SOUND DOCTRINE

That was a severe trial for those of us who loved the truth, who have a love of the truth. And a love of the truth, well, that's a major difference between those who stayed with the truth and those who didn't, because a love of the truth, between those who love the truth and those who don't, it is a major, major difference. And I think maybe inadvertently we didn't emphasize love of the truth enough.

We emphasize the truth, but I don't think we emphasize love of the truth enough. Or inadvertently people didn't realize how important that is for the preservation of the truth. If you turn with me to 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 10. 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 10. As I read this, I think about the reality of what a separating point that was back at that time, when truth was polluted, corrupted, butchered, and abandoned. And what a role that played in those who were all for the abandonment of the truth and those who weren't.

See, here in 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 10, and just breaking into it, the chapter and all about the man of sin and falling away from the truth and all, but just reading this verse here in regards to the statements I've just made. And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish or that are perishing, because they received not the love of the truth, doesn't say they didn't receive the truth, at least on some level, but they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved.

The love of the truth is always so crucial to maintaining doctrinal integrity. And maintaining doctrinal integrity is necessary for having spiritually healthy congregations. And spiritually healthy congregations are necessary for doing a work. So maintaining doctrinal integrity and doing a work go hand in hand. You really can't have one without the other. See, doctrinal integrity is truth. Truth is doctrinal integrity.

And you cannot do a work of truth, obviously, without it. So when the United Church of God began in 1995, the love of the truth and doing a work, which was so deeply embedded in our spiritual DNA, so spiritually embedded in our fiber, was a motivating force in how the structure of the United Church of God was set up.

Because, see, there was the greatest desire and motivation to, number one, maintain and preserve the truth. That was foremost. We had just seen it butchered, sliced, diced, polluted, corrupted, abandoned. We saw that happen in front of our eyes and couldn't stop it where we were.

So there was the greatest desire and motivation to, number one, maintain and preserve and protect the truth, to maintain doctrinal integrity, and number two, to do a work. That zeal was still there to do a work. Those two things. So we set ourselves into a configuration of checks and balances. When the ministry came together that initially formed the part of the body of Jesus Christ called the United Church of God, we set ourselves into a configuration of checks and balances. And those checks and balances would employ the principle of, and it was based on the principle of, a multitude of counselors.

Read three scriptures with me. First is Proverbs 11, verse 14. Proverbs 11 and verse 14. And this has to do with a multitude of counselors and the value of such. It says, where no counsel is, the people fall. But in the multitude of counselors, there is safety. People don't want their purposes to fail. People don't want to be unsafe. And so we're told in a multitude of counselors there is safety.

Any time we're undertaking certain purposes, or where we want things to be safe, remain safe, etc., be successful, plugging into others, sounding boards, getting various input, opinions, thoughts, it's a good practice. Verse is always going unilaterally. Okay, the second one is Proverbs 15, 22. Proverbs 15 and verse 22. I think we all know the disappointment of starting out on a purpose, and it may be a very worthy purpose. And we have high hopes, and we can't get it done.

Or we do something that we don't mean to, but undermines it, causes it to crash and burn. And the disappointment that comes from that, it says without counsel, purposes are disappointed. Purposes are disappointed without counsel. But in the multitude of counselors, they are established. And then Proverbs 24, 6. All of these, dealing with that foundation of a multitude of counselors underpinning you. Proverbs 24 and verse 6.

Now, at first, this might sound, well, how's this going to apply? I don't war. I don't go to war. Proverbs 24 verse 6, whereby wise counsel, you shall make your war. Now, you can point out examples where wars in this age have been made to have successful outcomes because of counsels that were taken. And, of course, generally, whether it was Eisenhower as Supreme Commander, Allied Commander in Europe, or its American generals, MacArthur or Grant or Lee or whoever, they would hold counsels with their subordinate generals, because they wanted to be successful in whatever battle or war they were fighting.

But how does this apply to us? For by wise counsel, you shall make your war. And in multitude of counsels, there is safety. And if you're in war, you definitely want safety. I have been at war ever since my childhood. I have been on a spiritual battlefield ever since my childhood. I've been involved in a spiritual warfare ever since I was a child. And long ago, came to realize it will not finish until either Christ returns or I go to the grave. I am in warfare, and I want to be successful in my spiritual warfare.

And I take counsel. I utilize the principle, multitude of counselors. One of my counselors is prayer with God. One of my counselors, obviously, is the Bible. There's counselors through fellowship. There's counsel through physical and spiritual brothers and sisters in Christ. But to help ensure that we would operate as a church body with proper checks and balances, and on the basis of a multitude of counselors, to help ensure that we set up a council of twelve, called the Council of Elders.

COE for short. Now, when United was incorporated, May the 10th, 1995, we had nine, but everything was being put together. And that December, when the ministry all came in for our first big major conference, after we'd gotten going as a church organization, then we confirmed certain things in December of that year, and at that time expanded the nine to twelve. And, of course, our whole idea, too, was to do as close as we could with our set up an organization, as close to the New Testament model as we possibly could do.

So we set up a council of twelve, the Council of Elders, and those twelve men, each serves a certain term, and they all serve the same length of term, but they're on a rotational basis, and they are appointed by the entire eldership of the church. We purposely, purposely, with intent, avoided a singular, supreme human power position. We purposely avoided that. There was not one that was made obvious by God with Mr. Armstrong that should be in charge of everything. And so, in the absence of that, and based on the experience we had just come out with an apostate in that singular position, we set up a situation of configuration of government to where we avoided a singular, supreme human power position, and the twelve of the council have the ecclesiastical oversight of the church.

Within the Council of Elders, those twelve forms itself into various committees. Three of the men will be on this committee. Let's say three will be on that committee, maybe four on that one, four on that one, three on this one. And some of them, of course, overlap, obviously. But they will form themselves into various committees for the purpose of carrying out certain roles and responsibilities and oversights. And one of those committees is the doctrinal committee. And, of course, that's probably about as important a committee as there is on the Council of Elders. And, being the doctrinal committee, its obvious purpose is to deal with doctrine.

It has the purpose of maintaining doctrinal integrity, or to put it another way, to maintain sound doctrine. If you'd like a title for the sermon, the subject, what I'm talking about today, is sound doctrine. Sound doctrine, which is so crucial to the spiritual health of an organization, a church, a congregation, and for doing a work. Sound doctrine. Now, the doctrinal committee is composed of members of the Council of Elders. But the doctrinal committee also has two subcommittees. Those subcommittees are called the doctrinal advisory committee and the prophecy advisory committee. These two subcommittees are composed of elders who are not on the Council of Elders.

I currently serve on the prophecy advisory committee and have for a number of years. My term will run out in 2023. Even though there's the doctrinal advisory committee, and obviously they would deal more with what is generally considered straight doctrinal issues, they get some of the prophecy stuff to look at. The prophecy subcommittee that I serve on, we sometimes get straight doctrinal stuff to look at. Of course, prophecy can become a part of doctrine anyway, for that matter.

But if a lay member or elder believes that a traditional teaching of the church is wrong or it's lacking, and he or she believes they have a more correct or accurate understanding, there is a process by which they can submit that. To be looked at and to be considered.

If it is truly with merit, if it truly has merit, and it warrants a change, then a change will be made. But it truly must have merit. It must have accurate scriptural basis, and it must go through a process that really does check the integrity of it based on Scripture. It has to have accurate scriptural basis because our teachings have to be sound. They have to be defensible. What we teach from the pulpit and to the public, through the telecast, etc., has got to have clear-cut, plain, clear-cut support from Scriptures.

Dogma cannot be supported by gray, vague, unclear Scriptures. In the arena of Scripture, there are two types of Scripture. Number one, there are those that are very clear. They are black and white. There is no ambiguity to them. There is no question about them. They are very plain. They are very straightforward. They are very clear. They are in black and white.

Then there are those that are unclear, that are vague, that are gray, that we can ponder and wonder about.

From or due to these two types of Scriptures, then we have two categories of number one, Dogma, that which we can be dogmatic about. See, I don't have to quibble about when is the weekly Sabbath. That is so clear-cut and clear and in black and white. It's the seventh day. The Bible says so. The Scriptures are so clear. If somebody wants to argue with me that the fifth day of the week is the Sabbath, I don't have to waste my time arguing with them. I show them the Scriptures. If they don't want to believe that, fine. It's your choice.

But this is what the Scriptures say. If you want to do what you want to do on your opinion, fine. I'm just not going to waste time debating you. But if you want to accept what the Bible says, see, that's not vague. The Sabbath day is not vague. And there are many things that are not vague. And we can be dogmatic about those things.

Can we be dogmatic about Christ coming back at the last Trump, the seventh Trumpet? Yes, because it's clear. It's not vague as to when Christ is coming back prophetically based on the blowing of trumpets. Things like that. But then, number two, there's the category of speculation that which we can't be dogmatic about. We can't be dogmatic about speculation. Now, let's understand something. It's okay to wonder and ponder. I think we all do that to a degree. Well, I wonder about this. I wonder about that. Well, I've been pondering about that. I wonder how that's going to shake out. Could it be this way? Hmm. Could it be that way? Hmm. To wonder and ponder and to talk about it? Fine. To speculate? Fine. Well, what if God does... Maybe it's going to be this way. Well, maybe this scripture means this. Well, maybe it means that. That's okay. As long as you don't form doctrine based on speculation. And as long as you're not dogmatic about it. And by the way, with that second type of scripture, unclear, vague, gray, the parameters that are set by the black and white, then the gray scriptures that relate to a subject that's clear-cut with black and white, those gray scriptures can't be outside those boundaries. They have to fall somewhere within the parameters of those black and white scriptures that deal with that same subject that the gray one is in. Dogma, doctrine, can only be based on clear-cut, black and white, non-speculative scripture. That's what makes it sound. And that's what produces sound doctrine. And I can tell you, the committees, we get papers submitted. We get a lot of papers over time submitted. Some of the papers that we have submitted to us, sometimes the author of those papers want us to come down dogmatically on something that they've discovered that is strictly in the arena of speculation. And we can't come down dogmatically because it's not dogmatic. And we have to simply say, look, we cannot preach this as doctrine because it doesn't have support from scripture as doctrine. Because, again, sound doctrine is defensible and it stands the test of time. Doctrine that is formed on speculation is vague. It's unclear. It's unsound. Doctrine and integrity is diminished. The doctrine cannot be truly supported and defended. And when you push as dogma, speculation, then you undermine your credibility with doctrine that truly is provable and defensible.

It's kind of like if you show somebody ten points and nine of them are totally valid and the tenth one isn't, then you just weaken the other nine. It's better that you not even bring in a tenth point if it has no place and keep it all according to integrity. But if doctrine is based on speculation, that goes against and contradicts the clear black and white scriptures, then it actually becomes false doctrine.

Sound doctrine is so crucial. It's truly based on Scripture. It doesn't contradict it. It's defensible. It's healthy. It's balanced. It builds up and identifies. And that's why we require. That's why we started off in the United requiring sound doctrine. And that's why God requires sound doctrine. It's a requirement. Follow through with me on a number of scriptures. 1 Timothy 4.16 Now again, we realize that the books of Timothy and Titus are pastoral books. It's pastoral guidance by Paul.

We can call them that, which they are. That doesn't mean that they are exclusive of the late membership.

It just means that these principles that apply to all of us, that those who teach, those who pastor, they must take them even more diligently to heart and set the bar higher for themselves as far as what they exact of themselves.

But notice here in 1 Timothy 4 and verse 16, he says, "...take heed to yourself and unto the doctrine." Really pay attention to the doctrine, Timothy, to focusing on doctrine here. Continue in them, both in vigilance to himself, yes, and to the doctrine. But I'm focusing in on the doctrinal part here. Take heed, see, to the doctrine. Continue in the doctrine because I'm just isolating and putting the focus, the highlight on that. Because that is part of what's intrinsic to this verse. For in doing this, you shall both save yourself, because, Timothy, if you get off into false doctrine, how are you going to wind up with salvation if you wander off into false doctrine?

For in doing this, you shall both save yourself, and you're not going to be misleading others off into false doctrine. So in that sense, you're going to be saving yourself and them that hear you. 2 Timothy 1.13. 2 Timothy 1. 2 Timothy 1 and verse 13. Hold fast. And every time I see in Scripture, hold fast, I think about get a grip. You know, hold fast. Hold fast just means you get a grip and you really tighten that grip down. And you tighten that grip down to the degree that you have to tighten that grip down, not to lose what you're supposed to be gripping and hanging on to.

Hold fast. Get a grip. Hold fast what? The form of sound words. Sound words. Sound teachings. You know, God's Spirit is the Spirit of love and power and a sound mind. Sound doctrine is sound words. It's the putting together of words of God that lay out what His truth is and what His expectations are. Hold fast the form of sound words which you have heard of Me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. And then Titus 2. Titus 2.

He instructs Titus in verse 1. Titus 2 in verse 1, he says, But speak you the things which become sound doctrine, the things which become or which are fitting to, which make for sound doctrine. Verse 7. Verse 7, In all things showing yourself a pattern of good works, in doctrine showing uncorruption, gravity, sincerity. In verse 8, sound speech that cannot be condemned. That he that is of the contrary part, contradictory part, may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.

And then Titus 1 here, in verse 5, Titus 1 and verse 5, he says, For this cause left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are wanting and ordained, appoint ordained elders in every city, as I had appointed you. And then when you go down to verse 9, there's those two words again in the active sense, holding fast, retaining, keeping, not losing, holding fast the faithful word, as he has been taught, holding fast the faithful word, as he has been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine, both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. So crucially important. And he tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 2, 2, 2 in verse 2, And the things that you have heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit you to faithful men, faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.

Sound doctrine is a prime, front-line requirement of an elder or any teacher, ordained or not ordained. Sound doctrine is a prime, front-line requirement of an elder or any teacher, ordained or unordained, because that is needed for him to fulfill what the purpose of an elder is. And I'm focusing the sound doctrine part on the elder more specifically, but again, this issue of sound doctrine does apply to all teachers.

Because in Ephesians 4 verses 11 through 15, what's the purpose of an elder? Well, one place where you can define that is here. Peter was an elder, but he was an apostle. He himself said, I'm an elder, but he was given apostolic responsibilities. And so you find here in Ephesians 4 verse 11 that he Christ, God and Christ, gave some apostles, and I'm not an apostle. And some prophets, and I'm not a prophet. And some evangelists, and I'm not an evangelist.

And some pastors, and I'm a pastor. And teachers, and I'm a teacher. Of course, all of them are teachers, but as far as certain responsibilities and all, for what purpose? For the maturing, the perfecting, the building up, the edifying, the furthering. For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying or building up of the body of Christ. To what? To we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.

To a perfect, or that is complete, or that is mature man or woman. To the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro.

And again, this is something that's been part of the history of the church ever since it was... ever since shortly after it was established in 31 A.D. Carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men. We've had to deal with that type of thing all along the way, and still do to this day.

And cunning craftiness, whereby they lie and wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head even Christ. Edifying for the building up. And he is to feed the flock. You know, 1 Peter 5, 1 Peter 5, verses 1 and 2, Peter writes this, The elders which are among you, I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed, feed the flock of God, which is among you.

Taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind, feed the flock. And when he said this, wrote this, in his 60's, he probably well remembered back to when he was somewhere around early 30's, maybe mid 30's. When on that seashore in John 21, Christ said, Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, feed my sheep. You sure you love me? Yes, Lord, feed my sheep. Now, are you really, really sure you love me, Peter? Yes, Lord, then feed my sheep.

When he wrote this, and he says, feed the flock of God, there was no way that in his thoughts there wasn't real close connection, thoughts side by side, and he was also reflecting back, and now he has spent 30-something years, roughly, in having fed God's flock, and he's admonishing them to do that.

But the elder, and again, the teacher, his contribution must be sound and solid. It has to add to the body, not take away. You can talk about the church in various terms, but here's some terms I always think of in regards to the church, 1 Timothy 3.15. When I think of the church, I think of the church in these terms. There's other terms also in which I do, but these terms are very important to me, especially as a teacher.

1 Timothy 3.15. Paul says, If I tarry or wait long, that you may know how you ought to behave yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, which is what? The pillar and ground of the truth, or the stay or the preservation of the truth. In other words, okay, the church is to be the pillar and ground of the truth. So what I teach and preach, does it add to that truth? Does it support that truth? Or does it undermine that truth? Does it diminish that truth? Does it weaken that truth? That's crucial. And there's only one way I'm going to do it that's pleasing to God. But see, the church of the living God is to be the pillar and ground of the truth.

We should be able to find God's truth there being practiced and lived as the preserving ground of the truth. And we have to be a promoter of that. We have to be an asset. We cannot allow ourselves as teachers to become a liability. And we always have to be clothed with humility. I should have said, well, I'm going back to Peter.

Well, I'm saying it now, but you've already left it. 1 Peter 5, 5. In 1 Peter 5, in verse 5, you know the value and the importance of always being clothed with humility. Peter goes on to say there in that chapter that we have been in in the first two verses. But here in verse 5, Likewise, you younger submit yourselves to the elder. Yes, all of you, the younger and the older, all of you elders, be subject one to another and be clothed with humility. See, in the multitude of counselors and with the system we set up, what guarantees it to be successful is if we operate with humility with each other, if we're willing to submit to each other.

And that's the system that we set in place as best we could. All you elders, young ones, old ones, all be subject one to another and be clothed with humility. We must be willing to submit to the scrutiny of our fellow elders. That is an application of and exercising of the principle of a multitude of counselors, and there is safety in it. There's safety for the elder. There's safety for the teacher.

And there's safety for the church. And it also has the productive effort of iron sharpening iron. We must not. One must not allow himself to fall in the trap of thinking more highly of himself than he ought. You find that in Romans 12.3, that admonishment by Paul for none of us to think of ourselves more highly than we ought.

And he must never succumb to the snare that he has new truth. When somebody comes to me and maybe they're all excited, or maybe they've got this dead, serious look on their face about, I'm taking no truck about this. I mean, I've got new truth.

I cringe inside. I may not show it outside, but I cringe because I don't know how many times over the years people have, quote, found new truth, latched onto it, they're sure of it, and they're going to stick to it no matter what. And it's not new truth. It's false and leads them aside into spiritual shipwreck. I heard a saying years ago when I was young, and it's been part of my guiding light as a teacher. And it goes like this. Something old in an old way is boring. Something new in a new way is heretical. Something old in a new way is interesting.

See, God's truths never change. And the tremendously varied ways they can be presented for more deeply embedding them in our makeup, in our thinking, in our living, there's no end to that. There really isn't. And that's why it counts. But we have run into those over the years who discovered, quote, new truth, which really wasn't new truth. And we're going to teach it no matter what. And, of course, the apostasy that occurred in the church was done under the guise of new truth, if you remember.

I remember a pastor that I'd worked with calling me and saying, you know, all of this new truth and all, and I just stopped him. He was on the phone. I said, look, you and I used to sit in visits together and be hit with that by people we were visiting, new people we were visiting. They would hit us with those things. We counted that from Scripture years ago. That's not new truth. And you know it. And he just shut down.

As elders, we are again held to a higher standard. We have to hold ourselves to a higher standard. And in James 3, 1, this is brought out. The bar is set higher.

I don't know how God will factor these things out in the way he judges. That's up to him. But I do take him at his word on what he inspired to be written where he said in James 3 verses 1 and 2, he says, God is going to be more exacting of those who teach. And then he goes on to say, for in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same as a perfect man, a mature man, and they will also deprive the whole body. Just talking about how it's so easy as human beings, that capacity to misspeak or say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing, it's something that has to be guarded against.

But let's take many things we offend all, and he's actually giving a warning and he's saying in his own way, preach sound words. Preach sound doctrine. Consider that truism in this light. A new person out there follows the telecast. Maybe they've been following it for quite some time.

And they're getting our literature and they're reading and they're studying. They listen, they read it, they check it out with the Bible, what they're hearing on the telecast, what they're reading in the literature. They're saying, yeah, it matches the Bible right there. And they come to the conclusion that we're biblical. They come to the conclusion that we're obviously part of a congregation of the true church. So they decide to attend. And as they're attending, they hear things in a message that contradict the message they're hearing on the telecast.

They are hearing a message, things in a message that contradict what they read in our literature. What are they to think? How can we expect it not to be confusing and cause offense to them? And thus, a stumbling block for a potential babe in Christ. And what about the veteran members of the congregation? How does it make them feel? Well, it's disconcerting. It's unsettling. It's discouraging.

It doesn't comfort. It doesn't edify. It doesn't build up. It has a negative and diminishing effect, a demoralizing effect. And obviously, such message has no valid place or reason. As a pastor, I want to state again what I have before, as in times past, as to what my prime responsibilities are as a pastor. Number one, to teach the truth as fully and clearly as I possibly can. That's what God expects of me.

Teach the truth as fully as you possibly and clearly can. Number two, to assist anybody, to assist anyone in any way that I can to attain to the Kingdom of God, in any way that I can to help them to attain to the Kingdom. I can't put them in. I can't keep them out. But I can be an asset or a liability. And part of my job as a pastor is to assist in whatever way that I can to help them to attain, to be an asset in that fight of faith, in that running their course. And number three, to do what's in my power to maintain a congregation of peace and stability, to do what's within my power.

Not everything is within my power, but in terms of what's within my power to do what I can to help maintain a congregation of peace and stability. See, I always keep and bear this in mind and have favor that this pulpit is not my pulpit. It's not yours and it's not mine. It's God's. This is God's pulpit. If this is the Church of God, if we're part of the body of Jesus Christ, then this pulpit is not my pulpit.

And I never let myself come to think, oh, I've got to get in my pulpit. No, no, it's not mine. You know, perspective is so important. And number two, you folks are not my sheep. If I claim you as my sheep, I'm lying. You are not my sheep. You don't belong to me. It's not my blood on you that you're washed in. You're God's sheep. You're washed in the blood of Christ. If you're baptized in Christ, you're washed in His blood, not mine.

But along with you, I'm washed in His blood, too. You're sheep, and I'm a sheep. And I'm just simply a sheep. I'm a brother, a sheep that has simply been given pastoral responsibilities for a time.

These perspectives are so important to bear in mind, and it really does help to create the foundation upon which I, and which any elder or any teacher speaks from, and should help them to have the proper perspective to help them to preach sound doctrine.

In the arena of prophecy, there are prophecies that are clear. And I'll focus in terms of sound doctrine, and to make the points, I'll focus a little bit more on the prophetic side of doctrine and such, because I deal with that more.

But in the arena of prophecy, there are prophecies that are clear that we can know and be dogmatic about. And there's prophecies that we just don't know about yet.

We can only speculate about. But to take a dogmatic approach with speculation, then that is to create faulty doctrine.

And to go against clear-cut black and white Scripture is to create false doctrine.

There's no saying, if you're serious, you've gone too far, and if you're joking, well, you've gone far enough. Of course, that speaks to crossing a line.

And again, a man may wander and ponder. We all do. That's okay. I wander and ponder, and that's okay.

And a speaker might speculate, and I might get up here and say, brethren, you know, something I've been thinking about, this is just personal.

This is just personal thought. It's not policy. It's not doctrine. It's just something I wonder about.

And just food for thought. But it's just speculation on my part and something I'm wondering and pondering about. That's okay, as long as I make it clear that that's what it is.

But when something is dogmatically taught, I have seen, had to deal with situations where somebody got up, and under the guise of, quote, speculation, dogmatically taught it to be the way it truly is.

When speculation directly contradicts Scripture, simple, plain, straightforward Scripture, that's not okay, because we have to build our dogma, our doctrine, on, including prophecy, on Scripture. I don't guess where.

What we can be dogmatic about? Folks, I think we all know, don't we? We're dogmatic about it. But what we can only speculate on? Well, we only speculate on.

So again, with sound doctrine, speculation never contradicts dogma. The gray areas never contradict the black and white.

Again, focus a bit on the sound doctrine in the area of prophecy for a moment. Over many years, with much thorough study, over many years, decades in fact, with much thorough study, a mainframe of prophecy has been established and is based on what's clear in the Bible.

And that mainframe is based on some very foundational points. One of those major points, one of the major points of understanding end-time prophecies is the identity of the modern-day descendants of the sons of Joseph, Ephraim, and Manasseh.

These two are the birthright tribes of Israel. The others, none of the others are. Judah is not a birthright tribe. The birthright tribe, the birthright came down upon Joseph. That's like the double blessing. That's the intense blessings.

That came down on the head of Joseph, down upon the heads of his sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.

Judah is the scepter tribe. That's where the king came from. That's the kingship tribe. David, Jesus, came as a Jew. Coming back as a king. Judah is the scepter tribe.

There are major prophecies of the end-time involving Israel, especially in particular the birthright tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, as well as the scepter tribe of Judah. That's why, again, a major key of understanding prophecy is understanding who and where they are today. I remember a member who told me one Sabbath many years ago. He said, I was talking with a co-worker at work this week.

Of course, the member is talking to me, and his co-worker wasn't in the church. He said, my co-worker said, Glenn, have you been reading the Bible and the prophecies? Boy, there's some scary stuff in there. Glenn said, yeah. And then the co-worker said to him, sure, glad America's not mentioned in there anywhere. If he only knew. If he only knew.

But understanding who and where they are, Ephraim and Manasseh. Israel is not in the Middle East. Israel is not in the Middle East. Ephraim is not there. Manasseh is not there. The house of Israel, the entire northern ten tribes, were removed from there long ago and never went back. They have never gone back. They have never returned. What is there in the Middle East is Judah, the house of Judah, which was comprised of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi. The Scripture is very plain that Israel will not be back there. The two houses will not be reunited and rejoined together as one house again until the return of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of David to rule over them. Notice with me Ezekiel 34, just to bear this out, because again, it's an example of clear Scripture. In Ezekiel 34, verse 23, God says, David will live again, and he's going to be resurrected. He's going to serve. Part of his job description and responsibility will be what we're going to read out here. He shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd, and I the Lord will be their guide, and my servant David, a prince among them, I the Lord have spoken it. Now, look at chapter 37, and we'll read this pretty quickly, verses 15 through 25. Beginning in verse 15 of chapter 37, the word of the Lord came to me saying, Moreover, you son of man, take a stick, write on it Judah, for Judah, and for the children of Israel, his companions, you know, Benjamin and Levi. And then take another stick and write up on it for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, because Ephraim was the leader. If you know the account, how it was done, he became the leading tribe of the other ten.

The stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel, his companions, and there were ten of them, total. Two sticks, join them into one stick, take the two, and put them together, and they shall become one in your hand. And when the children of your people shall speak to you, saying, Will you not show us what you mean by this, what you're doing?

Say to them, verse 19, Say to them, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, the leadership tribe of the house of Israel, and the tribes of Israel, his fellows, total of ten, all of them, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and there shall be one in my hand.

And the sticks were upon, you right, shall be in your hand before their eyes, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, where they be going, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land. And I will make them one nation, remember the kingdom split under Rehoboam, into the house of Judah, and the house of Israel.

I will make them one nation, in the land upon the mountain of Israel, and one king shall be king to them all, and they shall be no more two nations or two kingdoms.

Neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all. Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions, for I will save them out of all the dwelling places wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them.

So shall they be my people, and I will be their guide. And David, my servant, shall be king over them, and they all shall have one shepherd.

They shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob, my servant wherein your fathers have dwelt, and they shall dwell therein. Even they, their children, their children's children forever, and my servant David shall be their prince forever and ever.

Speaking of a time, when the house of Judah and Israel will all be back together after Christ returns, after David is resurrected, that's not conjecture.

That's not speculation. That's not vague. That's not ambiguous. It's scriptural. And we preach that, and we teach that.

The modern-day descendants of Joseph don't call themselves the names of Ephraim and Manasseh. That's one reason they don't really know who they are.

But a different name on the same people means they're still the same people.

A different name doesn't change the reality of who they are. And as we say, a rose by a different name still smells the same.

Someday, Britain and America will know that they are the birthright tribes of Joseph. I don't know at what point that they will fully, fully be exposed to that, but they will be. They will know who they are.

And as the birthright promises included, many of the nations would be blessed in them.

And many of the nations would be represented in them, as well as the rest of Israel would also be represented in them.

There are other Israelite-ish nations around the world, but in the United States of America, you can find parts of all the tribes who reside here.

But it's the land of Manasseh. And you can find people of all nations represented here, too.

But when you look at the blessings and cursings chapters of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, they apply to Israel, but they apply most fully to Ephraim and Manasseh, Britain and America.

Than any other tribes of the house of Israel, including Judah.

But God's prophecies include far more than just the lands of the Middle East, the house of Judah.

They deal with so many peoples and so many lands, and so many peoples today who are descendants of those ancient peoples.

And through their descendants, those ancient peoples are still on the scene today. Maybe by a different name, but God knows who they are.

You know, the heart and core of Germany, of the Germanic tribes, are the descendants of the ancient Assyrians.

The ancient Assyrians were the descendants of Asher, A-S-S-H-U-R, of the lineage of Shem.

I became a great empire. If you know where to go today in Germany, if you know the archives and all to go to, you could do your own personal search and trace it.

And if I'm not wrong, there are some Germanic peoples who know where they came from, but most of them probably have lost their identity just like we have.

But they're still around, and it's in the Germanic tribes, Germany in particular today, that Assyria is still around.

Another primary major key to understanding prophecy, which is part of the mainframe, is understanding the image of Daniel 2, the image of the four world-ruling empires.

Now, I'm going someplace with this.

You know the account, so we don't have to scripturally go there to go through the account, but Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian empire, that was the head of gold.

He was the first one, and he was plainly told that.

His Babylonian empire was superseded, swallowed up by the Medo-Persian, which in turn was superseded, swallowed up by the Grecian, which in due time was swallowed up by the Roman Empire.

Nothing unclear about that.

The image shows a progressive and continuous chronology.

It starts with Nebuchadnezzar, and it ends with the return of Jesus Christ.

You have the head of gold Babylon, you have the breast and arms of silver Medo-Persian, you have the belly and thighs or sides of brass Grecian, and you have the legs of iron and the feet that were part iron and part clay mixed.

That's wrong.

And the legs of iron extend down to the toes.

The legs, the division, the division of the empire, and of course coming down to the time of the toes when a stone not cut out with hands smites the image on its feet.

And of course, that's the rock Jesus Christ returning, and returning to set up his kingdom.

And so it is clear when you look at his dream and the interpretation that God gave Daniel to give to Nebuchadnezzar, it's clear that there is a progressive chronology here moving along.

And no one who objectively looks at the evidence denies that Rome is the fourth kingdom.

Have you ever doubted that Rome is that fourth kingdom?

Well, what if you have an elder who gets up and says that Rome is not that fourth kingdom in spite of the historical evidence, in spite of the Bible, the historical evidence, but dogmatically states that Rome is not that fourth kingdom? Think about this. It's this beast, it was Rome, this beast or kingdom in one form or another that exists right down to the return of Christ.

And there's going to be resurrections of it, yes, and have been.

But it was Rome that ruled Judea when Christ came.

It was Roman soldiers that crucified Christ that carried it out.

It was the Roman Empire that persecuted spiritual Israel, the Church.

It was the Roman Empire under Emperor Constantine that combined church and state to form the Holy Roman Empire.

It was the Holy Roman Empire that persecuted the true Church through the Middle Ages.

It was the Holy Roman Empire that instigated and ran the Inquisition.

It's the great whore of Revelation.

It has been revived a number of times with one last and final time yet to go.

The religious side of it has been set and continuous.

The state side of it has risen and fallen over time.

But it was prophesied to have a continuous life, a continuum or a continuation right down at the time of Christ's return. It will be on the scene at the time that Christ returns and He will smash it.

There is no doubt who the fourth kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar's image is.

There's something else that...

Can any one of you tell me when Christ will return?

Well, if you say at the seventh trumpet, I'll say, yeah, that's scriptural.

But can any of you tell me the year that He returns?

That's just narrowed down to the year. Can you tell me the year He returns?

I don't think any of us would be so bold as to say.

But when you get an elder who stands in this pulpit, not this one here, but stands in God's pulpit and says, Jesus Christ will return in 2031, and not only in 2031, but at the midpoint of the year.

You've got a problem.

Because not only is that teaching falsely something that's not factual or misleading, I don't know if Christ will return in 2031 or 2025. I know He won't return next year. I know He won't return three years from today's date.

He can't because there's prophecies that have time frames.

Have you ever read about the two witnesses? Sure you have. The two witnesses preached for three and a half years.

Now you'll find a mention of Revelation 11 for one place.

And you have the two witnesses.

Before I read that, let me read Matthew 24. I'm very familiar with it.

Matthew 24. It says in verses 21 and 22, Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world for this time, Nor ever shall be, and except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved.

It's going to be so bad during what's called the great tribulation that those days are not cut short.

If there's not an intervention, no life's going to be left alive.

But for the elect's sake, the church's sake, those days shall be shortened.

And was it that does the shortening? Well, it's what is mentioned in verses 29 and 30. It's the returning Jesus Christ.

It's the returning Jesus Christ. So you have this trouble that is so bad that if it's not cut short, If something or somebody doesn't intervene to stop it, it's going to wipe out all life. But it is cut short for the church's sake. And what cuts it short is the return of Jesus Christ. And that's pretty clear, isn't it? Nothing ambiguous. So if you look at the two witnesses in Revelation 11, their testimony is for three and a half years. It's during the time of the Great Tribulation that they are preaching out of Jerusalem.

And it says over there in Revelation 11 that when they finish their testimony, in verse 7, when they finish their testimony of their three and a half years of preaching, that they are killed, they are murdered. And it says, their dead bodies lie in the street for three and a half days. They are not allowed to be buried. They are out in the street where the world, through technology, can see their dead bodies for three and a half days. And it says after the three and a half days that they rise back up alive again and ascend up. You can read the account. I'll spare the time of reading through it. And it's in that same chapter of these two witnesses preaching for three and a half years, then being dead for three and a half days, lying in the streets of Jerusalem, and then being resurrected in that same chapter, verse 15, that we're so familiar with about. And the seventh angel sounded, and the statements made that the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our God and His Christ. You've got good, clear chronology. So, how in the world, after the two witnesses are killed, can you squeeze in, after the two witnesses are killed, you squeeze in three and a half years, a three and a half year period after that, that is a time of tremendous peace and prosperity on the earth produced by the beast and the false prophet? And I use the word, squeeze, because how do you squeeze it into that chronology? You cannot. It's a total contradiction. But when an elder preaches, Rome is not the fourth kingdom. Christ is coming back in 2031 and a half. And the beast and false prophet, after they kill the two witnesses, they will produce a three and a half year period of tremendous peace and prosperity on the planet, and Christ will come back then and crush them. I had to deal with that elder. And when I dealt with him, if he couldn't preach that kind of stuff, he just wouldn't preach at all. In fact, he wouldn't even attend. He was so locked into false doctrine. These things are real to me. And I think they're all real to all of us, because we've all dealt with this, due to what we had to deal with worldwide when it started breaking up. We're still dealing with it today. A name that most of you would know if I mentioned it to you. One of the things we had to deal with was this false doctrine. That it's the Father whose feet touches the Mount of Olives and takes charge of the earth. It's the Father who interfaced with Abraham. It's the Father who led Israel in the wilderness. It's the Father who's here ruling on the Millennium. The Father, the Father. It's the Father doing that, not Christ. In spite of the clear, clear, clear evidences to the contrary, that it's Jesus that the Father is sending back. And once he's taken care of everything, he hands the kingdom and everything up to the Father, and the Father comes to this earth.

That is so clear in Scripture. But in spite... And here's something you'll find out, folks. If somebody is dead-set on something, they will not let facts get in the way. We lost that minister, and he had some high position in the church. But also, some other elders went with him, and some members went with him. And it's sad. And over doctrine that is false. Doctrine that contradicts the Scripture. Doctrine that is so easily disproven, and we thoroughly disproved it to him as anybody can, clearly from Scripture. But don't want to see that, because I want to believe what I want to believe, and I'm not going... Nope, nope, nope, nope. Really sad. Again, unsound and false doctrine. And whether it has to do with prophecies about those progressive kingdoms, has to do when Christ comes back, has to do with any of that and all kinds of other things. It is so crucial, and every time I run into false doctrine, he just really bears out to me, again, how important it is that we stay on the footing, the foundation of sound doctrine. Because it's defensible, it's provable, you are on solid footing. Pray for all the elders of the church. Pray for all the teachers that we may be and remain yielded instruments in God's hands to truly feed the flock of God with sound doctrine.