Teaching the Teachable

Good morning, brethren. It's good to be here on a rainy day in Branson, inside instead of outside. I appreciate the setup that Mr. Dobson gave me. As he said, I am by nature punctual. And then he let you know that he gave me all the time I wanted. I will still try to remain punctual. Looking at the time I expect to be finished before noon, and that'll keep me in that split sermon range. I'd like to thank the chorale. As I've listened to the chorale during the time we've been here, I reminisced at being a part of the ambassador chorale and knowing how much time and effort goes into serving in that particular job during the Feast of Tabernacles. And I know there's been quite a bit of time devoted to practice and performance, and I'd like to thank the choir for their contributions to making the Feast a delightful place to be. When you look at the beginning portion of the millennium, when you try to envision what God has in store for us to do, I am reminded of a simple statement that Christ made very, very short. He says, I work, and my father works also. And when the millennium comes, we'll all have our sleeves rolled up, and we'll have things to do and things to take care of. But as you look at the jobs that will need to be performed by those who are new spirit sons of God, what excites you the most? Have you ever sat down and looked at the millennium and said, I am going to be active. I'm going to be working. I'm going to be doing. What of the things that are there to do gives me the most excitement to anticipate. I can tell you the one without a minute's hesitation that excites me the most. Teaching the teachable.

Teaching the teachable.

Today, even though we are an older body, many are still too young to have experienced the most explosive growth days of the church, a time when new people streamed into the church thrilled to be there and eager to learn. We've lost the most electrifying elements of church life as a consequence of the society around us, a post-Christian society that wants less and less as the years go on to do with church, church attendance, Christ, God, the Bible.

We will see grander days than the best days that we have seen in our glory days, if we can call that, in the earlier years of the church. And we will see it on a scale so grand that our minds can't comprehend it. I'd like to give you just a little window. As I said, I could hear from Mr. Dobson's demographic that there are those who will share these memories, and there are some who will not. My family's first feast of tabernacles was 1957, which was in the earlier stages of exponential growth.

In 1957, 2,800 people represented the Radio Church of God coast to coast at the Feast of Tabernacles in Big Sandy, Texas. The meeting was held in the Redwood Building, which was a Quonset hut. For those who are not familiar with Quonset hut architecture, it simply means a circle cut in half. So the building was a one-half circle made of redwood on one end, the doors were open. I don't remember whether they were totally removable, but you were able to clear out most of one end. The building didn't hold remotely 2,800. I can remember sitting six, seven, eight rows out on the lawn, peering into the semi-circular opening and seeing the image of someone on a stage in the dark at the far end and listening to the message along with seven and eight rows of other people who were sitting out there.

And as a 13-year-old looking up occasionally and hoping it wasn't going to do then what it's doing right now, we were very blessed that we weren't rained on. Mr. Armstrong would talk about the fact that we had totally outgrown the Redwood Building, and next year, Bayland Manufacturing in Nebraska would have constructed for us a new metal tabernacle building. In 1958, feast attendance had grown by 44 percent. The first year in the new metal building, there were 4,000 in attendance instead of the 2,800 the year before. I can tell you, even as a teenager, the most exciting part of the feast for me was opening night when Mr.

Armstrong walked out on stage and did the roll call of the states. I'm curious, how many of you have been at the feast when Mr. Armstrong did the roll call of the states? You would sit there and look because you knew, okay, California, Oregon, Washington, Texas, Missouri, because there had been campaigns in Springfield and in that area, and new congregations had started there, Chicago was well represented.

So you knew certain areas automatically would have multiple hands raised, but you looked eagerly because you knew that there were states that the year before you craned your neck and looked over the entire congregation and not one single hand came up for places like North Dakota, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island. And so you came to the feast eager as he walked through all the states to see that handful of states that the year before had had not one single representative to see a hand go up and say, God now has planted someone in that state.

The first year of the metal building, we'd almost outgrown the metal building. It had to be expanded. And in 1959, the 4,000 that were there in 58 were now 5,500, 38 percent more than the year before. 1960, there were 7,100, another 29 percent increase in festival attendance. The Armstrong had talked during those late 70s about building what he called Bucks Bowl, an amphitheater where 100,000 people could meet. Quite a fanciful dream.

It never materialized. I think the demographics of simply realizing how could you get that many people in and out of that real estate onto a Texas highway simply made it impossible to do. But in 1961, for the first time, we now had two sites. Big Sandy, Squaw Valley, 10,000 people in attendance, 41 percent more than the year before. When I look over this audience, and Mr. Dobson said we had right at 700 registered for attendance, you know what that translates to? If these days were like those days, in four years' time, instead of the 700 sitting here, we wouldn't be in Presley's because there would be 2,530 of us, nearly four times as many people here in Branson as there are right now.

As good as those days were, for those of us who were in the field ministry visiting new perspective members, counseling with them, talking with them, teaching them the ways of God, holding our breath as we would leave an evening visit, an assistant and a minister driving back to their home and asking, what do you think? Do you think they will stay? Do you think they will make the changes? Do you think, as we present to them the doctrines from the Bible, that they will say, yes, I will do those things? Though we were inundated with people saying, visit me, I am interested, I want to attend your church, still, of those that we visited and counseled, it was not uncommon for those to respond to be only one in five or one in six of those who had expressed that eagerness to learn and know, but when they found the cost that was involved, the life that they must live, those things that God had asked of them, they, like the rich young nobleman, bowed their head and walked away. The days ahead of us, brethren, are going to be far, far different, because it's not going to be a matter of sitting and saying, I wonder if this will be the one in five, the one in six, the one in eight, the one in ten. The ratios at that time will be far, far different and far, far better. And the reason is a simple reason. On the front end, not a pleasant reason, but a necessary reason. The reason is only the teachable will return from captivity.

This is the one key at the beginning of the millennium that usually flies under the radar, and it is also the one reason that will make it such a thrill, because it's not going to be a matter as it was during those days of tremendous growth for the ministry to hope with all their hope that the people they visited would come and then experience the sorrow of watching the people and then experience the sorrow of watching every four out of five walk away.

Only the teachable are returning from captivity. I want you to turn with me to Amos chapter 9.

As we walk through a couple of key scriptures, and we only need a couple of key scriptures to make the point very graphically, I will cite from a couple of commentaries because it's unusual that a commentary sees as clearly as the ones that I will be quoting what God is having to say about these particular scriptures. Amos chapter 9. A millennial picture beginning in verse 8. Behold, behold, the eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth. Yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, says the Lord. For surely I will command and will sift the house of Israel among all nations as grain is sifted in a sieve. Yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword. Who say the calamity shall not overtake us, nor confront us? James and Fawcett and Brown, regarding this comment, looking at the word sift, makes the following statement. I will cause the Israelites to be tossed about through all the nations as corn is shaken about in a sieve in such a way, however, that while the chaff and the dust, that is those who don't want to be taught, fall through. And all the solid grain, those who can become God's elect, shall remain and are preserved. So as God says, I am going to take those that I have sent into captivity, and I'm going to shake them like corn in a sieve, and all the chaff will fall through, and what will be left is what I can teach and guide and bring to conversion. Ezekiel 20 Ezekiel 20 makes the same case.

As we begin, we begin in verse 33 of Ezekiel 20, As I live, says the Lord God. You know, there's no more powerful statement you can find in the Bible. I don't know how you read the Bible, but when I read, As I live, it says, pay attention, because God cannot make a statement any more concrete than a statement that is essentially a swearing by His eternal life. As I live, says the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out, I will rule over them. I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the countries where you are scattered, with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there I will plead my case with you face to face. Just as I pleaded my case with your fathers in the wilderness in the land of Egypt, I will plead my case with you, says the Lord God. I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of covenant. I will purge the rebels from among you, and those who transgress against me, I will bring them out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. The pulpit commentary makes a couple of comments. I'm always impressed when a commentary that believes in heaven and hell and the immortal soul and the immediate upon death going to heaven to recognize woe.

I can't get past the fact that what I'm reading has a time to be fulfilled, and it hasn't come yet. I may not know when it is. I may not even believe doctrinally in what the truth is about how it will take place, but I know that it's never yet happened. And the pulpit commentary regarding the beginning of these statements says, the prophet's words seem to look beyond the horizon of any fulfillment as yet seen in history. He contemplates not a return straight from Babylon to Jerusalem. This is Ezekiel, who's in captivity in Babylon. The commentary says, okay, I can see Ezekiel looking down the road. They were told they're going to be in captivity there 70 years, and then they will return. He says, this is not talking about that 70 years and a return. This is looking back far into the distance beyond anything that has even yet happened. When gathered, the whole nation is to be brought into the wilderness of the peoples. This will be to them what the wilderness of Sinai had been in the time of the Exodus. There Jehovah would plead with them face to face in the first instance as an accuser. The thought of the shepherd suggests a separation of the sheep from the goats. The land of the restored Israel was to be a land of righteousness, and the rebels were not to enter into it. Was Ezekiel thinking of those who would thus die in the, quote, wilderness of the people as a counter-pulpit? Of those who perished in the 40 years of wandering and did not enter Canaan? Verse 36 seems to imply that he was looking for a repetition of that history. You know, we can look at time and say almost 4,000 years has passed since the Exodus. That's ancient history. With God, God looks at things and he says, I had an objective. I still have an objective. I will complete an objective. I told Israel when they stood at the base of Mount Sinai, you are a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, and you discarded it. I'm not finished. I still want a holy people, a holy priesthood, a people who are an example. And I don't care if it takes me 3 or 4,000 years to get there. I will have what I intended to have, and he will have it when the millennium begins. When the time comes that the remnant returns from captivity, you will see the most beautifully teachable body of people who have ever existed in all of human history. And you get the privilege to teach them. You get the privilege to be their guides, their mentors, their instructors. We don't see as much today of brand new people with what we refer to as, quote, first love, meaning they come from outside the church altogether. They have no church background. Most of us are multigenerational. Those of you who are younger in the congregation can look at me as another one of the old men who has been up here. But I'm third generation in this church. And so we are a long-standing, multigenerational church. My grandchildren are fifth generation in the church. So we don't see—we see conversion. We see our young people growing up. We see God opening their mind in a way that is more mature than it was in their youth and seeking baptism. And it's all a beautiful thing. But there is just something about somebody who has absolutely no background whatsoever that you can't turn them off. I mean, they are a faucet of questions and inquiries. They are like a dry sponge that you can't pour enough knowledge on them to saturate it. And they're exciting people. They're people you enjoy being around. They're people you enjoy watching. As I said, brethren, the teachable will be there, and they will be looking for teachers. And you know what? You're it.

They will become teachable in the same way that all of us became teachable. Ezekiel 36. We just move a little further down the line.

Ezekiel 36 and verse 24.

For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. And then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols, and I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I'll put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in a land that I gave to your fathers. You shall be my people, and I will be your God. Beautiful, beautiful picture that we see both here in Ezekiel. We see it graphically in Jeremiah where he talks about a new covenant where he'll replace the heart with a new heart and the mind with a new mind. But those people who are going to go through that process reach there by coming to understand their unworthiness. You know, we sang worthy of honor, worthy of praise, speaking of Jesus Christ. None of us are. And everyone in that position comes to teachability in the same way. Notice verse 31, then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and your abominations.

Ezekiel chapter 6 has a couple of verses that we need to join with what I just read, because they give just a little additional breadth to the picture. Ezekiel 6 verse 8.

Yet I will leave a remnant so that you may have some who escaped the sword among the nations when you are scattered through the countries. Then those of you who escape will remember me among the nations where they are carried captives. Notice God's attitude, because I was crushed by their adulterous hearts which had departed from me. This is a two-sided emotional event. God said, all my hopes, my dreams, and my passions have been in you becoming my people, and you have crushed me. And by their eyes they played harlot after their idols, and they will loathe themselves for the evils which they committed in all their abominations. It's a very powerful emotional time. Now it says, you can't understand. You know, it takes a parent who has been absolutely destroyed by the conduct of a child to really understand what it means to be crushed by someone you have all your hopes and dreams in. That's where God is. But what is common is that ability for those who come back as teachable people to see their complete unworthiness to be there and to see it not as an academic thing, but to see it emotionally and passionately clear down to their toes to understand why am I here? Why have I been spared? Why is God letting me be in this body? With that humbled spirit, a body of people become profoundly teachable. I carried in my briefcase, and I kept in my file for baptismal counseling, a co-worker letter that Mr. Armstrong wrote somewhere in the 60s, and it was simply as he was writing to the members of the church. I think maybe it was a member letter. The letter he was writing to the church, he was simply reminiscing about an item that he'd written in the autobiography. But because it was a capsulization on one letter, I kept that letter. I kept it for decades. In fact, I still have it. I just don't have the working briefcase anymore. But it's where he went through his experience of having been called by God, God knocking and saying, I would like you, Mr. Armstrong, saying, no, I'm busy. I'm an advertising man. I've got projects to do. God said, I'd like to have you. He said, no, no, no. I realize that one failed, but I've got another one lined up. That eternal, if one failed, I've got another one lined up until finally he reached that place where there were no more lined up. And I don't know the number of times that those of us who are of my generation have heard him from the pulpit sit there and look out at you and recount how he came to that point of conversion where he said to God, God, I am a worn out hunk of junk. And if you can use me, I am yours. Until arriving at that point, he was useless. After arriving at that point, he never wavered.

In this room are many, many people who've arrived maybe with different terminology. Many people who have arrived at exactly the same place and are here today for that very same reason. Now comes the joy. Isaiah 30.

If that adult human being with that spirit and that attitude, you can look at a person, an adult person. You can't do this to an adult person, even if you're a spirit being and they're human. But it's like taking a humbled little child and putting them on your knee and pulling them up close and giving them a big hug and saying, what can I do for you? Just the beauty of the spirit is unbelievable. Isaiah 30. Verse 20.

And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your teachers will not be moved into a corner anymore. Your eyes will see your teachers. We've had that scripture already during the feast. Now we have it in a slightly different context. You know, it's one thing you and I are taught. If you look back over the life that God has given you since you've been called, you can see very, very graphic examples of being taught by God. But no voice, no image, no manifestation physically, but still very, very graphic lifelong lessons learned. Well, these people get a bonus. They get to see God. They get to talk to God. They get to converse with God, the sons of God. And to be told, no more will your education be totally based upon an invisible, yet very real connection. You will have immediate contact with someone that you can see, you can talk to, you can hear, you can speak with.

Profound effect. All of us have done remote learning and all of us have done face-to-face learning. And some of us have had the opportunity to be mentored one-on-one. You know, they're all teaching components, but there's nothing like having a mentor one-on-one. Isaiah 2.

Classic scripture for the Feast of Tabernacles. One that is usually covered at one point or another, or more often each year at the Feast. Isaiah 2, verse 2, As those people come back from captivity, they will be coming back to the land of the mountain of the house of the Lord. The returnees will come back to Israel.

And as they get their feet on the ground and they come to understand where we are, who we are, and what is happening, the opportunity to come up to be taught. And not just to say, okay, I can be taught, but I want to be taught. I want to know His ways. I want to know why I'm here. I want to know where I'm going. I want to know how to live in a way that will please God. When the Israel of the millennium becomes what the Israel in Sinai should have been, a kingdom of priests, they will sell this way of life by their example. You know, example is profoundly powerful. My father and mother lived in Wisconsin Dells for 14 years. They lived on the festival site. My father managed the site and then did housing for other sites. And I remember one time as the Church of God was gradually sliding more and more away from the passion, the zeal, and the actions that it had had at an earlier time. Dad and I went to one of the large resorts in Wisconsin Dells to work with the housing matter and to talk about the coming Feast of Tabernacles for the coming year. That resort manager, in the course of our conversation, shared with us what he had seen over time. And as I sat and listened, I thought, this is a man who is simply on the outside watching us come in for eight days every year and then leave, and yet he has identified us spiritually and character-wise right down to the gnat's eyebrow. He had watched the decline. He had watched the softening of values. He had watched the lessening of zeal. He had no investment, other than the monetary investment of housing, but he had no investment in the character of the people, but he could read it like an open book.

When the teachable come back and are taught, they are not invisible to the people around. They are so visible it is unbelievable. We capture that each year at the Feast, or often at the Feast in Zechariah chapter 8.

Zechariah chapter 8 beginning in verse 20.

Thus says the Lord of Hosts, people shall yet come, inhabitants of many cities. The inhabitants of one city shall 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. Yet many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of Hosts and Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord. There is an infectiousness, a positive, beautiful infectiousness that will spread. People in one city saying, You know, we need to go. I'm looking at what I'm seeing. I'm inspired by it. I'm looking at the people there and the change. They exemplify something I have never seen in all my life, and I can't find anything in history when I read the books that parallels it. I want it. I want it. I want to go find out what it is. Would you want to come with me? Yes, I would. And it's not just the people in the surrounding areas of Egypt and Syria and Jordan and Lebanon. Strong nations. Thus says the Lord of Hosts, in those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of Jewish men saying, Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.

The teachable will now become the teachers.

You will teach the teachable. The teachable will become the teachers. People will say, Share with us what was given to you.

In those early days when we were describing the exponential growth, something that was common at that time still happens now, but the things have changed enough. It isn't as logical to ask. But at that point in time, almost as often as, Hello, how are you? My name is so-and-so. Would be, Hello, my name is so-and-so. How did you come into the church? I mean, that was almost as automatic as asking their name and the town they lived in. Hello, my name is so-and-so. How did you come into the church? And then would come this beautiful story of how they came into the church.

I've been describing, brethren, the joy of both the teacher and the student. When I look out over the years, there are many examples that I could share with you, but I think one encapsulates the shared joy of teacher and student quite well as I wrap things up. My wife and I, back in the day when everyone who came to church was first vetted, you didn't find the address of the church and come to church, you were visited. And you were visited so that the minister could find out what you didn't understand, so that when you did come to church, you understood what you were hearing. And so there were multiple counseling, depending on how much foundation and base that you had. And it wasn't uncommon for two, three, four, five, and in some cases where somebody was just as green as a gourd, for even more counseling sessions before you finally said, you can come to church. We walked into the home of a lady who was so excited she could hardly contain herself. Where's the church? I want to go to church. I've been reading the literature. I've been listening to the program. Where's the church? I want to go to church. And you'd have to sit there and try to bring her down to the place of, well, let's talk. Let's talk about some things. Tell me about yourself. Tell me what you've read. Tell me, do you understand this? And then you'd see the areas that she didn't understand. And so you'd say, okay, I want you to read these particular pieces of literature, and we'll be back as soon as you're finished reading them, and we'll talk some more. And so we made a second visit. She was reasonably well-established on the first visit. So I could see it wasn't going to be a long journey. The second visit, well, you come in the door, can I come to church this time? Well, let's talk and talk a little bit more. And you realize there's just a few more things that need to be dealt with. And so you'd make some more recommendations. And you'd see the crest fallen face that says, oh, I really wanted you to tell me I could come to church. And you encourage them. You told them it's coming, but you need this additional foundation. On the third visit, it was obvious that there was enough substance in the first two that, given that what had been assigned previously was learned this time, the answer could be yes. And indeed, the answer was yes. And so as we finished counseling, she said, can I come to church now? And I said, yes, you can. And I said, can we go into your kitchen? And she looked at me like, what in the world has that got to do with all of our counseling and going to church? But it was written all over her, okay, that's what you're asking. I don't know why, and it doesn't mean you sense to me, but I'll walk with you into the kitchen. And so the two of us walked into the kitchen, and I walked over her kitchen sink, and I did this. And she looked at me like, is this man gone wacko? I said, there's the church. And she looked at me, and I said, look out your window. There's the church. More people than this feast this year had been meeting where my finger was pointing out her back window for a decade. Half of them, the Columbus, Ohio, AM Church. The other half, the Columbus, Ohio, PM Church. And she had been sitting within a stone's throw of the church for the last 10 years and hadn't a clue. You can only imagine the joy I had when I walked to that window and said, there's the church. Teaching the teachable.