Removing The Thorns

Greetings, everyone! We're the feast. Not a lot of feast in my time. This, I believe, is my 67th. I don't know if anybody in here can beat that. A few old people here. You have to be pretty old to beat that. Now, my mom started saying the truth when I was one years old and got baptized. And I think back when the whole feast was about the size of this room, we had a whole lot more people in Gause Church at that time. It was a special occasion. It's good to be here with you in Piwaki.

My wife and I did a number of feasts in Africa when I was doing over Malawi and Zimbabwe and that, doing international work for the because of all the travel in the past. It's always nice to be up here on a nice stage in a comfortable hall. My first time I went down to Africa, pre-united, about six years ago, and had the start of Malawi.

I actually started the pre-feast. I spoke in Canada, then I went down to Cincinnati, flew to South Africa, spoke there, and then Zambia, Zimbabwe. And I ended up doing 14 sermons in six weeks. So it's nice just to come here and do one and relax.

Malawi, I had a fun time, though, because they put some American-ish building brand new and something happened to the storm and it crashed. They didn't tell us until we got there and they put up a tent. And then some degrees with the sun beating on it and you're sweating to death. And they lifted the flaps of the air, but then they lowered them so they could hear better. And then I was going to bake. I thought I was the fried minister. And I told them, you've got to raise the flaps up as such. And so they did. Of course, in Africa they're used to hot weather, so they're still wearing their coats. I told everybody to take their coats off, and I was the only one that did. But I told them I'd probably pass out if I didn't. So they didn't mind. They also had set the lectern on top of an anthill, so the whole feast I was going up and down with my feet. The whole time I was talking to them. And then when they raised the flaps up, there were monkeys swinging the trees behind me. And then a herd of goats went through down the middle. So I had quite a distraction. I'm not sure anybody remembers what I said, but they certainly remember the sermon. That the monkeys and the goats and things. So it's great to be here with you and have the comforts we have here. All the people there are wonderful. So I don't take anything from them for what they do because they're wonderful to be with them. But some of the hazards you face are unique, to say the least. I'd like to start by quoting Isaiah 51, verse 3. It says, For the Lord shall comfort Zion. He will comfort all her waste places.

It says, He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.

We're here in Pewaukee to have joy and gladness, thanksgiving and melody. To enjoy a foretaste of what it's going to be like.

The world today is a mess, and it's getting messier every moment. The threat of nuclear war, the famine's diseases, all the problems that we have. In this millennium, pictures God having to put back the things that mankind, with Satan's influence naturally, in trying to destroy the earth.

What was it about Eden and the garden of the Lord? I'd like to go back to that, as we near this millennial restoration. The first day, the start of the feast, we're going to start off with a world that's just had a calamity. With people that are, you know, talking about PSD coming out of what's described in Revelation, that's going to happen before Christ returns, we're going to have people that are shell-shocked, who we'll work with. We'll have land that probably has radiation poisoning, other things that may happen. We don't know exactly how God is going to purify that, but He's going to let us live with someone and take that.

How it all is going to work, we know He's going to make it beautiful, but how quickly that happens and what we have to do for people will be difficult to say for us. I'd like to go back to Eden, to the garden of Eden that God prepared for mankind, especially for Adam and Eve. And let's look at the start of it. I know my mentor, Mr. Armstrong, always started there. He always says, why we're here, and always go back to this beginning. So I'd like to do the same thing He would do and go to Genesis 2 and verse 1, as we near this restoration of all things, because it's not that far away.

It could happen in the next few years, very easily. God made a fabulous garden. Now, my wife and I have been to a lot of gardens in this world. There's some beautiful ones. We've been to Versailles and Fontainebleau in France. We've been to the Emperors Palace and Gardens in Japan. We're in Exbury Gardens, the Rota Dender Gardens, which are world-famous for the Rothschilds.

We're there at the estate with Leopold, Nubman, Rothschild, and Prince Charles and Diana, which is now King Charles. Beautiful gardens, but there's nothing, I'm sure, that compared to what Adam and Eve had that God gave them to start with. If we go to Genesis 2 and verse 4, we'll begin there. Verse 5, And there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

Again, wouldn't we love to have a mist water our things now? Look at the floods we've had recently, the hurricanes, the euro, and cities just going down the drain with the floods. But God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul, a living being, a nafesh, the same word that's used for animal carcasses.

They put soul in, of course, to try to make it an immortal soul, which we do not have. But God, verse 8, planted a garden, eastward and Eden, and he put the man that he had made there in that garden. And out of the ground the Lord made 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.

Again, there's some good in this world, because off of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we have some very, very good people. But it's not the tree of life. The tree of life is totally unselfish, totally humble, totally righteousness. It's different. And some people have made the mistake of thinking they can separate the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It's a mistake that happened worldwide, but some of the leadership. They saw some people in the university that were wonderful people in seminary, and therefore we were wrong, because we said that good people are God's people, and the bad people are evil.

And I found really good people there. And I saw you divided the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and tried to make good Christianity and evil paganism. That's not what God did. That's not what God put in the garden. In verse 15, dropping down, the Lord God took the man, put him in the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it.

He gave him a job. God intended us to work. Christ said, My Father works, and I work. And He commanded the man, saying, Of every tree in the garden you may freely eat. So many choices. I can't imagine what it was like to just pull off pure, ripe fruit, perfectly ripe. Most of us get supermarket food that you're not sure if it's ripe or not, and sometimes it's bitter, and sometimes it's overripe, and you just kind of get what you get.

This was perfect, right off the tree, that vine-ripen thing. And He said, You can eat of everything. So many choices. He wanted him to enjoy this garden, to enjoy the bounty of the earth, to enjoy His creation, and to enjoy Him, and have a relationship with Him. But He wanted him to choose wisely.

Verse 17, With the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it. For in the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die. God's word is truth. There's no reason not to believe God when He said that you would die. Like a child believes everything His parent tells him. Verse 18, The Lord God said, It's not good that a man should be alone. I'll make a helper fit for him. So He made Eve. He took a rib when Adam was asleep, did the first surgery. I wish my surgeries would turn out like that.

I had to give my wife a different way. But I did okay. And Adam said, This is bone on my bone, a flesh on my flesh. And called her woman because she came out a man. And then God has sued marriage. He said, Imagine, Leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, a man and his wife, and not ashamed. This was a creation, a beautiful thing that God had done. And why did God do all of this?

Why did He do it? God had made, and He said to the woman, God said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden. He challenged her knowledge. He was the first one to spin the truth, the first blog with fake information. The woman said, We can eat of all the fruit of the garden, but the fruit of the tree in the midst, God has said, You shall not eat, or you shall die. He had been told.

And the serpent said to her, You shall not surely die. He lied. God knows in the day that you eat, and your eyes shall be open, and you shall be as God, knowing good and evil. He was spinning, making it sound wonderful, tempting her. When the woman saw it was because a tree to be desired to make one wise, wow, I want to be wise, raised her level of desire.

And she took of the fruit, that's theft, because it wasn't hers, and did eat, and gave to her husband with her, and he did eat. So they took it. Now, they were open, but without the knowledge, the true knowledge of how to use those things. When has a parent ever withheld something good for a child? God hadn't withheld anything good from them. But now, their eyes were open. Now they knew they were naked.

Now, they sewed fig leaves together to cover them. Interesting. They didn't know these things before. They had a pure relationship with everything in the garden. And now, they lost that. They didn't really understand it, but they heard the voice of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

Adam and his wife hid themselves. I'm sure before they were glad to see him. Oh, wow, this is wonderful. We can talk. Adam had been with God, naming the animals, and Eve, and all the conversations they could have. This being they were so close to, they were hiding from him.

Just like little children. They know they did something wrong, and they go hide. And that's what they did. They used to be happy to see God. He had showed them the garden, the falls, the animals. I'm sure he ate with them, talked with them. And God called to Adam, and he said, Where are you? Adam, Eve, where are you? Now, he knew where they were, obviously.

But he asked them, where are you? Well, they were afraid. He says, I heard your voice in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself. Exactly what a child does. And God said, Who told you you were naked? Have you eaten of that tree that I commanded you not to eat? He knew, just like we know. Would you ask your child, Did you eat the cake? And talk a little over his face.

Oh, yeah, he knew. And he blames it on the woman. That woman that you gave me, she did it. And she blames it on the snake. He did it. And God talks to the snake. Verse 14, He said, Because you have done this, You are cursed above all the cattle, above the beasts of the field, And on your belly shall you go, and dust you shall eat the days of your life.

I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. It shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. And that's the first prophecy about Christ and Satan trying to destroy him, with Christ taking over from that. And then to the woman, He says, I will multiply your sorrow and your conception. You shall bring forth children, your desire will be for your husband. It wasn't a curse. It was going to be more difficult than it was before, with God in the picture. And to Adam, Because you have hearkened to the voice of your wife, and eaten the tree, you shall not eat of it.

Cursed is the ground for your sake. The ground. What did it do? And sorrow shall you eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you.

And you shall eat of the herbs of the field. We see it as a curse on the land, as well as on mankind, without God. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread. Hard work. Till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, dushed you art, and to dust you shall return. That's been happening for 6,000 years.

And Adam, unto Adam, and also to his wife, to the Lord God, make coats of skin, and clothe them. Fig leaves don't last very long. And God didn't abandon them. He actually helped them. Even in this, He helped them by making clothes for them. The clothes from the skins of animals, to help them along. And God said, Behold, the man's like one of us, to no good and evil, lest he put forth his hand, and take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever. So God put him out of the garden.

And he had to go till the ground. He couldn't just reach up and grab fruit all the time. Now he had to plan and work to do it. And he placed caribim at the entrance of it. And until the flood mankind could go to the garden and see those caribim, with their swords, and remember what happened. What their grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-great-grandfather, a lot of greats in there when you live a thousand years. They could see what he did. But now they were no longer in the same relationship that they had with God before. They did get new senses. They now knew they were naked. They now had shame, and they had guilt. What had changed?

Well, the new sheriff in town, the new God in their world, Satan the devil. And understand that 2nd Corinthians 4-4, whom the God of this world has blinded, meant of the glorious gospel of Christ. That was what happened, and it started in Eden. And the land was cursed as well. Life became tough. We're starting the millennium now, starting this feast, getting rid of the old world, preparing, doing something to build back the Garden of Eden, to take a walk with God and His way of life. When we fellowship with each other, we're fellowshiping with God in Christ because of the Spirit that dwells in us.

He was part of what God wanted in the Garden, that relationship that He was building. And we're supposed to walk with God and take that walk in the Garden with each other in a shadow of things to come here at the millennium, our picture of the millennium. You know, it's nice to have something brand new. Adam, I'm sure, would have loved to have been back in the Garden.

It would have been a lot easier for them. My wife and I have bought a few houses. We've bought a couple of new ones and a couple of old ones. It's a lot easier when you have a brand new house. Everything works. When you get an old house, it doesn't. Although we bought a couple houses, and I actually love working on old houses. I love to take something old and dilapidated and turn it into something beautiful.

Our house in Texas, we bought. We were the last ones down there, and everybody had looked at it, and nobody bought it. And they all said, Why did the deans buy that dump? And then we fixed it up. It was a lakefront swing pool, docks, and everything. And by the time I was done with it, they all said, Why didn't we buy that house? But it was fun for us.

We had the students over, and we ran our own summer camp pretty much all year long with the students, which was fun. But we're getting to have to rebuild an old house. Not like the one God did, but we'll have God's help in the spirit and be able to do that. But life became tough for them. And the millennium that we're going into is going to start an easier, more pleasant life.

A walk with God. Without the spirit of God, the world quickly goes back to weeds and thorns. Thistles and thorns, what it'll do for you. How does your yard look after you leave it for a month? I used to take these month-long trips overseas, and go four to six weeks, and come back home. And I wasn't sure what I had planted. I wasn't sure what had come up. The time you weeded it, there wasn't much there. Even at the feast, for eight days, you go back, and you still have problems, unless it's cold enough to kill the weeds. And that means your crops have died, too.

But they don't eat much. It's a different world out there. It was interesting. It goes back to weeds and thistles and thorns and anything else that happens to land on the dirt. And it was cursed. Snow lie by God. Man did have to work. Man has died with each passing generation. And the land is cursed by abnormal weather, droughts. It still produces. God didn't leave us where we had started at. Mankind still had to finish out his six thousand years of sweat and toil to make things work.

But it produces, but it's not the garden of God. Where do we take our children when we want to go someplace and just relax for a few hours? We go to parks. Places where mankind is still trying to carve out a garden. Beautiful places. And it's wonderful. And it's nice. Turn to Ezekiel 36. And we'll start in verse 26. Because the prophets looked for restoration. Of course, the main restoration is mankind to his God, but also not only of people, but of land.

God wants a surrounding area. Mr. Armstrong built the colleges, and they were beautiful, and he wanted to surround people with character and quality, to help them understand, to put character and quality in their lives. And so God's going to bring the earth back, too. This was said last night by Mr. Shaby, Lord God, in the day that I 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 land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that pass by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of fish, and the east and desolate and ruined places are become fenced and are inhabited. And then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that which was desolate. I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it.

It's about God. And we were here in our relationships just to reflect God and Christ and their relationship. Mr. Konser read Isaiah 35.1 about the water. So, the Zaxxon Prime Leader stole his, he stole one of mine, but that's life. But it says, The desert shall blossom like a rose. All those things said, The parched ground shall become a bread, shall become water in the desert, grasses and reeds. All those things, all through the prophecies, talks about the land being restored as well, to build a society and an earth like the garden of Eden that we can enjoy.

But how does all this happen? How does it come to pass? Turn to Zechariah 3. This, of course, is Zechariah coming back to build the second temple, to rebuild it because it had been destroyed. And they were sad because the first temple was so nice, the second one wasn't. Verse 8, it says, Here now, O Joshua, the high priest, you and your fellows that sit before you. For they are men wondered at. For behold, I'll bring forth my servant the branch.

This is part 1 of the healing process. Verse 9, For behold, the stone I have laid before Joshua, upon one stone shall be seven eyes. Behold, I'll engrave the graving thereof, says the Lord of Hosts. I will remove the iniquity of the land in one day. And in that day, says the Lord of Hosts, you shall call every man his neighbor under the vine and under his fig tree.

In one day, Christ's death was the first step in restoring the Garden of Eden, restoring you and me in a relationship with God in preparation for the healing of all mankind and the healing of the land in this millennial setting. I'd like to go and look at Christ one day, His final day of suffering, that it says He would heal the land in one day.

Sin always brings curses.

What did God want from us? Turn to Haggai 1, again, a contemporary. They had trouble at that time. Cyrus had made a decree they could go back to Jerusalem, and about 10% of the Jewish people did, well, not all of them.

But they're going back, and they do like most people do. They take care of themselves first.

And God says to them, in verse 4 of Haggai 1, Is it time for you to dwell in your houses, and my houses and waste? They didn't put God first. Therefore, thus says the Lord of Hosts, Consider your ways, you so much, and bring in little. You eat, but you have not enough. You drink, but you're not filled with drink. We clothe you, but there is none warm. He that earns wages, earns wages to put them in a bag with holes. What's happening in our society today? Oh, everybody got a raise. But inflation was more than the raise. You make more money, and you're farther in the hole.

Well, 20% of the people in the U.S. haven't paid their electric bill. Things like that, it's full of holes. Thus says the Lord, consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, bring wood, build the house, and I will take pleasure in it, and I'll be glorified, says the Lord.

We're building God's house here at this feast, preparing for the millennium. We put Him first. It's His garden. But He says to them, You looked for much, it came to little. When you brought it home, I blew it away. Why, says the Lord, because my house is in waste, and you run to your own houses. You want blessings? Put God first. Therefore the heaven over you has stayed from dew, the earth has stayed from fruit. I called for a drought on the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, upon the new wine, upon the oil, upon that which the ground brings forth, and upon men, and cattle, upon all labor of the hands. That's what happens to the earth when you turn away from God. But God and Christ don't want a wasteland, and that's why Christ had to suffer.

When you go to a garden, it makes you think about God. I'm so thankful we have a green strip behind our house. We can look at trees out our window. It just makes you feel closer to God. Man builds things which decay. God builds life that regenerates itself. Turn to John 18. As I said, I want to go to Christ last day. Just before His suffering, where did Christ go? John 18. Let's look at where He went. When Jesus spoke these words, John 18, verse 1, He went forth with His disciples over the brook He drawn, where there was a garden, into which He entered with His disciples. And Judas, which betrayed Him, knew the place. Why? For Jesus often went there with His disciples.

And Judas was there to betray Him with a man, a man with weapons.

Verse 42.

Skip the page. It's all right.

And Jesus, in the garden, when these men are there to take Him, in verse 4, He says, knowing all things would come on Him, went forth and said, Whom do you seek? I find this fascinating. It's the reverse of the Garden of Eden. Remember, Christ came down in the garden and He said, Where are you, Adam? Where are you? And here He is in the garden, saying, Whom do you seek?

Who are you looking for? What did Adam do? Where are you, Adam? I was afraid. Jesus was not afraid. Who are you looking for? And He says, they said Jesus of Nazareth, and He says, I am He. And Judas was with them. As soon as He said that to them, they went backwards and fell to the ground. Now, if I was there, that would tell me something. Someone says, I am He, and you follow her backwards. That's kind of spooky. But as soon as He said to them, I am He, they fell backwards, and He said, verse 7, they ask Him again, He says, Who are you seeking? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth.

And He said, I've told you, I am He. If you seek Me, take Me. Let these men go their way. Just like in the garden, when they gave Him clothes, Christ was protecting His disciples. And doing so because the Scripture said that He would not lose anyone except one. It was a surprise to us that He was in a garden when He was taken, relationship building with His disciples.

And Satan is it a surprise that He was in the garden, just like the Garden of Eden, trying to stop what Jesus was doing to start that restoration. And Satan tried to stop God's plan, once again. I like to go to John 19 this day as well and look at something else. In verse 1, Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him.

And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns and put it on His head. And they put on a robe. Fissiles and thorns will it bring forth to you. That's what He told Adam. And they put a crown of thorns on His head. And they said, Hail, King of the Jews, and spit on Him. In verse 5, Jesus came forth, wearing that crown of thorns and the purple robe.

And Pilate said, Behold the man. Sarcastically. Thorns were a curse. And Christ wore a crown of thorns. Do we reflect God when we are accused or suffer? Do we wear a crown of thorns the way Christ did? He knew what He was doing it for. Fissiles and thorns shall it bring forth to you in the garden. And He wears that crown and He wore it righteously. Go down to chapter 19, verse 38.

After this, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple, but secretly for fear of the Jews, has to take the body. Verse 39, there came Nicodemus also that had come to Jesus by night. And they brought Mir and Hallo. And they took the body of Jesus. Verse 41, it says, Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulcher, which no one had been laid in. Again, in the garden they laid Jesus before the Jews' preparation day.

Sweat and toil, Genesis 3, thorns and thistles, painful. Christ accepted the pain and shed His blood and died. Adam did die because life in the midst of the paradise of God, the Ephesus message, to eat from the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God, the thorns will have been removed, the spiritual thorns, the physical thorns, the land will be back in the garden. The tree of life, special thing.

The world's religions have a type of a tree of life, something that heals and saves and does what the true tree of life is supposed to do.

I'd like to read from Vincent's World Studies, asserting the type of the tree of life. It says, The figure of a tree of life appears in all mythologies from India to Scandinavia. It's called the vine, the probation tree. The Zendivesta has this tree of life called the death destroyer. It grows by the waters of life, and the drinking of its sap can force immortality. The Hindu tree of life is pictured as growing out of a great seed in the midst of an expanse of water, with three branches, each crowned with the sun, denotivation, and renovation after destruction.

In another representation, Buddha sits in a meditation tree with three branches, each branch having three spams. One of the Babylonian cylinders they dug up, discovered by Lanyard, represents three priestesses gathering the fruit of what seems to be a palm tree with three branches. Hathor, the Venus of the Egyptians, appears half concealed in a branch of the sacred peach tree, giving to the departed soul the fruit and the drink from heaven, from a vial from which the streams of life descend upon the spirit.

North mythology also has a prominent figure, the ash tree of existence. All these religions know about a tree of life, but their tree of life is a myth. Our tree of life is not a myth. Our tree of life is in the Word of God, and it's real.

And we get a chance to partake of it. Turn to Revelation 22. I'll reread a scripture read in the sermonette. Because it's special. Revelation 22, we see the rivers of water, which was described so well in Mr. Konsa. Verse 2, in the midst of the street of it, neither side of the river was the tree of life. Let me borrow those fruits. Verse 23, there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him, and they shall see His face, His name shall be in their foreheads, there shall be no night there, no candle needed, 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 that do His commandments, that they might have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates of the city. We get to enter into that. We have the right to the tree of life. The world is practicing a lie, but God is opening the way, restoring people to have access to that relationship that we get to enjoy now. We get that crown of life, that eternal glory. We get to take from the tree of life now through God's Holy Spirit.

Christ, our hope of glory, accepted that crown of thorns. He wore it for us when we suffer. It's a privilege to suffer for God's sake, for righteousness' sake, because we're representing God. We have something to offer, something to show. We face the thorns and thistles, the weeds of life, from the curse, from the choice that Adam and Eve made, listening to Satan. Consider your spiritual garden. Is it full of flowers, or is it thorns and thistles? See, we're called to be a flower in the midst of a bunch of weeds. What kind of a flower are we? Though the weeds invaded our minds. This feast is to paint what the garden should look like with happy people, to make us desire to pull those weeds out of our lives, to pull them from the roots, and to replace them with spiritual values, the fruits of God's Spirit.

This book is to change our hearts and our minds, to be in a relationship with God. Romans 8, as read last night, let's go there again, because if we face wrong, is it not to God's glory? Because we get to be in God's millennial garden. Romans 8, 18, I reckon the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

Indeed, a lot of God's people through the centuries have suffered, many of us as well. For the earnest expectation of creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. Everything is waiting for that, yearning for it. Because the creation itself also shall be delivered from bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now.

Creation wants to return to Eden. It wants to be that. The curse of sin be removed, and our spiritual bodies change from these physical ones we now have. But not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit. Even we ourselves, grown within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, the sonship, that redemption of the body. The Garden of Eden was meant for a place to have a relationship with God and Jesus Christ.

It was where God wanted to develop that relationship with man. And Christ's sacrifice was the beginning that allows the restoration of all things. Followed by unleavened bread and Pentecost, the Holy Spirit. Trumpets has returned, tommat putting away Satan. And now, this feast, where we get a foretaste of that millennial setting. A flower in the midst of a weed. A whole world full of weeds. Mankind's sins are the thorns, and this is the separators from God. In traveling over the decades from the 70s on, I've witnessed suffering in so many places, in so many countries.

The pain, the poverty, the disease, and I wish I could just reach out and heal them. But that's what's going to happen when the millennium actually comes. I saw that corruption. It's so much worse now than it ever was then. Where are we now in this world? A man wrote a saying, Dwight Longnecker said it well when he stated this.

He said, first, we overlook evil. Then we permit evil. Then we legalize evil. Then we promote evil. Then we celebrate evil. And then we persecute all those who still call it evil. That's where this country is. We will not overlook evil. We will not permit evil. We will not legalize evil. We will not promote evil, and we certainly will not celebrate evil. We're here to put out evil, and that's when the Restoration comes.

Satan will not win this battle. The Restoration is about being in the garden, the Garden of God, with melody and happiness and a relationship. Perfect righteous laws will be reinstituted on the earth. What I ask you today is to plant those spiritual values in your life, so you can show the world that you can actually be a flower among the thorns.

You can have a relationship with God. Now is the time for us to have that relationship. Remove the thorns. Water your garden with God's Spirit. It's soon to come, and I would expect all of us to be there.

Thank you.