Selling the Kingdom of God

Good afternoon, brethren. Good to see all of you here. As Mr. Elliott was giving his introduction, I was thinking of the fact that ten of those forever years that he was mentioning were spent in Seattle, and it's been a delight already seeing several Seattle members renewing acquaintances and catching up on what's been going on in their lives. Cedral Woolley, being just a little to the north, we developed the same friendships, even though I didn't pasture that area, and Tacoma likewise. So it's been a delight, even in the first half of the first day here, to be able to see so many old friends that we've known for many, many years, and to share what's been going on in our lives since we last saw each other.

When my wife and I were rock and rolling up the road to get here from Portland, we were reminiscing about Victoria and trying to count how many times we'd been here. And I think this is probably the sixth or the seventh time that we have been here. We've never been here for a feast, so those predated are being in the northwest. But out of those trips, one of them stands alone as memorable, above all the others. When the Canadian National Council was forming, they invited me and my wife up from Seattle to join them in one of their organizational meetings that was held in a hotel right on the back bay here in Victoria. My wife's mother, who was in her mid-80s at the time, was visiting us, so we packed her in the car.

And we drove up from Seattle through customs to Tawasen, caught the ferry across to Schwartz Bay, down to Victoria, came up to the hotel and told my wife and mother-in-law, sit in the car and I'll get the room key. And I walked in, and as hotels do, they said, can we help you? And I said, yes, a room reservation for Robert Dick. What was that name again? Robert Dick.

Who are you with? I'm with the United Church of God, Canada. Oh, they're meeting here next week on this day. I walk back out to the car with the wide eyes of my wife saying, well, where do we go? Where's our room? And I walked up to the car and I said, I'm a week early.

Back to Sydney, back to the Tawasen Ferry, back through customs, back to Seattle. You know what's funny? I have absolutely, and I asked my wife, I said, do you have any memory whatsoever of the meeting a week later? She said, no.

And I said, I don't either. So we always, when we think of Victoria, we think of that particular trip. And it was a hectic time. Short-term memory sometimes didn't exist, and that was one of the worst. As we've already had snippets in the morning services of this particular truth, we're here to begin a week-long celebration of the peace that Jesus Christ will bring to this earth for a thousand years. Unimaginable.

It's unimaginable today, but for anyone who studied world history, it's unimaginable for world history. Anyone can look up the statistics of what is the longest recorded period in time that there has been no recorded war going on in this world. It's an extremely short period of time in all of human recorded history.

How will that peace come about? A couple of generations ago, a leader in Germany sold the picture of a thousand-year rule to his people and initiated World War II, but his version of world peace would have required the conquering of the entire world. And he was dead set on trying to achieve it. In contrast, the kingdom which is described in the prophets will grow until it fills the earth with peace and it includes no wars of conquest.

If you study the millennial period, the last incident of war is that famous event in Ezekiel where the armies of the north say, let us come up against the land of unwalled villages. And that has to have been, or that will be, very early in the millennium. And virtually a thousand years is sandwiched between that and the short instance when Satan is loosed for a season and once more comes up against Jerusalem with a horde.

So the book and wars, if you will, are wars of aggression against God and his people, but there are no wars fought by God of conquest.

So we have a situation that is totally foreign to humanity. Humanity gains territory in subjects and allegiance by conquest. God does not. How then will the kingdom of God spread to the place where it will cover the entire earth? I like to recall back many years ago when I had a very good Jewish friend who had a very good Jewish sense of humor. And he mockingly allowed me to be the Gentile in this case, though he knew better. And he said, you know the difference between Jewish fathers when they go to work in the morning and Gentile fathers when they go to work in the morning? And I said, no. He said, well, you Gentile fathers, when you get up and leave the table to go to work in the morning, you leave the door, go to the car, your children say, bye, daddy, bye. He said, it's not the way it goes in Jewish families. He said, when we get up and leave the table, open the door and get in the car, our children stand at the door and say, sell, daddy, sell. And then he chuckled and looked at me and we laughed together because we were both members of the Church of God and he was having fun sharing a little bit of Jewish humor. But there's a great, there's not a grain, there is a great kernel of truth in what he just said when we transition over into the kingdom of God. I ask you, or I pose the question, how will the kingdom of God be spread? And it's going to be spread by the method that he jokingly referred to.

It'll be spread by selling the kingdom of God. God intends to sell his kingdom. You know, there are certain scriptures we all know so well that the minute somebody begins quoting the scripture, our brain goes on autopilot. And it's that autopilot of recognition that says, yeah, I know that verse. And yeah, I believe that verse. And yes, I agree with that verse. Therefore, I don't have to listen to that verse any further. And we all do that. I mean, it's the way we're geared. We all know that Hebrews 13, 8 says that Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so, if somebody turns there, or as you turn there and reads it, we go onto that autopilot mode of saying, this is true, and we know it's true. Therefore, we will wait till the next piece of his message is dropped. In the spirit of Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever, and God the Father is the same, he's the same yesterday, today, and forever, it has always, and you can underline the word always, it has always been God's plan to sell his kingdom. So, when you look at yesterday, today, forever, that has always been his plan. In Exodus chapter 19, the very first time that God began to work with an organized body of people. He had worked with patriarchs, singly. He had worked all the way up to the time of Jacob with a family that numbered 70. But as Israel was coming out of Egypt, God, for the first time, was dealing with a body large enough to be a nation. And in Exodus chapter 19, as he's prepping them to stand at the base of the mountain, to receive his contract with them, and to determine whether or not they wish to accept it or reject it, he made these particular comments. He says in Exodus 19 and verse 5, Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to me above all people, for all the earth is mine.

And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.

So as God was prepping Moses to in turn prep the people of Israel, he said, as you get them ready, you cordon off the mountain, you tell them to all dress with clean clothes, take a bath, and stay behind the barrier. You also remind them of a few additional truths that will prepare them to hear my terms of contract with them. And he said, I want you to say these things to them, that they're special to me above all peoples on this earth, and that I wish to make of them a kingdom of priests.

Now, we all know this didn't go anywhere. But, where did God want it to go?

40 years later, talking to the children of the people that were standing at the base of the mountain, and as kids they were standing there also. They would have been there as the little ones with their chubby little hands and mom or dad's hand standing there. But now that they were full-grown adults and they were preparing to enter the Promised Land, all of this was repeated to them. They were told in Deuteronomy, let's rehearse everything I said to your mother and father, because now you're the adults, and now it's your turn. And in Deuteronomy chapter 4, this is where God's statement to Moses that, I am preparing to make a covenant with a group of people who are a kingdom of priests to me. This is where he intended it to go. Deuteronomy 4 verse 1, Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you.

You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take anything from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. And he goes on in verse 5 to tell them the results of that.

Surely I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God commanded me, and you should act according to them in the land which you go to possess. Therefore, be careful to observe them, for this is your wisdom, and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. Why did he want them not to alter or change his commandments? Because they couldn't be improved upon.

And that the peoples around them, as they acted like a kingdom of priests, would say of them, look at the wisdom, look at the understanding. Surely this is a great nation. It's a wise and understanding people. Every individual in this room who works in sales in one form or another knows that the most powerful tool to sell is a referral. A good referral is worth a small fortune, and a bad referral is very, very costly. But these people will go on to say, for what great nation is there that has God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him? And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which I set before you this day? This was the job. When God called Israel out of Egypt, He said, I want you to be a kingdom of priests. I want you to be a sales force to sell my way. Forty years later, He told the children, don't mess with my law. Live it. Do it. And here's what's going to happen. The nations around you are going to say, this is awesome. This is absolutely fantastic. There's no people like this. There's nothing to compare with it. It will have a magnetism.

The next chapter in Deuteronomy is the second rendering of the Ten Commandments. So, as you finish Deuteronomy 4, Deuteronomy 4 stands to the giving of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5 as what I read to you in Exodus 19 stands to the giving of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. It's the prelude. Ten Commandments are no sooner given in Deuteronomy chapter 5 than a reality check is also given. So, we turn to Deuteronomy 5 and we look beginning in verse 6 all the way down through verse 21 are the second rendering of the Ten Commandments.

You know what you find before you get to the end of the chapter? You get that famous sad verse, verse 29.

Oh, that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear me and always keep all my commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever.

God was saying, not going to fly. It's not going to get off the ground. Everything I've given them is great. The opportunity I've given them is great. The land I'm taking them into is great. They don't have a heart for it.

And so, there's a lament. Oh, that there were.

And you know, the only reason you say, oh, that there were is because there wasn't. Remember now, Hebrews 13, 8. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.

At this point, in verse 29, just because the sales force flunked doesn't mean the manufacturer changed his marketing plan.

I appreciated Mr. Corrigan working from an analogy through the majority of his sermonette. And you're going to get a sermon that's all based on analogy so that you can make the connection. The sales force flunked. The marketing plan didn't change. You know, a lot of people who sell something, if it flunks with the sales force, they go back and say, now, let me rethink my plan. Let me rethink our approach. Let me rethink this. God said, you flunked. The plan was flawless.

But God is patient enough to wait another 4,000 years because he's got all the time in the universe.

He said, the sales force flunked, but the plan is intact. And I have all the time in the world to wait and do it again. So God is going to train a new sales force.

I don't wish to be morbid, but God is going to train a new sales force the hard way.

If you understand the mind of God, you cannot believe that surviving the great tribulation and the destruction of the nations of modern Israel will be random.

I don't know if you've ever thought... You know, there's a scripture in Amos 5 verse 3 that says that God will leave a tithe. And in ministerial discussions, you go back and forth because he doesn't cut it fine enough that you can say with authority whether we're talking about a tithe of all of Israel or whether this is the follow-up to Ezekiel's enactment where he cuts off all the hair of his head and he does this with a third of it and this with a third of it and then he puts a third of it where it's preserved. You know, this may be one-tenth of one-third. This is the worst case scenario and it's probably the more likely scenario. If you think for a moment that the people who survived the tribulation and the day of the Lord survived it simply by the roll of the dice, simply by having the good luck to be at the right place at the right time, I think you're naive. Because God's sales plan requires a certain salesman and I think those who survive to enter the millennium alive will have been vetted very, very closely. Ezekiel 12.

In Ezekiel 12, we get one of the many, many glimpses at what it is that God wants. I'm going to read it. I'll tell you the verse after I read it, okay, because I'd prefer you not to be reading it from your translation while I'm reading it from another translation. And one of the modern paraphrases did a very good job of capturing the essence of this verse in Ezekiel 12. So I'll read it to you and I believe it's from God's word, which is a paraphrase. And this is what it says, But I will let a few of the people live. They will not die from the disease, hunger, and war. I will let them live so that they can tell other people about the terrible things they did against me. Then they will know that I am the Lord.

We see in end-time prophecy people with a stubbornness that even when everything is coming loose, they're standing there shaking their fist in God's face and saying, bring the rocks down on top of me. I dare you.

You'll probably accommodate them.

But he says, I will bring some through all of this because I want them to be able to testify on my behalf that what happened to them was not because I am unjust or cruel, but because they are very unfaithful to me.

Once they return from captivity, then God will move to the next level of training.

Jeremiah 31 is a well-known section of the Word of God, well-known to the world around us, but it's especially well-known to us.

If you take the time sometime, I think one of the, it depends on your personality, one of the frustrating things about the prophets or one of the absolutely intoxicating things about the prophets is that they scatter certain truths just like seed throughout the entirety of their books. And so you can go through Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and you can go through the minor prophets, and you're not going to find God putting little nice boxes of information about the attitude of those returning from captivity all in one place, but you're going to find it sprinkled so liberally through the books that you see it over and over and over and over and over and over again, a humble people, a contrite people, a people who are glad to be alive, a people who realize they don't deserve to be alive, a people who are thankful to God that He is bringing them out of captivity. This will be an absolutely beautiful body of people.

Everyone in the ministry, probably over his lifetime as a minister, if you could ask a dozen men what is the most enjoyable part of being a minister, I can tell you for me the most enjoyable thing of all is watching first love, of watching the mind come to understand the truth of God and concurrent with it to understand their unworthiness to have been a recipient of the truth of God and the two of them in tandem. Why me? I can't count. Neither can Mr. Elliott. Neither can any minister. No one can count how many times somebody has looked them in the face and said, why me? Why me? And of course, all we can do is shrug our shoulders and say, well, get in line and pick a number, because the minister you're talking to, before he ever started talking to you, said, Lord, why me? Why me? So everyone says, why me?

They will come out of captivity saying, Lord, why me? But they will have all the pieces put together. I'm saying, why me? Because I don't deserve to be here. I'm saying, why me? Because I'm grateful to be here. I'm saying, why me? Because I'm in awe of the privilege and I'm just getting a glimpse of the responsibility. What did God say in Deuteronomy 5.29?

I made them a kingdom of priests. I gave them a law. I told them not to change it. I said it'll be absolutely irresistible to the nations around them. And then I said, oh, that they had the heart for it.

So when he brings these people out, he says of them in Jeremiah 31, verse 31, "...Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah." You know, the joy of all of this is you got the opportunity to see the preview. You got the opportunity to get an advance ticket.

And so I'm sitting here talking to a room full of people who got the preview.

But the day is coming that what was given to you and to me as a very, very small flock will be given to the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah.

"...Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord." So he reminds them, there's nothing wrong with my covenant, and when there's nothing wrong with me, they simply were unfaithful. He said, "...but this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord, I will put my law in their minds." You know, today, the law of God is not in the mind of very many people.

In general, in the world of religion, the law of God is something that is relegated to the back seat, if that prestige is a position, maybe the trunk, or left home.

So it's not in the mind. What's the automatic response you get if somebody engages you in a conversation and you bring up the subject of respect for and a desire to obey the law? The pushback is, the law's done away. What are they saying? Well, what they're saying in regards to the Scripture, it's not in my mind. I have been taught, I have been grilled, I have been groomed, that the law doesn't belong up here. It's passed. It's done. It's fulfilled. It's over.

He says, we're going to change that. We're going to put the law in their mind. So what they really do, think about it. When they look at, when they look at, should I do this or should I do that? This will play the ticker tape that will announce what the law is. And then character will have to determine whether they do this or they do that. But up here, they'll play the mental ticker tape that says, this is what I'm supposed to do. Now I'll wrestle with whether I do it or not. And I will write it on their heart. So it's not just an academic ticker tape, but there will be a very strong conscience to go with it. The conscience will not be neutral and say, well, you're an adult. You make the decision. The conscience will say, this is the right way. Go in that way. So it's not going to be like ancient Israel who had no heart for it.

He says, I'm going to put it right here between their eyes and then I'm going to put it deeply rooted in their conscience and I'll be their God and they shall be my people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother saying, know the Lord. But they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them says the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and their sins I will remember no more. Now by extension, we know and we will celebrate this for seven days that this is, as I said, something that will spread and spread and spread. But Jeremiah 31, 31 addresses an audience, the house of Israel and the house of Judah. So at the narrowest end, what it is saying is, no more within the house of Israel or the house of Judah will anyone say again, know the Lord because in the house of Israel and the house of Judah everyone will know me.

Training a sales force. We trained their attitude by means, sadly, of the tribulation.

We trained their intellect and their conscience by the availability of the Spirit of God. Again, I have no idea how many of you over your lifetime have had an association with sales, but it doesn't matter. Everyone understands sales, whether they've ever done it or not. God will provide corporate support for his sales force. If you're a salesman, you really want the support of your home office. You want advertising so that people are conscious of your name. You want promotional material so you can hand it to somebody and say, here, this is what my product looks like. You want brochures. You want those things that says your home office has your back and they are doing what they want. And they are doing what they can to make you a successful salesman.

God is going to provide that support in the most effective way possible.

You see, we're going to start out selling the way of God to a totally carnal world.

The world doesn't start out saying, whoopee, God is here. I mean, we all know, in terms of a famous name, that the first thing the world says after the seventh Trump is sounded, let us go and form our army in the plains of Megiddo so that we can go down to the valley of Jehoshaphat and take Jerusalem. We're going to be selling the way of God to a totally carnal world. And you know, there is nothing that sells to the carnal mind like success. There is nothing that sells to the carnal mind like prosperity. What has been the backbone of every pyramid scheme that has ever been instituted?

That I can prosper by bringing in people under me, and I can have a percentage of what they make, and if I can encourage them to bring in people under them, I get a percentage of what they make. The only reason a pyramid program works is because somebody can envision the prosperity that I can have from that form of sales.

We live here in North America. I will speak at certain times as a citizen in the United States, but it wouldn't matter. Those of you who are citizens of Canada, we're paddling in the same canoe as respect these things. Even though the current world doesn't respect American morality, it still floods to the borders to get in because it wants a share of the prosperity.

You know, I don't respect you. I don't respect how you act. I don't respect your morality, but I do want some of your prosperity. We live in that strange time where the people of this world want the prosperity of the United States. They want the prosperity of Canada. They want the prosperity of France. They want the prosperity of England. They want the prosperity of Belgium. And we could go on through all of those nations that God has prospered, but I don't want your ways.

I'll come in and bring my own ways, and I'll stay in my own ways because I really don't. like your ways, but I do want a share of your prosperity.

When the captives of Israel return, they will be, and as I said, remember, we're starting out with a carnal customer. When the captives of Israel return, they will be the world's rags-to-riches story. There are multiple scriptures that say, in so many words, and a few of them in almost the same words I'm going to use, that the plundered will become the plunderer.

That the nations of Israel taken captive and stripped of all that they had will upon return under God's guidance plunder those who plundered them.

I don't know how many of you, I was going to say something in the senior moment, it went in one ear and out the other ear, the name of the movie. I think George Clooney was in the movie. It was Monuments Men. I don't know how many of you saw Monuments Men, but it just takes your breath away the treasures that Nazi Germany plundered from Europe. And being German, they cataloged things in the minutest of details. And so when you look at all that they plundered, it's absolutely mind-boggling the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of everything from furniture and fine art to gold and silver and currency. Well, this will be the reverse.

This will be the second round of what we read about back when Israel left Egypt, and it said that they took of the Egyptians the wages for the years they spent in slavery.

Israel left Egypt filthy rich.

How many times in history have you had a call for donations where the one asking for donations said, please stop bringing it. We don't know what to do with all of it.

But that's what Moses told the Israelites when he took up donations for the tabernacle.

Whoa, stop! Got too much. Don't know what to do with all of it.

Israel will go from the people plundered to the people taking a plunder.

And the scenario has seen so many places in the prophets.

But I'd like to give you a few, because this is an area that isn't commonly talked about. So I'm saying it, and I'm sure you're accepting my word as valid, but I want to give you a few that you can see with your own eyes. Isaiah chapter 10.

This is that famous woe to Assyria, the rot of my anger. When God says, I used you to chastise my people, and now, because you did it too aggressively, I will chastise you. Isaiah 10 verse 5, Woe to the Assyria, the rot of my anger and the shaft in whose hand is my indignation. I will send him against an ungodly nation, and against the people of my wrath, I will give him charge to seize the spoil, to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. Yet he does not mean so, nor does his heart think so, but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off not a few nations.

So we see what he has done. Jeremiah 30, just before where we were with the new covenant citation. We see what Assyria does in Isaiah 10. Now we see what God does in Jeremiah 30.

Jeremiah 30 in verse 16, he says, Therefore all those who devour you shall be devoured, and all your adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity, and those who plunder you shall become plunder. And all who prey upon you I will make a prey, for I will restore health to you. Heal your wounds, says the Lord.

So he says, I will give you the absolute wealth of the nations.

One more. Ezekiel 38.

This is the battle that I alluded to at the beginning of the millennium, the last time that we see God using force against the nations until the end, when the armies of Satan come up against Jerusalem after the millennium.

You get a little window of how Israel now looks, now that they've returned from captivity. What Jeremiah said in verse 16 and 17 of Jeremiah 30, that those who plundered will now become your plunder, and they've come back, they've been assigned their lands, they've set up residences, they've been there just long enough to have a physical presence and to look established.

When we see verse 10 of Ezekiel 38, and thus says the Lord God, on that day it shall come to pass that thoughts will arise in your mind. This is Gog, Magog, Meshach, Tubal, the princes of Rosh. These are all geographically identified. If you look at Jerusalem, you just go straight north and work a fan out about 45 degrees or possibly more. And geographically, everything on the far end of that before you get to the Pacific and Arctic Oceans are the ones thinking this way.

But they're not all. There's also Persia and Ethiopia and Libya and a few others who are thinking the same. Then says the Lord God, on that day it shall come to pass that thoughts will arise in your mind. That's speaking of the peoples that I just named. And you will make an evil plan. You will say, I will go up against the land of unwalled villages and I will go to a peaceful people who dwell safely, all of them dwelling within walls and having neither bars nor gates, to take plunder and to take booty, to stretch out your hands against the waste places that are again inhabited and against the people gathered from the nations who have acquired livestock and goods who dwell in the midst of the land. They look down and say, what a plum for the picking. They have absolutely no military defense.

And they are just loaded with goodies that I can take home as plunder and booty.

So they give it a try.

They give it a try to their own hurt.

Because in the next chapter, this is the end result. Jeremiah 39 in verse 8.

Surely it is coming and it shall be done, says the Lord God. This is the day of which I've spoken. Then those who dwell in the cities of Israel will go out and set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and bucklers, the bows and arrows, the javelins, spears. They will make fires with them for seven years.

They will not take wood from the field nor cut down any from the forest because they will make fires from the weapons. They will plunder those who plundered them and pillage those who pillaged them, says the Lord God. There will be, who knows what the quarter masters will bring down in order to wage this battle. But it says they will bring down so much usable material that the people who are already living in unwalled villages and in prosperity won't really have to look at any other energy sources for seven years because they'll be living off of the materials that were brought down to be used against them to plunder them. Now, this is sort of a backdoor. It's a powerful, but it's a backdoor illustration of what I was saying earlier. And that is, after God has brought back a humbled people and after he has given those people his Holy Spirit, they're to sell the way that was described in Deuteronomy 5, but they've got a carnal customer. And on the front end, what really looks good is, wow! These people were the joke of the world. They were the scorn of the world. They were the people that you shook your head at and said, nah, boy, look at the mess. And now look at them. They've got the best of the best. How did that happen? The more root and crude will simply say, I don't care how it happened. I'm just going to go down and get it. And Ezekiel 39 and 38 and 39 says, this is what happens to them. But there will be many, many people who will see it without trying to take it by force. What they see will be a tease. Every one of us who has been on the receiving end of a good salesman's pitch know what a tease is. You've got five days to make up your mind. This offer is only available. My wife and I, with the infomercials, we shake our head.

You almost get to the place where you chant with an infomercial, but wait! There's more! Well, why wait? And there's more. Well, that's the tease. If you stayed long enough with me to think that I might be interested in this, then let me give you a tease to push you over the top.

What I've been describing so far is only the tease. Our modern world provides a millennial reality check. That modern reality check is that the promise of success doesn't change people who seek to immigrate to lands like the one I live in and the one we're now in right now. As I said earlier, it provides them wealth, and often concurrent with that wealth is contempt for the lifestyle of the people who occupy the land that's providing them the wealth. And I don't have any trouble understanding that. If somebody comes here from another country and says, I don't want your culture, but I do want your prosperity, I don't take that as an insult. As a member of the Church of God and with God's calling, I say, I understand. I understand why you are where you are. I wish you weren't. I wish we weren't providing you that frame of mind. But that frame of mind is our fault, not your fault. In fact, frankly, if you said, wow, this is fabulous, I want to just absorb everything you have, I would say, we did a very bad job. You don't want to absorb everything. So what's going to sell? We have a tease. We've been chumming. We're teasing.

Unlike the modern nations today which descend from ancient Israel, where, as I said, people flock to share their prosperity while holding the lifestyle in contempt, people are going to flock to Jerusalem because of the conduct of the people that God has brought back from captivity. The prosperity is just a tease. The lifestyle is the product.

So we're going to see the total reversal. Instead of people immigrating to the U.S. and Canada, and as I said, Western European countries saying, I want the wages and I want the opportunities that you have, but I'm not interested in your lifestyle and your attitudes. We're going to have people saying, I like your prosperity and I like what I see there, but what I really want are your attitudes.

Complete total 180-degree turnaround. Remember the God who never changes and what he told ancient Israel.

Because in the millennium, they will have the heart.

In the millennium, they're going to hear what he said when he said, take my commandments and my laws and live them. And they say, I want to. I understand them here and I have a conscience that says it's the right way and it's a good way. And so what's the product going to be? People are going to say, who is this wise people? And who is a nation with such understanding? And who is their God?

Nothing sells like a testimonial and no testimonial sells like a testimonial lived. Let me say that again. Nothing sells like a testimonial, but there's no testimonial that sells like a testimonial that is lived. Turn with me to Zechariah chapter 8.

Zechariah chapter 8.

Verse 20.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, people shall yet come, inhabitants of many cities.

The inhabitants of one city will go to another, saying, let us continue and go and pray before the Lord and seek the Lord of hosts. I myself will go also. Once the dominoes begin to fall, once Deuteronomy is lived, people will say, I'm going to go up. I see what they have and I want it.

And as they move forward, you know there's nobody more infectious than a proselyte. You can't throttle a proselyte. Once they are infected and excited, there's no way you can put a sock in it. And so as they move forward and they get to their resting place for the night and they start talking before you know it, whoever they stayed with says, well, I'm going too. And so this is what we're seeing. The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, let's continue and go and pray before the Lord and seek the Lord of hosts. I myself will go also. Yes, many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to pray before the Lord. And the addendum is verse 23 that says, thus says the Lord of hosts, in those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.

Many of your commentators, I will pass it on. I can't vouch for it one way or the other, but they say the word ten simply is a numerical way of saying an indefinite number. So, in other words, people from everywhere, people from every corner of the earth, people from all sorts of nations, will look around for somebody who carries the label of the house of Israel, the house of Judah, will grab on and say, I want it. I'm not going to let you go. Teach me.

Phenomenal. You can see how it spreads. You can see how it moves. You can see how it proliferates.

The beautiful part of the millennium that we understand is that God will make the Holy Spirit available to all mankind. He starts with the house of Israel and Judah. But as those who grab hold to be taught, internalize what is taught, they also will receive God's Spirit. And it's a domino effect. It moves. It grows. It develops. That brings us to two scriptures that out of fairness I won't read because somebody else is going to read them during these seven days, and I'll leave it to them to read. But we all know Micah 4, 1, and 2. It says the same thing I've been saying to you. Let's go up and be taught by God.

And Isaiah chapter 2 is probably one of the most frequently quoted chapters in all of our Feast of Tabernacle observance. And in the beautiful scene of peace and tranquility and animals living together is that beautiful statement that the earth will be full of the knowledge of God as the waters fill the sea. God is going to sell the kingdom of God to the world by trained salesforce.

We have a tiny window into the future from the not too distant past. And I would ask the forbearance of my Canadian hosts to use an example from the United States.

I don't use it because it's exclusive. I use it simply because, I think, as we all know, if you get a good author and he gets a good subject, he provides a lesson simply because of his art and his skill and his observations. In the early part of the 19th century, this is an author that most of you know and some of you know very, very well, in the early 1800s or the 19th century, a French aristocrat who was a social scientist spent nine months in the United States, ostensibly there, to study its penal system. And he traveled in nine months every corner, from the east coast all the way to the foremost frontier, which would have been the state of Michigan, on the north, and all the way down to New Orleans, which would have been the frontier on the southwestern end of the country. And though his purpose for coming was to study the penal system, by the time he had finished his nine-month stay here, he had spent so much time immersing himself in society that he wrote one of the greatest volumes of the 19th century, entitled, Democracy in America. I'd like to read simply four snippets. These are not, these were not all together bunched in one place in his two-volume book. But I want to share with you a few observations, because there is a time in recent world history where just enough of an example has been put down for us that if we use it as a launch, we can envision how much more will be produced by a converted house of Israel and Judah in the millennium. He made these statements.

Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention. And the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things. In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America, I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country.

Religion in America must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country. For if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious belief. I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion, for who can search the human art? I have to interrupt right there because in the millennium, if you were writing this book, you'd have written that sentence differently, wouldn't you?

He would say, I do know that all the houses of Israel and Judah have a sincere faith because they have a changed heart. But he was looking at a carnal nation where he couldn't, in honesty, he couldn't make a statement about all the citizens. In fact, not all the citizens felt the same way, but there was a prevailing spirit.

He said, so I can't speak for all of them, but I am certain that they hold it, that is religion, to be indispensable to the maintenance of Republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society.

In the United States, the sovereign authority is religion. There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America.

He went on from there to say, as a concluding statement, I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her harbors, in her fertile fields, and boundless forests, in her rich minds and vast world commerce, in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her Democratic Congress and in their matchless Constitution. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

You know, these same things apply across all of the nations that constitute modern Israel.

He simply happened to be visiting in one country from another, but his statement is profound.

He came into a culture and said, this is what I see.

Multiply that exponentially. Multiply it, as I said earlier, when you can say, I can speak to the heart of everyone in this land. Change the whole dynamic.

When this world says, as he did, I see in those people who have returned from captivity a people who are good, and I understand where their goodness came from, and I want that same goodness. This is how God is going to sell the kingdom of God.