PENTECOST – 2000

"The Seven Church Harvest" #5 - Thyatira

Fred Coulter  -  May 26, 2000

This is the Seven Church Harvest #5, and we’ve come in our overview of the seven churches of Revelation 2 and 3, we have come to the church at Thyatira.  So let’s go there.  Revelation 2, and let’s begin and read this concerning Thyatira.  Now as I mentioned before.  The seven churches in Asia represent at least three things, maybe four. 

#1)  Represents the churches that were then.

#2)  It represents a prophetic history of the Church of God down through time.

#3)  It represents the attitudes that anyone in any Church of God, let’s put it this way, in any congregation of God down through history could have at any time. 

#4)  If the pattern follows that we have in the book of Revelation, that you have seven seals, out of which comes seven trumpet plagues, out of which come last plagues.  If we have that pattern with the churches, then we have the seven original churches, the seven down through history, and could it be at the end time we are also going to have seven churches as God views the churches. 

Maybe not as clearly defined as the original seven, but never the less I think it’s profound that these things are happening today, right now today.  So let’s read the message to the message to the church at Thyatira.     

“And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira…”  And as I mentioned this probably means “messenger” because I cannot conceive of an angel in good standing with God that would get into the depths of Satan.  And the Greek there is angelos, which is used for messenger as well as angel.  “…These things saith the son of God, Who hath His eyes like unto a flame of fire, and His feet are like fine brass;…” (Rev. 2:18).  Now he’s saying that He sees and He knows, and is penetrating as fire, and His feet like fine brass.  Now fine brass can have an illusion to judgment.   

“I know thy works [so they all have works], and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first” (vs. 19).  Now how many have seen the video “Israel of the Alps”?  Ok, if you haven’t seen it write in and ask for it and we’ll send it to you.  But that shows what happened to the Waldensians.  Now the Waldensians, because as we will read here and I think fits it very, very nicely, and this video was done by the Seventh Day Adventists.  And I think it’s very profound that they connect themselves with Thyatira.  Because they also had a woman prophetess called Ellen G. White.  So they have their works.   

“Nothwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou [allow] sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce My servants to commit fornication…” (vs. 20).  Now when we drop back here to Pergamos we find in verse 14, the last sentence there, “…to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication.”  Here it’s reversed.  Here they commit the spiritual fornication first and then they eat the things sacrificed to an idol.  And I believe eating things sacrificed to an idol has nothing to do with meat, but has to do with the Eucharist.  The introduction of the Eucharist.  

“And I gave her space to repent…”  Now God always does that.  He always gives space for repentance.  So whenever there is sin, if people prosper and sin for a while they need to be careful and not mistake that as approval.  Because if it’s sin it’s sin even if you prosper in the sin because there is pleasure in sin for a season.  Don’t mistake that as God’s approval.  Maybe He’s just giving you space to repent.  And I think that the space for repentance for a lot of people who have been in the Church of God is probably right now getting smaller and smaller, and smaller and smaller, and the judgment is going to come.  Just like it did here.   

“…I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.  Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.  And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches…”  Now right in the middle of the seven churches, this is it.   All the churches “… shall know that I am He which searcheth the reins and hearts:…”  So God is showing that there is individual judgment upon all of us.  “…And I will give unto every one of you according to your works”  (vs. 21-23).

“But unto you I way, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have no known the depths of Satan, as they speak, I will put upon you none other burden.  But that which ye have already hold fast till I come” (vs. 24-25).  Then He gives the admonition to overcome. 

Now let’s go to Revelation 17, and this is the fornication that is coming upon the whole world.  Now, I don’t know if I’m going to do it for the Feast of Tabernacles or before the Feast of Tabernacles but I’m going to give a sermon concerning the beast, and the United Nations.  How many have heard what’s going to happen in September at the United Nations?  All right.  They are coming together to lay the ground work to have world government, taxation upon international things so that they will have a separate income, and how then they can devise a way to get rid of sovereignty for all the nations.  And the Catholic church is right smack in the middle of it. 

And now, when I say the Catholic church, I am meaning all of the religions of the world because they’re all coming home to Rome because that is Babylon the Great.  But I think the commentaries in the 19^th century and the first part of the 20^th century, and obviously going back before that, they could not conceive of a world dictator.  So like the Seventh Day Adventists, what they did, they said the beast of Revelation 13, both of them represent the Catholic church.  Because you see the Catholic church in the ages before, like at the time of the reformation with the Protestant churches coming out, the Catholics ran the government.  The church ran the government.  They told the kings what to do.  And so they could not conceive of a time when there would be a civil government that would be a dictator over the whole world. 

Now Revelation 17 tells us that also the one that is going to do the directing will be the woman.  And so here Revelation 17:1, and we’ll see this is the same system referring to Jezebel, we’ll go back and see that in a little bit…   Verse 1, “And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me saying unto me, come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgement of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters [you know that means nations, kindreds, tongues, and so forth]:  With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication”  (Rev. 17:1-2)  And we’re all made drunk with it.  Part of that is the whole educational system.  Part of that is the religious system.  And it’s all being combined together now because I don’t think that any of us have had a clue as to how involved the Catholic church has been with the United Nations. 

How many have heard of Robert Muller?  Ok.  He received a special, a special crucifix of pure gold from the Pope when he came to the United Nations to speak, because he is a New Age Catholic.  This book here details a lot of it by Kah. 

Ok, let’s continue on here, verse 3.  “So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.  And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH” (vs. 3-5). 

Now I’m going to follow this up with a sermon entitled, “They mystery of lawlessness”, or “The mystery of iniquity”.  And Alan Knight does a wonderful job describing it here.  And by the way he came up last Sabbath and was with us up in Fairfield.  He lives just about 30 minutes away from where we meet up there.  And I mentioned to them, I thought he did a good job in describing the mystery of lawlessness, and also the depths of Satan, and we’re going to see that the depths of Satan gets down into actual Satan worship.  So you see how far those in the Church of God can go in their apostasy away from God.  So that labels her.

Let’s go back and see about Jezebel.  Jezebel and mystery Babylon the Great are the same system under different names.  So what we are being told back here in Revelation 2…  Now let’s go back to 1 Kings 1.  So the message to the church in Thyatira is labeling very clearly that they are having the same problems that the children of Israel did with Jezebel.  Another thing that’s important.  What did the apostle Paul write concerning women?  He said, “I do not allow a woman to teach”, that is and have authority over a man.  So here we have this great sin, not only of a woman teaching, but bringing false doctrines.  Let me just say this.  If in the occasion…remember the occasion of Josiah?  And when they found the law in the temple.  There was no one to tell them the truth except Huldah the prophetess over in the wardrobe area of the temple.  So they went and talked to her and she gave a message from God.  So women can give messages from God provided that they know the truth.  But she didn’t do it publicly.  She did it privately.  So that’s not to put women down and say they’re of no account.  That’s just to say that women are not to be preachers and prophetesses publicly in the way that Jezebel was here.     

Now let’s come back to 1 Kings 15:25.  “And Nadab the son of Jeroboam began to reign over Israel in the second year of Asa king of Judah, and reigned over Israel two years.  And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of his father, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin” (1 Kings 15:25-16).  Now what happened when Jeroboam set up the golden calves?  What did he institute?  He instituted state religion, and he made himself a high priest and offered on the altar.  Now what do the two calves represent?  Sun worship, because between the horns of the calf were what?  The sun disk.  So you have sun worship.

Now let’s read on.  “And Baasha the son of Ahijah of the house of Issachar, conspired against him; ….”  No I’m reading chapter 15 aren’t I? (Laughter)  No wonder.  Well, it’s evil all the way through anyway.  Ok, let’s pick it up here in verse 25.  It’s ok, chapter 15 fits in there.  The reason is that at the top of this section of chapter 16 in my King James Version it says 1 Kings 17.

Ok, now verse 25, “But Omri wrought evil in the eyes of the LORD, and did worse than all that were before him.  for he walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger with their vanities.  Now the rest of the acts of Omri which he did, and his might that he shewed, are they not written in the book of he chronicles of the kings of Israel?  So Omri slept with his fathers, and was buried in Samaria: and Ahab his son reigned in his stead.  And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah began Ahab the son of Omri to reign over Israel: and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years” (1 Kings 16:25-29).  Now just kind of double the iniquity of Clinton and times it by almost three. 

“And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD above all that were before him.  And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat…”  Now notice the comparison here.  We need to get the severity of the sin of marrying Jezebel.  “…That he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians [notice his name has Baal right in it], and went and served Baal, and worshipped him” (vs. 30-31).  Now what we need to understand is this.  Israel did not go into captivity because of Sabbath-keeping.  Israel did not go into captivity because of holy day keeping.  They went into captivity because they served Baal and Ashtoreth, which is the same system that we call Catholicism today.  Only Catholicism has been Christianized by putting Christian sounding names on all of the pagan abominations.  That’s why it’s called the mystery of iniquity. 

“And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had build in Samaria.  And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him” (vs. 32).  So this is telling us how bad and evil, and miserable that this was.  So then we have our first introduction of Elijah.  And so what does he do?  He goes and tells Ahab that there’s going to be famine. 

Now, so many people want to be Elijah it’s incredible.  I told you about the psychologist in Israel, didn’t I?  He works for the government and his job is this: to handle all the religious kooks that come.  And there are a lot of Jews who are religious kooks.  They think they are reincarnations of David, Jeremiah, and especially Elijah.  And there was this time when this man came in and he said he was Elijah.  And of course he had to keep him from doing trouble and try and talk him out of it and get him to go home and be calm.  So the next day another man came in and said he was Elijah.  So the third day he decided to do this.  He had them both to breakfast and didn’t tell one or the other that they were coming.  They sat down to breakfast and said, “Elijah I’d like you to meet Elijah.”  (Laughter) 

And that’s a big mistake that a lot of people do.  They look in the Bible to try and find some spectacular position for them to fulfill, like Elijah or Ezekiel.  If anyone wants to find themselves in the Bible as to who they are, you go to one place:  All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and start there.  Anything else beyond that is nothing more than just vanity, and self-serving.  And what happens in all of those cases is this: in their vanity, their mind and their ideas become their idols.  Now you think about that.  Every thought that exalts itself above the word of God, which people follow and use and worship and adore and promulgate is idolatry.  And I don’t think many people have understood that.  Did we have that in our Church of God experience?  Yes, we had Elijah, we had Ezekiel, we had the only apostle on earth.  And all of those became then what?  Idols.   Did people worshipped the man?  Yes.  Do they still do it today?  Yes.  We need to understand that.  So let’s none of us…and besides if you want to be Elijah, please do this.  Go find yourself a widow woman with a boy, and go quietly minister to her and her son for 3 ½ years.  And eat flour, and make sure that you have the powers so that God will make the flour and the oil last out of the barrel and out of the cruse for 31/2 years.  And then come and tell us you’re Elijah and then we’ll believe you.  Ok?

Chapter 18:1, “And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, shew thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth.  And Elijah went to shew himself unto Ahab.  And there was a sore famine in Samaria.  And Ahab called Obadiah, which was the governor of his house.  (Now Obadiah feared the LORD greatly: for it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the LORD, that Obadiah too an hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.)” (1 Kings 18:1-4).  Well the long and the short of it is, Obadiah went and told Ahab that Elijah’s coming and he has a message for you.  So he did.

Let’s come over here to verse 17.  “And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel?”  Now isn’t this always the way?  The same thing Satan always does.  He attacks the messenger, right?  Can’t refute the message.  This is called today in the White House, spin control.  “And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the LORD, and thou hast followed Baalim.  Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel’s table.  So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel”  (vs. 17-20). 

Now here’s the message that then we can apply to the church at Thyatira.  We’ll analyze this a little bit.  “And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions?  if the LORD be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him.  And the people answered him not a word” (vs. 21).  Now let’s analyze this statement for a minute.  What happened to these people with their Baal worship?  They got dumbed down, didn’t they?  Yes.  When you, in your mind, get so dumbed down from the truth that the true God is only an opinion in your mind and not an absolute firm belief by faith, you’re in trouble.

Now that’s what’s happened to the Churches of God.  They have gotten dumbed down so much that doctrine then becomes an opinion.   And then you do presto-chango and then you put in the NIV Bible and voila, now you’ve got Satan’s corrupted Bible to help foist off his doctrine.  So all we’re doing in these things are repeating the same the thing that the children of Israel went through. 

So God is using this in Revelation 2 to tell us what was the doctrine that they had in the church at Thyatira.  They had the doctrine of Baalim and Ashtoreth only under a Christianized form.  That’s what they were up against in Thyatira.  And along with Baal worship comes Sunday worship, and Christmas, and Easter, and New Years.  And Chris was telling me about some information where, what was his name, a man called Dave Meyers who’s done a good job in exposing the occultism of all the holidays of this world.  And I’m sure that he’s got some excellent information concerning that.  But every one of the holidays of this world has an exoteric meaning, meaning that this is for the general public to consume.  Then it has an esoteric or inner meaning, which means the true meaning of this is the worship of Satan.  So it’s exactly the same thing that we have in the church at Thyatira. 

When these men come into our midst, and it’s always true, the agents of Satan the devil infiltrate the true Church.  Have you ever heard of a true minister trying to infiltrate the Catholic church?  (Laughter)  I mean, think of it.  Or infiltrate a Protestant church?  No.  But they always infiltrate the true Church.  So that’s why we always be on our guard.  Now we’ll see that a little later this afternoon. 

Now then you know the rest of the story.  God showed who was God with the offering and the sacrifice by Elijah.  And the prophets of Baal they did their thing, you know, they stood up and down and yelled and screamed and flagellated themselves and blood dripping on the ground, and all of that trying to bring about, you know, an answer from Baal.  And of course Elijah mocked them and really brought out the truth and God showed them.  And of course his prayer was a very short prayer.  He said, verse 37, “Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that Thou art the LORD God, and that Thou hast turned their heart back again.”  You see it’s not long prayers.  It’s believing effectual prayers that’s important. 

Ok now, let’s carry this a little but further.  We covered some of this last night but I’ll cover just a little bit of it today.  Let’s come to Isaiah 5.  We covered that last night but we’ll do it again today to show what happens because this is exactly what happened when Jezebel came in.  They take the word of God, they change it… Now when I got into the motel I wanted to check on the news and see what was happening and so forth.  And after the news was over they had a Catholic mass.  And I watched this Catholic mass, I mentioned this a little bit last night.  But this Catholic mass was something.  I haven’t watched one in a long time.  Normally I figure oh well, I’ll just you know, channel surf past it.  Decided I’m going to watch it.  So here’s the priest and he’s going through his thing, you know.  “Da-da-da-da…A-a-a-amen.”  You know.  And you could see all of the Gnostic teaching, the Nicolaitan teaching, and more particular when you get this book and read it by Alan Knight you’ll understand it, how that they with the Eucharist they lock the bread up in the little tabernacle, which is an idol.  And then when they have a mass they unlock it and take it out.  In other words, Christ is the prisoner of the priest.  And God is the one who has to answer to the commands of the priest to come in the bread with His literal presence.  And the people out there know nothing.  You talk about dumbed down.  They know nothing.  And it was really something to see that.  And how they just all like, just like lemmings they all get up there and go gahh, you know and have the bread stuck on their tongue and all that sort of thing while the priest merrily drinks the wine.  Which they do.  I watch them, they did drink it.  Then they play this music and then since it was on television they showed all the statues and idols and then they showed scenes of the heavens and clouds and angels and nice music, and everybody all uplifted.  Well not knowing God this is very appealing.  And they go out of there justified.  That’s exactly what happened with Jezebel.  The end result is found here in Isaiah 5.

Verse 20, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil [and that’s what they do with their idols]; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!  Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight [to have these doctrines]!  Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine [now think of this as spiritual fornication, the spiritual wine], and men of strength to mingle strong drink [and we will allude to that as the depths of Satan when we get back to Revelation 2 in just a minute]: Which justify the wicked for reward…” (Isa. 5:20-23), as long as you pay for an expensive mass you can have all your sins forgiven.  Or if you’re the king of France, I forget who the king was but it was one of the Louis’s that really had a very sinful life and the Pope sent a message through the cardinal saying, “You can have all your sins absolved if you will do a good work for the Pope.”  And he says, “What’s that?”  And he says, “Kill the Huguenots.”  So he did.  Hundreds of thousands. 

Verse 24, “Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.”  And that’s the first thing that they do, and we have New Testament Gnostics today, which say that we don’t need the Old Testament.  Same thing that infiltrated the early Church.  Got the quotes right here, which you will hear on number 4.  That’s what they have done.  They compromise with deceit.  They blend things together.

Now let’s look at a couple things that are very important.  Let’s come to 1 Corinthians 10 and let’s understand something concerning the word of God that I mentioned last night but I’ll just kind of review a little bit here. 

How powerful is the word of God?  Well, Hebrews 4 says it’s a sharp two-edged sword.  But how powerful is the word of God?  In other words, if you want to know a fact does God mean what He says?  Yes.  We saw that it’s living, that it’s quick.  But God commanded and things were created.  So we should not take any of the word of God lightly.  And that’s the very first thing that these prophets do.  They come along, now you remember the Savrinities event?  What did he bring in?  Greek philosophy.  Hellenistic philosophy, straight from the cauldron of Satan the devil. 

Now Paul tells us something very important.  Let’s come here to verse 20 because it all gets back to… and remember the first thing they try and do, always remember this in anyone bringing a secret agenda or heresy: 

1)     They change the nature of God and Christ.

2)     They change the Passover.

Those are their first two steps.  Why are those the first two steps that they take?

1)     To get you away from the true God so you’re worshiping a false god.

2)     To get you out of covenant with Christ, which the Passover is the covenant.  And if you are in covenant with Christ and remain in covenant with Christ then you cannot be deceived. 

That’s how important the Passover is.  So that’s why they go after these first two things.  Same thing happened here in Corinth.  And the thing that people like to do, and what the Hellenist Greeks did was this: they claimed and they said, which Alan Knight documents here, that what happened was, God revealed through the Hellenistic pagan religion the things which were going to come with the New Testament.  So when they heard these things they said, “Wow, now we’ve got people we can really convert.”  Because the Hellenistic religion did away with all animal sacrifices.  And it became an inner religion, a religion of the mind, and they had their sacraments.  And Valentinus, who was one of the first Christian Gnostics, said that if you took the sacraments of the Gnostics you would become invisible to demons and they would not bother you.  Now that’s almost akin to the Eucharist, isn’t it?  Not quite.  Close to it. 

Notice what Paul says, “But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.  You cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils…”  Now what did we see concerning the cup of mother Babylon.  That is the cup representing all the doctrines, representing all the things of Satan the devil.  That’s the same cup as Jezebel.  You cannot do it.  “…Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils.  Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?  are we stronger than He?” (1 Cor. 10:20-22).  Now this all has to do with the church at Thyatira.

Now let’s come to 2 Corinthians 6:14.  Now today with the ecumenical movement going on religion then becomes an opinion and as long as it is a good opinion.  And a good opinion means this: I accept you regardless of what your religion is if you accept me.  And that’s why in any discussions with people concerning the Bible, never let them say, never let them get away with saying, “That is your opinion.”  You can answer back, “No, it’s not my opinion, it is the word of God.”  Even if they won’t hear you at least it’s going to be a witness to them.  You know as I mentioned last night, now’s the time we need to stand up for Christ.  Stand up for the truth. 

Remember what God told Jeremiah?  He said, “Jeremiah, go to and fro in the streets of Jerusalem and see if there is one man that stands for the truth.  One man that will do what is right, and I will pardon the whole thing.”  Couldn’t find a single man.  Let that not be in the Church of God today.  Let it be that we stand for the truth.  And when people ask us questions we give them the straight answer.  Maybe they really want to know.  And if they don’t want to know then at least it’s a witness against them.  And just like the thing that we had there with the man in Judaism.  He was greatly offended when we told him the truth about Judaism and so forth, but now he has apologized and has seen where he’s been wrong.  And that’s taken a period of three years to do.  So you see also think in the long term with these things.

All right, 2 Corinthians 6:14.  “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers…”  This is directly against ecumenism.  Brethren, if we don’t have unity in Christ with the Spirit of God there will never be any unity at all.  Do you understand that?  Men coming together seeking to do good, to bring groups back together and hopefully reconstitute Worldwide Church of God, or whatever is never going to work.  And the reason it’s not going to work is because they are not seeking Christ.  

Now I have this printout from Likeminds, where the man was bragging and saying, “Why, we don’t have a statement of beliefs.”  Because we don’t want to be locked into it, because we may be wrong and then we’ll have to explain why we change.  “Therefore our group is very loving and warm.  We have those who believe in a 15^th Passover, those who believe in a 14^th Passover.  We even have those who attend a Baptist church and they’re in our prayer group and they pray with us.  We have those who believe in the Trinity, and those who don’t.  And those who eat unclean meats and those who don’t.  And we get along just fine.”

Well let me tell you something. That mental attitude is their idol.  That is their idol.  Here’s what Paul said.  “…For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?…” And either there is the truth of God and we follow it and keep it, or it is a matter of opinion.  “…And what communion hath light with darkness?  What concord hath Christ with Belial?  or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?  And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.  Wherefore come out from among them…” (vs. 14-17) the opposite of ecumenism.  Since we covered Elijah, was he not…didn’t he consider himself the only one?  And then God had to console him and say, “Well now Elijah, don’t be so depressed.  You know, I have 7000 that haven’t bowed the knee to Baal.”  And he didn’t know a single one of them.  It’s the same way with us.  There are people out there that we don’t even know of that God is dealing with.  God is not restricted to any organization.  God is going to do what He is going to do.

Now recently down in New Zealand, there was a woman down there that runs sort of a boarding house.  And she had one young man who was in college move out, so she put an ad in the paper for someone else to come in.  So a young man answered the ad, and he came from a church group in New Zealand that never heard of Worldwide Church of God, never heard of Church of God 7^th Day, but they are a church group which keep the Sabbath and the holy days, and the 14^th Passover.  So you see we don’t need to get all lifted up and get all exclusive.  God is going to do it.  Hopefully we can be part of what God wants us to do for what He’s going to do.  But that was really something.  The key is Christ in you (we’ll cover that this afternoon), is the hope of glory.  That is the profound substance of God’s way. 

“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing…”, and we could add there: or believe the unclean thing.  What is the unclean thing?  False doctrine coming out of the cup of mother Babylon.  “…And I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (vs. 17-18).  So, boy I tell you, that’s something.  We really need to understand that. 

Now, remember they condemned back there…now let’s go back to Ezekiel 14, because Christ warned the Thyatirans  about eating things sacrificed to idols, or idolatry.