God's Master Class for His Firstfruits

Good morning, everyone! And good morning to everyone online.

I hope everything is going well for you, wherever you may be tuning into us here in Oceanside.

So thank you very much for the special music this morning. Very nice piece that gets us started in a very good mood and attitude here. It's good to be with all of you here in Oceanside this year that we planned from January and February to come out here and not knowing what was going to lie ahead in 2020 and changes and this and that, but my family is here and you're here and it is just good to be at God's Feast of Tabernacles finally to have come upon us in a year that has been probably, well it is, not probably, it is the most unusual year in our lifetime. A good friend, John Garnett, was reminding me of one of these memes that he had seen. I'd seen the same one, some of you probably as well. It was a picture of from the movie Back to the Future where the professor saying to Marty McFly, whatever you do, don't program in 2020. All right? And so here we are. Someone said that the biggest mistake they made in January was to buy a planning calendar for 2020. And it is truly an unusual year, the most in our lifetime. So much has happened and we are grateful and glad to be finally at God's Feast of Tabernacles and to raise our voices and song and to see one another and to come before God in a commanded assembly.

It is a unique time for us. It's a unique year. We're looking at so many momentous events. I think all of us recognize that the most decisive election in American history is just a few days away from us. We've already had our first October surprise with the president's illness coming down with the the COVID virus. And looking back at all of the plans to even get us in the church to the feast this year, it has been a most unusual church experience. Someone said that this will be a feast unlike any in our time in the way that it has been planned and replan and then finally prepared for. And wherever God's people are gathered either individually or in a small setting here or even larger settings, it is quite unique. And the question is, what will we learn? Mr. Weber got us off to that theme already in the comments that he made prior to this. Brethren, we are here before God really at the command of heaven. We're here at the Feast of Tabernacles by the command of God. God the Father, Jesus Christ, whom he has sent, have summoned us to appear before him and his son in this holy festival. The family of God has business to discuss.

We have been summoned to review the progress that we have made on this project that God has been working on from eternity. And that's why we are here. And no matter what it took for us to get here, we made the right choice. Every year, when we make that choice to attend in this site or that site, to put aside the festival tide, to be able to travel or to keep the feast in whatever manner we can based upon our means and our blessings from God, we make the right choice.

We make the right choice to decide to go where we go and how we keep it. And we are here. And brethren, you've made the right choice. And so what will we learn? What will you receive here this year that can change your life now and tomorrow and for the future? What is it that you will hear spoken in a sermon, in a sermonette, in special music? What might you hear in a conversation that you will have with a friend, with a roommate, in the aisle here or in a private gathering that you will have? What is it that you will hear as God speaks to us through each other, through his ministry, but most importantly, through his holy word?

What will we hear that will make a change in our life for the better? Those are questions to consider as we begin to open up the scriptures and explore God's word on this very meaning of this festival.

And even beyond that, God's purpose and plan for our lives, as I said, that has been in the works and the plan from before the beginning of time. I'd like to take us this morning to a scripture in the Gospels, the Gospel of Luke, if you will, please turn over to Luke chapter 19.

We're going to kind of anchor in on Luke 19 here this morning. We'll go to a few other verses, but I want to begin with the well-known parable that Christ gave with a parable of the talents a few days before his death as he entered into Jerusalem, a parable that has a great deal of instruction for the church today and this age and this time. To help us again, anchor into why we are here, a question that we have heard many times.

This is our, this is my 57th time to come to the Feast of Tabernacles. And like so many of you that have been around that long and some of you even longer, you've heard many, many times and did in the earlier years a question, why are we here? Luke 19 in this parable helps us to get to and dig into the real meaning of that question and the answer that we should understand.

Let's begin in verse 11. As they heard these things, he, Christ, spoke another parable because he was near Jerusalem. Because they thought, this is the masses, the people following them, they thought the kingdom of God would appear immediately. They were looking for the Messiah. They were hungry for the Messiah. Their times were hard times. They were under the yoke of the Roman Empire. They knew the scriptures of Isaiah, chapter 2, as Mr. Weber read earlier.

They knew all the scriptures that pointed to the coming of the Messiah. The age was looking for something better. The Jews were expecting now as they had followed this teacher, as some looked at him, this rabbi, perhaps, as they looked at them. And as many began to confess, the Son of God, they were looking for him to bring the kingdom at that point immediately. They didn't want to wait any longer.

No, they were human, just like you and I. I don't want to wait any longer either for the kingdom. I want God's kingdom to come. I'm tired of looking at the suffering of this world. I am tired of looking at where this world is going and the suffering yet to come. I would just as soon get it over with. And you would too. But we're here to get a foretaste of that kingdom.

We're here to read the scriptures about that kingdom and again to rehearse our meaning. And so Jesus decided to kind of put a damper, if you will, on their expectation and give them a dose of reality. In verse 12, therefore, he said, a certain noble went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return.

To go into a far country to receive a kingdom and to return. Now we know the meaning of this parable before we go into it. We know that Christ is putting himself in the role of this noble. He's telling a parable, which is a story that has a meaning, a very important meaning to it. It's told in a way that it's not a fable or anything like that. It's a story method to explain a deep, profound truth. And it spoke to that group there and it speaks to us today. It is a message out of this parable very much still alive.

That Christ is like this nobleman who, and he did leave, and he gave them even far more instruction in the days that would go after this. We read about in the book of John, where prior to his death he told them that I must go to the Father. I will prepare many mansions for in that house. I and my Father will come to you. They had to learn what exactly that meant because he was going to come, they were going to come through the Spirit. And that Spirit would give them power. It would give them hope and courage for their days ahead in their time, just as it gives hope and courage for our day and time and our lives as they live within us through the Spirit. And so he was laying down a message for the ages here to help them to understand how to prepare for that kingdom. How to get to that kingdom. Christ had to go and receive a kingdom and to return. I said we would anchor here, so let's hold your place with your hand or a marker or whatever. And let's turn and think about just a few other scriptures here to understand what this verse is telling us in regard to what Christ is doing today.

What he has been doing since he went to that far country. I literally, as they would have understood that it would have been a region beyond the bounds of the land, of the Holy Land at that time, to the east or to the northeast, as some say. That would have been in their mind a far country.

They would have, by going to a far country from Jerusalem, they would have left the land of God they'd got it given to Abraham. So they would have left the confines. So they were getting to realize that it was beyond their immediate domain. And yet, as the scriptures will show us, that was back to the Father, to heaven. But what has he been doing since that time? Well, in Acts chapter 3, we get a little bit of understanding, begin to see here, because as Peter then would preach after the day of Pentecost regarding what was taking place with this departure of Christ from their presence, he began to preach that message of repentance in verse 19 of Acts chapter 3, urging his audience to repent, to be converted, that your sins will be blotted out, so that that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. The times of restoration, Christ was received into the heavens, and there he is until, as it says, a time of restoration, a restoring of all things that God spoke by the mouth of the prophets since the world began. And so we would go back to the beginning of the story in Genesis and read through to what every prophet, every individual that God worked with began to speak about regarding the plan of God, the purpose of God, the kingdom of God, the promise of God, the hope of God, the very reason for human life, and to keep that fire lit through the generations, sometimes in greater detail than others, sometimes the light of God's truth was quite bright, sometimes it was quite dim. You read the book of Ruth and you were reading a time when the the truth of God was quite dim, even among the the nation of Israel. You read it during the time of Moses, and especially the foundation of the the nation of Israel. It's quite bright for a period of time, and that's the way it went. But the truth of God was there, and Peter is saying that Christ is there working until there will be a restoration of all things. We can talk about the government of God being restored to the earth. We can talk about the law of God, the way of God, but it is going to be brought and restored. Now, in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, the Apostle Paul added a bit more flesh to the bone of this here. 1 Corinthians chapter 3.

Beginning in verse 9, where he begins to explain to the church what it is that God is doing. There are many scriptures that we could turn to on this, but this one I think lays it out to us. Paul writes to the Corinthians, for we are God's fellow workers, and you are God's field. You are God's building.

Remember, Christ said to the disciples, in my father's house, there are many mansions to begin to explain something about this idea of a building. Many buildings, if you will, but many rooms within that building would be a bit more correct to look at that. But Paul is saying to the church, you're God's building. You are God's building. You are being put together. You are being constructed. We are, according to a plan, a blueprint, a set of diagrams that are precise, that are laid down before time began, that explain how it's all going to be. The festivals, which Feast of Tabernacles is a very important one, lays out a very important dimension of that, of the times when Christ returns and begins the process of restoring things. Restoring not just some ethereal idea about government or laws, necessarily, but people, relations, relationships, and the laws and the ways that will bind all of that together to create that kingdom. And if it's one generation, three generations or more into that period of time that is defined as the millennium, that thousand-year period, it'll be exciting. It will be a labor of love for those who are in the family of God, assisting Christ in that domain, and working with those that God brings along, continuing that process of building. Now, going back here to verse 10, he says, According to the grace of God which was given to me as a wise builder, I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it, but let each one take heed how he builds on it. In other words, it has to be done by the plan, the purpose, the way by which God has laid it down. And everyone who adds their level, if you will, everyone who adds their room, their piece of sheetrock, their piece of tile, whatever it might be as we kind of think about that. A contractor called in is going to have to work off the plan. No independent contractors in this. We're going to be working according to a blueprint, and we are even at this time. There's a way by which it is done, and we have to watch how it is built. For no other foundation, verse 11, can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus, the cornerstone. And he goes on to talk about the materials of gold and silver, precious stones that we should be building with, and more about all of this. And he calls and says that we, in verse 16, are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you. That building is not just any building, it is a building likened to a temple that is far more intricate, far more detailed, far grander, and will last for eternity. It is a spiritual building, a spiritual temple that God is putting together. And that's what is being done right now, as Christ builds his church and puts the pieces in place.

Ephesians shows us that he is the head of the church, that it is his body, Christ's body. He is the cornerstone that is mentioned here. He is the foundation. He is everything, and it is all being put together in totality within him, according to what we are told in Ephesians 1, that all things will be brought together in all of the universe in Christ.

Read that, as you read that verse, and think about it and what that means, and that's it. That's everything right there. It all does center on the very foundation of Christ. And then in Revelation 19, Christ tells us through his revelation to John, in Revelation 19, verse 7, when that event takes place, or the return of Christ, let us be glad and rejoice and give him glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his wife has made herself ready. When we read that verse, we come to realize that by the time we get to the fulfillment of this verse, that marriage and whatever it will be, and whatever detail God wants to reveal to us at that time, it's going to be again worth it. And it'll be great, and we need to plan to be there. But the important message that I like to take out of this verse is that the bride will have been made ready. The job will be done, which means the job is being done today. We are God's building. That work is being done today. And so when we double back then to Luke chapter 19, and we look at what we are told in this parable, as Christ is this nobleman that goes into a far country to receive a kingdom and to return in verse 11, he calls within in verse 13, 10 of his servants, and he delivers to them 10 minus, and he said to them, do business till I come.

And so in the parable, we have explained to us that the nobleman gives to his servants something tangible, a mina. Another parable calls it a talent. We could call it money if we want to. Pounds, if you're from England, UK. We could call it a euro if you're in the European Union. We could call it a gift. If you want to call it, look at it as a spiritual gift, we could call it a talent. However we choose to look at that, we can call it a gift. We can call it a gift. However we choose to look at that, we, by virtue of being human, born created in the image of God, by virtue of the calling of God, being a servant, being, if you will, a participant in the parable, we have a gift. We have something. We are, and it is given to us by the nobleman or by God. And we're told to then to take that gift, that ability, that time, that talent, and do business till I come.

Some people like to read it in this parable any kind of economic scheme that they want, depending upon which country they live in, which age they're living in, and it doesn't really matter in one sense. Whether it's capitalism, socialism, or whatever you might want to come up with, I don't think that's the point. The point is the spiritual lesson, that we are given something by which we are to use and to work. And among them, there are bits and pieces. Now verse 14 says, his citizens hated him, sent a delegation after him saying, we'll not have this man to reign over us. We'll come back to that thought, because that's a very important one, in the meaning of this parable, that some rejected him. We know that Christ eventually was rejected by man and crucified.

But so it was that when he returned, having received the kingdom, he then commanded these servants to whom he had given the money to be called to him, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. That's a time of judgment. That is a time when the nobleman returns, which is understood to be the return of Jesus Christ from that far country, to judge at a time of judgment and accounting for what has been given to those that are his servants.

And so at this point, we've got quite an interesting summary already of the verses that I read in Revelation 19. The church has been made ready. 1 Corinthians 3, where we are the temple of God, we are a building, we are being put together for a time when things are going to be restored at Christ's coming or at his appearing. I think the phrase to focus on here thus far, for all of us, as we think about, again, bringing it back into exactly why we are here to feast, what we are to learn about what God is doing. Because like these participants here, and like those that were around Christ, literally as he came into Jerusalem, they thought that the kingdom would appear immediately. 57 years ago, when my mother took me to my first feast of tabernacles, and I was 12 years old, we thought along a different timetable. And the sermons that I heard, and the teaching that I began to learn at that time from the scriptures, looked for the kingdom to come a little bit sooner than today. I didn't expect it to be a grandfather. All right? You didn't either, some of us. We expected other things. Well, time has gone on, 57 years now. And while I still firmly believe, and you as well, that that kingdom is going to be coming, we're still doing business. Until it does come. Which to me always makes the feast of tabernacles, and every other holy day, and every Sabbath, and every day literally very important for us to think about in light of all of these scriptures that I've read to you. Because either they're true or they're not. That's kind of what I come down to. Either Christ is building his spiritual temple, as in fact, nobleman often of our country, as he said he would. And we are that building, and we are part of that church, that bride, and so many other scriptures that we would put together to define us as a body, a part of the body of Christ. Either we are or we aren't.

Or we are or we ain't. As we would have said it where I came from back in Missouri. Either we are or we ain't, folks. Either we are in the body of Christ, the spiritual body. He is the head. We are being built up in the way of these and all the other scriptures say, or we're not.

I choose to believe, and I have for so many years like you, that we are a part of that spiritual body. And we are being fitly framed together. We are being built up. We are being prepared as a bride. And we look for that time of that resurrection and that perousia of Jesus Christ.

That's where we are. And so we're part of what God is doing, which means we're part of the church.

We are part of that spiritual body. And this physical organization that we call the United Church of God is a part of that spiritual body. Not the exclusive part, not the one and only part, but a part of the spiritual body of Jesus Christ. And we take that very seriously. Well, we should. Which means then again, we are here to learn something. We are here to rehearse by the command of heaven this purpose and this plan and be a part of this business, this work, until Christ comes. You know, 50 years ago, my wife Debbie and I followed the sun and came west. We came to California 50 years ago this summer to Ambassador Gollage. And there we met. I came, I told them I was coming to learn the Bible. And the first girl I met was my wife, future wife. All right. Mr. Weber already had his future wife picked out. He was there a year ahead of me. But I did lay eyes upon Debbie right off the bat. And, you know, she had me at the low, as they say. Okay. So, but that was a different time. Wasn't it? 57 years ago. California was a lot different 57 years ago. Church was a lot different 57 years ago.

And yet we knew the truth and we believe the truth then and now. We have been a part of what that has been doing. Things have changed. A lot of water has gone under the bridge, as they say. But we're still here. We're still doing the business that Christ is engaged in along with the Father. There's one other scripture for us to look at in terms of that business and it's a favorite of mine in recent times. Matthew chapter 16. Matthew chapter 16 tells us a lot. This is where Christ first began to speak about the church. Matthew 16 verse 18.

Where he challenged Peter, who do men say that I am? In verse 15, you are the Christ, Peter answered, the Son of the living God. He said, that's a blessing. You are blessed, Simon Marjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in it.

And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades, or the grave, or hell, shall not prevail against it.

Now, what that really means, that verse, is that the church is not to be in a defensive posture, but the church is to be in an offensive posture. In the ancient times, a city had walls and gates. The most vulnerable part of an ancient city were the gates. That's why they shut them every night. When there was impending war, they were barred, barricaded. The gates were the weakest part of the defenses of an ancient city. And Christ was making a point. When an army would go against an ancient city in war, they tried to knock the gates down, because that was the weakest point of the defense, not the walls. And so they would try to knock the gates down. And what Christ is saying is that the gates of hell, the gates of the world, the gates of Satan's system, of Satan's world, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. In other words, they won't stand against the church. The church is to knock down the gates of hell. That's really what Christ is saying.

It's offensive. It's not defensive. That's the real meaning and the deep meaning there.

That is part of the business of the church, to go against the gates of hell by preaching the gospel by living a life that is contrary to the gates of hell and to the world, by living a life and a calling that says to the world, I am not of this world.

I will not go by your customs. I will defy you on this point and on this point and on this way. I will live this way. I will live an ordered, decent, godly, righteous life, and I will not give in. I will not compromise. I'll do it this year, next year, and next decade, and I'll do it for 50 years, 60 years. I will do it until I die. That's one way by which the church makes its statement against the gates of hell, against the world and its system. Now, I don't have to tell you, the hell right now is building some very large walls and reinforcing those walls and adding to the stature of the towers of its walls and its city in a very powerful way. Right now, hell, or the world, looks formidable, looks like it's winning, looks like it's going to win. Looks like it's going to take over. Think about where we are right now in 2020.

I'm writing a book right now, a booklet. It may turn into be a decisive book by the time we add everything, get it all in. I've been working on it for a few months about Babylon. It's a book that we've needed for a long time, and I kind of got it fell to my table to do that, and I'm trying to get the last chapter or two written so we can begin to edit it and work it through. But I'm at that point where I'm trying to describe, if you will, the last chapter, not just of the booklet, but the last chapter of hell, or at that time when hell looks so formidable, when Babylon will rise, as Revelation 17 calls it, Babylon Mystery the Great, and a system will arise upon the earth that will be the final last effort by Satan to gather the religious, the political, the cultural systems that he has been building from the beginning to counter the plan of God and the kingdom of God. And I think we're we are beginning to see the final chapter of that, not just my booklet, but of that time to arise. That final chapter where Babylon comes on the scene that we read about in Revelation 17 and 18. And I think we can see the building materials lying there and being assembled, in part for what will be a very totalitarian society.

Have any of you ever thought about just how quickly we gave in in March of this year to what we're doing right now? A shutdown of the economy, a cessation of church services.

How quickly that happened with virtually no debate, no discussion by government. Now, I'm not I recognize that COVID is a very serious disease. I understand that. It has taken many lives, and I understand the seriousness of this pandemic. But I try to look at everything and understand it from the biblical perspective of what the Bible tells us. And it's very, very interesting as to how this shaped up and how quickly it happened and the ongoing efforts.

California, New York, to be honest, to the extreme ends of the country, but also interesting case studies as to what has happened as well. And not just in America, but throughout the world and in many different ways, evil is shaping a state that ultimately will strip liberty from mankind. I'm talking about the liberty to worship God according to your conscience, because that's what Revelation shows us.

Evil is constructing and shaping a state that is going to ultimately strip spiritual liberty. That's what the mark of the beast is all about. That is what that system is all about, what's being described to us in Revelation as we look at that. This is not political. This transcends politics. Politics is just the means by which Satan is able to use human beings, human government, to seek to accomplish his will in his way. This is a world currently that is being stripped of faith, grounded in God. God's been removed. That began decades ago, literally when the Supreme Court ruled against public prayer, when it ruled for abortion, when it ruled for same-sex marriage, and now more recently even redefining gender. All of this has been an ongoing march to redefine so much. The sexual revolution that at least in our time we can say began in the 60s and came to have began to come to a fruition is reaching its final reveal right now.

And what is taking place is the last connection that mankind has with his creator, or her creator, the very fact that we are made in the image of God, male and female, created he, them.

But that is being redefined and stripped by a transgender, genderless movement in society.

Is the final reveal of where it is ultimately going, but it is a matter of stripping mankind from his connection with God. That's what we must understand as we do our business and recognize the times in which we live. That's where we are headed. God designed the family, and we're headed into an abyss of confusion, conflict, dysfunction, and anger, and conditions that represent the mind of Satan the devil himself, the father of lives, including the original, that you will not die. That's where we're going. And those of us that are part of that business that Christ says to be doing have got to keep ourselves firmly grounded in the reality of what is happening in our world right now. You know, I asked myself, how many people today in our world have not bowed the knee to Baal? Remember what God said to Elijah when Elijah thought that he was the only one in Israel who had not bowed the knee to Baal? And God said, wait a minute, I've got 7,000 that you don't even know about. And Elijah thought he had it all sewed up, knew it all, and neatly packaged, perhaps.

He was the only one. Well, God said, I've got a few more. Today, I wonder, how many more does God have? Where are they? Last week, I have to tell you something. Last week, we did something very interesting, profound, as far as his impact upon me. We decided, we being Victor Kubik, myself, and John Miller, one of our council members and elders in northern Ohio, we decided to go to Washington, D.C. a week ago for what was being billed as a National Day of Prayer of Repentance. How many of you knew what was taking place back there a week ago today? Two ministries, rented parts of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to stage a Day of Prayer of Repentance.

We chose to go to one that was put on by a Messianic evangelical ministry who had himself, he was a Sabbath keeper, a Jew, but believes he's Messianic Jew, and he keeps the Holy Days. Jonathan Cahn is his name. He had assembled a coalition of evangelical ministers and put on a full day right at the shadow of the Washington Monument of Prayer and Fasting and speeches and praise. It was called a sacred assembly. He blew the shofar. At the other end of the Mall, the Lincoln Memorial, another minister, Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, was holding a Day of Prayer as well for people. He had, in a sense, competing prayers and repentance events going on. We elected to go to Mr. Cahn's because our purpose to go is not to participate in it, but to observe it and to report about it because we wanted to do an article about it. We thought that it was a significant enough thing that we would do that. Circumstances worked out that we made the trip. We had press credentials, and so I did get a short brief interview with Jonathan Cahn who's written some books about prophecy that are totally different prophetic scenarios. We understand through the Bible, and just for the record, I don't agree. We don't agree with what his prophetic utterances are, but I'm not trying to gain, say, the effort to try to at least put together something of a prayer and repentance. There were probably a hundred thousand people that had come for this. A hundred thousand easily. I hadn't been in a group of a hundred thousand since the one and only time I ever went to a Rose Bowl football game, Pasadena. And as we were walking through this crowd, we were struck by just the sheer numbers, the peace that was there. These people had come to Washington to pray, not to riot, not to smash through windows. I mean, the trash bins filled up real quick, and so they stacked the rest of the refuse orderly next to the trash bins. Nobody was rioting. Nobody was fighting. It was very peaceful. We were walking through that crowd, and we parked ourselves on a little rise at the very base of the Washington Memorial. If you know them all, the group that had started at the Lincoln Memorial were now making their way toward the Capitol Building. They were stopping along the way and gathering in groups and praying.

Praying for the country, praying for repentance. And there was a lot said, and I won't go through all of that, but these people were in a moment. They were in their moment. And it was stunning, as Victor, Cubic, and I, we did a podcast right there, talked about it, and we were just looking at it. We were all moved by the sincerity of people who would come there to pray.

All right, now there's a lot of other things about it that were said that we could, again, pick apart, but that wasn't the point. And we can have our disagreements with individual ministries and evangelical Christianity and messianic. We're not messianic. We're not evangelical. We understand all of that. We weren't there to participate, endorse, or whatever. We were there to observe. And I think in the spirit of what God said to Jeremiah to do in Jeremiah 7, which was to go and stand in the temple of the Lord and preach my word. We weren't there to preach. That was not our job there, but we wanted to observe it so we could comment on it in our publications and even get a little bit of video interview footage and do it from a firsthand perspective rather than from a distance. We felt that was far better and far more credible to do that. But as I was looking at this entire event, I wondered to myself, how many of these people are maybe those that are in some way not bowing their knee totally to Baal? And God may yet call. I don't know. I suspect that there are some. And then I have to ask myself, then, can we, can I, can you, can we all together be a voice in the wilderness, crying aloud?

Can we do that so that God then can call whom he will and add to his church those whom he calls? That's his business. But these are people who recognize that America is in a critical moment. They understand the times to the degree that they do, and they had come together for a day of prayer and repentance. And so it was a just a profoundly moving experience to see and to think about and to put into the context of the time. I did happen to think about the scripture in Isaiah where they will go up to the mountain of the Lord. Not today, but in the day to come, in the time of the millennium. And here I was seeing people walking by the monuments of our secular culture in a kind of a secular sacred place, which Washington and the National Mall is with Lincoln's memorial and Jefferson's and any of you have been there, you can't help but be moved by the history, what they represent. Even the words of God. You know, Lincoln's words on his memorial invoke God and words of scripture. You go to the Jefferson Memorial, he talks about God there and it's emblazoned on one of the walls. The Washington Monument has a psalm way up there somewhere on one of the blocks up on top of it. The Bible in the name of God is on buildings all over Washington, D.C. And yet, God has been removed from the public square. And God's laws, prayer, and everything else has been turned upside down. God will have a say on that in the time of judgment. But it's a very interesting thing to note as we look at where we are, our nation's capital, and a land that says, in God we trust. And so I ask that we be a voice in the wilderness.

So that God can use in his will and in his way to accomplish his purpose. We're in the process of doing the business of God until he comes. We are part of the body of Christ. We are part of the church that is to go against the gates of hell. And all of these things, brethren, we have to see ourselves as part of something far bigger than we are. Now, 57, 50 years ago when I came to Ambassador College, I thought we were pretty big. And I thought we thought a lot of things. Well, we're pretty small right now by comparison. But we've still got a big message. We've still got the biggest message of all that fuels us and guides us, and that's why we are here at the Feast of Tabernacles. That's what we will rehearse during this time. And that's what we need to anchor our thoughts, our hearts, and our questions in as we think about why we are here, what we are to learn, what it is that God has called us to know, to learn, and to reflect upon during this time. And we go back to Luke chapter 19. We, we have a very important message. We come down to the time of accounting in the parable. And without going into detail in everyone, look at verse 17. He said to one, well done, good servant, because you were faithful in a very little of authority over 10 cities. Focus on being faithful over very little, rather than exactly what and when and where and how the 10 cities will come into play. Let God show us that when it comes. Focus right now, as I try to do, on being faithful in a very little, by comparison to what is glory ahead, what we are at, we have to exercise faith in right now, is little by comparison. And it's still big in our lives when we get sick, when we lose our job, when a tragedy strikes. Yeah, it's best big. That's not little. We should, we're not diminishing that. But compared to the glory of the kingdom and of eternity and the family of God, we're faithful right now over a little. And no matter how little you are, and I am, and what we have and are and talent and whatever we may think, where we are that God has called us, and each of you are called to a life of faith.

Be faithful. Be faithful in what you have, whether it's 10 or 5 or only one talent, count, gift, whatever it might be. Analyze and know that and be faithful in that. In verse 21, the one servant who took what was given to him and didn't increase it, didn't appreciate it, didn't understand it fully, was fearful in verse 21. Fearful of God, thinking that God was an austere man, collecting what he didn't deposit and reaping what he didn't sow. Has said to him, in verse 22, out of your own mouth, I'll judge you, you wicked servant, you knew that I was an austere man, collecting what I did, not deposit, reaping what I did, not sow. Why didn't you at least put my money in the bank and gain interest with it? We are given the gift of our calling. We are given certain talents that we may have been born with and God's Spirit gives us an added ability to enhance those talents and gifts of the Spirit. Use those. Know what they are. Think about that and let God use us to touch one another in the church and to be a light to the world, to be an example of this way of life. Because if we're not in an ever-darkening world, who will be?

Verse 27 brings it down to the statement where Christ says, Bring here those enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them and slay them before me. Do we want Christ to reign over us? Does he reign over us? Are we submitted to Christ and to his rule in our own life? That's the big takeaway right there. That is the big lesson to take as we consider what is happening and where we are right now in the calling that God has given to us. While we are here this feast and while we keep it, in whatever means, a little bit different from any of us in many ways, no big crowds here in Oceanside, those at home or sequestered away for whatever reason, keeping it in a different way. May we all keep it to God. May we all keep it in the right spirit. May we all rejoice. May we all think deeply about what God has done for us and working in us and what God is teaching us, especially where we are with what has happened to us in 2020.

How has God impacted your heart, your devotion, your commitment to him?

How have these events of 2020 shaped your calling and character? Has fear been eliminated or has fear taken over?

Or has fear been replaced by courage? All of these things we have to think about. The Feast of Tabernacles is a master class for God's first fruits. It's a gathering of the clan.

The Father and the Son have prepared for us something very special. Always on every holy day. And as we come to the the height of the Feast of Tabernacles, there is something very, very special for us to focus on and to think about. In Ephesians chapter 2, Paul, who had a lot to say about this building and about the church and all in his writings and the book of Ephesians, brings us down to a very important point that I'd like to leave you with. In Ephesians chapter 2 and in verse 10, he says that we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. He's the workman. He's putting the building together. He is fitly framing it and knitting it together by his vision, by his purpose with the Father, and all according to that plan. And we are being worked on in ways that we don't always see. You're given a responsibility. You're given an opportunity. Sometimes you don't want to take the job. You don't want to do the job. You don't want to serve maybe in the church or be or withdraw or whatever. Don't do that.

Take it as an opportunity for God to work on you.

For God to work on you. He's going to pull the he's going to pull the hood up on you and tighten the belts, oil the gears, maybe even change the oil, but he's going to work on you and me. If we let it as we allow them, he's going to work on us and he's going to perfect us and he's going to bring us into his family. Down in verse 19, now therefore brethren you are no longer strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself, being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. That's it. A place where God dwells by the Spirit, his Spirit in us. That's what a temple is. The Ephesians would have read this and had in their mind the great temple of Diana on the hill overlooking the city in which there was the confines of that temple and the image of the goddess Diana that they paraded out every once a year. But Paul was pointing them to a greater temple and he's saying you are being put together as a temple for the dwelling place of God.

If we are going to be crying aloud a voice in the wilderness to whatever innumerable multitude now or in the future that God will work with and out of whom he will call, we must be alike. We must accept that calling. We must understand what God has called us to, that we are a part of that church. We must let that Spirit work within us, guiding us and changing us. Each year, every Feast of Tabernacles brings us to full circle. And it's a great opportunity to see how God is laying down another layer, another detail, another part of his image upon our life. He's going to add another line to the poem that is us as he creates us in that image.

For many of us, this may be the Feast of Tabernacles where God puts his final finishing touch upon our character. We must think about that.

Christ is building his church, a bride prepared to be there at his return. The Father is in the business of gathering together all things in heaven and in earth to Christ. God's timing is perfect. We occupy such a time in the church at this time. So, brethren, let us rejoice at the Feast and let us be glad that we are here and let us give God great thanks for all of his many blessings now and into the future.