Welcome back to Keys of the Kingdom. I’m Brother Gregory, and we’re talking about the Kingdom of God. In the last show, we talked about some new entries on one of our websites. We have many, many websites. Preparingyou.com is a wiki site that is constructed by the people, for the people and of the people. They put on all kinds of information, talk about all kinds of different skills, and share information with others. Almost anyone can become a wiki editor of those pages. You can do it from your computer. It’s very simple. It’s not hard to do. We have whole teams of people who will help you learn how to do it. It’s not as complicated as regular programming html and hp pages that you see on the internet. It’s really just sort of a text editor, and you can put up your own pages. A lot of people who thought themselves to be computer illiterate have actually started to put stuff up on those pages, and have become editors to the page. If there are typos, you can fix other people’s articles; they will see that you’ve repaired them. You can work together as teams and get to know one another in doing this.
As I said, we recently put up a page on health and other pages of things like multiple sclerosis, vaccinations, and also on money. There was interest in this BitCoin that was going around the internet. There are some meetings with the government. Of course the government has an interest in anything that appears as money because the government runs on money. It creates most of the money that people use. A lot of the money you use, you created. You talk about complex issues…that would be a very complex issue to discuss. That’s not going to be the theme of this show; but we have a little article, and you can read on it. The fact is that a lot of people don’t understand how economies work, how money works, how it affects society. We need to understand that because the Bible talks about money. It talks about the love of money being the root of all evil. The word they actually use there for the love of money…it’s not money that’s the problem. It’s covetousness. If you look into the origin of the word there that you see, it actually is a word that has to do with coveting. It isn’t about the money itself. Originally, the early forms of money was gold and silver and copper coins; and all those were substances. You didn’t even use the word “coined” as we see it today. “Coined” is when you say that an ounce of silver is a dollar; and then you stamp on an ounce of gold $20 or $50. Now you have coined the idea that an ounce of gold is worth 50 ounces of silver. You’ve stated that, and now that’s a coin. It’s not a commodity. Somebody has defined that this coin is worth this much of this other commodity. You’ve moved away from just weights and measures. The way you would do it is, this is an ounce of gold; and it’s worth an ounce of gold. This is an ounce of copper; and it’s worth an ounce of copper. This is an ounce of silver; and it’s worth an ounce of silver. You can measure how much silver is in the coin and say it’s .999 fine silver. That’s just weights and measures; but when you start saying, “This silver is guaranteed to exchange for this much gold, or this much gold exchanges for this much silver”, now you’re coining. You’re stamping a value. Somebody’s dictating value. It’s no longer commodity. Before, it was just a commodity. The gold miner goes and mines gold, and he give so much to the smelter guy. The smelter guy turns it into coin, and gives all the coin back to the gold miner minus his labor for turning it into coin. Then they both go out and spend it on olive oil and fishes, or grain or whatever it is they want to buy. Then money goes into circulation. That’s a government of the people, for the people and by the people. But if you give somebody the power to say, “This much gold is worth this much silver”, now they’re coining, now they’re dictating, now they’re ruling over something. You can certainly do that; but it changes the nature of your money. The money is no longer a commodity money. It’s something else; and you can get arrested for counterfeiting it, or even competing against it. There’s a 486 in the codes on money; and we talk about that on that page, and show that you can get in a lot of trouble for trying to create an alternative currency, even a digital currency. A person needs to understand that. We warned people about creating Liberty Dollars. We told them what the problem was. They didn’t listen; and they got themselves into a lot of trouble. I couldn’t believe they were doing so many stupid things.
The reality is that the money systems that the world creates in all countries always collapse eventually because men are greedy. It’s all based on covetousness. Most of society is greedy; and they’re all going to fail, too. It’s that covetousness that’s the problem. It doesn’t matter whether you’re using BitCoins or silver coins, gold coins or paper money. If the covetousness is there, there’s going to be a problem. It’s going to serve ill for society. Now, with that said, there are forms of money that lend themselves to covetousness…speculative coins, speculative money. It draws the covetousness out of us. It draws the greed out of it; so there’s more danger in that than there is in those that are produced by actual manual labor. One of the things about BitCoins is that you can only produce so many of them. Then they become rare; therefore, they increase in value, and more people show an interest in using them. So, you imagine that the value is going up; because you can buy more things with them. The reality is that the value hasn’t changed. It’s not really a product of labor like gold and silver would be. I’ll give you an example. Even gold and silver are not perfect. In the gold camps in Alaska, a carton of eggs might be worth more than an ounce of gold; because you couldn’t get the eggs. There was lots of gold going around. The value of things fluctuated; but that’s in a commodity market. Your money should always be nothing more than a commodity, an item of trade. That lends itself to a better society and a better economy. As soon as you get away from that, as soon as you coin or stamp a value on that source, and give someone the power to control that value as you do with paper notes, you open a door to all kinds of problems. Now you couple that with a society that’s becoming more and more covetous; it is a recipe for absolute economic disaster. So, the solution is to stop being covetous; and that’s something we need to practice. Of course, that brings us back to the Kingdom of God.
In the Kingdom of God, you have to practice charity. You have to practice giving to one another. Now, how do you do that? This is another problem that came up on the network recently; and we’ve talked about it in previous shows. Someone says that they have a need. It could be a widow, an orphan. It could be someone who had an injury or something and they have a need. They say, “I have a need. I am short of funds. I need help.” So, how do we respond? Do we just throw money at them? That’s a phrase we often hear with modern government. Do you just throw money at it? They asked for help. Don’t we just give it to them? Well, who are they? Do we know them? In a true church setting, you know who’s in the church. You know who’s in your congregation. You know whether they’re telling you the truth. You know that men are liars. All men are not liars. That was in David’s haste he said that all men are liars; but men are liars. They lie to themselves, they lie to others. Somebody comes up to me and tells me that they need help. We’ve given that example of the guy on the street corner. They’re actually doing shifts; and they’re not homeless. There may be some homeless out there; but there are actually teams of guys working corners. They’re getting a government check. They’re not homeless; and they’re doing just fine. They go out there a beg; and people hand the $10, $20. They feel good they provided a service. It makes people feel good; but it’s not righteous. It’s not what people should be doing. You don’t know who that guy is. You don’t know that he’s got an SUV parked in the parking lot. You don’t know that he’s got lots of money. He just does this because he likes to screw around with people. You don’t know; and that’s irresponsible. So just as if you were to go to the governments who exercise authority one over the other, and force your neighbors to contribute to your welfare; they’re going to ask questions. They’re going to want to know how much you make and where you live, who you are, do you have children, do you have family, etc. They’re going to ask you all kinds of questions. You fill out those questions. You’re going to get welfare from them; but they’re not going to ask you, “Are you moral?”. They’re not going to ask you…well, they might eventually, I’ve never filled out one of these things, so I don’t know all they ask…but are they going to ask, “Do you have a drinking problem? Do you have a pornography problem? What kind of problems do you have that have led you into this situation where you need help?” To just throw money at it is not going to solve that problem. Well, the church should ask those questions; and you should expect those questions to be asked. “You have a need, your kids are hungry, how come? You live in Spokane and your kids are starving? You live in a house that was given you by your relatives, by your parents? You don’t have to pay any rent. You have to pay taxes on it. Most of your kids are over 15 years of age. Some of them are well over 20, and your young kids are starving? Why?”. We’re going to ask that question. We want to know, because we want to solve the problem. We don’t want to feed the problem. Maybe the problem is that you’re slothful. Maybe you’re a bad money manager. Maybe you’re squandering your money. We’ve got to find out what the problem is if we’re going to help you. If your charity isn’t strengthening the poor, you’re committing the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. Common theme.
So, we are going to get to Hebrews. We’re going to start looking at it; but we need to start realizing that the church is a government. It’s defined as a government in Black’s Law Dictionary. I didn’t make it up. It says it’s one form of government. The form of government that it is, is a government based on faith, hope and charity. That’s a government of the people, for the people, by the people where if somebody has a need for a coat or food or shelter or anything, we supply it out of charity. That’s going to produce a different kind of society. That’s what we need to be doing is producing a different kind of society; because if you base it on force, men who call themselves benefactors but exercise authority…covet means.
Kennedy once gave a speech that many have heard that he gave at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel where he talks about a vast conspiracy that has attained human and material resources and done so through covet means. It’s very clear that he says covet means. When you see a transcription, it talks about covert means. He had a Bostonian accent; but either that’s a Freudian slip, or that’s what he actually meant. That actually fits better than covert means. It was done through somewhat covert means. He’s talking about fighting this conspiracy that is international in scope to keep man from being what he was born to be…free and independent. Then a short time later, somebody shot him. You can add conspiracy theories to that; but the point is that what he said was really true. It’s been true throughout history; and the Bible talks about this time and time and time again.
So how do you become free and independent without becoming responsible, and without caring for your neighbor as much as you care about yourself? As a society, you cannot become free unless you do that. This is why Christ was saying seek the Kingdom, seek to be responsible, start loving one another, caring about one another, caring for one another through sacrifice; because that’s what Christ came to do…to serve and to sacrifice Himself for others. We don’t all have to get crucified; but we are crucified daily by choice when we come together by faith, hope and charity. You go to church to help your neighbor. If nobody in your congregation needs help, then you say, “Let’s get together and help somebody not in our congregation…someone outside of our congregation.” Maybe in another congregation somebody needs help; so we have to connect with them. Maybe somebody that’s not in any congregation of the church or networking with us, maybe they need help. Let’s go help them. That’s casting your bread on the waters. That’s the red heifer. That’s the sacrifice of the red heifer. Until we begin that, we can kiss freedom goodbye. I don’t care who you elect. Ron Paul, all that stuff, that’s all politics. It’s not going to work. It’s not going to change. Nothing’s going to change until you change. You can’t change your neighbor. You can only change yourself. You really can’t even change yourself; but you can be changed if you admit that you need to be changed! You need to be changed; because you’ve been living by covet means, you see. You’ve been playing that game. You need to stop playing that game and start playing the game of Christ; and it is an important game. It’s a game that involves the winner taking your soul. So, you’re either moving toward the Kingdom…the system of government based on faith, hope and charity or you’re moving somewhere else. It’s your choice; and you can’t do it without gathering together.
How can you love your neighbor without gathering together with them?…and guess what. Most of your neighbors aren’t going to want to gather; but the more of you who gather, and the more of you who start taking care of one another in any way you can afford (just start with something…baby steps), you’re going to start changing the collective consciousness. You’re going to have to strive at this; and you’re going to have to persevere. Those are terms that Christ used. That’s what we’re talking about at His Holy Church. We’re preaching repentance…turn around and go the other way; and it’s going to take you to do it. All I can do is talk about it on the radio. I can send you emails about it; but if you run out of food, what am I supposed to do? Email you a picture of food? We had this family in Spokane where the kids were actually showing signs of malnutrition; and one individual said, “Oh, we just have to help them. Just start sending them food.” What was I supposed to do? Mail them a couple of steaks? I could send money; and you could go down to the store and buy them meat. They didn’t have much meat in their diet. They evidently needed other things; but on further investigation, I found out they had a lot of problems in their family that needed to be addressed. All I would do would be to make them dependent on us to give them what they should have been able to provide for themselves. They had the resources. They just were not managing them right. What they needed was counseling. Now, they might need some immediate help with food; but they were not out of food. They were just not eating right. That was about education, because the food was available. They just weren’t pursuing it properly. So, to really help them…to strengthen the poor, we had to do something different. As we pursued that, we discovered what it was; but they had to participate! We participated…they participated. They have to repent and go a different way that’s not going to put them in such a vulnerable position. This is people helping people. That’s it. That’s the Kingdom of God; but they actually do it in an organized fashion. Not because somebody rules over them; but because they realize that if we do this with teamwork, we can do it better.
If we have ten guys, and each of us go over and try to pick up this log to move it to another location, we’re not going to get it moved. It’s too heavy. If we all go together and simultaneously reach down and pick it up and say, “Heave Ho!” it’ll come up off the ground and it’ll go where you can take it; but you have to choose to work together in the Kingdom of God. We don’t have taskmasters who are going to whip you if you don’t pick it up; and that’s just the way it is. That’s freedom. That’s the other form of government. So, the Kingdom of Heaven is not for the slothful. It’s not for the self-indulgent rich. It’s for the rich who are willing to unload some of their burdens and give to the poor. Even the poor have to give amongst each other. China has always been plagued with poor people; and it’s been that way because the warlords and different leaders just were ruthless in ruling over the Chinese. The real problem was the Chinese, the poor in China preyed upon the poor in China. They had this whole thing in their culture. I’m not picking on the Chinese; that’s what they have in their culture.Today in America, we think it’s absolutely okay to have public education at the expense of your neighbor who you force to pay into the public education through property tax. It shouldn’t be that way. That’s not a free nation. You can have public schools in a free nation; but the public schools would be supported by freewill offerings. They used to be! Even when public schools were in the minority in the country, most people were not educated in the public schools. The public schools received donations from people to stay in business, because they didn’t tax them enough to maintain the public schools. Starting down that road opened a Pandora’s Box which brought us to our present dilemma.
As I said, we’re going to take a look at Hebrews. It’s going to take us show after show after show. We’ll air them in a number of different places, and eventually we’ll have them as a study group. We needed to lay some foundation here as to what we’re talking about. We always do, and we always go back to that.
Today, according to some calendars is a Day of Atonement. There’s a Christian day of atonement that throughout history is based on the English translation of the Jewish holy day Yom Kippur. In the original Hebrew, the Bible calls that day Yom Hakippurim, the Day of Atonement. This Yom Kippur was the holiest day of the year for the Jewish people. While the temple in Jerusalem was standing in Bible times 70 CE, the cohen gadol or high priest was mandated by the Torah to perform a complex set of special services and sacrifices for Yom Kippur and attain divine atonement, the word Kippur meaning atone in the Hebrew. Our understanding of what they were doing is actually distorted, because by the time you got Christ on the scene, the Pharisees had twisted the translations so that you had unmoored the purposes of what they were talking about from their original meaning; and they created a lot of complex, mindless rituals that really had nothing to do with the original Hebrew text. This is really easy to do with Hebrew which is a precise language; but it’s metaphoric. Almost every word has multiple definitions. One will be an abstract definition; and the other one will be a meaning that is something specific…some physical thing. We’ve gone over that. A kidney is reigns of control and it’s a kidney. So when they say “kidney”, are they talking about reigns of control or are they talking about a kidney? Well, in some 18 places, they translate it “reigns”; and in other places they translate it “kidney”. If you translate it the wrong way in the right place or the right way in the wrong place, you’re going to create confusion. That’s what they did, so you don’t even understand what the cohen gadol was. A lot of people actually think that the Levites were to stand between the people and God, as if you couldn’t give to God unless you gave to the cohen…the priest. That’s ridiculous. It’s absurd. You’re all altars of clay in the Kingdom of God. Yet you have these altars of stone, which is another form of government where the leaders, the cohen are titular. They have no exercising of authority. They don’t have any funds to give away unless you choose to give to them. Now, you should tithe in the Old Testament and the New Testament; but you tithe according to their service. You don’t have to give to a particular guy. This puts the power in your hands; and that makes you the government of the people, for the people and by the people. Anything else is bondage. Anything else is slavery. Anything else is not holy. Anything else will end up feeding of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, not the Tree of Life; and will not walk with God. So, God wants you to be free souls under Him and His guidance. We’re going to talk more about how to do that and the book of Hebrews when we return to the Keys of the Kingdom.
Welcome back to the Keys of the Kingdom. We’re talking about Yom Kippur on our way to talking about Hebrews. Of course a lot of people think, “Oh, that’s a Jewish holiday.” The reality is, there are a great many Christians, there’s a whole variety of groups of Christians that deal with the Day of Atonement, which is what Yom Kippur means. We’ll talk about that conflict in a bit.
Years ago I was out here and I worked seven days a week raising sheep and children and farming the desert, which is a lot of work. One day, I looked on the calendar, and I saw this word Yom Kippur. I had heard it before and seen it, but didn’t really know anything about it. I knew it had to do with atonement, so rather than looking it up (there was no Google in those days) I got interested and I saw in parentheses it meant Day of Atonement on the calendar, I though, “I’m going to take that day off and I’m going to just walk out on the desert.”; and that’s what I did. I just left all the work behind. I left early in the morning; and I fasted all day. I didn’t even take water with me, I don’t believe, and walked out across the desert. Usually in October, it’s not all that hot; but I went miles and miles in a big loop out across the desert. I had a tradition of doing this, my own personal tradition every year out here in the desert I would do this.
One of those times I came back a long way and came across a piece of property. I was walking across the piece of property; and I was suddenly struck as I often have been, and have since I was a little kid, with a premonition, an epiphany. Standing on a little piece of ground in the middle of nowhere, I suddenly realized that I needed to own this piece of property. I needed to obtain the property. I don’t even want to use the word own, because that’s not what I really felt. I needed to obtain this property. I would not hold it forever, but I was to seek to obtain this property. I didn’t even know whose property it was. I had an idea of where I was; I knew how to get back. I didn’t know exactly where I was. I’d never been to the spot before; but I looked at the ground and I looked to the right and to the left, and this is what I felt, an inner compass kind of thing; and I knew that I was to get and obtain this property. I’m actually having a little epiphany about it right now.
The point is that this happened on the Day of Atonement. The Day of Atonement is calculated by different calendars. All of that’s irrelevant; because it’s this inner compass that you really need to develop. It’s fine to study all these things; but if they supplant the inner compass of the Holy Spirit, you’re not walking with God. You’re walking with your knowledge…your flesh and blood knowledge…what you learn intellectually. The spiritual walking with God that you will know things not by the knowledge of men, not by flesh and blood but you will know them because you have an inner knowing, a guiding of the Holy Spirit. I don’t know how many times it has saved my life and the lives of others, because I will listen to the Holy Spirit, and seek to always listen to the Holy Spirit over what my intellect will tell me what to do. This is the big challenge. This is one of your big challenges…are you going to listen to the Holy Spirit; and how do you know it’s the Holy Spirit?
Anyway, we’re going to be talking about Hebrews. The Pharisees had gotten away from that, so when they read the Bible, they had convoluted an interpretation and translated the Bible what they were supposed to do on Yom Kippur. They had borken it down into these complex religious rituals, and had unmoored them from their real meaning. This is common. These services were considered to be the most important part of Yom Kippur, these actual rituals; because through them, the cohen gadol, made atonement for all Jews and the world. That’s, of course, superstitious nonsense. It was the spirit of what those words were describing that makes atonement. Christ knew that. So Christ made that atonement; but you’re not atoned for yet until you conform to Christ and His Spirit. You see, you can’t be forgiven unless you forgive. Christ said that. Now Christ did His part, but if you don’t forgive, you’re not forgiven. If you don’t repent, you’re not saved. You have to actually repent; and you have to know what you’re repenting of.
One of the guidelines of what you’re repenting of is are you still coveting your neighbor’s goods through the agency of government in order to obtain benefits at their expense through men who call themselves benefactors but exercise authority? Well, then you haven’t repented if you’re still doing that. If you’re not turning around and trying to create a society that is not dependent upon coveting means, then you are still unsaved. Not because Christ didn’t do His part; but because you’re not doing your part. You’re not repenting. You’re not seeking the Kingdom of God; nor are you seeking His righteousness. You’re still coveting your neighbor’s goods. You’re still slothful in the love of your neighbor, because you’re not creating that alternative system. You think that if you vote somebody in, he’ll do it for you, which is what they thought when they elected Saul! He’ll do it for us! That act alone is called the rejection of God, you see! So all the people trying to do that are missing it. They’re off the mark; and they probably already have the mark of the beast. Anyway, we won’t go into that now!
During this service, according to their traditions, the cohen gadol (high priest) entered into the Holy of Holies in the center of the temple. It was the only time of the year that anyone went inside. Doing so required specific purification, preparations including five immersions in what they called the mikvah, four changes of clothing. Seven days Prior to Yom Kippur the high priest was sequestered in the Palhedrin chambers in the temple where he reviews the services with the sages familiar with the temple. He was sprinkled with spring water containing ashes of the red heifer as purification, and of course I’ve told you many times the red heifer had nothing to do with a heifer, had nothing to do with the color red. We’ll keep you in suspense on that for those who are new listeners, newcomers. We’ll explain that at a later time. Let’s stick on this.
On this day of Yom Kippur the cohen gadol, high priest had to follow a precise order of services and sacrifices and purification. He wore these five sets of clothing. Three of them were kind of golden, and two of them were white linen. He was immersed in this mikvah five times and he washed his hands and his feet ten times. When he was immersed, he had to wash them twice. Sacrifices included two daily lambs, one bull, two goats, two rams with accompanying meal offering, wine, other libations and three incense offerings. A regular, two daily and an additional one for Yom Kippur. So this high priest entered into the Holy of Holies three times, the tetragrammaton, this YHWH was pronounced three times, once for each confession. There’s this whole system of confessions. The central theme of all these rituals is this atonement and repentance.
Of course, they had become so focused on the rituals that they had neglected the weightier matters that Jesus lists off in the Bible. They had all of their incense and their spices and all this kind of thing; but they did not repent, because they had unmoored the principals of all this. If you read Sacrifice of Sophistry for example, you can get it on our website, or I think it’s the second chapter of the book Thy Kingdom Comes, you’ll see this idea of bulls and rams, you’ll see there’s alternative meaning to these things. The whole altars of clay and stone, these are describing functions of your government and how your government operates. You think it has to do with these mindless religious rituals because that’s what the Pharisees were telling people; and the Pharisees got it wrong according to Christ. So why do you think you should go back and study what the Pharisees were doing. You should find out why they had it wrong, you see.
The modern Christians wouldn’t recognize the real Christ if He came. Some of you might; and some of you are starting to realize that seeking the Kingdom of God means that you have to actually, physically start loving your neighbor as yourself, taking care of his social welfare needs in faith, hope and charity instead of with men who exercise authority one over the other…because Jesus said so, because Yeshua said so, because the Bible says so! But your local pastor, he doesn’t say so. If you need any help, you go to the men who exercise authority. You just come here, and we’ll make you feel good about it because we’ll tell you you’re saved. You said the magic words.
Jewish people traditionally observe this Holy Day with an approximately 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer; but because they weren’t attending to the weightier matters, because they were seeking kings like Saul, God wasn’t hearing those prayers. Not on an individual basis. Sometimes people are completely duped. God will run out and meet you because He speaks deeper into your heart than I can; but you are following false religion. Remember the definition of religion 200 years ago, the definition of religion at the time of Christ from the point of view of the Bible was how you took care of the needy of your society, how you fulfilled your obligation to love your neighbor as yourself, to God and your fellow man. That was religion. Well, today you do it with men who call themselves benefactors but exercise authority. That’s what you have to atone for. That’s what you have to repent of; and that’s what His Holy Church is about.
We have these Google groups. If you want to join the Living Network, you have to go join this Google group. Now you can actually meet up with physical people if you’re not on the net; but if you’re on the net, you join those Google groups. That gives you an opportunity. All they are is a tool by which you actually meet physical people in real congregations of record where they pick a minister and that minister picks a minister. They begin to network with one another so that they can begin to take care of one another in faith, hope and charity when there is real need. We are coming to a time in history where there’s going to be real need; and you need to do that. But I don’t want you to come together out of fear. I want you to come together out of love for one another. Christ will know the difference. We are discovering the difference by the way in which you come together. You come together because you want to be free. You come together because you want to be safe. That’s not why Christ came. Christ didn’t come to be free. Christ didn’t come to be safe. Christ didn’t come to be served. He came to serve; and He’s explaining this. So, when you go to church, are you coming to serve, to give, to take care of others in a righteous way that takes care of the poor or not? So you see this is the message of Yom Kippur, the 7th day of the 7th month of Tishri, and also regarded as the Sabbath of Sabbaths.
There’s Rosh Hashanah referred to in the Torah as Yom Teruah, the first day of the month according to the Hebrew calendar. There are all kinds of Hebrew calendars out there. On some, there are two months of Adar. That’s right, they just add an extra month! That can get confusing.
Yom Kippur completes this annual period known in Judaism as the High Holy Days, and commences with Rosh Hashanah. It is observed by many secular Jews who may not observe other holidays. Well, the fact is that it’s now also recognized by many Christians who are doing the feasts like the Feast of Tabernacles; but they’re not creating a network of faith, hope and charity. They’re not coming together to take care of one another. They say, “Oh, we keep the feasts!” They don’t even know the purpose of the feasts.
In order to have a network of tens, hundreds and thousands, how do you get to know the congregation that’s 150 miles away or 1500 miles away? How do you keep those connections so that if they have an absolute disaster, you want to come to their aid. How do they do that? The Feast of Tabernacles. When you go there, your sons and daughters will meet and your sons and daughters will marry people in those other valleys thousands of miles away; and you will have a blood connection to those other communities.
You have to work to at the Kingdom. If you’re going to have a government of the people, by the people and for the people, you have to work at it. You have to strive, which is why Jesus said to strive. You have to seek, which is why Jesus said to seek. You have to do it in a righteous way, which is why He talked about love and charity…same words…faith, and hope. You have to gather together. You can’t just come to the festival a couple of days ahead and want to see where everything is. You need to start working on that festival today for next year…working on it…contributing to it.
We have a Burning Bush Festival, and we actually knew we were going to have a small number of people show up this time. We have missionary parties going out, and we have another festival going in the Mid-West. It’s a huge expense. This is a big country to come all the way this way. So we knew we were going to have our numbers down, and that was okay. Instead of having whole families come, we might have had one member from a family. This saves them money, and this is good; but we also know that they’re working in their local areas to build their local congregations to do the jobs that they need to do like the missionary work. If we’re going to show an example to the world, we need to build the congregations locally. They’re actually doing the job, and then come together so that we have something to connect at the Feast of Tabernacles, which we call the Burning Bush Festival. We need to start making it the outreach that it was. Early on somebody said, “Oh, well we should only invite good people in congregations.” No, that’s not what the Feast of Tabernacles was. It says, “Invite the stranger into your midst.” This is your outreach to show them what a free government looks like and how it works, how it takes care of the needy of its society without using a gun to the head of your neighbor, without forcing the contributions of your neighbor, but with freewill offerings so that you create the spirit of a free society. Those people who want to walk in those ways cast up and want to be heard by God. They want to return to the ways of God.
It’s not the mindless ritual that we want to return to. It’s atonement; and atonement means to repent and turn around and start creating a society based on love. We’re not talking about the hippie dippie free love. We’re talking about righteous love and righteous responsibility of commitment and caring for one another. You say, “Love, honor and cherish ’til death do us part.” That’s when you have to do it. It doesn’t mean love, honor and cherish until you’re tired of it. It’s love, honor and cherish. Your commitment is before God. Let no man or yourself break that apart. Continue that commitment. It builds character.
So Yom Kippur completes those holy days. The Erev of Yom Kippur, which is actually the Eve day of that day is commemorated with these two festival meals and with giving of charity and asking others for forgiveness in this Hebrew month of Tishri. This is the key because we have offended one another.
If we look at some of the general observances, (and there’s a reason why we’re going through all of this before we really get hot and heavy into Hebrews. It may not be for another couple of shows before we really get into Hebrews.) in Leviticus 16:29 it mandates the establishment of this holy day on the tenth day of the seventh month of the day of atonement for the sins. Don’t get caught up in the specifics of that.
Get caught up in the spirit of forgiveness and giving and charity. Get caught up in the Kingdom of God and the ways of the Kingdom of God, not in the ritual itself. Don’t worship the ritual. Follow the Spirit of sacrifice and forgiveness. I see so many people who say, “Well, I’ve forgiven them; but I never want to see them again.” Why not? If you forgave them, where’s the pain? Where’s the injury? Where’s the heartache? It’s gone! Forgiveness works. Real forgiveness works. Mental forgiveness, imaginary forgiveness doesn’t work. So therefore, we become afraid.
Anyway, this Sabbath of Sabbaths, this Day of Atonement in Leviticus 23:27 decrees that Yom Kippur is this strict day of rest. Rest from what? Rest from eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Rest from submitting to your own willfulness and submitting to the will of God. You see, that’s the problem. It’s that we decided for ourselves; and we need rest from that. We need to fast from that and dwell in the Holy Spirit, live in the Holy Spirit, be guided by the Holy Spirit. Keeping the physical ritual doesn’t make that a reality in our life; but fasting, waiting upon the Lord.
There are other prohibitions during this period. It talks about no eating and drinking. Again, eating and drinking of what? Eating and drinking of the Tree of Knowledge..not wearing of leather shoes. We were allowed to kill animals to cover ourselves and protect ourselves. Does it really have to do with leather shoes, or are these symbols of something else?…no bathing and washing. Well, the high priest, he’s washing all the time. We go to churches a lot of times to imagine that we are cleansing ourselves; but we’re not actually repenting and turning around. It makes us feel good. We think we’re washing, but we’re washing ourselves as if we can save ourselves. So, symbolically, we’re going to have to realize that we can be washed. We can be cleansed; but we can’t do it ourselves. We cannot provide the covering ourselves. We cannot eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but must receive of the Holy Spirit.
It talks about no anointing oneself with perfumes or lotions. Is it the perfumes or lotions that are key to that prohibition, or is it anointing ourselves? We can’t anoint ourselves, we must be anointed. What we’re doing is recognizing that we can’t make this a reality ourselves; but this is a relationship, that’s another thing about the marital relationship, it’s a relationship with God and the Holy Spirit guiding us so that we walk with that Holy Spirit. That’s what atonement is bringing to us; and that’s what that day is all about.
So it’s great that we’re beginning Hebrews on that day; and we will finish it much later so that you get a clearer picture of what Holy of Holies really means. Until then may peace be upon your house, and may God be with you.
