Removing the Thorns

It's always good to visit outlying churches and so many talents, so many different things that you and people that you've met many decades ago. I'm slowly becoming one of the oldest people in the church and still a few people in their 80s and 90s that are ahead of me. But I started really young, which was nice. And so for me, I had a Bible my whole life, actually. I actually went to the church at one time. I had a great school in high school and I went to that. So I had Bible every day of my life, pretty much, growing up and then Ambassador College, which many of you know about when we had campuses.

I went to that for four years and then I graduated. I was supposed to go out in the fields to train Ian, and at that time I was driver strong. I got paid during formal brunch and he asked me to travel with him. He asked me what my plans were. I said, I'm supposed to go out in the field, leave me Sunday.

And he said, well, I want you to fly on my jet with me as a steward and percer, etc. And I said, well, I'm supposed to leave Sunday. He said, they'll understand. On Monday morning, 8 o'clock, we took off for Europe. Supposed to be a three-week trip and went to England and over to Belgium. I actually served King Leopold, his wife, on my second leg of my flight. And I was supposed to get married July 12th and it was supposed to be a three-week trip.

Six weeks later, we're still in Europe and I told Mr. Armstrong I was supposed to get married this weekend, so I actually flew home from Paris to get married. So my life kind of took a different turn at that point and so kind of cradle-to-grave type of thing. But it's interesting to see what's left and see all the things that have happened and what God does and why he does it and how he works with each of us.

And, you know, people ask me if Mr. Armstrong would be upset because the church is so much smaller, quote-unquote, than it is, than it was then. I mean, the piece of tabernacles that last year he was alive was 136,000 people in the U.S. keeping him. And so, you know, our feast sites now are smaller than some of our big churches. But again, a lot of those people I feel like in the first century never really had got spirit.

And when they were told they didn't have to keep the Sabbath in the Holy Days, they, oh, good, I get the kingdom without it. So those of us who believe this instead of what men say, see that that's totally different. And so we're here, and he'd be happy that there's still some people keeping the truth of God. I.T. said many times in the pulpit and also to me that half the church doesn't get it. And on his deathbed, he said, a few short years, people will quit keeping the Sabbath.

And I said, that makes no sense. Like, says 20, Deuteronomy 5, remember the Sabbath, keeping all these six nations of labor doing all their work, the Sabbath of the Lord your God, you know, how can that change? And he said, that's just prophecy. It's going to happen. And it has. And those things that we've seen happen.

I wouldn't expect it. And God, God chose to put someone in charge of the church who would apostate. Which to me, if I, in Armstrong's Adam, if the purification of the bride is what's an accident for the church. And when I look at what's happened, I would have never chosen to purify the bride by putting someone in charge of the church that would apostasize. But at the same time, everybody in the church, when he died, was basically when they changed doctors, was offered, what do you truly believe?

Who is your king? Is Christ your king or man? And some people may bend their king. They'd all say they're worshiping God, and they're all saying they're following truth. But yet, a lot of people were not. So, people were offered apostasy.

You can, hey, don't keep the Sabbath of the day. You should go get in the kingdom. You were offered, pick your own leader. The different churches are formed. If you want, start your own church. If you want, stay home. And so, all these things have happened, and God is up there saying, now I know, to all of us. And that's what he has to know for each of us to put us in his family, is, now I know. And I've asked myself several times, I've been through so many trials, and all the problems the church has gone through over the decades, and I understand the book of Acts really well, because I've lived a lot of it. And I've afraid, God, how many times? And the answer is every time. Every time. My other prayer I make is, please, God, make this my trial, and not my preparation for one. Because they get worse, and you lose friends, and you lose people you consider family, and you love them, and you care for them, but they make mistakes.

And some of them I pray, and I believe, truly, that God, they never had God's Spirit, they never truly repented, so they'll come from the second resurrection. People I do pray for are the ones that are really bitter. And it goes, it talks about the root of bitterness, and those people, I feel, had God's Spirit, and they've lost it. And yet, God says, he's begun a working, he'll finish, and so if they had God's Spirit, they'll come back, and they'll come to him, he'll give him a chance to make it right. And we have a lot of people come back to the church. Actually, our growth in the church is more for people who left years ago, because of various reasons, of various people, mistakes were made, and if that's a mistake that can't be God's Church, then no. Everybody has made mistakes, and we have to learn from those mistakes, but it doesn't change. And I've often said too many people have given their crown away. It says, let no man take your crown, and frankly, no one could take it. You give it away. If you let other people's problems become yours, then you give away your seed, because no one can take it. And that's one of the things I've seen over the decades, and watching people who rise in ranks and fall, and see that the one thing I've learned is the tree of life, the tree of knowledge, good and evil, the good part looks the same on both trees.

It's the motive behind it that makes a difference. And that's not my sermon, but that's just something I'll talk about. Um, turn with me to Isaiah 59. We'll read a chapter, a verse or two there, and then back a few pages. And I've titled my sermon, Removing the Forms, and you'll see why I titled that in a few minutes. In Isaiah 59, verse 1, it says, Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, nor is his here heavy, that it cannot hear. He sees everything that's going on, whether it's right or wrong. He sees how we react to it. And I used to think when people did things wrong that, boy, God's testing them, and I started to realize later on that, no, he's also testing me on how I react to it. Do I let other people take me out of God's church? And, uh, and you can be tested so early. There are things that happen that, I mean, in my life, one of the things that happened to me in the long story I won't tell, but, but, uh, there was a time when people were trying to take over the church, and I had to be the one that told Mr. Armstrong about it, and had to stand up for it.

And, uh, because I did, I was threatened, and, uh, Mr. Armstrong actually called me after one of the trips and said, leave town immediately, your life's been threatened. I jump hotels for over a month.

So, I mean, the book of Acts is very familiar in the way that some people, when they lose power, they, they get upset, and things can happen. So, that's a longer story you can ask me about if you want to, but, uh, I will let that one sit where it is, and, and, uh, let you wonder what actually happened.

But it was, uh, it's not the one thing. I've gone through dozens of these type of things, because you find when you're close to the top, a lot more things happen, and you learn a lot.

But verse two, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hit his face from you that he will not hear. This world doesn't know God because of sin.

And we, during these days on our bread, get rid of sin as much as we can. We quit in righteousness, as the sermonette said. You have to replace something you take out with something you put in, and that's what we put in. In Isaiah 51, back a few pages, if you would, in Isaiah 51 verse 3, we'll go there. I'm at the point now where I can read my notes better without my glasses.

Eyes are changing. It says, For the Lord shall comfort Zion, He will comfort all her waste places, He will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

The Holy Days, Picture of God's Plan.

How to put things back to where He wanted them at the beginning.

And today I'd like to go to start at the beginning. You don't really understand the story unless you understand the beginning. Mr. Armstrong often went there. We turn back to Genesis.

Genesis chapter 2 describes what God did at the very beginning of creation. We know Genesis 1-1, it says, the earth was without form and void, and actually the Hebrew is the earth became without form and void because there was a creation before the recreation and the renewing of the face of the earth. But Genesis 2 talks about when the earth was finished. Genesis 2 in verse 4 says, these are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. It's a generation of all things. We often think of mankind, which is what God's plan is to recreate himself and increase his family, but it talks about all things. All the creation replenishes itself. Seeds and life and everything regenerates. He made it that way. Verse 5, every plant of the field before it was in the earth and every herb of the field before it grew. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.

Again, no torrential rains and floods and earthquakes and things. There's so many of those things going on around the world right now. Destruction. Verse 7, the Lord God formed man of the dust to the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. The word soul is nafesh. It's the same word that you find when he talks about animals. Talks about don't touch a dead carcass. The word is nafesh. So we're not a mortal soul. It's just the translators when it was men, they tried to make it soul because they believed in the mortal soul.

And when it was animals, they put creature or something else. But it's just our body. And we became a living body. But it wasn't permanent life. In verse 8, the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, eastward, and he put the man there that he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life, also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So there were two trees there.

One represented life, the other represented good and evil. And so many people have made the mistake of trying to split the tree of good and evil into righteous people and unrighteous people.

And they can do righteous acts on the tree of good, but they're motivated by the wrong thing. They're often self-motivated. And it's sad to see that I was talking to one of the people that was another age, Mr. Kochen. He quit believing in the resurrections, quit believing in things. And his thing was that, we've always talked that the good people are Christians and the bad people are that. And I went to the Zusa Pacific, got my theology degree. There were such good people there that we were wrong. And I said, Mike, you have divided the tree of knowledge of good and evil into good and evil. And it's not the tree of life. And he said, well, Mother Teresa has to be in the kingdom because she did such good works. And I said, Mother Teresa's thesis in her Master's was that Mary is equal to God. That's idolatry. And I said, it says no idolatry will be in the kingdom.

But, oh, she has to be there because, because God, I said, Mike, Mother Teresa would never give up what she believes in this life. If God were to try to call her because, oh, she's such good things. I have to try to call her, please, please. And then she wouldn't give up what, you only get one shot. Salvation. He calls people when they can make it.

And for him to call her, the fact she did good works, I think it's wonderful. A lot of people do good works. But it's not always off the tree of life. But a lot of people have missed that. But God put those two trees in the garden so that mankind could make a choice. And they did. In verse 15, God took the man, put him in the garden of Eden, addressed it, and to keep it. He gave him a job. We're supposed to work. Christ said, I work, my father works. And God commanded the man, saying, of every tree in the garden you may freely eat. So many choices, so many delicacies, so many varieties that you wanted them to enjoy. One of the good aspects of travel, you got to try all these crazy fruits and vegetables and things that people eat that you want to help. Whoever thought to eat that? I always think of the Dorian looks like a mace and a club. And who thought to open that and eat it? But it's amazing the things that God created for all of us to enjoy. Different ones. It's a great thing he did. Verse 17, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. God's word is truth. There's no reason for Adam and Eve not to believe God when he said that. Like a child. A child believes his parents. That's why so many children believe in Santa Claus, because parents lie to their children and they believe it. And they get frustrated at the end of the thing. Which is part of life. Again, people get in the way when they try to educate and change things to fit what they want it to be. Verse 18, the Lord said, it's not good that a man should be alone. I'll make a helper for him. Help me. Someone to compliment him. Someone of equal status, in a sense. There is government. But the loving nature of God's love is protection and help and kindness, not the way mankind is done. Everything God made was good.

And man tends to twist it and make it bad, unfortunately. And out of the ground the Lord formed every beast of the field, every fowl of the air, brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. Whatever Adam called them, that was an A.

Obviously, God gave them a language. God gave them a lot of things that we don't have when we're born. But Adam was fully an adult when he was made. And so he named all the cattle, the fowls, and it says, but for Adam there was not one found. I said, help me for him. No one of equal relationships. As much as we love our animals, they're not people. Now society, in its woke mentality, may create that before long where you can marry your dog if you are. But God didn't make it that way. And obviously, you don't produce offspring that way. But man gets really messed up sometimes. And we love our pets, but that's not the position God gave them.

So he caused the deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he took one of his ribs, closed up the flesh, and the rib, which God took from the man. He made a woman and brought her back to the man.

And Adam said, wow! This is bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. And therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, claim to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. They were both naked, and man his wife, and were not ashamed. God created marriage. He created sexuality. He created us, too, to be a family. But through the family, if it's done correctly, you understand God.

Remember when I first started counseling after flying, I was working in the Dean of Students' Office, and a girl came in, we were talking about baptism. I said, God's like your father. And she said, well, my father walked out on us when I was two. Okay, God's not like your father. But if you have a good relationship and you understand, that's really... He gave us family to understand that. You know, we correct our children, and we still love them. God corrects us. He still loves us. And you understand those things if you can put it into perspective. He gave us that to understand Him and the relationship. And why did God do all this? Why did He do it? These were His first children. They were in a perfect place, a place for them to have a magnificent relationship with Him. He wanted a relationship with His people. But sin cuts off relationships. God didn't want that. And He wanted to not only have a relationship with Him, but a relationship with nature. Dress and keep the garden. Take care of it. Name the animals. It was a place where God would relate to His creation. All of it. It was special. In verse 3, Genesis chapter 3, we find out what happened. We've read the story, but let's renew it a little bit. What happened to this relationship? There was a gift from God to Adam and to Eve and to mankind. It was lost by sin. The serpent was more subtle than any beast in the field which God had made. And He said to the woman, as God said, you shall not eat of every tree in the garden? The question that challenged her. She knew the answer, but He was going to spin the answer. You know, not as real. How many have spun lies and separated from the various crises I've seen since the 50s when I was a child, where people spin the truth, get upset, leave, throw in groups and things. It's sad.

Good people. But you can get turned, as Eve did. The woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. But the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat it. You shall not touch it, lest you die. She repeated the truth of what God told her. She knew the truth. But the serpent said to the woman, you shall not surely die.

The first lie, you'll not die. It's unbelievable. She didn't know any different.

For God knows in the day you eat thereof your eyes will be opened and you'll be as God's, knowing good and evil. Wow! He appealed to her sense of vanity.

Every decision. If we spin the truth, we don't see it. What truth really is. We can get taken off. And when the woman saw the tree was good for food, it was pleasant to the eyes. A tree to be desired to make one wise. He raised her level of desire. That's what the world does in advertising. You need this. You owe it to yourself. Have it now. Borrow. Get yourself in debt. Do everything you can. That's what he did. He raised her desire. She took the fruit, which is theft. It wasn't hers to take, and did eat, and gave to her husband with her, and he ate. They both took of it.

They were manipulated. Just the Satan manipulates all of us to make us sin, to make us see things in something that may look good. I'm sure that tree looked good. But it wasn't. Their eyes were open without the true knowledge of how to use that knowledge. What does a parent ever withheld something good from a child? We have a better view as parents than a child does. Now, though, this world wants to have children make their own decisions. California, if you're 13, you want to become a male or a female, you can get hormone transplants without your parents even being told.

Things that are totally wrong in God's sight. Not the way God created them. Verse 7, Their eyes were both open. They knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together, made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of God among the trees of the garden. They used to be happy to see God. He used to talk to them, or they ate with them. Now all of a sudden, they're hiding. Of course, God knew they were hiding and they didn't understand. Verse 9, The Lord called unto Adam and said, Where are you? Adam, where are you? And Adam finally said, I heard your voice in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked and I hit myself. You ever notice how a child hides when he does something wrong? He goes and sneaks off, you know. And now my daughter's in the middle of finishing her potty training. And you can tell when something goes wrong because she runs off and hides somewhere. Yeah, that's it. We do the same thing. We're all children in that sense.

Where are you, Adam? Who told you you were naked? Have you eaten the tree that I told you you shouldn't eat? He knew, just like we know when we ask our children, do you take a cookie and there's chocolate all over her face? No, not really. You know. And then the man said, well, the woman?

We're back to where we are now. Everybody blames somebody else. Everybody's a victim. The woman that you gave me, she gave me the tree and I ate it. Because you made that woman. You took one of her ribs, you know? Yeah. God said to the woman, what's that you have done? Well, it's that serpent. That snake. He told me. And I, he begot me. He spotted it and I believed him and I ate.

God says, oh, because you've done this, you're cursed above all the cattle. Above all the beasts the field upon your belly shall you go and thus you shall eat all the days of your life.

There's Satan. He did that. I'll put my enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. It shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. That was the first prophecy of Christ. That someone would have to come and Satan would be after him as well. But Christ wouldn't win out. That was to undo the problem that Adam and Eve had stepped into. Then he tells the woman, I'll greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception and sorrow will bring forth children. Your desire shall be to your husband. He shall rule over you. It's gonna be a harder life than before. It doesn't mean a child very wasn't what's more difficult as such, but it's going to be difficult because when you're in an ungodly society there's all sorts of problems come up from that. And that was what's going to happen. And men and women have not treated each other the way they should because they aren't going the way God intended to start with. And that's sorrowful.

And your desire will be to your husband and he shall rule over you.

Women have been property for most of six thousand years, unfortunately. That's not the way God designed us. We're not property to be had, bought, and sold, and treated wrongly. And unto Adam, he said, Because you have hearkened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten the tree, which I commanded you saying, you shall not eat, curses the ground for your sake. In sorrow you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you. Thorns and thistles, and you shall eat of the herbs of the field. So the problem isn't just on Adam and people. The problem is on the land and everything else because we won't be following God's way and his laws.

Man has come a long way in that time. Mankind is, yeah, God, he was told to dress and keep it, to subdue it. Mankind has subdued the earth with a point of extinction in a certain class, extinction of surveillance. Things not intended. In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread, and do hard work. That garden was stocked. You could just pick fruit off the trees and eat, I'm sure, the most beautiful garden in the world. And yet, now, they weren't going to be there anymore. And it says, till you return to the ground, for out of it you're taken, dust you are, and dust you shall return. Which reminds me of the little girl. Mommy, mommy, is it true that we can't eat dust? And then we go back to dusk and mother said, yes. And she said, well, I looked under my bed. Somebody's either coming or going. And Adam called his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living things. And Adam also, to his wife, to the Lord, made coats of skins and clothing. Even in correction, God helped him. I mean, those fig leaves don't hold up too well in work. And so he made animal skins and clothing for them. He didn't abandon them, but they didn't know the right way. And God said, behold, the man has become as one of us, no good and evil. Now let us put forth his hand and take of the tree of life and eat and live forever. We can't do that. So God sent him out from the Garden of Eden to till the ground where he was taken. He drove out the man. He placed at the east of the Garden of Eden caribbons, a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of life, keep them away from the tree of life. They were now not in the same relationship that they were before with God.

God wanted a relationship. He wanted to talk to you. He wanted to be with them. They did get new senses. They knew they were naked. They now had shame and guilt, things that they had not known before. Why was the change? Because there was a new God in their world. We know a second Corinthians 4-4. It says, Satan is the God of this world. He said, in whom the God of this world is blinded men.

It's sad, because six thousand years we've seen what that blindness does, not knowing. This was the beginning of the separation of man and God. Sin. Why we put heaven on the bread right after Passover. Passover our way to be forgiven. And our part in putting sin out of our lives. Man has been hiding from God ever since, except the few he's called into his spiritual garden now.

Into a relationship with him. It's a tougher time, because we're not in a perfect place.

We're trying to be in a garden of forms and thistles, spiritually speaking.

It's rough. We have to be flowers in the wilderness, as such. A light to the world.

Now life for them became tough. God's plan is to bring things back to the way they were. And that's what his plan is. Passover, Christ's sacrifice. Otherwise, we couldn't get back to the garden.

Putting sin out of our lives. Our part in doing this. Choosing the right way.

Pentecost, God's Spirit, which we had to have. Christ had died. We wouldn't be able to have Pentecost and the Holy Spirit to help us do it. Trumpets, Christ's return, to conquer and to start things back on track. The toma, to put the God of this world away, because he disqualified himself. And Christ qualified to take that throne.

And when six thousand years is up, they'll take that throne. We'll have the millennium.

A thousand years from your reign with Christ. When the rest of the dead don't live until a thousand years is up. Why believing people are in Heaven is not biblical. And then that last day, that great day, the feast. The eighth day, when God will bring back all mankind and give him a chance to know all the people that didn't have his Spirit, all the people that tried it the wrong way. His plan is the purpose why we're here, to be part of that. And then at the end, it says Christ gives all things back to God, so God can be all in all. That's the plan, to put everything back to where the relationship God wanted from the beginning.

Life became tough for him. God's plan is to bring things back, to walk with God of his way of life, or walk in the spiritual garden that he would make. God is going to remove the farms. That's what it's about. My wife and I have bought a few houses. We bought some that were brand new. It's real easy, a brand new house, nice and clean. That's what Adam and Eve were given, a brand new house. Most of us, we've been given the old house, the house that they created for us, full of thorns and thistles. And I've worked in a couple old houses and try to do things.

You learn a lot. Weather controls a lot of things. Plants that we have, I mean, the house in Texas that had wisteria growing. I tried to get rid of it out of the garden. You know, they're two feet down. They still can't get rid of this stuff. It seems like beautiful flower, but it takes over everything. We are supposed to build a new house, help when Christ returns to build that, bring it back. In godly living, we bring it back spiritually. I've got spirit, however. The world quickly returns to thistling thorns. If anybody's ever had a garden, you know that if you don't tend it and don't weed it and don't keep it, it doesn't date very long before it's covered with all sorts of other seeds and grasses and weeds and things like that that take over. So how does our yard look after we ignore it? If we ignore it spiritually, how does our yard look spiritually? It goes back to weeds, to the thistles and thorns, and anything else that might go in there. It was a curse. It was no lie by God to say it was going to be difficult. Man has died. Adam died. Eve died. With each passing generation, they died. The land also is cursed in the abnormal weather. Droughts. It still produces. God didn't leave us while we would die out of starvation, but it's not the garden that He created.

Where do we take our children? I want to go rest. Where do you have church services? Turn them down. I heard you went to parks, to gardens. We like to take our children to these places, and mankind even recognizes the garden is nice. Some of the most famous gardens. I've been in expert gardens throughout the state to Versailles and the palace gardens and things. They create these places, little pockets of places. Mankind still wants to be in the garden. The people before the flood could go look at those flaming swords and things. We could have been in there instead of out here. But we take our children to turn to Isaiah 51 again, if you would. I've restarted with that. One of those verses in verse 3 where he comforts and wastes places, makes your oldest like Eden. Isaiah 51. And the desert's like the garden, all through the Bible, that talks about Eden in various places. Why does God keep bringing that up? What happened? We just saw what happened in the garden. What He's trying to do.

Verse 3, continuing, enjoying gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving the voice of melody.

That's why God wants that special music, that special relationship with Him. Verse 7, Isaiah 51, Harken to me, you that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law. Fear you not their approach of men, neither be afraid of their reviolings.

Verse 8, For the moss shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool. But my righteousness shall be forever, and my salvation from generation to generation.

That's what God is building. Salvation forever. We're going to help if we qualify, if we follow God's plan, we remove sin from our lives. We qualify to help build those waste places.

Jesus became the curse for us. The curse was death and sin, the land and the sin. All the original things will be restored. Joy, gladness, thanksgiving. Ezekiel 36, he'll turn back there with me.

We're going to have a new heart. And again, we have to have that new heart now. The ones that God has called and given His Spirit to, we're supposed to change our heart now. The rest of the world will do it when they don't have a Satan around to tempt them in that way. They'll have to fight their own Spirit, but they won't have the extra incentives that Satan throws out there to hurt us. Ezekiel 36 verse 26, a new heart also will I give you. A new Spirit will I put within you.

I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh. I will give you a heart of flesh.

He wants a tender heart, of this loving and kind. I'll put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes. You shall keep my judgments and do them. We're being taught that now. God's Spirit opens our mind to see those statutes, those laws, those commandments. But continue, verse 28, you shall draw on the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. Our land is that Hebrews 11, that kingdom that they sought. It wasn't made by hands by man. Verse 29, I'll serve you from all your, I'll save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the corn and will increase it. I'll lay no famines upon you. I will multiply the fruit of the tree, the increase in the field, that you may receive no more reproach or famine among the heathen. How many times we have famines in all the different places in the world for 6,000 years. Then you shall remember your own evil ways you're doing so we're not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.

Not for your sakes do I do this, says the Lord God. Be it known to you, be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, House of Israel. Thus says the Lord God, in the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities, I will also cause you to dwell in the cities and the waste places shall be rebuilt. And the desolate lands shall be tilled, or as it lay desolate in the sight of all that pass by. And they shall say, this land was desolate, it's become like the garden of Eden. And the waste places in desolate ruined cities have become fenced and are inhabited. And then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I am the Lord. I build the waste places, the ruined places. I plant that which was desolate. I the Lord have spoken it. I will do it.

We actually don't do it now. God does it in us as we yield to Him. And it's all about God.

Christ said to myself, I do nothing. I do the will of my Father. That's where we should be, too, doing the will of God, understanding that. Again, the desert's going to rejoice. It'll blossom and blossom abundantly. Isaiah 35 says that to us. It'll be glad. We read all the scriptures generally at the Feast or Tabernacles, but the Garden of Eden, the plan of God, it all fits together in one common thread throughout the scriptures.

Isaiah 35, going a little farther there, we'll turn that.

It's going to blossom abundantly, verse 2. But down to verse 5.

The eyes of the blind shall be opened. Here's the death shall be unstopped.

For us, it's the spiritual blindness that we had before God called us. And the spiritual deathness that we had, that we could hear and understand things that go right over the head of other people. And then shall the laymen leap his heart, and the tongue of the dumb saying, For in the wilderness shall waters break out, streams in the desert. The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs with water. And the habitation of dragons, for each lay shall be grasped with reeds and rushes. Highway's going to be there. Verse 9, No lion shall be there, nor ravenous beast shall go there on. It shall not be found, but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransom that the Lord shall return, and come to Zion, with songs and everlasting joy on their heads. We come to God now in a difficult garden.

But how does all this happen? Zechariah chapter 3, verse 8, we'll go there. How does all these things come about? When it comes to God's plan, and we know the pieces of it, you under- they understood the pieces of it from the Old Testament. You didn't need the New Testament to understand God with the Spirit. Zechariah 3, verse 8, Here now, O Joshua, the high priest, you and your fellows that sit before you. For they are men wondered at. Behold, I will bring forth my servant, the branch, Jesus Christ. Behold, the stone that I have laid before Joshua upon one stone shall be seminized. Behold, I will engrave the gravies thereof, says the Lord of Hosts. I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. In that day, says the Lord of Hosts, you shall call every man, his neighbor, unto the vine, unto the fig tree. Christ's death was the first step in restoring the garden. And in that one day, when he died, he did remove the iniquity in the sense that we could have our sins forgiven. Again, all the rest of the world has to wait. And sinners abounded, but for us, we can call on that sacrifice, which we did last week. And we began doing what he wants us to do.

Spiritually, Christ's death was restoring you and me to a relationship with God, in the preparation of healing, the healing of land and everything. Looking at Christ, his final suffering, that one day he overcame all the sins of the world, the beginning of the restoration, to the full restoration will not finish until he returns. And even then, it's not fully done until that last day, when all sin is put away, all mankind has made their choice. Whether to be with God or to be dead. God's mercy, the grace, God's true grace, is he gives you eternal life because he knows you'll be happy forever, or he just has a sensational life.

There's no fun in eternal punishment, the hell, all the religious use fear to bring people in. God wants you to want and desire the perfect things he offers, not be afraid. And for him, sensational life, that's the most just thing he can do for someone who can't be happy. And there are people like that, unfortunately. Sin always brings curses to man and to the earth. We must put God first in our lives to be part of that. Turn to Haggadah, chapter one, if you would.

My minder prophets. In the middle of the Bible. Haggai. You know, I look at the things we had in the past, and I see things very similar to what they did when Joshua and Jabbal and the return to Jerusalem after the captivity. The Jews thought, this Jerusalem will never fall. God dwells here. We have the temple. This won't be attacked, and yet it was burned to the ground, destroyed. And that hurt them. Verse four of Haggai, chapter one, Is it time for you to dwell with your sealed houses, and this my house lies in waste?

My second or first in your life. Now therefore, says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. You have so much and bring in little. You eat, but you don't have enough. You drink, but you're not filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but there's none warm. He that earns wages, earns wages, you put it in a bag with holes. It just goes away. We make paychecks, and end of the month, it's gone. If not before the end of the month. And then we use our credit cards, and we get further in bags of holes. That's the way our life seems to be sometimes. Thus says the Lord, consider your ways. Go up to the mountains and bring wood, and build a house, and I will take pleasure in it. I will be glorified, says the Lord. Are you building God's spiritual house in your life? Is he first? In your heart, in your mind. Verse 9, you look for much, and it came to little. When you brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why, says the Lord of hosts, because my house is a waste, and you run every man to his own house. You're all doing your own thing. You don't make consideration for what I created in a relationship with me. Therefore the heaven over you has stayed from dew, and the earth has stayed from her fruit. I call for the drought upon the land, upon the mountains, upon the corn, upon the wine, on the oil, upon that which the ground brings forth, and upon men, upon cattle, and upon the labor of the hands. But God and Christ don't want a wasteland.

They want a garden of Eden. They don't want vessels and thorns for man to build that relationship with him. When you go to a garden with God's creation, it makes you think about God. I love going out in the mountains and out in the woods and places, and man builds those things full of gardens to go to for himself to try to get closer to that, to regenerate life. Man can build beautiful gardens, beautiful places, and usually it's built by rich people, and they fence it in, so very few people get to see it and enjoy it where God wants everyone to enjoy his garden. That's what he wants. Turn to John 18. Let's tie in the garden theme a bit here with Christ. Christ wanted a relationship, God and all relationship in the garden in a beautiful place. In John 18, right before his final suffering, where did Christ go? Verse 1, John 18, when Jesus has spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook, Cedron, where there was a garden into which he entered with his disciples. Christ liked gardens. He built the first one. And Judas, which betrayed him, knew the place. Why? For Jesus often went there with the disciples.

Strom's done built three campuses. Pasadena campus won the most beautiful campus award every year that it entered, about 18 years in a row. And he wanted a place beautiful because he wanted to surround students with character to build character. God wants the same thing for us.

But Christ went to the garden. That's where he went. And Judas, having received a bound of men from the chief priests and Pharisees, came with lanterns and torches and weapons. Verse 4, Jesus, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth and said to them, whom seek you? This is kind of a reverse of the garden of Eden. Adam, where are you? Where are you, Adam? And they say, Christ is saying, who do you seek? Who are you looking for? And he answered. They answered him. We're looking for Jesus of Nazareth. And he said, I am he.

Verse 6, as soon as he had said that, I am he, they went backwards. Fall on the ground. That should have told him something right there when that happened to them.

Verse 7, and he asked them again, who are you seeking? They said, Jesus, he said, I have told you I am he. If you seek me, let these others go their way. A betrayal in the garden. This is not the betrayal of Christ. A betrayal by Satan before. Satan was still trying to be in the garden to stop God's plan in the very garden that Christ was in. But Christ was still thinking of others. Let these go. You want me, take me. Let them go. That it might be fulfilled. Verse 9, what bespoke of them which you gave me, I lost none. They would have told you taking them all. Is this a surprise that you wanted to be in a garden for relationship building with his disciples? Satan was still there trying to destroy him. Trying to destroy Jesus Christ, the God of the Old Testament that they knew.

And once again, trying to change God's plan to stop it. Satan doesn't want you to have a relationship with God. He wants you to be angry like him. To fight. To divide.

John 19. Go on again. John 19 verse 1. It's interesting when you look at Pilate. Therefore took Jesus and discouraged him. Verse 2, and the soldiers planted a crown of thorns and put it on his head. And they put on him a purple robe.

They said, Hail the king of the Jews. They smote him with their hands. Pilate said again, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that I find no fault in him. And Jesus came forth wearing the crown of thorns and the purple road. Thistles and thorns will it bring to you. The curse in the garden of Eden. And Christ is bringing a crown of thorns.

The soldier who made that crown of thorns and put it on his head and said, Behold the man, sarcastically, thorns were a curse. And Jesus bore that curse of the crown of thorns along with all the sins of the world. And he bore it wild, just as he will bear the raw crown that God gives him when he takes control of the whole earth. Down to verse 41 of John 19. Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden. And in the garden a new sepulcher, where a man had never been laid. In verse 42, there they lay Jesus before. Therefore, because of the Jewish preparation day, for the sepulcher was nigh at hand.

He's placed in the garden where he's buried. Sweat and toil, Genesis 3, thorns and thistles, painful. Christ accepted the pain and the blood and the death. Adam did die because of sin. Jesus Christ died for our sins. So that restoration, that relationship can be part of us with him.

We have the faith that we will join Jesus Christ in victory over that curse, through the spirit, through our repentance, through our moving sins from our lives. His spirit will renew all of mankind, and the land, and the tree of life.

Revelation 2, verse 7. It talks about that tree of life in the garden again. Revelation 2, verse 7.

Christ, in talking to the churches, again that theme carries through. Verse 7, He that hath an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the tree of life, which in the midst of the paradise of God, the Ephesus message, tree of life, in the midst of the paradise of God. We spiritually understand that, although we live in a garden of forms and thistles. But we will be back in Eden when it's all removed. Vincent World Studies. I want to read a section of that. He talks about, he says, the figure of the tree of life appears in all mythologies from India to Scandinavia.

Mankind knew about the tree of life. They knew about it in battle. I didn't want all over the world. The false religions all create that. But it appears in different mythologies. The rabbins and the Muhammadans call the vine the probation tree. The Zen of Esther has this tree of life called the death destroyer. It grows by the waters of life and the drinking of its sap confers immortality. The Hindu tree of life is pictured as growing out of a great seed in the midst of an expansive water. It has three branches, each crowned with the sun denoting the three powers of creation, preservation and renovation after destruction. In another representation of Buddha, he sits on the meditation under a tree with three branches, each branch having three stems.

One of the Babylonian soldiers, discovered by lair, represents three priestesses gathering the fruit of what seems to be a palm tree with three branches on each side.

Hathor, the Venus of the Egyptians, appears salt-concealed on the branches of a sacred peach tree, giving to the departed souls the fruit and the drink of heaven from a vial from which the streams of life descend upon the spirit.

North mythology has similar things. Most of them have a trinity tied to it as well.

Our tree of life is not a myth. Our tree of life is real. It's the Word of God.

And if we read it, we partake of that tree. Turn to Revelation 22. The world wants what God offers, but they wanted its way. And it doesn't come that way.

Verse 22, verse 1, He showed me a pure river, a water of life, crystal, clearest crystal, proceeding out in the throne of God and the Lamb.

Revelation 22, verse 2, In the midst of the street of it, on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bear twelve matters of fruit, yielded of fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it. His servants shall serve him. They shall see his face, and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall no more be no night there. They shall need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light, and they shall reign forever and ever, a permanent relationship. And who has this relationship? Verse 14.

Blessed are they who do his commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may enter him through the gates of the city.

With our dogs and sorcerers and all matters of evil doing and sin, when Jesus sent his angel to testify these things. Verse 16, I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright morning star, the spirit and the bride say, Come, and let him that hears come, and let him that is the first come, and whoever will let him take of the water of life freely.

It's a blessing to have the right to the tree of life. The world is practicing a lie.

Everything the world does is a lie. It's got elements of truth to it, twisted in different ways.

It's sad the way mankind has done it. Satan has done to mankind. It's interesting, Mr. Long-Mecker, he wrote a little poem, a little thing. He said, First we overlook evil. Then we permitted evil. In our country, then we legalized evil. Then we promoted evil.

Then we as a country celebrated evil. Then we persecute those who still call it evil.

That's where our country is. That's what we're doing. Satan loves that.

The world is practicing that lie. To get our crown of life, our eternal life, we take from the tree of life now. Christ is our hope and glory.

We celebrate these feasts to accept Him, and we face a lot of forms.

But we get to help Christ restore all things. We get to have the satisfaction of raising the rest of His children, of helping them. A very special, special thing. A special thing. In the garden that God intended. A relationship between Him and His creation.

Between us and Him. We have to consider our spiritual garden.

Is it full of flowers or full of forms? Is the spoiled water or fresh, flowing springs of water? Have weeds invaded our mind?

Have they rubbed off on us?

We're to paint that garden what it should like. We're to pull the weeds and the forms out of our minds and put in that righteousness. We have to permanently deserve to pull those weeds from the roots and replace them with God's spiritual values. His words, His words in this book, change our hearts and our minds. Plant those spiritual values in your garden as we finish this feast. Now and throughout the year, mankind's sins are the forms that separates us from God.

I've witnessed the pain, the poverty all around the world. I've been traveling over 60 or 70 countries. We say that and your heart goes out to someone you wish you could just heal.

You want that desire, that so much, the corruption. And it's so much worse now than it was when I traveled years ago. Again, remove the forms. Water with God's Spirit and grow those spiritual things that He wants you to have.