Herbert W Armstrong

   That sounds rather strange. That's a very familiar sound in one sense of the word, and we are all here that speak English or that are in the Church of God. We can relate to that word. I mean we say God, we, we think of something, a certain someone or a certain being comes to mind, and a certain concept that we have about God comes to our attention, I'm sure. Most of our young people, even the little small ones, very, very small that Mr. Kurtz addressed this morning, recognize the term God, and I'm sure in their own way they have some kind of concept about this being who created everything that exists.

   But I'd like to look at a scripture with you this morning if you'll just turn, if I can locate it, in the book of, uh, Job. You remember Job was a very fine individual. He was very, very careful and very righteous, and I guess part of his problem was he was righteous in his own eyes and didn't really realize that the law he kept that produced the right results was actually God's law and it is a living law and when it's followed, uh, the results can be counted on.

   Oftentimes I think we have the concept that God is up there somewhere, and the reason His law works is that He keeps up with all the transgressions and He makes sure to run down and to hit us or to do something to us should we disobey Him. I think this was the basic fault that Lucifer had. I don't know how long he was on the earth, but I know that it must have taken a period of time for him to think about God and His exalted position, and I know God well enough to know that He had to explain to Lucifer that there are two ways to live, that one of those is the way of love, of give, of service. And that if you do this, Lucifer, if you go down and you take on this responsibility and you love these angelic beings that are on, if you serve them, if you remain loyal and obedient to my government, your position in the family will grow. Your responsibility will grow, and you'll have more things to do.

   Now I'm just surmising, and I'll admit this, so you don't have to put this down as doctrine, but I would assume that Lucifer would have thought that the reason God's law worked is that God made it. Now if God wasn't there, if God were somehow overthrown or if God were cast out, another law could be put into motion. And it would work, but he made a tragic mistake. Of course he forgot that the created is never as great as the creator, but let's suppose for a moment that he had succeeded. Let's just surmise that. Let's suppose that he had succeeded and he caught God when He wasn't watching and he managed to throw God out of heaven or banish Him or imprison Him. He made one big mistake. Had he succeeded, he would have found that the law of selfishness or the law of sin and death, as Paul talks about, that works in our members would not have brought peace. He merely would have set the stage for all eternity for one being after another to attempt to overthrow.

   So what he didn't understand and sometimes I think we don't understand is that the law of God is a living law. And it works whether you're on some island way away from where God is or any other human beings or whether you're in the metropolis of New York City. It doesn't make any difference if you're on the bottom floor of a 140-story building and you're way inside so there are no windows and God supposedly couldn't see you that the law of God still functions. And the people that have obeyed certain principles have been blessed whether God took special note or not. It is a living law.

   You don't think so? Look at the world around you. We've had 6,000 years, nearly 6,000 years, and we have for 6,000 years tried to prove that selfishness would work. We've been unsuccessful. Because you can't make it work. That's what the whole lesson of history is about. That we have to learn that God's way is right, that it's good. And it's something that we want to embrace.

   But Job had talked a lot about God. And a lot of people say that Job had a horse. The horse was called IS-ME, IS-ME. Because Job was always saying, "Woe is me." And I'm sure had we been in Job's predicament, we would have given up a long time ago. His wife chided him to sin and he didn't. Uh, she said, "Why don't you just go ahead and curse God and have Him smite you and obliterate you." But Job wouldn't do this. Job had one area of his life that needed to be perfected. It needed to be brought to his attention and that's the greatness of God and how little man is at his best. And Job needed to recognize the thing that all of us do, that God, the one that created everything that exists that we don't even know about, that He outlined the way to live that produces the peace and the happiness and the prosperity that Job would enjoy.

   Notice in chapter 42 (Job 42:1). Then Job answered the Lord. I'm gonna take my watch off. Someone asked one time in Atlanta what that meant, and they said, "Not a thing." A lot of ministers of God take their watches off. I guess it doesn't mean a great deal. Job answered the Lord and he said, "I know that you can do everything and that no thought can be withheld from you. Who is he that hides counsel without knowledge?" Job innocence talking to himself. "Therefore I have uttered that that I understood not. Things too awesome or too great or too incredible for me, which I knew not. Hear, I beseech you, and I will speak and I'll demand of you and you can declare unto me. I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear. But now mine eye sees you."

   And I think a lot of us have heard an awful lot about God and we're just in the process of developing a personal relationship with God. I have said for years, and I think it's very true, that there has to come a time in our lives where we no longer obey God just because someone says we have to or because we're afraid that God may get us. But that we come here to the Feast of Tabernacles, that we observe the Sabbath, that we obey God's law because it's ours, because we're His children, we've come to understand it's right, it's become a part of us. We want to do it. Oh yes, there's the wages for sin, and we know this, but I think there needs to be a different motivation. Eventually in our lives that we need to come to love God. Because He first loved us.

   You know it states in Matthew 5:48, it says that we are to become perfect or spiritually mature as our Father, which is in heaven. That, my friends, is a big undertaking. But how would this be possible or how is it possible if we don't know God in a personal way? We are here keeping a festival that pictures the return of Jesus Christ to this earth to establish the government of God, and you might say in one sense of the word it also pictures a time when we, those of us that have been called and that were converted and that we've grown sufficiently, when we can literally become sons of God, made of the very same thing that God is of spirit. And to live forever. But that's difficult to envision if you have no real biblical concept of God.

   I know one of the most challenging things I found in my ministry, and I'm sure most of our ministers would feel the same way, and this is working with young people, say in Y.O.U. Bible studies or on campouts and so on, trying to make God someone they can relate to. Now when I grew up, I grew up in a Protestant religion, and I had a concept of God that took me years to get rid of. And I think sometimes that we still have it. My concept was that God sat on a throne in heaven, that there was nothing that you did that God didn't keep up with every little thing. If you sat down and played rook, that's a name of a card game, God knew it. If you went to a motion picture, even if it's way late at night because the church I went to thought it was wrong to even attend a good motion picture, that God had a record of it. And that He was just sort of waiting for you to get out of line so He could get you.

   And of course we were taught that a little small handful of people, maybe less than 10% of all mankind would live in heaven and the rest would be tortured forever. And so you don't think of God in a personal way. So when you pray to Him, it's more out of fear, I think. And we see the scriptures teach us that we're to fear God, but if you look a little more closely into the words and what they mean, it means more to stand in awe. If you're really afraid of someone and some of you had parents that you were literally afraid of, I mean you are afraid to even open your mouth and say anything. It's hard to have any kind of love for someone that you have that kind of fear for, and yet the Bible tells us we are to love God. And we're supposed to be here observing the Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day because we love God and because we want to obey Him. We want to do what He says because it is now that our minds have been opened and we've become converted and we have His Holy Spirit. It's now become our way of life. It's become something we see that's right and proper and good, and we want to do it. And I believe that has to be that way if we're to be in God's family.

   But you know, young people like to have fun. How many young people in the group here today like to have fun? Come on, that's not a trick question. I'm young, even though Mr. Chapman said I wasn't, I am. OK, at least a half of dozen of you, I can see your hand. You like to have fun. It's difficult, isn't it, for us to imagine that God can have fun. I'm talking about like a swim in the ocean. Or a walk on the beach or can enjoy a fine meal. Or good companionship. We don't think of God in those terms.

   I'm often amused and have been at all of us. A lot of times when we pray over food. It's amazing how we will pray for a car, we'll pray for a suit of clothes, or we'll pray over food, and it's almost like we're afraid to let God know that we enjoy a nice dress or a nice suit of clothes or that we'd be afraid to tell God that really we want that Chrysler or that Plymouth or that Ford or whatever it is because frankly it's just nice to sit in it. So we usually go along this line. We, we thank God for the food, and we, we tell Him how that we're really appreciative that we've got good food on the table so that we can be strong. And we can serve. And uh so that we'll have good physical strength and we can serve and uh how it is that you know that we need to eat so we can serve. But we're almost afraid to say to Him that we're grateful, of course, for the nourishment that comes from food, but to tell Him that we're actually anxious to eat the steak that's on the plate because it tastes good. Or that we want to get inside a new car because it's enjoyable if you don't lust or covet it.

   There's nothing wrong with a new car that I know of. There are several in the parking lot out there, and unless someone's in them, they're doing nothing. And if they are, someone needs to run out there and take care of them. I've got one that's not new, but it's a '78 model and it normally behaves itself real well. It sits on the carport, never goes any place, never abuses anything. Unless some of us get in it and use it improperly. There's nothing wrong in having a good suit of clothes. It makes you feel better, doesn't it? Be honest with yourself. If you're sitting here in a dress that's 15 years old and it's the only one you have. And you've ever had the experience of having a new one, isn't it different? But we're afraid to admit that to ourselves, or maybe we're afraid that God will find out that it's fun. And He won't let us have it.

   Isn't that true? That we're afraid to tell Him that it's fun to go swimming, so or that it's fun to play racquetball, so we try to convince Him that we play racquetball or basketball or softball because we have to have physical exercise. Now I'm over exaggerating, get a point across, because I think our concept of God oftentimes is that He's sitting up there and He wants to get us. Well, brethren, if He really wanted to, I think with few exceptions, He'd have plenty to get us for. I know that there are few in the group, and I'm not calling them by name, that probably are righteous enough you wouldn't have to be concerned, but I'm talking to the rest of us.

   Now I've got a few things I want to say to you this this morning and I want you to uh pay close attention. You know, a lot of people say "I believe. I believe in God." I want to tell you a story about a man. He was very religious and he was standing on a cliff. And he fell off of the cliff and on the way down he grabbed a pretty good sapling and there he hung, 200 feet above nothing. So he began to pray, as people can pray when they get in that kind of predicament. The people that, you know, fall in a well upside down can pray. They tell me that when you're on a life raft in the middle of the ocean, no food, you can pray. So this guy began to pray and and just a little bit of cloud, a little small cloud came floating over and stopped right over the top of him. And out of this cloud came a voice. And the voice said, "My son. Do you believe?" Of course he was a little startled, he said, "Yes sir, I sure do." He said, "My son, do you believe in Jesus Christ?" He said, "Yes sir, I do." He said, "My son, do you have faith?" He said, "Yes sir, I do." He said, "Well, let go." So he looked down 200 feet. He looked up and he said, "Is there anyone else out there that can help me?"

   So sometimes I think we have some of those ideas. Not just like that. Over in I John 4th chapter verse 19, there's a statement made regarding how that God first loved us and the love that talks about that God has for mankind is greater than that that human beings are capable of apart from God's Holy Spirit. I John 4:19. It says we love Him, we love God because He first loved us. Because He first loved us.

   And I know that having come out of a Protestant world and looking around at the various religions that are called Christian, it's difficult sometimes maybe to find an appropriate or right balance or approach. We had some questions once in a spokesman club to show you how that it's easy to go one way or the other, and the questions at this time regarded the Vietnam War. There were about 15 people present, 10 of whom commented, and all 10 of them in one way or the other thought the solution was to blow all of Vietnam away. And the way to handle all the reprobates and sinners was to hang them or kill them or shoot them or put them to death or stone them or whatever. And of course the only problem is that if all sinners were stoned, I think most of us would be dead. Wouldn't we? I believe the scriptures teach us that all of us still have some sin, some imperfection, some shortcomings.

   So God first loved us. Now, I see an example of an individual called Jesus Christ who walked on the earth, and He said that if you have seen me, if you have seen me, if you have known me, you have known the Father. So I think at least we can look at His life. And we can draw certain conclusions about God. First place, if God were as quick to want to blow people up as we sometimes are, I'm afraid the earth would have been destroyed many years ago because you read that at the time of the Noachian deluge, the statement is made that it grieved God that He'd made man. That is, I think God was maybe even a little more wicked or a little more upset. Uh, or maybe a little, uh, that man turned out a little differently than He anticipated. I don't know whether the Noachian deluge was planned from the beginning or whether God. I know God's capable of doing whatever He wants to do whenever He wants to do it. And that there's nothing that escapes God. And that there's nothing that has gone on or will go on that God does not know about. And I know there's no situation that God cannot cope with and come up with a proper answer, but nevertheless, you get the impression, at least I do, from reading it, that God was a little uh, surprised, shall we say, at least, that man was a little more wicked than He had anticipated.

   Now Abraham was called a friend of God. He was called a friend of God. Notice over in James the 2nd chapter. Now when I think about a friend, I had a friend introduce me and then he left not to listen to my sermon. No, he had some business. I, I shouldn't have thrown that in there, but I did have a friend introduce me. There was another friend sitting over there and he's not present at the time. So when I think of a friend, I think of someone that you're glad to see or that you know. Uh, or that you're grateful to come in to say his presence, uh, you're kind of excited when you see an old friend, aren't you? And I don't mean, don't misunderstand me. We should never go before God without all the awe and respect of who He is. But you ever think about going to pray because it could be an enjoyable experience that you want to go talk to the one that was at least Abraham's friend. And Christ makes a statement, we'll look at the scripture a little later. He said to the disciples that they were His friends. And He didn't call them servants because the servant doesn't know, He said, what the Lord's going to do or his master is going to do, but I call you friends.

   Now I don't think being in the family of God would be very exciting if we were always in a state of trembling, of being just deathly afraid if God walked in somewhere we were and we were terrified. Uh, that we couldn't talk like some of the spokesman club members, they know what that's like the first time they get up to give a speech. Well, I've experienced that. I'm sure you have. It's amazing how you can remember absolutely nothing. One individual I knew couldn't even remember his name. I mean with help, he couldn't remember his name. So I don't think it'd be all that pleasurable to be in a family if that were the way it is. Sure, there's always going to be the respect and admiration and love and devotion to a father. But I think a real relationship, and we'll talk about that a little bit.

   And James 2:23 and the scripture was fulfilled which said, Abraham believed God, and he obeyed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. Now it's mentioned a couple of other places that I happen to find in Isaiah 41:8. And in 2 Corinthians 20 verses 5 to 7 (2 Chronicles 20:5-7). Abraham is called a friend of God.

   Now, let's just for a moment pause and I'll paraphrase an account that happened back in Genesis 18th chapter. You may not immediately recognize the account but just the chapter number, but once I begin, you'll remember having read the story. Apparently from what I read, the Lord, the one that's the God of the Old Testament, and two angels were on their way to do something, and Abraham was in the door of his tent. And apparently recognized who they were, went out and invited them to come in and sit down in the shade for a little while, and he'd get something to wash their feet, and then he went on to prepare a meal.

   And the one that's the God of the Old Testament apparently said, "Shall I hide from Abraham this thing I'm about to do?" He said, "Well, no, I won't. I won't hide it from Abraham." So He told him that He'd been receiving some rather unpleasant reports about Sodom and Gomorrah and that He was going down to check it out. If it was true, He was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, which He did with fire because the reports were very true. But it's interesting that I'm sure it was done with great respect. That Abraham asked Him several questions. One was, I'm I'm sure he was very concerned because Lot was there. He asked the question, "Would you destroy the cities if there were 50 righteous there?" Now he didn't, I mean, He said, "Well, no, if there were 50 He wouldn't," and then he goes on and he, he keeps bringing the number down until I think he finally gets to 10. And if I remember the story correctly, that God said, "Well, if there were 10 righteous there, He wouldn't destroy the city."

   Well, it turned out apparently there was only one righteous, and that was Lot and I guess Lot had his problems. But he's referred to as a righteous man. His wife apparently wanted to go back in her own heart and became a pillar of salt. And the two daughters obviously weren't all that converted, so apparently was one righteous person, but he talked to Him. Now of course we know that He was in a human form, or at least He could be seen and touched. We find that Jacob wrestled with Him, but to me, while that doesn't tell me how I might react to God in His glorified form, it tells me something about these beings, the God the Father and Christ the Son. That makes it a little easier for me to go into Their presence when I make mistakes as a human being. And it has helped me over the years to come to desire to talk to Them in prayer and also the desire to read about Them in the Bible so I can learn more about how They function, how They live, and the kind of entities They are, so I can be more like Them. I can emulate and if Christ could say when He was on earth that if you've seen me, you've seen the Father, then we can look at the way He behaved.

   I think if I understand that correctly and properly surmise how the Father would behave in similar circumstances. And there's some beautiful, beautiful, uh, accounts, and of course we don't have all of the, the story of what Christ did when He walked the earth. I mean, had the book would have been enormous in size had everything He said and done been recorded, but we find some interesting things about it.

   In Exodus the 33rd chapter. Moses was told to move himself in essence because God was very upset with the rebellious nation, and He was going to destroy the whole people, He said, and start over with Moses. But it's interesting that with love and respect, and with a tremendous amount of sense of awe, nevertheless, he importuned, the God of the Old Testament, that we know as Christ of the New Testament, and he asked Him. He said [Tape Skips] Saint Petersburg, but it has a bound that God drew. And of course in times of storms and so on, tidal waves do go in somewhat, but the oceans normally stay within its bounds and as the tide moves in and out, whatever the distances are, it stays within those bounds because God sent them, and that great creator God we can come to know.

   In John 15th chapter, I mentioned this earlier, Christ made the statement that we are His friends. Can you imagine? I couldn't have in a Protestant world, a woman who actually who had been forgiven, who apparently according to the account, literally washed Christ's feet with her tears. You think of a God that approachable, and He was Emmanuel, God made flesh. To me that tells me something. If He would allow this quote unquote sinner to get this close to wash His feet with her tears, to dry them with her hair, that God is an approachable individual.

   I see that when the lady who was caught in the, uh, uh, in a tent apparently committing adultery and other people were ready to kill her, that she was brought to Christ and because apparently she had a repentant attitude, He began to doodle on the ground and I don't know what He wrote down. He may have written down some sins He knew about them, but nevertheless, all the accusers left and He turned to her and He said, "I don't condemn you either. Go and sin no more." So that it encourages me that if I make mistakes, and some of them I'm sure I don't even recognize, but when I do recognize the mistake that I can go to God that Christ showed me when He was on earth that God is a compassionate merciful individual whose mercy is, you know, is as long as it is from the east to the west or that great a distance that He will forgive and He's quick to forgive. And when I read scriptures it says that it's Him that's inside me that gives me both the will and the desire to do what is right. I take hope and maybe I'm a little more human than some of us, but I certainly feel that I need all of God that I can have in me so that I'll think correctly and function properly.

   Notice in John 15. Beginning in verse 12 (John 15:12), He said, "This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this than a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends. If you do whatsoever I command you," so. What He said to the disciples, if I understand that correctly, is that if we're trying to obey God, we want to do what God says and we're trying to make that a part of us. That Christ will be our friend. Christ will be someone through whose office we can go into the presence of God. And that God will be glad for us to come. That He enjoys having us come into His presence through prayer with a proper thanksgiving and meditation and reverence. That is inspiring. Why shouldn't it be? He gives us the analogy that He's a father. What happens when you as a father or a parent have a child that's putting forth a good effort? Aren't most of us very pleased? I think so. And I think we can rightly say that God is when we're trying. We're told that we have that parent relationship.

   But you know it's difficult for us to develop a friendship with God or to, to consider Him as being something other than a being that's like Mr. Kurtz said He's in the trees in the grass, He's everywhere. You know that's, that's kind of concept I had that everywhere you went, God was someplace and He is omnipresent. He could be anywhere He wanted to, but I assume that through the power of His Holy Spirit and of course He has millions and billions I guess of angelic beings that He can monitor everything that goes on everywhere. But I would assume at this present moment that God the Father who is comprised of spirit is one entity, one being, is one place in that sense. Wherever that might be in the New City of Jerusalem at this precise moment.

   It would be difficult, I guess, for us to imagine that God might actually have lunch. I said so often we think of Him sitting on the throne, always looking down at the earth 24 hours a day. He never moves and He never changes clothes. And if He did, He would just simply snap His fingers and have a new change of garment. Now God could snap His finger and I guess anything could happen because He knows how to do that. He's a creator, but I have a feeling that there's a little bit more to it than that. A little bit more involved in being a member of the family of God than just walking around snapping your fingers. Let's have a tree, let's have this, let's have that. That wouldn't be all that much fun if no thought went into it.

   You know, the first thing I'd like to talk about just a little bit is the size of God. I don't know how tall He is and I don't mean to tell you I do, but it is interesting to note. In Revelation, the first chapter, when John, the apostle John, was given the opportunity and to see God or see Christ in vision, and he was making an attempt to describe Christ and I'm glad that it was his job instead of mine. He was trying to put down on a piece of paper what he saw and he talked about how His face was brilliant and His eyes were like flaming fire and His hair was white, so very white that it was like wool, whiter than wool probably, and that His feet were like polished brass and he wanted to talk about other things but he doesn't mention that God was somehow awesome in size. We used to sing a song years ago that says "He has the whole world in His hands." Now they didn't mean literally that You walked around, but you envisioned sometimes God maybe being 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 feet tall, but how tall does God need to be to be all powerful?

   Well, I don't know what His height is. There's no mention anywhere of Him being enormous in size. But He says that we were created in Genesis 1:26, we were made in God's image. So that if I stop for a moment and look at me, I know that God has two eyes. I assume He has two nostrils, two ears. He has a mouth and a tongue and fingers and I guess His arms work the way mine do if I can gather from that that's what He's talking about.

   It's interesting. Let's note over in Deuteronomy, the 4th chapter, I think it is. He makes fun of gods that people have that they carve out of stone. Beginning in about verse 23 (Deuteronomy 4:23). He told them to take heed unto yourselves lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which is made unto you, and you begin to make a graven image or a likeness of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden. Then He says that God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God. He said, "When you shall beget children and children's children, and you shall have remained long in the land and shall corrupt yourselves and make a graven image or the likeness of anything and shall do evil in the sight of God to provoke Him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that you shall utterly perish from off the land whereunto you go over Jordan to possess it. You shall not prolong your days upon it, but you shall be utterly destroyed. And He said He'll scatter us among the nations or scatter them as it was, and of course, it also applies to modern day Israel. And you shall be left few in number among the heathen where the Lord shall lead you and there you shall serve gods, the works of men's hands, wood and stone which neither see nor hear, nor eat nor smell."

   So obviously God does all those things, otherwise why ridicule stone gods, they can't. And I've often thought, and I won't elaborate on it, but it's, it's obvious to me that God does eat whenever He should choose. I don't know how often that might be. I, I guess for the sheer delight of eating for the enjoyment of food for sitting down and having all of the things that go with a nice banquet. Christ said He would drink no more of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom, which says to me He's gonna drink again of the fruit of the vine that is Christ and God could sit down and enjoy a real fine wine.

   You know, we think about God and we wouldn't dare even wonder if He would ever comb His hair. I, I guess God's hair would be perfectly in place and it would never need to be combed. I mean, because if it did, then He wouldn't be God, would He? Isn't that true? You, you reckon He understands when some of us men who begin to lose our hair, we begin to talk to Him about not wanting to be bald, that He might be able to appreciate hair? I think so. I think so. And I'm sure He has many changes of clothing or garments. Now I'm not gonna get into how they're made because I don't know for sure.

   But you know, so often we have the idea that God's sort of a mysterious hocus pocus God. I did maybe none of you ever experienced this, but as I grew up I thought God just stepped out one day into an empty universe and He said, "Let there be an earth." No planning, no design, no anything, and He said "Let there be an earth" and the powers that of His spirit or whatever knew what an earth was supposed to look like and suddenly out of nothing there it was. And God said, "Oh, that's what an earth looks like. Write that down in the dictionary." And that He brought forth animals and various creatures without thought, but that's not true when you begin to look into the creation, the more you look at it, the more awesome and great becomes God because it's amazing how many times have you heard of uh a factory recall that was made by God. I mean everything I know of works.

   But boy, we have been building automobiles for what, 70 years? We still can't build one that doesn't have all kinds of defects. When we put together an incredible space program. And I mean there were backup systems for backup systems. We never had a flight. We never had a space flight that something didn't malfunction. Can't you just see the first dog if we'd have made it? We'd have put him down on Earth, human beings made him and his back legs would have went one way and his front legs some other direction. But it didn't happen with God and He built all of the things and then He built in the balance how they all interrelate to each other. All the little creatures that are in the sea. You could spend all your life studying just about insects, and you wouldn't be an authority. There's so much to know in this world just on this orb that's physical. You could spend your life studying trees and shrubs. And yet God planned and designed all of this and then brought it into being. So He's an incredible designer. A planner. An awe inspiring being, to say the least.

   You know, in I Kings, another thing I jotted down about God, what do you think He created angelic beings for? I've always been amused as a kid. I really didn't know what they were for. After all, there isn't anything that God doesn't know, isn't that correct? So that means that if God lives another 40 trillion billion zillion zillion zillion zillion zillion billion zillion zillion zillion billion million million million million more years that won't even start eternity, that there won't be anything new to learn, is that correct? I'm just asking the question. I'm not supposed to supplying the answers.

   But in I Kings 22 we find a case where God had said that Ahab was to die. He’d been a bad individual and he rightly deserved his fate and they were discussing how to bring to pass what God had said was going to happen. Now I know that God could have thought it all up on His own. That He didn't really maybe need the help of anybody, but they were discussing it and somebody, a being, a spirit being, says, "Well, we could do this. We could do this." Nothing there that says that wouldn't have worked. There may have been other suggestions, but finally the one that I know what, "I'll go down and I'll be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets and they'll prophesy that he's gonna win the battle and he'll go up and he'll die" and that's what happened.

   I read in the scriptures that there are 24 elders, 24 living beings who apparently have super intelligence. Do you suppose that God might ever convene them and discuss things with them? Or does He just occasionally go around and and and shake your hand and say "Well, you're a nice elder." Are they decorative? I have a feeling, isn't it true when you read in Genesis 10, at least this is what I derived from the account that somebody brought to God a report about what was going on down at this tower on the plain of Shinar, and it appears, if I understand it correctly, they went down to investigate to see if it was true. Or to see it for themselves. Yet what I grew up with was the idea that God would have known all that anyway. Everything that 4 1/2 billion people would do every second of every day, God could keep up with 4 1/2 billion people. Not saying He couldn't. I just don't think He does things that way.

   I think He created angelic beings because He uses them. Lucifer and those who were with him were put on this earth originally to do something. They were constructive, they were working with and within the plan of God until they rebelled. I don't think He's going to have us join the family just because He wants to have company. But because He wants to enlarge the size of His family, there's things that we can do within the framework of God's government. And I think those 24 elders, I don't believe God tells us that in the multitude of counsel there is wisdom. Inspires that to be written and that He Himself never discusses things with anyone else. But it would be difficult for us to see God and Christ and the 24 elders sitting, say around a conference table discussing world affairs, discussing how things are working out here, and maybe what adjustments need to be made to bring to pass all that has been written.

   You know, there's a beautiful thing about being God. You can literally prophesy something. And then just make sure it comes to pass. We can guess, but God can say it will, and then sit down and work out the details, of bringing it to pass.

   You know there are a lot of things you could say about God. You could have sermons and sermons and sermons. He's the most beautiful, most awe inspiring individual you could ever hope to meet. You can only get a thumbnail sketch from the study of the Bible. But you begin to see that He is a He is a being, He's a person in that sense. I don't mean like human, but He's made of spirit, but He's someone can be talked to, that can have and does have in a right and proper balance all of the emotions that are right and good. God is filled with His purpose, which He tells us to be.

   You know, He's a very positive individual. He states in Philippians 1:6 that He'll finish this creation which He's begun in us. That's encouraging to me because I don't know. When I read what the apostle Paul said in the 7th chapter of the book of Romans, I have a very distinct feeling that Paul was frustrated by being human. Because he talked about the things that he didn't want to do that he found himself doing. And he said the things that I decided I will do I'm not able to do. Now I get the feeling that he's talking about something that's pretty important, at least he alludes to the fact that he had a problem at one time in his life with being a little covetous. He said he didn't know it was wrong until the law said so. But I have a feeling that Paul like all of us, was frustrated by the human. He was frustrated by the flesh, he said there was a war in his members.

   How many times have you said "I will do this for the rest of my life. I will pray 30 minutes a day." Or something to that effect. Only to find yourself somewhere down the road having failed. So Paul said that he would be delivered and we'll read the latter part of that chapter, but let's look at Philippians 1:6. Just breaking into a thought, Paul saying being confident of this very thing that He which has begun a good work. That's in us, brethren, that He will perform it.

   You know, Paul said in Galatians 2:20 that Christ lived in him. And brethren, He can live in us and God can become an individual or a being that we know and love and respect and stand in awe of that we pray to because we love Him. That we pick up the Bible and study about because we want to learn about our Father, that we keep His feast and His Sabbath and His law. Because we've come to understand it's right and good and we love our Father and we want to obey Him. And we can be assured that if we do our part, God will finish what He’s begun in us. He sent out brethren to put people on earth. And to remake Himself, to add members to His family, and when God sets His hand to do something, God does it. He's gonna make a lot of sons. A lot of daughters. And I think it'll be a small percentage that He'll find necessary to throw into a lake of fire. That's just my own personal feelings. Because God has unlimited ways to work with us as individuals. Incredible ways that He can reach down in our lives and direct us and talk to us.

   You know, brethren, and God lets a lot of things happen to us either on an individual level or in a local church area sometimes on a whole national international scale because He's working with us. Working something out, building in us the very character of God. And that's kind of hard sometimes. Can only be built that way. But He said He would finish the work that He'd begun in us and would perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ.

   Notice back in Romans 7, I have to hurry here. Because I want to cover several aspects. Just briefly anyway, Paul says in Romans 7:24, he said, "O wretched man that I am." Now I don't believe that Paul thought, "Well, it'd be nice for me to write something in the epistles of the Romans to let them know that I'm still human." I've worked with and been around an awful lot of people in the last 17-18 years. Very wonderful and fine and converted people, but I have never yet met one to my knowledge that wasn't human, that didn't make mistakes. Now I may not know what the mistakes are. But I know they do make mistakes, so he said, "Oh wretched man that I am."

   I used to read this when I first became a member of the church, and I thought it'd be nice to say it, but I didn't understand it. And I've often likened conversion to being in a room that's totally dark, and God decides to work with you and He raises the shade just the smallest amount and lets a little light in. And all of a sudden we get excited, we get busy and we make a few changes and we think we made a lot of progress and that the rest of our Christian lives, He just keeps illuminating the room with a little more light. Until there's a a plateau that we reach where we understand that we in and of ourselves cannot save ourselves, that while we have to obey God as a sign as a as an outward sign and an inward sign and whatever that we're trying to be like God we nevertheless need the sacrifice of Jesus Christ daily.

   So Paul said, "Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Who is it that will finally free me from the flaws of human nature?" Where is that person today that doesn't have some kind of vanity? Where is that human being that isn't sensitive to something and oftentimes we're sensitive to things that we think people are doing to us that they may not even have anything in mind. What happens if someone walks right by you and doesn't say hi? The first thing that occurs to you is not that the person didn't see you. Which is positive. It is that they deliberately weren't talking to you. I mean if you're not careful, that's the natural response isn't it? Sure it is, and we tend to do this. We're negative about ourselves, the world's very negative. But Paul said that through Christ we can be delivered so that with the mind I myself serve the law of God but with the flesh, the law of sin.

   So Paul's saying I make my mistakes in the flesh, but with my mind God has worked with and my mind is being transformed. So that I've come to love God and love His way, so that he felt like David, you know, David said, "Oh how I love thy law." It had become David understood why the law was good and right and proper, as Mr. McMichael said yesterday. There's no restoration again uh without the restoration of God's truth in His holy days without the law of God. And of course there could be no real Church of God today that would really understand the whole 7,000 year plan of God without an understanding of the holy days. And how each one of them pictures a certain aspect of the plan of God.

   Let's stop for a moment and go to Galatians 5:22 because I wanna talk to you a little bit. Out of this, and I may not take these fruits in order and I may add a couple, but I think you'll agree with me. They certainly are attributes or aspects of God. Now it says in verse 22, he just told us about some things that are fruits of the flesh, but he says in verse 22, "But the fruit of the Spirit." Whose spirit? God's spirit, he said, look, if you're letting God work in you, if you're letting the Holy Spirit produce fruit in you, here are some of the things that you'll begin to see. And then he starts to name them off. Well now if that spirit comes from God, if it emanates from God, if it is of God, and it's of Christ, and if it produces these fruits. Then wouldn't it be reasonable to say that these very characteristics are right emotions? Are also present in almighty God. To a point of perfection.

   What about peace? And as I say, I'm going to take some of the fruits out of context and I'm gonna save love for a little later for obvious reasons. You know, the Bible talks about a peace that passes all understanding. A calmness that can prevail or be in us that comes from God, you know, God's not, of course He has vision doesn't He? He knows exactly where everything's going. But God's not a worrier. Therefore if He's working with us and His Holy Spirit is abiding in us, then it ought to be producing that fruit and He talks in chapter 5 of Matthew about blessed are the peacemakers, the people who are settling disputes or settling difficulties or ironing out wrinkles or problems between themselves and others, those who are praying for unity and harmony. For God's the epitome of being at peace and in control of everything, but it says "Great peace have they that love your law," Psalm 119:165, I believe it is. "And nothing shall offend them."

   What can we say, brethren? When we get offended. What can we say? I mean whether it's me or you or someone else, what can we say? Can we say we had enough of the love of the law of God in us? Well, if so unless the scriptures incorrect, it says if I have enough of it, if I've come to understand God and I love Him and I love His law and I know it's right and it's good and it's proper and it'll produce good things on the earth, I can't be offended.

   Imagine for a moment, brethren, the headlines in tomorrow's paper, if I could snap my finger, you could snap yours, and the 10 commandments would be enforced on the earth. Imagine. Can only be one church, one God being worshiped, no idols and images, no one taking God's name in vain either in profanity or in religion. And guess what would happen on the weekly Sabbath that's coming up? Everybody on the face of the earth, as the Sabbath came to them would stop and would worship the Creator God. Because that tells us that He, it's a reminder that He rested on the 7th day that He's the Creator. The designer, the lawgiver.

   Imagine a world where everybody honored his parents which would apply both physically and spiritually in its truest sense, but let's just take it on a physical plane. Imagine a world. See, I still have parents living. A lot of you that are older have parents living, but you also have children and imagine a world where everybody honored his parents. What would the headlines be like tomorrow? Thou shalt do no murder. Imagine a world now thou shalt do no murder. On the entirety of the earth, there would not be one homicide tomorrow. Wouldn't that be an awful world to live in, and I certainly I certainly say that tongue in cheek. Wouldn't that be glorious? I mean to be able to walk anywhere because no one's gonna do any murder. Of course now if you took that on to the spirit, it wouldn't even be any hate but we're just talking about the letter of the law.

   No adultery or no improper use of sex. Happy homes, happy marriages, because after all, in order to get to that stage you have to learn what it's all about. It says what is it? Thou shalt not steal, isn't that the next one if I got them right order? Don't Mr. Jones can correct me over there. Imagine if you will, a whole world where tomorrow, beginning with a snap of my finger, everybody obeys thou shalt not steal. The prices in the grocery store would go down. The prices in the dry goods store would go down. The prices on automobiles would go down because people would quit stealing. Stealing is a multi-billion dollar business. And there's more theft by white collar worker by white collar workers and workers than in burglaries. You would also say people would stop stealing time, which would mean that when they work for a man 8 hours they'd work 8 hours.

   Imagine a world where no one ever bore a false witness against his neighbor. You went down to the car lot and the fellow said this car has 347,000 miles on it. And we just chipped up some cork and put it in the differential. And the transmission oil is 180 or 180 not proof but weight. It'll really be a powerful transmission if it's 180 proof. But the guy would say, "Here's why I think it's worth $200 or $300. Now you make your assessment." But that's not what he tells you. He tells you it only has 47,000. And if that noise you hear is just something in your ear. You need to see an ear specialist or something. Well, it isn't really that bad, but you know and I know that people will tell you things that aren't true.

   Imagine, for instance. We get the people that have been persecuting the Church of God all of a sudden they'd have to tell the truth, they have to confess to the world, so to speak, and in report what they're up to. A world that didn't bear false witness. And then what about a world where nobody coveted. Wouldn't we all be happier? So you see why I said earlier, the law of God is a beautiful law. And it has to become ours because we're a part of His family. It says we're sons of God. We shall one day be like He is.

   So let's take a few moments and go over a couple of things here. Lost my watch. I told you it wouldn't do any good if I took it off. Long suffering is mentioned. It's warm up here. I hope it isn't as hot down there. Patience. Put yourself in Christ's place for 3 1/2 years. With 12 original apostles or disciples that were to become apostles who were very unconverted at times. But in addition, we know there are 120 apparently and others just picture yourself walking the earth, the only individual you come in contact with that really is converted. Now you think He had to suffer long? You think He had to suffer very long, Mr. Scriber? I think He did. Tremendous example of patience. Tremendous example. One of the characteristics of God.

   If God wasn't patient with us, well I mean the entire population. If He were like some of us, brethren in that spokesman club, He'd blow up this place and He'd blow up that place and the first thing you know there wouldn't be any places left to blow up. Or He'd squash this individual and He'd squash that person and first thing all you have little squash marks all over the earth where there used to be people. But to apply for ourselves, how patient and long suffering are we? How patient and long suffering can we wait a while? Just wait on God. And we just ought to stand still and let God deliver us when we get up against the rock when we get in a place where there's nothing we humanly can do except pray to God, and that's a powerful thing to do and study the Bible, but I mean there's nothing we as individuals can implement, can we stand and wait patiently. Can we suffer long while God works out His plan within us and within the church? It's one of the characteristics of God. One of the fruits that we ought to have.

   Gentleness. You're very gentle? I like to think of the time when Christ picked up little children. You think Christ reached over and got him by the feet and held him upside down? Or took him by the head. No, I see Christ taking a very small child, very carefully putting His hand under its head and putting it up on His shoulder. And asking in a very special way of blessing on a little child, gentleness. Is there anything wrong with men being gentle? Kind. You know, they don't have to be and we don't have to as men be as crude as we sometimes are. Do we? I can see Him picking up a small child and talking about this is the kind of attitude that we need to have, gentleness.

   What about meekness? You know, we think of Christ and we think, well He was God and so when He became human, it would just sort of something that He did, you know, He just walked along so well now I should do this now I should do that but put yourself in a position of being able to have called on God and all the angels and having Satan who's a reprobate in that sense, who's a liar, the father of liars, who's a rebel, who's the adversary. Saying and ridiculing you about you're not the Son of God, otherwise you'd make some bread out of the rocks. Or, if you weren't afraid you'd jump off this temple. You're, you're like the guy that was hanging on the side. You're afraid to let go.

   But in all of that, Christ was meek but never weak. He didn't rail at Satan. He didn't say ugly things. He didn't lose His cool. He just made the right decisions and when you take Him being taken before the people that were to kill Him, all of the abuse that He suffered. He said not. And after all of that brethren, after they done all of that to Him and they took Him out, He was so weak He couldn't carry His own stake and they nailed Him to it, they dropped it in a hole and they were there making fun of Him and ridiculing Him, He could still say to the Father. "Don't put it on their record. Don't hold it against them. Because they really don't know what they're doing." To me, that's the man. That's a man.

   Anyone can lose his temper. If someone, you know, if you go out here on the sidewalk and a stranger walks up to you and plants one on you, gets your nose and both of your lips and knocks you backwards 5 or 6 feet and then you wind up flat on your back. Anybody can get up and be angry. Anyone can get up and return in kind, but to me it takes a man, a man like Jesus Christ who completely in control. Who does not return in kind. Who does not hate. He was a meek man. But never weak.

   Temperance. Nothing but self-control and set a beautiful example all of His life. Of the proper control. He drank wine. Apparently He drank wine on several occasions, but you can rest assured He never overindulged. He ate even with sinners or some said He sat down at the table and ate with people. As if there were any converted people at that time. Or in one sense of the word, if He ate with anybody that's human, I guess in a sense He'd be eating with a sinner. I think we're all still sinners. But He never overindulged. He had self-control, He could do, He could get up early in the morning when He needed to. He could pray all night if He needed to. He could work all day, but He had that kind of self-control.

   Goodness. Of course that word simply means godlike. Can you think of a finer compliment that someone could pay you and to say to you, "You're a chip off the old block." And I don't mean that in a wrong way, but or to say to you, "You know, maybe when they see you in the kingdom, that's right, I know what it was I recognized in you now, that was God in you." Wouldn't that be beautiful? Can you think of a nicer compliment that could be paid to any human being? And to say that "You know when you walked and talked on this earth, I saw God in you. There was something beautiful about you, and now I know what it was." Wouldn't that be fine? Wouldn't that be super? Yes, sir. I guarantee you. I can't think of anything to be nicer than that. For someone to be able to recognize something that looked a little like God.

   Deep appreciation. Did God have deep appreciation? What does it say that when He recreated and restructured the things here for men, He said, He, He created various things and He saw that it was what? It was good. Have you ever taken a tour along the Blue Ridge Mountains over overlooking the Shenandoah Valley in the fall of the year at just the right time and looked at how the master painter walked through the trees with all the colors. If you can't stand on an overlook and look at that and say it is good, you surely must be blind. Everywhere you look, when you stand and you look at that ocean and it's blue and those waves just come one right after another, or you see the blueness of the sky. Or the brightness of the sun, or the whiteness of a cloud. Can you appreciate those things? I think God can.

   When you see the beauty of a stallion. Or even a beautiful cow. Mr. Kurtz, they might look dumb because they're tired of looking at us. I'm not sure. Beautiful creatures. What about a deer? You ever see anything any more graceful than a deer? I'm talking about the kind that runs on four legs and the males grow antlers.

   Can you imagine an angelic choir? Or an orchestra. I mean, I've listened to the festival music. And I wish I could sing and so do a lot of other people. They can sing. Stop shaking your head, Mr. Jones. I see you. He wished I could sing. They can sing. But can you picture an angelic choir of maybe 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, or maybe 10,000 angels. An orchestra of music that would be perfect. Ambassador College, which is the most fun place and the most wonderful place on earth that a young person could be because it is God's college. I've heard some musical presentations that are just absolutely beyond description, the limited vocabulary I have. And yet I think God is able to sit down and to witness and to enjoy concerts that surpass what we as humans can achieve.

   You know, do you get the feeling that God had a deep sense of appreciation for His Son when He dispatched the message when Christ was being baptized? And He came up out of the water and, and someone brought a message and said, "This is my beloved Son. In whom I am well pleased." I believe God has a tremendous sense of appreciation. Do we hurry so through life that we don't have a moment's time to stop and look at the flowers? Are we in such a rush? That we never have time to look at the sunset. Or to see a sunrise. Do you have a moment to pause and look at the ocean or the bay? God has a tremendous sense of color coordination and beauty. Therefore, He must appreciate beauty. In a very interesting way.

   You have righteous anger. God had. There's evidence of it in the Bible. He never sinned. Sometimes we might. But God never sins. He can get very angry. But God never sins. God never does something just blindly or motivated by sheer emotion. God's anger is properly directed, and the people who are the recipients of it rightly and properly deserve it.

   You talk about faith, that's the fruit of God's spirit. God has faith, confidence. To me, you talk about being positive. How could you be more positive than to kneel down and to take red mud and to make an individual and call him red mud, call him Adam and say from him and those he will produce his offspring, I am going to make sons of God. To me, that's about as humble a beginning as you could have. That's about as great a miracle as could be accomplished. To me that's what you call being very positive or having tremendous confidence in your ability to bring something to pass to recreate yourself.

   Do we have any faith in God? Sometimes I think when we read the scripture where it says, when Christ returns to the earth will He find faith? I think we often think, well, we find a lot of healing miracles. Well, I'm sure that that's what He's talking about in a sense, but sometimes I have a deeper sense that He asks us, when He returns, Christ returns, will He find people on earth who have faith in God's ability to run His work. Will He find people who believe that Jesus Christ is capable of handling the responsibility that God gave Him? Will He be able to deliver up a kingdom to the Father, full of born again sons of God, as it says in I Corinthians 15, when it's all over. I think maybe that's the kind of faith you'll look for. The kind of faith that knows that God's in charge and that Christ has the power of the entirety of the universe. There is nothing that He cannot do. There is nothing that He cannot change. There is nothing that God cannot alter if it needs be. But you see, He being God has so much better vision than we. He would know if there are any corrections that are needed anywhere.

   What about sorrow? How many of you have ever been to a funeral? You're not gonna tell me, OK, most of you may be asleep. But anyway, when you go to a funeral, you see people who cry. Is that true? You know why people cry at a funeral? Maybe sometimes they cry over the departed one if they happen to believe he was a sinner is gonna spend eternity in hell, but oftentimes and maybe most of the time what you see is a sorrow over the loss. Isn't it? Can God relate to that? Can God experience that feeling?

   Well, I think there's some indication that He can. God was very sorrowful. He said one time, all that they were speaking of ancient Israel, all that there were a heart in them. That they would fear me and keep my commandments, and it might be well with them. Do you suppose God experienced a little bit of sadness or sorrow as He watched them repeatedly do things that were wrong. They promised to do well. But they just couldn't keep those promises. I think so. I don't think God took any great pleasure in drowning most of the people who are on earth. With the exception of Noah and 7 others.

   But let's go a little bit further. Do you suppose that He, it says He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, by the way. But do you suppose that He can experience sorrow as He sees what we, the people on the earth, have done to themselves? You suppose that if He were to look inside the hospitals, and the places called mental institutions and other things where maybe people are not there because of demons necessarily, but they do have a physical and maybe some kind of emotional problem. Do you think that God looks at that that He could be touched. You think if God saw a little girl embraced up to her waist with little crutches on her arms that God could be touched. I believe He can be. He didn't cause that. We did. He has to have looked at, I have to believe that God looks at this world and while He's angry with us because of our sins and rightly so. There also has to be some sorrow that we have chosen the way that's led to all the debauchery that we can see everywhere.

   But what do you suppose God felt like when they took Jesus. Now I read, and this is not very pleasant to mention, but maybe it would for the sake of the subject it'd be worth it. That when the Nazis took some of the Jews, they devised all kinds of cruel ways to torture people. And there are some accounts of little babies being taken from a mother and flung into the air and then caught with a bayonet. Or to take a bayonet and actually open up an expectant mother and and have her just lie there on the ground and die cruel or one case of where an individual that survived recalls seeing an SS trooper take a little child by his feet and bash his head against a wall.

   Now you can imagine if it were your child, what it would have felt like. I want you for a moment to ask yourself, what do you suppose God the Father, the one to whom we pray, felt the first time someone hit Jesus Christ. Do you think He was just sitting down someplace and saying, "Oh, they're gonna hit Him now." That was His nose they mashed or when they put the crown of thorns on His head and they battered Him a little bit, so they penetrated real well. You think God felt any of those feelings of sorrow or hurt? I think so.

   What do you think it was like as He observed them tearing the hide off of His own Son? The 2nd member of the family. You think God had to work at restraining Himself? I think, I think God would experience it helps me to know that if I'm talking to God about a child of mine that maybe is, is very sick or I'm talking to Him about myself or someone else that God has those kinds of feelings and He can understand why I might cry and plead with Him to intervene.

   What do you suppose it was like as the evening progressed and they scourged Him and then He walked haltingly to the hill of the skull and as they drove the spikes in His hands and dropped them in the hole as He hung there. What do you suppose it was like for God to turn His back when Christ became the sin sacrifice for the whole world? And turn and walk away. And to hear those words echoed in His ears, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" I think God felt something that we can relate to. And because He can feel those things. He's become a personal savior. The hundreds and thousands of us, someone we can relate to, we can talk to, you know, He's got a leg, so He knows what it's like when your leg won't work or your eyes don't see or your ears don't hear. He knows what it's like. He has teeth. If you don't have any. Or your eyes don't function very well and you need some glass to help you or something stuck in your ear so you can partially hear. He understands the feelings you feel when a little child is very near death and you're being prayed for. He understands your grief when you stand at a graveyard and a loved one is in a box. They're about to lower in the ground because God's that kind of being.

   What about joy, brethren? You know, the Bible says there's great joy in heaven over one sinner that repents, but we can't imagine, can we, that there might literally be some kind of rejoicing in heaven that God would get excited. I get excited. I baptized dozens and dozens of people. It's the most beautiful experience, one of the most beautiful experiences I can think of. To take someone down in a watery grave and bring them up to walk in newness of life, to lay your hands on these imperfect hands attached to an imperfect human being, but know that if that person has been granted repentance, and if they're really being worked with, that at that instant God's gonna make them a begotten child of God. That's probably a joy that no human being would ever be worthy of experiencing. But I think God gets a little excited.

   You know, I've, I've often thought, what do you suppose happened on the day that Christ was resurrected when He got up to the New City of Jerusalem? Do you suppose that Christ came in one door and, and I, I'm, I'm not trying to be disrespectful, please, I'm just using terms, and He said to God, He said, "Well, hello Mr. God, how are you? I, I'm up here, you know, we gotta go through whatever it is in order for my sacrifice to be accepted and, and God said, "Well, hello Mr. Jesus or whatever. I see you made it."

   I have a feeling that there was more to their reunion. Now I don't know what was necessary in the way of right kind of ceremony for the, for the holy of holies is in heaven to be properly atoned and taken care of, but I think there had to be some time when They embrace one another. There had to be some excitement and some joy. Maybe some tears that flow because that aspect, if I understand it correctly, They did take a risk, didn't They? I mean, Christ could sin if He was human, couldn't He? I mean, that's what I thought. And if He had, of course I think His vision being so much better than ours, then the likelihood may have been fairly remote, but it's obvious that He struggled. A man does not pray for 3 one hour periods so fervently that little capillaries break and blood joins perspiration. That isn't a bit concerned about the ordeal that's ahead of him.

   I think there was joy when They got together. And brethren, I think there's gonna be fantastic joy in the family of God. And I think though the family of God will rule certainly with firmness and control, there's another attribute of God that I think is gonna be very evident on the earth, and that's called agape. For God so agaped this world. He so cared, He was so concerned that while as Romans said we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And brethren, regardless of how despicable our pasts have been and the mistakes that we presently make, if our attitude and posture with God is right and we're striving, we can daily have our mistakes submerged in the blood of that savior. God loved the world and He loved us first. It says in I John 2, He's the Christ is the propitiation not only for our sins but for the sins of the world.

   Mercy and forgiveness. He says that we have to have mercy. We have to have love. If we are to experience those things ourselves. If we're to be forgiven, we have to forgive. If we're to have mercy, we're to extend mercy and therefore we ought to have some of the love of God. The Bible says the sign that will identify us. As wonderful as they are, it's not the Sabbath and it's not the holy days, it is that the love of God abides in us, that you love one another. In fact, God says in I John 4, if you say you love me and you don't love your brother whom you've seen, then you're lying. You don't love me because he that loves God loves his brother and love covers a multitude of sins.

   You know, there's one thing I've noticed about dissidents, they always want to try to uncover. Don't they? They want to see if there's something, some mud they can sling. They wanna say bad things about people that might be true. I don't know, but love doesn't do that. Love covers sin. Love forgives. Love doesn't expose. It doesn't dig out. It doesn't want to hurt or destroy. Love wants to give. And those, that's one of the fruits of God's Holy Spirit.

   Would you say God was approachable? I'd say the example we mentioned about Moses shows that God is very approachable, that if you approach Him with the right respect and awe and reverence, and you brought your subject properly, you can talk to God about whatever is on your heart and mind. And brethren, I believe with every fiber of my being that there has to come a time in our lives where God and Christ are our personal saviors. They are entities or beings that we can relate to because They have perfect emotions, but They can understand what we go through as human beings. That They can relate to the feeling of joy. They can understand that we enjoy that steak. They can understand that we enjoy getting into the ocean and and riding a raft or swimming in a pool. They can understand that we enjoy racquetball, or handball or softball. We can't even imagine that God might do anything in a recreational sense. Yet I have a feeling He does.

   God could understand our enjoyment of a fine Ambassador College show. An hour and a half or so of just incredible entertainment was delightful. God could understand that and we could go home and say so to God. It was beautiful. It, it shows us what Your college can do, what students with the right kind of instructors and the people at the helm yielded and guided by the Holy Spirit, what can be accomplished. God can appreciate and understand those things. He can understand our sadness on occasion. He can understand our human needs. We all have them. We're all human. All of you will have to eat sometime in the future, if you want to go on living physically. All of you will need to breathe very shortly. If you plan to go on living physically, and you'll need to drink some fluid if you plan to live. Some way you must be sustained. God knows and can understand all of those.

   You know, we need to come to the place where we can respond to the guidance of God's Holy Spirit. I'd like to conclude by reading a scripture. And then I'd like to read to you a poem. You know God's doing something on this earth that the world cannot understand. God's doing something that's beyond, I think sometimes even our comprehension how that He's taking us human beings from all walks of life, all kind of backgrounds, all type of problems and working with us and molding us and shaping us and correcting us and building in us the character that will enable us to live forever.

   And there's something I saw in Psalm the other day that I thought I'd overlooked for a while and it just struck me as being appropriate. Psalm 34:8. It says, "Oh taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusts in Him. Oh fear Him," stand in reverence in awe of the Lord "you His saints, for there is no want to those who properly reverence, fear, stand in awe of, properly love God." But it says, "Oh taste and see that God is good." And brethren, I think we need to do that, that there has to come a time in our lives where religion is no more just religion that we don't do things just because we have to, but because we've come to enjoy doing them. We love to do them because God says it's right and good and proper.

   I'd like to read a poem to you. It was written by a man who for 11 or 12 years suffered from amnesia, could not remember his name, and after he came out of this amnesia, he wrote this poem and although he's not converted, I think he had a little glimpse of what God is doing.

   "I would paint on the canvas of my life a masterpiece for all men to behold, a portrait of self that would please each one, and I'd do it with strokes, both swift and bold. I'd begin by choosing the brightest hues to place me in a favorable light. And those bold strokes sat down on my canvas for the moment were dazzling bright. As the years took their toll, the dazzle was gone, and I wish life's struggles would have would have its end. The deformity of my wasted life was the laughing stock of pretended friends. But the master artist stopped by one day and understood my remorse, for He said, 'Take again the brush. I'll steady your hand. Trust me fully. You will not be misled.' With my hand, with His hand on mine, we began the task of covering the mistakes I had made. And transforming my grotesque fantasy of the tragedy of a man, a man's charade. We left not a few of life's dullest spots to remind me what my self-will would do, but they all were lost amongst the glorious hues that the master artist's touch brought to view. At times I've tried to guide the brush strokes, but it gently pleads, 'You don't understand,' and He leads again over the selfsame way till the canvas yields what the master plans. He has not finished with my canvas and my brethren may even thank me on. But the portrait, when finished, praise His name, will then reflect the full image of God."