How to Anticipate the Kingdom of God

Let's turn to Mark 15. Mark 15. Now, there's actually two examples I'm going to talk about today that I've actually used in sermons here, but I want to go back to them because I'm going to pick out a different point than we used the first time I went through them. Mark 15 says, Joseph of Arithamaya, a prominent council member who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, coming to take in courage, went into Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

What I find interesting, you know, we look at this man and say, wow, what courage he had, and he came and he asked for the body of Jesus, and he could have been killed and could have been persecuted. What I find interesting here, what I would have zeroed on today, he was waiting for the kingdom of God. Now, you think about, you get a sentence about you in the Bible.

What would you want it to say? What would you want it to say about you? It's like Stephen Covey says, when you begin life, you should sit down and really at some point write what you would like on your tombstone and then live life to live up to what you would want on a tombstone. A tombstone isn't very big, right? You might get eight words, live up to what they put on the tombstone. And that's an interesting concept.

Here's a man that says he was anticipating the kingdom of God, and anticipating in Greek is similar to the English word. It's not a passive word. You know, just hanging around, waiting for it to come. Anticipation here is a very active, it is a mental, emotional activity. You're thinking about it. You have an emotional response. You're looking forward to it. It's affecting your life. He was anticipating the kingdom of God. The piece of Trumpets is only a few weeks away. I mean, I don't know, it just seems like all of a sudden the Holy Day season is going to be upon us.

I'm sitting down Monday and putting the Holy Day speaking schedule. I hadn't done that because to me the Holy Days were way off and all of a sudden it's four weeks away. And it's coming up. We're thinking about it. You're starting to make your feast plans. I have the opportunity. We have the opportunity this year to go overseas and speak overseas, which we haven't done in a decade. And we're having to buy plane tickets and all these things so as we're preparing for the feast.

And here we are getting ready for these times. We're beginning to anticipate the physical part of the feast. We're anticipating going there and staying in a temporary dwelling and visiting with other people and fellowship. And we're anticipating the worship. We'll be there to worship God, to serve God. We'll be there to learn. We'll be there to discuss with other people in God's way. So we're anticipating actually doing it.

But I want to talk today about what those days picture and how God gave us those days to help us anticipate the Kingdom of God. That we have an actual anticipation. We experience this anticipation because these days lead us to that. And we're going to look at four ways that observing these holy days can help us anticipate the Kingdom of God. The first one is visualization. Visualization is being able to picture something with a mental image so that it becomes real to you. Of course, salesmen use this all the time.

Just picture yourself driving this car. And they do that in ads all the time. So you picture yourself driving the car. Of course, you look like you're 35 years old, you dress like James Bond, but that's how you picture yourself driving the car. Because that's what they're making. They're creating a mental image. So that's how you see yourself. Well, God gives us the holy days to help us visualize what He's doing. One of the great themes throughout the Scripture is that when Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden, the world became dark, spiritually dark. And God is the God of light.

He illuminates us. He opens our mind. He opens us so that we can see what we can't see normally. What we can't see because of the darkness that we live in. Let's turn to John 12. John 12. So you and I still live in this darkness. And it would be easy for us to be overcome by the darkness. It would be easy for us to overcome by the darkness again. We have this light. John 12.35. Jesus said to them, a little while longer, the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, as darkness overtakes you. He who walks in darkness does not know where He's going.

While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light. Now that's interesting. Jesus said, I'm here lighting the way I'm showing you in this darkness. Otherwise, you'd just be stumbling around, falling down, having no idea where you're going, having no idea what life is all about. You and I, because of God's Spirit, and because of this book, we have light. Therefore, we should be the children of light. Now what I'm going to talk about today is show you how the Holy Days enlightened us.

They actually shed light. They actually show us something that we would not understand entirely the same way without that light. So we live in darkness. You ever been in a cave and have everybody turn out the lights? One time, when I was 16 or 17 years old, I was in a cave and everybody else went in ahead of me.

I was supposed to wait for somebody to come along, and they didn't. So after 15-20 minutes, they said, well, they don't come in 20 minutes, come on and catch up to us. I'm in a cave, climbing down a rather steep incline by myself, and I dropped my flashlight and when it hit the ground, it went out. For years, I had nightmares about that moment. I relived that moment over and over again. You know, calm down. All I could hear was myself panting. I just petrified because it's total darkness and you're totally alone. Well, that darkness, that total darkness, is the image God wants us to understand in terms of the world you and I live in.

It's spiritually dark. You can't see anything in terms of what reality is, what God wants. But we are to be the children of light. Now, that light comes from God. Is that a light that we somehow produce? God shows us things. He turns on a light and we can see, oh, that's what that means. That's what that is.

Otherwise, we're just groping around, feeling things, trying to guess what is reality. Look how the Apostle Paul put it in Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5. He sort of reiterates here something that Christ said, but it's at a little different context because Christ is telling those disciples, I'm here. I'm showing you. I'm lighting things up. And I'm not going to be here all the time.

Now, Paul's writing to people who have received God's Spirit, so they are enlightened. They have the light. And verse 8, he says, For you were once darkness. It's interesting. It doesn't say you were once in darkness. You were darkness. Encased, engulfed in darkness. You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. The light comes from God. And it comes into us, and we can see.

You are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. This is very important. If you're lighted, you can't, we're not supposed to walk around like people who can't see anymore.

Think of the absurdity of that, and yet that's sometimes how we live our lives.

We have the light on, but we shut our eyes and walk around like we're still in darkness.

Acting like we're still in darkness. Walk as children of light. For the fruit of the Spirit is all goodness, righteousness, and truth. Finding out what is acceptable to the Lord, and have no fellowship with the unfaithful works of darkness, but rather expose them.

Now, in other words, our light is actually supposed to expose.

Do you ever turn on a light in a room that has roaches in it?

And they just scatter. And if they're big ones, you can hear them.

They don't have roaches up here like in Texas. They have tree roaches. I mean, they get that big.

And they fly. And the little ones will get into an apartment complex, and you know, they'll go in, the exterminators will go in and cut a hole in the wall. When they take it out, the wall's moving.

They're just all over the place.

You turn on a light in a place where there's roaches, and all of a sudden, they're scattering all over the place. They're exposed. They work well in the darkness.

He says, the light that is in us should expose the darkness around us. When you and I, since we live in the darkness, we can sort of step out of the light a little bit and sort of live part way in the world. It's sort of a little bit when I was talking about even last week when I talked about narcissism. We can live sort of on the fringes of the light of what God has given to us. When you live on the fringes of what God has given to us, everything gets sort of dim. You're not in darkness. You're not in darkness. It's like you're in a fog. It's like to be in a heavy fog, and you can sort of make out the outline of something. Oh, that's a building over there, I guess. What is that? You're looking through the fog.

If we're not careful, this is one of the reasons we have the Holy Days. This is one of the reasons we have the Sabbath. We're to go back to the light. It's one of the reasons it's so important that we pray every day, that we're in the Bible every day, because it's the light.

If not, if we're not in this book every day, if we're not on our knees every day, if we're not observing the Sabbath properly and worshiping God properly, if we're not keeping the Holy Days, we're sort of seeing things dimly. We're seeing things through this fog. How many of you have heard of the Battle of Kiska?

One. My wife. You guys heard me tell this story about it.

Very few people have heard of the Battle of Kiska.

In the start of World War II, the Japanese took the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska.

It was the only American main, actually part of the United States that was taken by the Japanese.

And Kiska was one of the islands. So in 1943, we decided we had to go take those islands back.

There were about 7 or 8 thousand Americans and Canadians. They weren't properly trained for this kind of what was going to happen, but they were sending troops over to Europe to fight the Japanese in other places. So these guys got sent there.

When they landed on Kiska, there was this heavy fog. They landed on Kiska. And in this fog, it wasn't long before they got into a firefight.

I kept landing more troops. The farther inland they went, the more intense the firefight was. But all they could see was the shadows. All they could see was the in this fog, and they couldn't really pin the enemy down. It took a number of days, and there were dozens of Americans and Canadians killed and wounded. And when we took Kiska, we found out there were two Japanese, and they surrendered right away. So they saw this fleet come up and 8,000 guys, they surrendered. The Canadians and Americans had been killing each other.

Because it was foggy. All they saw was this dude. This is why you don't hear the battle of Kiska, by the way. No one's real proud of it. The Canadians don't talk about it much, and the Americans don't talk about it much because we were shooting each other.

The two Japanese guys were like, we're not going to fight 7,000 guys.

They were simply left back as observers. So the Japanese casualties were too captured.

In fact, we had a destroyer blow up because it hit a Japanese mine that they left behind out in the harbor.

That's what fog does, when you can't see clearly. But see, fog is in darkness, isn't it?

It's half-light. And that's the danger if we have been illuminated by God, but we live in half-light.

Saturday in the world, but not in the world. And this is what the Holy Days do. It helps make it clear again. It helps put things in focus again.

And that's why we can't just go to the feast looking towards all the physical things.

Or it's just a vacation. We keep these Holy Days. We have all these blessings that come with the Holy Days. Physical blessings.

But it's this spiritual intent. Ancient Israel kept the Holy Days worshiping God and received lots of physical blessings because the Holy Days for them was centered around physical blessings. Harvest seasons. It never brought them really in the relationship with God. It can only come through the New Covenant to receive in God's Spirit. It never brought them into that. We're about to keep the Feast of Trumpets and it gets us clearly focused in on bigger pictures.

It gets us clearly focused in on that Jesus Christ is returning. That there's going to be seven great horrible trumpets before the return of Jesus Christ. It gets us clearly focused in on the resurrection of the dead, of the saints. That that's our goal. To be the one that's going to be there. And to be resurrected. To be changed if we're still alive. To be with Jesus Christ as he comes down to establish God's Kingdom on this earth. The Day of Atonement clearly gets us focused in on some of the things that Christ is going to have to do right away. One of them is that the saints are brought into a oneness with God because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It pictures Jesus Christ as the high priest. We understand Satan's role in the Azazel goats.

We see things that become very clear. And that's not just the light around us. It's like we're able to see way off in this vision that God gives us. Then we'll observe the Feast of Tabernacles.

And we will celebrate the time when Jesus Christ is on this earth for a thousand years, bringing humanity into a relationship with God. And then we will keep that day or that last great day and we'll look forward to the time when there is that great resurrection of all those who have never had an opportunity to know God. And there's lots of people in that resurrection I want to meet.

Now we don't think about that sometimes throughout the year. But on a yearly basis, God makes us stop and turns the light on.

It's visualization. And this year at the Feast, we need to visualize what God's doing.

You need to do that in meditation. You need to do it in prayer. You need to do it in conversation.

You need to listen to the messages and say, what can I visualize from this message? You know, you might be listening to a message that doesn't seem particularly exciting or sort of boring or something you've heard before, but still ask God, what can I visualize from this? You may find God will give you something that you weren't prepared for. The second thing is that we begin to visualize, we actually begin to anticipate. So you have visualization and anticipation. Luke 2 is another passage I've mentioned here in the last six weeks and I want to go back to it to look at a little different aspect of it. Luke 2, 21.

Talk about Jesus when the eight days were completed for the circumcision of the child, his name was called Jesus, and it ain't given by the angel before he was conceived of the womb. Now, when the days of purification, according to the law of Moses, were completed, they brought into Jerusalem to prepare him to the Lord, or present him to the Lord, as it is written in the law of the Lord, every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord, and to offer sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle dogs, or two young pigeons. Behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Sibyun, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. He spent his whole life anticipating, going to the temple every day, because one day I'm going to show up, and the Messiah will be there. You read the story, they brought in Jesus, and he runs over and he grabs the baby, and he says, basically, now I can die in peace. I've seen the Messiah. God revealed to him this was the Messiah. This was the Christ. Anticipation. You say, well, what a wasted life. He wouldn't have told you that.

He would have said, every day I got out of bed and I was excited. Maybe today's the day he anticipated the first coming of the Messiah. Do you and I anticipate that second coming that much? You get up and say, well, today's the day. It can't be. There's prophecies that have to be fulfilled before Christ comes back. He's not going to come back today or tomorrow. But he is coming.

Do we have a positive anticipation of that? If you look down a little further, of course, you have this situation with Simeon. Now look at verse 36.

There was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phoph.

Phoph, you know. It's the word. Part of it's a one line and part of it's the other, the name.

I don't understand that. Okay. Of the child of Asher. She was of great age and she lived with a husband seven years from her virginity. And this woman was a widow of about 84 years who did not depart from the devil but served God with fastings and praying night and day.

And counting in that instant she gave thanks to the Lord and spoke to him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem. She spoke to all those who were what? Looking for redemption.

Looking for God to send who he said he would send and redeem them by the back.

She was looking for that. Eighty-four years old and every day when she got out of bed she had a purpose. Maybe today is the day that he sends them aside. Maybe today. And when he did, God rewarded her by she was one of the ones there and told everybody, that's him. That's him. Anticipation makes getting out of bed every day have a value.

Do you know that God anticipates the time when he sends back Christ?

Do you know that God anticipates the time when you see him as he is? So we don't think of that, anyway. God has an anticipation for you one day when you bow before him and Christ says, Father, this is one of the children. And the Father says, Come here, child, and you're literally there with him. He anticipates that. He looks forward to that.

There's a number of scriptures we could go to. One's in Malachi. Let's just go to Malachi chapter 3.

Let's pick it up in verse 16.

Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard them.

So a book of remembrance was written before him for those who fear the Lord and who meditate on his name. Notice verse 17. Look at the anticipation and what God inspires Malachi to write here.

They who, those who are written in this book of remembrance, those who God is waiting for them to be resurrected, can see him face to face to experience him, not as you know, a human being, but as a spirit being in that realm, in his reality.

They, says the Lord, they shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, on the day that I make them by jewels, and I will spare them as the man spares his own son who serves him.

Jewels, if I said to you, I have a million dollar diamond that I'm going to give to you tomorrow, everybody show up, I got a million dollar diamond for everybody. You'd anticipate that, wouldn't you?

God anticipates us. He anticipates when the Feast of Trumpets isn't something a group of people get together and listen to a sermon and sing songs to him. He looks forward to the Feast of Trumpets because he's already got it all visualized. It's all planned out. Christ is going to stand in a battle of all of this, he's going to split in two. He knows it. He sees it. It's going to happen. And the saints are going to be resurrected, and he's looking forward to all that.

He anticipates us. Sometimes, no, I do believe this. I believe because of our limitations. I think God anticipates us more than we anticipate Him. He looks forward to meeting us more than we're looking forward to meeting Him because we don't get it. Anticipation. Without the Holy Days, the Remindness. It would be so easy just to slide into the twilight of the flock. Sort of in the light. The third thing that happens is that if we visualize this and anticipate it, we begin to prepare for it. And if you really see it as a reality, and you anticipate it as a reality, you begin to live for it. Now, I see people that have kept the Holy Days for years, and then stop keeping them and say, I never got them anyways.

Or, it was fine, but it was just a big vacation to me. Well, if it's just a big vacation, you better not do it. You actually better not do it. So, there are people who I've known for about the years that have observed the Holy Days in a very simple sense, but really didn't observe them. They didn't come home from the Holy Days wanting to prepare their lives for the reality, for what they picture.

They never visualized it to begin with. They never anticipated to begin with.

Luke 12. How many times have you heard this scripture, Rhett? Luke 12.

Then verse 35.

Christ says, Let your waste be girded, and your lamps burning.

Here's another darkness. Your lamps fill with the oil of God's Spirit. Keep that lamp burning so that you're seeing. You're not in the darkness groping around, or you're not in the half-darkness, in this fog state. If you're standing beside a glowing lamp, you see. So, have these lamps burning. Keep your lamp burning. And you yourselves be like men who wait for their master when he will return for the wedding, and when he comes at the box, they may open to him immediately.

You're anticipating. See, if you look at this, they have to be visualizing that their master's coming. They have to be anticipating that their master's coming. And they have to be what?

Prepared. You know, you hate to find out the tribulation is going to start tomorrow.

Well, I guess I better get prepared.

It's a little late to start preparing, right? We need to be preparing every day.

That's what Christian living is all about. That's what it's all about. It's every day being prepared by God for the fulfillment of the holiness, for when the reality of those times come.

So you and I have to be preparing every day for that.

He goes on, Blester those servants, verse 37, who the master, when he comes, will find watching.

Surely I say to you, he will gird himself and have them sit down and eat, and will come and serve them. That's a remarkable statement. What he's saying is terrible. As Jesus Christ, when we return, when he returns, we're changed. Yes, we will be serving him, but he is going to in some ways be serving us.

The king is going to serve the children.

He says, if you're prepared, he says that he should come into second watch or come into third watch and find them so blester those servants. In other words, the watches were different times during the night when they would change the metal of the walls. The guy would be at watch, and at a certain time he would change. Another man would come on watch. He says, it doesn't matter because remember the analogy. Here's your darkness. You have men on the walls looking out to see what's in the darkness.

He says, it really doesn't matter which watch it's on. It doesn't matter who's on the wall at the time. What matters is you're prepared at the time. You're visualizing and anticipating, and you're preparing. Your house is in order. Your spiritual house is in order.

We keep saying, someday, someday, you have a project around the house and someday you're going to do it. That's one thing about moving. All those undone projects.

Somebody else is worried about that now because I left that house.

Now my wife has a whole other list. I keep saying, someday.

But know this. If the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore, you also be ready for the Son of Man is coming in an hour you do not expect. We have to be ready.

You say, well, I don't think Christ has come back. It may probably not be my lifetime. Tell you what, Christ comes back for you. So when you die, there is no more time to get ready after that. So we have to be ready all the time. We spiritually made it all the time. The Holy Day gives us this shot of anticipation so that we start preparing. You know how many times you come back from the feast and you say, well, I'm going to study more and I'm going to pray more and I'm going to be a better husband. I'm going to be a better wife or I'm going to kick this problem or I'm going to get rid of the smoking or I'm going to get you know, and you come back with all these things you're going to do and you do some of them, but about halfway to Passover, you start sliding back into the fog.

I think if it wasn't for the Passover season, we just end up sliding back into the darkness.

So there's these theories of Holy Days where God just keeps turning on the light again, driving the fog away and saying, look at what I am doing. Look at what He is doing.

And there were participants today. Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews chapter 10.

I was working on this sermon. This is tomorrow morning. I have a teleconference where we have to present the sermon. So we're going to give it to Feast in France. And this was the sermon I'm going to give the first day. And I thought, you know what?

I think I'll just give it here. Because the message, we all need the message. Because as I was doing it, I thought, wow, I need to do that.

So I thought, we'll do it here too. Hebrews 10.32.

But recall the former days, which after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings. Remember when the light first came on and friends thought you were crazy?

And family maybe disowned you? Or you lost a job?

Or you had to change your lifestyle?

You know, all your buddies thought, it's Friday night! It's time to go to the bar, and you weren't going to go to the bar anymore, and you weren't going to go out with them at all on Friday night. Because it's the Sabbath. And they thought, well, is that like a Hindu word? What in the words does the Sabbath mean? Because remember those times, before the light came on, you were illuminated. 10.32. Partly while you were made a spectacle, both by reproaches and tribulations, apartly while you became companions of those who were so treated. 11.32. Some of the things happened to you, and you now became friends with people who were going through the same things. 13.32. For you had compassion with me, and that's one of those comments. Paul makes all these old personal comments in these letters. 14.32. For you had compassion with me and my change, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and enduring possession for yourselves in heaven. 15.32. Thank you for the help you gave me. So, no personal comment. Therefore, do not cast away your confidence, which is a great reward. Don't give up.

The light's on. 16.32. For you have a need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive a promise. 17.32. For yet a little while, Christ is coming back. 18.32. The world we live in is going to collapse. But we know that.

We know that for decades and decades and decades. We don't want it to be that way.

But this country is going to go into perdition. The entire world is going to go into perdition. That allows the beast power to come along and deceive the whole world.

It's going to happen. Because God said, this is going to happen. He can see it.

Was God causing all the evil? No, but He can see it.

He sees exactly what's going to happen. And He tells us. 19.32. For yet a little while, yet He who is coming will come and will not tarry.

Now the just shall live by faith. And if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him. You and I can't go back into that darkness. We will cut ourselves up from God. We will no longer have light. We will be in the darkness permanently. But we are not of those who draw back into perdition, but of those who believe in the saving of the soul.

It's nice to go to the Holy Days and have the... Now, on my desk, you have one of those lights where you tap it, it gets brighter. Well, my grandkids were here last week. They all had to run up and do that all the time into my office. Look at that! It's getting brighter and brighter here.

It's nice that we're sort of in a fog, and it's nice that God just turns the light up a little bit. It's like, oh, yeah, that's right. This is as foggy as I thought.

We don't crawl back. We stay focused, but you have to be in the light to be focused.

When you approach the Holy Days by celebrating the spiritual intent, not just the physical blessings, but the spiritual intent, you will experience a more focused visualization. It's always interesting to me how we do learn differently. You'll hear a message given by someone, and you're blessed here because you have teachers who have a lot of different personalities.

The reason I say that, one person will speak and someone will say, yeah, and another person will say, wow! Usually, it has to do with the way they learn. Different teachers are good because they reach everybody. So you'll go to the feast, you'll hear a sermon, and the next one you'll go, wow! And the person next to you will go, we learn differently. It's fascinating to study how people learn. Some people are very visual, some are very odd. Listen, they hear things. They listen to the radio. Other people don't learn anything from the radio, they gotta see it. We all learn differently. Well, there's patterns of learning that most of us have. We share, but there are different styles of learning.

You'll visualize, if you go in with this heart, if you go in with this preparation, you'll visualize, you'll anticipate what these days actually mean, and you'll come back really set to prepare yourself. Because you'll be preparing now for the Holy Days. You'll be praying for the Holy Days.

You'll be praying for the attitude. You'll be praying, as was mentioned in the Sermonette, preparing a fessite, even a small one, is an enormous amount of work because there's so many variables. I read the fessite in the New Ralphs, Texas, the last couple years. It was very difficult because it was a small fessite. A lot easier than some of the bigger ones I've had to work with, but you know, 350 people. But we'd always have 450 people because there'd be 100 people who'd show up that weren't part of United, so we didn't have them registered. That was okay. We just learned to plan for 25% more on everything we were doing, and everything worked out fine. Okay, we have that 25% more food because people are going to come that aren't registered. That's fine. But you have to plan all those things. There's so much work, and you learn not to worry about stuff. Well, we only have four ushers. That's okay. Don't show up and volunteer.

Because anyway, we need some ushers. You have 20 people to usher.

You know? Pray for that kind of cooperation and that spirit of giving and loving. Pray for the people who are going to be presenting the messages, but pray also that your mind and heart will be open to what God wants you to get out of those messages.

Because sometimes He has something very specific He wants you to get.

And I know that because I've given sermons, and have someone come up to me and say, thank you so much. You solved a problem I've had for 10 years, couldn't find the answer, and you solved it, and they'll say how I solved it and walk away, and I'll think, why did He even talk about that? How did they get that? And they're right! They got something out of the Scripture, and they're right, but it wasn't even my point. You don't, you just smile.

Okay. God got what they needed out of it. That's the important thing.

So you ask God, what do I need? Help me to find out what I need.

But as we go through this now, these these illumination that comes from the Holy Days, there's sort of a fourth point that comes out of this. Visualization, anticipation, preparation, what I call declaration. In other words, if we are going to live as the children of light, we can't hide the light when you come back from those Holy Days. You can't crawl back into your own little world and hide your light. Colossians 1. Colossians chapter 1.

And verse 12. Colossians was a very fascinating chapter. In fact, all of Colossians are fascinating. Someday I'll just give a whole sermon on Colossians, because the particular message of Colossians is very, very important. For one thing, if you want to understand the church in Laodicea, you have to study Colossians. Colossians wasn't just written to them. If you read the book of Colossians, it was also written to the Laodicean. If you really want to understand the problem of Laodicea, yeah, read Colossians. And now you understand. Colossians 1 verse 12, breaking in the middle of the sentence.

And we can do. I mean, there are people who do that. But he's already got you written in that book of remembrance. He's already saying, I've anticipated you being there. He wants you there.

Verse 13. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. We're already moving towards that kingdom. We already reflect it. The light people see in us isn't ours. It's supposed to be God's light. And who we have redemption to His blood, the forgiveness of sins. You and I are to reflect that light. In fact, isn't that what Jesus Christ told us? And how many times, once again, this is it. Scriptures become cliches. We can't let them become cliches. We have to go back and really ask God at times to make it real to us again. Matthew 5. Matthew chapter 5. We are delivered from the power of darkness. We're going to go keep these holy days to be visualized. And I guarantee you, by the way, you're going to count some trials either during the Feast of Tabernacles or during the Day of Atonement or during the Feast of Trumpets or during that last great day in which something comes along to keep you from getting the benefit of that day. And you have to fight it. Someone's going to say something stupid or be rude to you or the kids are going to be particularly wild or your husband can understand or the blow dryer is going to blow up and you're going to go looking like you stuck your finger in a light socket because your hair is stuck out like this. Something bad is going to happen and you could miss out. We've all been here, right? We've all been in a holy day here at the Feast of Tabernacles. Something bad happens. You miss out on the whole day because you're so concentrating on what happened. Well, we can't let that happen. We have to go back to being, why am I here? And then when we come home, these lights have come on again.

We have to remember what Jesus said in Matthew 5.14. You are the light of the world.

That is a remarkable statement. If you have been enlightened, illuminated by receiving God's Spirit, when God looks down on this world, He sees figuratively, He sees a dark world. You know what He sees inside that dark world? Little pinpoints of light. Little pieces of light where He has enlightened people, and that's what He sees. In that darkness, He sees those little bits and pieces of light moving around, and that's supposed to be us. We are supposed to be the light of the world. Now remember, it's not your light, it's not my light. If we try to make it our light, the light goes out. It's God's light that is. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. When I step out of my house and I look to the south, it's dark. When I saw the meteor shower here not too long ago, I had to go out to the backyard. Because if I look out the front yard, I see the glow of Murfreesboro.

Okay? Because all the lights. I go out the backyard, I can see these things streaking all over the place.

A light or a city that is on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket. But on a lampstand that it gives light to all who are in the house, so let your light shine before men. We can't hide this light we've been given. We're not supposed to.

It's supposed to shine. People are supposed to say, I don't know what's different about you.

That they may see your good works and glorify your God, your Father in heaven. Now, notice who they glorify. If you and I let our light shine and do our good works so we can be glorified, they will fail. We are to shine God's light so people will say, what is it? And you can say, let me show you the light. The light's not coming from me. It's coming from here.

Let me show you the light.

That's what people can say, ah, let me go to God and get my light turned on.

Let me go to God and get light turned on because that's where the light comes from. He is the light. So we can't hide it, but we can't make ourselves the light.

We make ourselves the light. We will fail even if we have good intentions.

Because the light is God. So the declaration will come simply because we have the lights on and other people will see it. God has given each of you. Actually, He's made each of us a lamp.

You're a lamp. I'm a lamp. The fuel of God's Spirit is lit. Now, I know what it's like to have that lamp go down and live in the fog. You probably have to.

We all have let that light go down and live in the fog. We're stumbling around and fogging. It's like the Battle of Kiska. Next time you're in a spiritual fog, you're probably shooting your friends. Just like they were. They're shooting each other.

Can you imagine getting the... You hope that mother who got the letter that says your son was killed in combat never knew that it was a fellow allied soldier that shot him. When we're in that fog, God could turn up the lamp. We just have to go ask Him to do so. You are the lamp of God. The Holy Days is part of the fuel. It helps us see. It opens up the vistas that God wants us to see in a dark world. It gives us insight into the future.

You and I live in a room. Amazing time. I've thought about this a lot. When would you like to live in time? Would you like to live when Jesus was alive and needed personally and become a disciple? That'd be exciting. Would you like to live at the time of Abraham and be one of his servants? Would you like to live when Paul was there and follow Paul around? You know what I think? I think that this is the best time to live. We understand the first coming. The first coming has already happened. You and I live in between the two great times of history. The first and second coming of Christ. And we're real close to this one. We live at that time. We see the light of what's happened in the past. We see the light's going to happen in the future. Paul did not understand what you and I understand. Do you realize that? Because he didn't live this close. He thought Christ was coming back in his time. You know, if you read his writings, as he got older, he started to realize, nah, that's not going to happen. I'm going to die.

He realized it. But if you read his early writings, he thought, he's coming back. But we're there. We are alive when Christ comes back.

You think about it. If you didn't have revelation, what would you know? What you wouldn't know about the end time? None of the original apostles, except John, had the book of Revelation.

They were all dead when God revealed it. They didn't have that piece of light. You and I have that light. Now, we don't understand everything about the book of Revelation, but what we do know is enormous. What we do know is enormous.

Luke chapter 10, or last scripture here, Luke chapter 10, to verse 23. He turned to his disciples and said privately, so this is what Jesus Christ is saying to his disciples. And you know what? He's saying this to you and I today.

Blessed are the eyes which have seen things that you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see and have not seen it and to hear what you hear and have not heard it. I mean, I have the book of Matthew and Mark and Luke and John, where I can read sayings of Jesus Christ. Malachi never got that. Isaiah never got that.

He said to me, we have heard things. We have seen things that God has given to us, that there were people in history that would have given anything. There are people in history who would have died and who actually were killed just to have a piece of the Bible, just to have a piece of it. And you have, and I have, most of us have more than one Bible, right, in our house. We have our kindle, we have our Bibles all over the place. A number of years ago, I had an interesting conversation with a man who is a minister in a, the oldest Sabbath-keeping group in the United States.

They traced their history back into the 1600s in this country. And we were discussing some things, the Sabbath, a number of different things.

And he asked why I, and the ministers in our group, why we keep the Holy Ghost.

That's interesting. I said, what am I going to do? Now, preach to him for an hour. I said, well, okay, I get five minutes here. I said, well, because every one of the Holy Days picture the plan of God, what He's doing through Jesus Christ. I said, really? I said, well, just think about it. Jesus is the Lamb, right, the Passover. Yeah. I did go through all the details, and I said, okay, and the days of Unleavened Bread, they would take leavening out, replace it with Unleavened Bread. Christ talked about how sin had to be brought out of us, and God's Spirit had to come into us. Yeah, Pentecost is what? The pouring out of God's Spirit. That's right. The Feast of Trumpets pictures the great trumpets of Revelation when Christ returns.

Yeah. You can see He was getting it. I said, it told me, pictures Jesus Christ inside the priest. There's so much to cover in the tunnel. Why is it pictures Jesus Christ inside the priest? And when God brings everybody into relationship with Him, Feast of Tabernacles is the rate of Jesus Christ on earth for a thousand years, the millennium.

Now, I just stopped there. That's all I said.

And I got up to leave, and He said, do you mind if I pray? No. They walked over and He laid hands on me, and He said, God, You give each of us pieces of light. Help this man to have the courage to hold on to the pieces of light that You gave to Him. It affected my life. He got it. He didn't do it, but the light came on. He got it, and He asked God for me to keep it.

Very interesting. See, the light came on, but He wasn't willing to live with the light.

He had the Sabbath, and that was enough. He wasn't really the other way.

At least at that point, I don't know. That was years and years ago where that began.

I have always remembered that experience because I went home, and I came and said, How was your day? I actually had hands laid on me by a minister in the Sabbath-keeping church that goes back to the 1600s. What? Because she always says, Only you. You have the weirdest experiences.

They asked God to help me hold on to the light.

You would give Him light. I didn't make up that light. We didn't turn it on.

It's not our light. The Almighty God had given you light, pieces of light.

We don't have all of it. We have pieces of it.

Hold on. Value. Keep the pieces of light that God has given to you. These Holy Days visualize, anticipate, prepare, and declare. God has called you, not only to receive the light, to be children of light. So live as children of light.