34, verse 2, say to those shepherds, Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves, should not the shepherds feed the flocks. Verse 4, The weak you have not strengthened, nor have you healed those who were sick, nor bound up the broken, nor brought back that which was driven away, nor sought what was lost, but with force and co-rese, you have ruled them. Now, that's very strong language, but God means it. They were scattered because there was no shepherd, and they became food for the beasts of the field. Verse 6, My sheep wandered through all the mountains and on every high hill. Verse 7, Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you shepherds.

He said some very strong words. Down in verse 11, he says this, Thus says the Lord God, Indeed I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out. I will go, I will seek my sheep. I will seek them, and I will find them out.

As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, I will seek out my sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered on a dark and cloudy day. God says he will do that. Strong words. Just lest you think that this is speaking only to the ministry, if we would apply this into our situation today. Verse 17-19, he has some very strong words about the sheep who budded at each other, and some who were rams and goats rather than being true sheep, and they muddied the water that they were in. And what he's saying is that the sheep are also accountable. In other words, we're all accountable. So don't just point the finger at the ministry. We are all a part of this, for whatever reason.

That's the point. We all have a responsibility, and therefore we have a responsibility to do something different. So what shall we do? I don't have a plan. There is no plan. The Council of Elders is not going to come up with an idea, nor any President of the United Church of God.

There is no three-point plan. There is no strategy that we can craft for this. God says, I will search them out. I will bring them back. So what should we do? The only thing that I can say, the only answer that I have is pray.

When I look at not only this passage, but many other scriptures that talk about the sheep, God's flock, God's church, God's people, how He looks at them, how He shepherds them, how He cares and tends for them, how they will be abused by wolves in sheep's clothing, the only thing I can say is to pray.

And so I say to us today, on this eighth day, at this feast here out of Jekyll Island, let's begin to pray that God begins to search out His sheep. Let's pray that God finds them. Let's pray for a spiritual healing of God's people. He knows who they are. He knows them by name.

It may be that God is waiting for the right conditions among the church that He is building to place back in a growth mode those who have been scattered. So I say, pray for those who receive the seed among the thorns and who heard the Word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choked out that Word and they became unfruitful. God knows them. Pray for them. Pray for those who endured for a while, who stumbled. When trials and persecution arose because of the Word of truth, they came into their lives.

God knows their hearts, and God is merciful. Pray for the one sheep, the one sheep among the 100, that God does not want to perish, that could be drawn back into the sheepfold. God knows who are His. He has never lost sight of them. Pray for those sheep who have been seduced by wolves in sheep's clothing, who through the years of our time in the Church of God, who through the years became spiritually confused, disillusioned and disoriented from the calling they once accepted. Those who were drawn away because they trusted some personality. They trusted, and then they became disillusioned or prayed to the wiles of Satan. Pray that no man will yet take their crown. Pray that. God knows they were sincere, but perhaps spiritually immature, not fully developed, and there is yet time to seek repentance. Pray for the sheep once purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ. Pray for them to be drawn back to the one sheepfold tended by that one good shepherd, Jesus Christ, who laid down His life for the sheep. God knows everyone to whom He granted repentance to life. And that offer of repentance to life still stands, and it can be sought with tears. Pray for the prodigal children who were raised in the Church, who once came to this island and walked its beaches, swam in its pools, went to the parties, and sat on the floors under a tent and other locations where the Feast of Tabernacles have been held and are scattered. Some of whom are now adults with grandchildren, and they try to fill the empty hole of their life left vacant by spiritual truth. Pray for those prodigals who still talk about summer camp, Y.O.U., church camp outs, who finally remember adults who befriended them, mentored them while they were within our gates, those who won't eat pork but keep Christmas. Why was my mind when I hear situations like that? You know who they are. Some of them are yours. They've been mine. They played on the floor of our services, and they heard what was said, and somewhere deep inside they still remember the seed is there waiting to come to life. Pray for them that they might return. They are the children who were blessed in a very special ceremony each year, which is a sacred moment. We call on God to set our children apart, to remember them, to protect them, and to ask a special blessing for them and their parents. In heaven, their angels see the face of the Father. Something sacred happens when we have that blessing of the children, when we bless them. Let's not forget that. Let's pray that we can become a church where everybody knows your name and where anyone who has been scattered can find a spiritual home, because God knows them. Pray without ceasing. Pray about this continually. And when you think you've prayed all you can, then pray some more. And when you think that your prayers are not heard, pray louder.

On this issue, I think all of us need to be like the widow who would not cease bringing her case before the unjust judge.

Pray, brethren, about this, because God says He will seek them out. Let's pray. God's speed, God's success on that effort. Let's pray that these things happen. Let's pray that we can then be a fellowship, a place where God can place those as He chooses, where there's a welcoming heart, open hands, and a place where their spiritual growth can be reignited. God knows. God knows who are His, and it just could be that He wants to see the depth of commitment and sincerity that His people have for the unity of the body of His Son, Jesus Christ. The Father is bringing all things together in heaven and earth in Jesus Christ.

That's being done. Let's renew ourselves through this feast. Let's rededicate ourselves to labor and prayer for the unity of the body of Christ, because at the end of the day, that's all you can do. That's all I can do. Let's pray to the one who says, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning, the end, the first and the last, the one who knows. And let's never forget that that God who does know will bring all things together on this day and further His eternal plan.