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Transcript

Well, good morning, brethren.

I would like to see a show of hands, how many of you consider yourselves plant people? I see a good representation out there. I consider myself a plant person. It’s one of those things where anytime you walk into a garden center or any of those stores that have the plant section off to the side, I always kind of end up heading that direction. And of course, it doesn’t always matter how much money you have, it’s how much you love the plant that you find. So, I’m telling of myself a little bit.

But plants are beautiful things to have around, to watch something grow up. There’s a lot of analogies there for us, but we all have our moments, don’t we? We’ve bought this beautiful little citrus tree, and we have it out on our deck and it’s growing. Then all of a sudden you get busy, maybe you’re busy at work, you’re busy doing other things, and then the Sabbath comes around and you look out on your deck and all of a sudden you see a very sad sight. That poor little plant looks as though it’s died.

And it’s something you’ve given effort to grow. You watched it grow up, and now you see it in a sad state. Sometimes you can bring the plant back, you can coax it back in amongst the living and kind of bring it back, cut it back, and watch it come back to life again. But sometimes it goes away. But this analogy applies kind of throughout our lives in the various areas. And we all have our moments, don’t we? Where we have moments of inattention, where we’re not quite paying attention exactly as much as we need to be, to the various areas that we’re kind of overseeing, that we’re looking over in our lives.

And that’s the subject of what I want to speak about this morning is exercising dominion. That’s something we should be learning at this feast site. But if we learn to better exercise dominion at this Feast of Tabernacles, it will allow us at a certain point to qualify for something much bigger later on. So, this feast is an opportunity. It is every year, we come, we’ve received emails, maybe we’re on setup, maybe we’re on-stage crew.

We’re serving in various areas, and we come to this feast with aspirations, aspirations to fellowship, aspirations to rejoice, and also to serve as well. But throughout that whole process, there are moments where you have oops moments, where you kind of forget things. And we have some of those early on in the feast, we see things that, oops, that didn’t quite go as exactly as we had planned it. But then we make corrections, then we think about it, and we think about what we’re doing, and we strive to do better.

How many things are you taking care of in your life, not just aside from this feast here? You know, many of us have families, many of us have jobs, most of us have jobs. We have friendships, we have acquaintances outside of the church, we have friendships within the church. Those brothers and sisters that we keep bonds with. We have homes that we have to take care of.

Maybe the yard didn’t quite get mowed before you left. I mowed the morning of, so we’ll see what it looks like when we get back, but there’s all those things we have to take care of. And then also our spiritual life as well. And then we’re in this kind of fish bowl here at the feast site, where all of us are together, where all of us are fellowshipping and serving together. But I’m a list maker. I don’t know how many of you like to make lists out, but I love to list things.

I did that when I was a child. I would always list my favorite baseball players. And then as I got a little older, I would list my favorite movies, and I would curate these lists. And then at a certain point, a movie would drop off the list and I’d replace it with a new one. So, whenever a Steven Spielberg movie came out, he was always my favorite director when I was a younger man. But take the time to list all the things in your life that you have to look after, also your health.

At this feast site, we’re at almost 5,000 feet here in Colorado. And I felt it the first couple of days that I was here. I’m officially, what is the word? I just live basically 1000 feet in Ohio now. So, I don’t get to the mountains that often. And I had grand aspirations to go ride my bike the first day that we were here. And we got in in time, we checked into the hotel, I checked into a few things that we needed to do, and then I got dressed for a bike ride.

I went out, headed over to the Colorado Monument, and after about 15 minutes and a couple of switchbacks and stopping on the side of the road and panting, I decided, those aspirations were a little too great, especially early on in the feast. So, I learned a lesson there. But we all have things that we have to take care of, don’t we? And our health is one of them. That’s a big thing on the list. Make sure you drink your water and do all the things you need to do. Eat lots of salads. I haven’t had a lot of salads since I’ve been here, so my goal is to have a salad for lunch today. So, we’ll see how that goes.

But in order to really understand the lessons that we need to learn, we need to go all the way back to the beginning. And that’s where I’d like to start the message in the book of Genesis. So please turn over to Genesis chapter two. We will learn a little bit about the first two people. How did they do? Genesis chapter two and we’ll begin in verse fifteen. This is a direct command from God here in verse fifteen. “And the Lord God took the man, and put him in the garden of Eden.” For what reason? Why did he do that? “To dress it and to keep it.” Verse sixteen. “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden, you may freely eat.”

Verse seventeen. “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you do eat thereof you shall surely die.” So that seems pretty plain, doesn’t it? But we’ll go back to verse fifteen and look at the meaning of a couple of the words there. Man was put into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. I won’t give you the full definition of the word dress, but one of those words, one of the meanings is to cultivate. Think about gardening.

And I look cultivate up on dictionary.com and I learned that cultivate means to foster the growth of, to improve by labor, maybe a little sweat equity involved there, care or study to refine. And then keep means: to hedge about, to guard, to protect, to attend to, to be aware, be circumspect, take heed to self or to watch. So, they were given a direct command to watch over the garden, weren’t they?

But not just watch over the garden. If you look at the meaning of the word cultivate, it also means to refine or to improve by labor. So, they weren’t just sitting back in a lawn chair, you know, with a margarita or maybe a non-alcoholic drink at that point and just watching everything grow. They were going out and cultivating the garden, weren’t they? They were improving it. Is that what we’re doing here at this feast site? Are we improving the way that we are interacting with our fellow brethren? With all the ways that we are serving, are we improving as we go through the feast?

And that we’ve reached the point where tumblers start to move a little faster and the days pass by faster, don’t they? The first two days always seem like they’re twenty, and the last five days seem like they’re three or four. That’s the way it always is for me. I’m sure many of you feel the same way too. But we’re at the middle of the feast, basically. How are you doing? You can kind of take note, once you take the time to make that list out that I talked about earlier and think about those things.

But how did Adam and Eve do? They were given a direct command from a creator, weren’t they? In the garden, to keep the garden, to dress the garden, to make it better How did they do? Please turn forward to Genesis three, just a page or two in your Bible. Genesis three. Some of you have young children. We have an eight-year-old in our house, and you know, we give him tasks to do. But it seems like little kids and even grown-ups, once in a while, we have that kind of attention span.

They say the attention span of a child is what, about the same as a goldfish. Sometimes they do better than other times, but you know, it’s like they’re standing in the middle of a road and all these flashing lights are coming by them. You know, there’s a Mustang on this side, and there’s a Dodge Charger on the other end, you know, you get distracted. Or you see the squirrel outside the window, and you’re supposed to be working on a Bible lesson or something like that. But you know, that’s human nature. That’s what we deal with.

I have my moments where I’m you know, supposed to be doing something else, and I look out the window, and I see a bird flying by or something. So, we all have those moments.

But it’s important that we kind of come back to center, and then you start thinking about things. You start considering things again. Genesis chapter three. We’ll read the first eight verses of Genesis three.

Verse one, “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, has God said, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden.” Verse three, “But of the fruit of tree which is in midst of the garden, God said, you shall not eat it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.”

So, they were listening. They did listen. And then verse four, “And then the serpent said unto the woman, you shall not surely die: For God does know that in the day that you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food...” So, she hearkened, hearkened unto his voice, “…and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”

Verse seven, “And the eyes of them both were opened...” So, something changed at that point, “…and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.” And verse eight, “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves in the presence of the Lord amongst the trees of the garden.” Can you imagine what they may have felt like at that point?

You know, they had a direct command. They had this beautiful place to live, and then this being comes kind of out of nowhere and blindsides them. Maybe this was the first time they’d interacted with the serpent. How do you think they felt at that point? They were hiding. Obviously, they were ashamed and afraid of what they did. But no need to turn there. But Jeremiah seventeen, nine applied from the very beginning, didn’t it? From the very first two people that existed. And then since then, we’ve all been under that penalty, haven’t we?

Romans chapter five, turn forward to the New Testament, Romans chapter five. Romans five and verse twelve. This is a direct reference to what I just described. Verse twelve, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” So, at a certain point, Adam and Eve could no longer live in that garden, could no longer live in that beautiful place.

And I would imagine that they did have some favorite plants. Maybe they started out as plant people. Maybe they had some that they liked to visit every day. On God’s campus, when we’re taking a walk around on the grounds, there are favorite things that I like to look at and check up on throughout the season. You see those first buds coming out of the trees after a long winter. We didn’t have a particularly hard winter this year, but it was still winter. And you get to see things wake up.

And then you walk by a few weeks or a month later, and you see the same plant, and it’s leafed out. And now maybe there’s flower buds that are coming on those plants. And then you watch throughout the season, that’s beautiful flowers. You see those flowers. Were Adam and Eve that way? Did they have favorite plants they were watching too? And then at the end of the season, you see the colors change. And the leaves change.

We had a beautiful drive through the Rocky Mountains coming out here to Colorado. And just seeing the aspen trees and those beautiful, it’s almost an indescribable yellow that they turn when the seasons change. And we were able to see that, along with about a million other people that were up in the mountains that same day. But it was still nice to see those trees change. But did Adam and Eve have those favorites they kind of watched in the garden?

But the great takeaway that we can get from reading about their experience was, and this is something we should be learning at this feast site, but Adam and Eve truly didn’t fear God. Because if they did, they would have listened, listened to that direct command and kept the garden and stayed away from that one tree that was their downfall. Now, has the world changed any since that time? Has the world changed since Adam and Eve were walking in the garden?

And I would say it hasn’t changed a whole lot. They made a bad decision. And that decision-making process continued to be bad all through that amount of years, all through the thousands of years since then. And people are still making bad decisions today because of that. But let’s imagine that we have two trees in front of us today. We’re here at this feast site. We’re in amongst the brethren in this meeting hall, but then after services, we go out.

Maybe we go to lunch, or we go for a drive, and we see others in the world. And then we can see that contrast, can’t we? That’s one of the great lessons of being here at this feast, is that we want to see the entire world have the opportunity that we’re having right now at this feast site. And we want it so much, don’t we? We can’t go out and change people. We need intervention in order for the world to really have that opportunity. But they have those two trees in front of them too, don’t they?

Very few are being called during this age, but they all have their opportunity to make good and bad decisions. And that all goes back to that initial decision in the garden, doesn’t it? I went online this morning and looked up a few news stories. You know, I like to do kind of on a daily basis is read headlines. And then if I find something I’m really locked into, I’ll read the article. So, I go through those in the morning, and I just picked out some titles that I saw, and this is from Drudge Report, and then I just went on to Bing and found a few as well.

But the first one I found was Church of AI. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this. Sermons by ChatGPT. So, you don’t actually need a human being anymore to give a sermon. You can just click a button, ask a question, and then the sermon will spit out, and you can play it for a whole congregation. So that’s the age we live in. There’s still war going on in Ukraine between Ukrainians and the Russians. And here’s another headline. “They’re just meat. Russia deploys punishment battalions in echo of Stalin.” Nothing has changed.

Another one, “Orthodox Jews filmed spitting on Christians in Jerusalem.” So, you see the, you know, one side against the other. Here in this country, it’s blue versus red. You know, you see Donald Trump in the news quite a bit. You see Joe Biden in the news. You see the election is coming up. And just one side against the other. And that continues. And then the last one I found that kind of caught my eye was, “Congressman carjacked in Washington, D.C.”

So probably not a good day for him. But, you know, that goes on everywhere. Just in the area we live in Cleveland and Akron, there are carjackings every day. You see it on the news. And some of them are captured on video. And that’s just the world we live in. But we know that there is a being that kind of controls the airwaves. And he’s controlled the airwaves since that one moment in the garden, hasn’t he? And that’s Satan. And Satan has dominion over this world. We want to eventually unseat him, and we know that that will happen. But at this point, he still has that control, doesn’t he?

Please turn over to Second Corinthians chapter eleven. Second Corinthians chapter eleven. We’ll begin in verse thirteen. Read verses thirteen and fourteen. Second Corinthians chapter eleven, verse thirteen. “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.” Verse fourteen, “And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” He’s a being that can look very appealing if you have the wrong mindset. If you look at the meaning of the word transformed, it can mean transfigured or disguised. He was disguised in the garden, wasn’t he? And he did deceive. He did make that being make the wrong decision.

John chapter eight. The Book of John chapter eight. Just going through some basic simple review scriptures just to establish who our adversary is. John chapter eight and verse forty-four. Verse forty-four of John eight, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning...” We saw that. “...and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”

So, Satan is the father of lies. He told the first lie to Eve, and she believed him. And then we’ve kind of experienced that downhill slide since then for these many thousands of years.

But we can take hope. We can take note that we have a heavenly father that isn’t a father of lies. He’s a father of truth, isn’t He? And we get to experience that truth for eight days here at God’s Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day. And that’s a wonderful blessing.

Please turn to...actually, it’s just a little earlier in John eight, verse thirty-two. This is a statement that’s been hijacked by modern Christianity, but we know the real meaning of it. Verse thirty-two, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Free from the bonds of Satan’s deception, of, you know, the broadcast that he has over the airwaves.

Please turn to Revelation chapter twenty. Continue reviewing some very basic scriptures here. Revelation chapter twenty. Begin in verse one. Just read verses one through three of Revelation twenty. Verse one, “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on of the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years.” Verse three, “And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.”

So, at this point, Satan is still deceiving the nations, isn’t he? But we know that time will come to an end, hopefully very soon. Turn back to Revelation chapter twelve. Just reinforcing Revelation twenty. Revelation chapter twelve, verse nine, “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceives the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” So, Satan does deceive the whole world right now, doesn’t he?

First Peter chapter five. Turn back a few pages. Things will become more hopeful in this message, I promise you. But this review, I think, is very helpful for us. Because we do see the contrast at this feast site. You can see all the places you can buy marijuana, just a stone’s throw from this facility. All the different things that are going on here. Just kind of the nature of the people. People are friendly, but you can tell there’s something about them. And I have smelled it in the air a couple of times.

So, First Peter chapter five, verse eight. This always paints a vivid picture in my head, this particular scripture. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, is a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour.” He doesn’t have our best interests in mind, does he? I always think about that picture of kind of that roaring lion. Many of you probably have been to the zoo, and they’ve had lions. And if you’ve ever heard a lion roar, that is a sound unlike anything you could ever hear.

And just think about, he’s outside in the parking lot right now, just kind of pacing back and forth. He’s waiting for us to come out there, because he’s got control of this world right now, doesn’t he? But we have God’s spirit. We have his protection. But that always paints a picture. He’s always looking for his next meal. And if you look at the word devour, look it up in the Greek, it means to drink down. It means to gulp entire, to drown, or to swallow up.

So that’s what he wants to do to us. He doesn’t want us to live for eternity, serving our creator God, and living as a God being. He wants us to die. So that’s his interest. He always reminds me, the analogy is there, I can imagine Satan as a car salesman. Maybe he kind of sold himself that way in the garden. And he was, you know, showing...how a car salesman, you have the car you’re interested in is, you know, the prudent choice. And it’s this nice vehicle. It gives good gas mileage.

But the car salesman, he always tries to upsell. He always tries to point you in the direction of the four hundred-horsepower, four hundred horsepower engine, and the eight hundred foot-pounds of torque, and you know, many speeding tickets in your future. But he wants you to buy the more expensive, the shinier object, doesn’t he? I remember my wife and I, when we bought our first car, we got taken.

I won’t tell you what kind of car we bought, but in retrospect, we got taken by kind of a slick car salesman type. And he took us down a road, and we thought we were going down a wonderful kind of that yellow brick road, golden path. And it was just one thing after another with this car. And that’s what Satan did. He’s that car salesman. And, you know, maybe he acknowledged that one tree was good, but this one is better. This one is something you want to buy. And Adam and Eve bought it. They bought it hook, line, and sinker. And they suffered the consequences for it.

But we know that there is a solution, don’t we? What is the key for us at this feast site? There are two overarching things that we’re learning. We’re learning to fear God in a more substantial, complete way. And we’re also learning to rejoice more fully. Rejoicing after that wonderful family day yesterday is an easy thing to do, isn’t it? Just for that wonderful time that we’re able to spend together. But we’re learning to fear God and rejoice at this feast.

And a big part of learning to fear God is obeying his commands. And when you have a certain assignment, whether it’s in your job or at this feast site, you want to do the best you can, don’t you? You want to exercise that dominion. Whether it’s picking up a piece of paper off the floor, or taking up the offering, or song leading, or any of the other aspects of being at this feast site. We want to do the best we can. And if you love God’s laws, if you learn to fear him more effectively, something will happen.

Please turn to Proverbs chapter nineteen. Back to the Old Testament, Proverbs chapter nineteen and verse twenty-three. Proverbs nineteen, verse twenty-three. What happens if you obey God’s commands? You’re here at this feast site, you’ve obeyed the command to save second tithe and to travel here and be here on time and be here for opening night. Verse twenty-three. “The fear of the Lord tends to life: and he that has it shall abide satisfied; he shall not be visited with evil.”

So that you slam the door right in Satan’s face when you do all those things, don’t you? When you obey his commands, when you save your second tithe, when you’re here at this feast site, when you’re rejoicing, when you’re here for all the messages, you’re taking notes and you’re mindful of what you’re learning every day. You go back and review and you think on these things, you take time to go out and meditate here at this feast site.

There’s beautiful surroundings here or even just a walk down the road. Yesterday morning in the rain, I threw my rain jacket on and walked down towards the stoplight, down the hill just about a mile. But just taking that time just to think and meditate is important. But you did obey, you are here, and you have slammed the door in Satan’s face.

Please turn over to the New Testament again, James chapter four. James four. I have a goal of, I’m going to buy a car pass to go to the monument and want to do it around sundown and try to take some calendar photos. So that’s the one thing I have on my mind that I really want to do during this feast. And I find taking photographs, I always enjoy doing it throughout my life. But since I’m now working in editorial and have, you know, the assignment of being a photographer at this feast site, it’s just been really fascinating to kind of dig deeper into all the different things you can learn about photography.

I’ve taken some courses and just to go out and, you know, appreciate God’s creation, this beautiful creation that we are surrounded by. It’s a very interesting place here in Colorado. But just to be able to appreciate nature and to, you know, see the beautiful sunset or to see you know, those clouds roll in yesterday and the rain start, and then the sun come out later in the day, it’s just all these things that we’re seeing. And you can imagine in the kingdom how much more beautiful will that be when we’re there.

James chapter four, verse seven. Another basic review scripture. “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” So, you can imagine that roaring lion, he’s got his tail between his legs and he’s running away. Maybe dogs do that, but I can imagine a lion doing it too. But he will flee, he will run away from you if you do those things. So, he is not happy that we’re here at this feast site, rejoicing and learning to fear our creator, is he?

Romans chapter six. Turn back a few pages. Romans six and verse nine. There is an individual that we do must follow his example, and we should do it every day. Romans chapter six and verse nine. “Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more; death has no more dominion over him.” So, He set the bar, didn’t He? And He set it pretty high for us to attain to, but it’s something that we can attain to every day, even at this feast site.

Attain to the bar that Christ set for us, you know, all the suffering that He went through, and He never sinned. Never sinned once. And if you think about that, that helps you, you know, in those moments, we all have our moments when we’re not quite doing what we’re supposed to be doing. And just remember that He never sinned. Do we want to attain the bar that He set, or do we want to let that other being, let his foot back in the door that we slammed in his face?

I like to rescue plants. I don’t know if some of you like to rescue plants, but if I see a kind of a plant that doesn’t look quite vibrant, but you can see some sort of potential in it, right? You’re at the garden center and they always have this rack that’s kind of at the back or off to the side and has all these discounted plants, and then you are kind of make your way back there and it always happens.

And you see these poor little plants, but you see these little, tiny leaves growing, you know, right on the branches. And you know that just because it has all these kind of brown leaves hanging out, it’s not going to die tomorrow. There’s a lot of potential there. And those rescues sometimes turn into the best plants, don’t they? The best ones. Now, we kind of turn that coin over and kind of look at ourselves.

You know, many of us, present company included, we’re not the, you know, rock stars, we are the Elvis Presley types, we’re not the John Wayne types. You know, we struggle sometimes, and you know, physically, you know, just trying to think clearly sometimes. We’ve had COVID run through the world a couple of times, we’ve had all sorts of things to deal with, but God saw a potential in us, didn’t He? When He chose us. We’ve all come a long ways. We all have different paths, different journeys.

There’s someone here that’s joined their first feast. I can remember my first feast, you know, maybe I still had a lot of brown leaves, maybe I have a couple of them left. But I remember walking into that meeting room in the 1999 at the first Restored Feast site in Park City, Utah. And I would find a wall and hold it up. That was my job. I’d find a wall that looked like it might fall over, and I made sure I leaned back up against it and made sure it didn’t fall down. When someone came up to me, I’d say hi, but I wasn’t the most engaging person. I had a lot to learn.

And then over the years, you know, things happen, and you’re thrown into certain situations, you know, whether it’s congregationally or headquarters or in your life, in your job. You know, after you’ve been called maybe you react differently to certain situations. But God saw that potential in us, didn’t He? That we could continue to grow, continue to grow into a role eventually that will be even greater than you can even imagine.

You know, you think about the universe and one of my favorite things to do when I was a child was to go outside at night and to look up at the night sky. We lived in an area that didn’t have a lot of light pollution, so I was able to see the stars, and I was able to think about, you know, sometimes I would think, “I wonder if anyone else lives out there.” We know that there are beings, in the universe, other beings, but you know, they aren’t green, and they don’t have a flying saucer that they fly around in.

But it was just fascinating to look at that night sky, those stars and see some of them, they would twinkle in the night sky. And you think about one day, could you be out there? That’s why, you know, look at mankind and, you know, the obsession with going into space, exploring the moon, and exploring all these other planets and it’s kind of built into us, isn’t it? That potential to want to explore and to create and to make things better.

You know, mankind’s ideas are often misplaced, but there are amazing things that are going on out there. We see footage from the Mars rover and just to see that they’re able to send this equipment up into the sky, and you’re able to have this robot that runs around on a planet these umpteen thousands of thousands of miles away and bring images back to us. How miraculous is that? But it’s obviously misplaced, but God saw that potential in us. When you look at the stars, when you look at the moon, you can see the universe is kind of ripe for the picking, isn’t it?

Please turn to Ephesians chapter one. Ephesians chapter one and verse four, another simple basic scripture. Ephesians one, four, “According as He has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” Verse five, “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.”

So, you know, you can think back a certain amount of years in your life, and maybe I can make it to a four or five and have my first memories of things that I was doing, but God, you know, before we were even a twinkle in anyone’s eye, He knew that we were going to be sitting here today. He knew that. He saw that potential in us. So, we have to think about that as we’re exercising dominion at this feast site, as we do it in our lives, over our jobs, and all the different ways that we serve within God’s Church.

Romans chapter eight. Romans eight verse twenty-nine, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn of many brethren.” So, foreknow just simply means to know beforehand. So, God knew us before we were here, before we were running around in diapers, before we were running roughshod over our bikes, through the neighborhood, jumping off curbs and doing all those fun things that we do when we’re kids. He knew about us.

I mean, He knew at a certain point that we would have an opportunity, didn’t He? To be here. But how are you doing at this feast site? How are you doing in your life? You know, this is halfway through the feast, like I said earlier, we’re enjoying this beautiful setting. We’re enjoying wonderful events here at this feast site, messages every day. The opportunity to you know, build friendships. Ones that can last all the way through the year. We’re making those connections.

My son has made friends with some little boys here at this feast site. And I’m sure he’ll remember those moments and then if he sees those kiddos again, they’ll just jump right back up and make those connections again. Little kids are amazing, you know, they’ll make friends with another kid, and you know, maybe two years later they’ll see each other at feast site, they just pick right up right where they were. And it’s that way for us, isn’t it?

Sometimes the first time you’ve met someone, but you feel like you’ve known them your whole life, doesn’t it? And I’ve experienced that moment several times here at this feast site as we try to get around and meet everyone and get to know everyone a little bit better. First Peter chapter one, turn back to First Peter.

I never was a big fan of the circus, but I always liked the juggler. You know that there’s certain aspects of the circus I didn’t like, like the clown. You know, always never liked the clown. I didn’t understand why, and kind of like Ronald McDonald, I didn’t understand why he needed to have all that face paint on. But the juggler, he was always fascinating to me how they could, you know, sometimes they could juggle, like bowling pins, they could juggle, I’ve seen them juggle knives and chainsaws. That’s crazy, or just trying to learn how to juggle, you know, three balls. And I couldn’t do it but it’s just fascinating to watch.

But we have a lot of juggling that we have to do in our lives, don’t we? Even at this feast site, we have to juggle, you know, do we want to have dinner with these folks tonight or these folks? You know, things pop up and you have to change plans and make it work. But we’re juggling lots of different things, aren’t we? In our lives too, we’re juggling family commitments. Maybe there’s a divorce involved, and the kids have to go back and forth.

There’s all these complications, but how are you doing, juggling all those things. First Peter chapter one, verse twenty, just wanted to have a third scripture about just the God that we serve. First Peter chapter one, verse twenty, “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.” God is a planner, I would imagine. He probably makes lists too. Lists things out that He’s going to do, but the lists He makes, everything comes to fruition.

You know, that on that list, our names were on there, and then we’re here today. Think about that. But how are you doing at this feast site? How are you exercising dominion? You know, we can all do better. I can do better. Every one of us can do better. But the way I like to live my life is I don’t let my life rule me. I try to, you know, pick and choose those moments and then, you know, make it work for what I need to do. But if you don’t do that, you know, you end up... it’s kind of like that first feast.

I don’t want to go through that story again, but just not planning very well. But we had our trip planned out every night that we were staying at different hotels and kind of pre-planned what we’d like to do with this feast site, and just had all that information there. And then we can make those decisions daily, whether we do those things or not. And then, you know, as things come up, we can just... things just drop by the wayside. They weren’t as important as we thought they were.

You know, just take a moment to think about those things. Philippians chapter four. Philippians four. Just think back to following Christ example. Should do it every day. Philippians chapter four, verse thirteen. Very simple. “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.” Very simple. Just look up to your elder brother. I never had any siblings. My wife didn’t have any siblings. Our son will likely not have any siblings, but we have friends and acquaintances in God’s church, don’t we? But we also have an elder brother, Jesus Christ, who sacrifice so much for us.

And his example is something we need to look towards every day. Look at that word strengthens in verse thirteen there, it means to empower, enable, increase in strength, be strong or make strong. So, when you have that kind of backup you can do just about anything you set your mind to within reason of course. Maybe jumping over buildings isn’t quite our thing yet, but maybe it will come soon. We’ll be able to do that. But I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Something to remember.

Please turn to Luke chapter twelve. Luke chapter twelve. There’s another term I’d like to kind of describe. It’s related to exercising dominion, but it’s a little more specific. Luke chapter twelve, verse forty-two. Luke chapter twelve, verse forty-two, “And the Lord said, who is that faithful and wise steward, whom his Lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of their meat in due season?” Verse forty-three, “Blessed is that servant, whom the Lord when he comes shall find so doing.” Obviously, applications for us every day.

Verse forty-four, “Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he has.”

So that word that I’d like to talk about a little bit is steward or stewardship. So, if you look that word up in the dictionary, it can mean the act of watching over possessions and talents. But there’s another meaning that I kind of latched onto and especially is informative and helpful for us at the feast site, at this feast site as we’re serving on our different teams. It can mean the responsible overseeing and protection of something considered worth caring for and preserving.

So, think about that plant. Do you want it to be a plant that you forgot to water? Or is it the plant that looks vibrant and healthy? Is it worth caring for and preserving? So, I see many individuals serving at this feast. And it’s inspiring to see, just to see the, you know, every different department working together towards the whole, just changing the stage for the choir. You could see everyone in lockstep and, you know, like they had practiced because they practiced all those things that they were doing. And it’s inspiring to see.

And I encourage you as you all go back to your you know, smaller congregations after this feast if that is our calling, that we, you know, take some of those things that we’ve seen and we you know, continue to build on them. You know, some of those skills that we’ve seen at this feast site.

But stewardship, that’s something that we have. And if I’m supposed to take photographs, I need to be a steward over, you know, that process over my equipment and making sure everything is you know, taken care of as it needs to be. And every other department and every individual that’s serving in various ways has to do the same thing, don’t they? But when you look at that end goal, think about God’s kingdom and all that we have you know, in store for us.

And I always have this picture in my head about you know, maybe I have a certain individual has several cities and you can all see them, see them all from this kind of this rise in the land, maybe this little hill because we know that there’ll be little hills in little valleys, maybe no mountains like the ones we saw coming over the Rocky Mountains. Or maybe you’re just floating in the air and the ground is flat, but you can look over your entire dominion, can’t you? All those things that you’re responsible for every day.

And you know, if you distill that down to what we’re doing here at this feast site, it’s not really that different, is it? We’re just doing it in physical bodies and not being spirit in the kingdom. So, all those different departments, ushering, set-up, cleanup, got the sound team, videographer, information table, and all those that have speaking assignments, the pianist. All those individuals, they have different things to look over and just paints a picture if you, you know, think of it that way.

Maybe you’ll have a grander scale of things that you’re overseeing in the kingdom, but it’s still the same process. So how good of a steward are you? How are you doing? And are you getting better at this feast site? I made a couple little mistakes early on, over the things that I was overseeing, but I made changes, and you know, I was mindful of it. And you just move forward after that, don’t you?

So, we have four days left. We have day five, six, and seven, and then we have the last great day here at this feast. So, it’s the time to become something. We can all kind of add this word to our name. Maybe not on our name tags, but it can be... just kind of assume that we are doing this. Please turn it over to James chapter one and we can find out what that is.

Read a few verses here in James chapter one, start in verse sixteen, “Do not err, my beloved brethren, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” Verse eighteen, “Of his own will He begat us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness.” That’s a mouthful. “And receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.”

The key here is verse twenty-two, “But be you doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. But be you doers of the word, and not hearers only deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholds himself, and goes his way, and straightaway forgets what manner or man he was.”

Verse twenty-five, “But whoso looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” So, we can add doer to our name tags, can’t we? Because we’re doers at this feast site. Everything that needs to be done is done with decency and order. We know that scripture. We know that many of us came from, you know, humble beginnings. I came from a humble beginning in God’s church. I didn’t know what to do.

And someone needed to tell me to do something before I knew how to do it. But eventually you figure things out, don’t you? And you eventually learn. And this is key, that the wall will not fall down if you don’t continue to stand in front of it. So, I figured that out after a while. But now is the time to become a doer at this feast site. We have this many days left, and many opportunities, don’t we? But what are we waiting for? What is the great promise God has given us? Well, kind of think forward to the future.

What are we being prepared for at this feast site? Why do we want to become better at exercising dominion over the areas that we have oversight over? Why do we want to become better stewards of the things that we’ve been given? Now we’ve been created by God with the ultimate goal of rulership, haven’t we? And that opportunity to rule as a king or a priest in God’s kingdom.

We heard a little bit about leaders earlier during this Feast of Tabernacles, but there is one definition of leadership that I want to give you this morning. And that’s having a vision and a path to realizing it. That’s what a leader does. They have a vision, and they have a path to realizing it. We serve a God that is the ultimate leader, don’t we? And He has had a vision for eternity. And He’s had that path to realizing it, hasn’t He?

At this feast site, you know, as you’re able to get out and enjoy the beautiful surroundings, are your eyes fixed firmly on God’s kingdom? Is that something that’s there, like right in front of you? Because it could be literally right in front of us. So, think about that, that opportunity that we all have. Matthew chapter six, having a vision and the path to realizing it.

That’s the one of the key qualities of a leader. At this feast site we’ve had this project, this ongoing project of correcting the hymnals, because there were a couple things that we needed to fix. So, we went through the process and started earlier in the year where we’re finding vendors, finding ways to fix those little issues that we had with the hymnals. And at a certain point, we had a plan. We talked about the plan, and that plan turned into a vision. And then somehow, my wife and I were roped into becoming the prime stickers here in Colorado, but we got it done. And that just is a small example of a way that you can apply that definition of leadership. When you can think about it within God’s church, we have that governmental structure, we have the top-down structure, and all the leaders that are within God’s church. And we can see those examples, and as we see those examples, we can continue to grow and become greater leaders as well.

Matthew chapter six, verse thirty-three. Very simple scripture again, Matthew six, thirty-three, “But seek you first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” So, all the promises that we’ve been given by God, we know they’re true. He’s the God of truth. He’s not a deceiver like the adversary that we have, but all those things that He’s promised us are true, and they will come true, and they will come to fruition one day.

The true leaders know how to exercise dominion, don’t they? And they know how to be wise stewards over what they’ve been given. And then think, again, about all that contrast that we have here. You know, we are living a beautiful life here at this feast site. We have a beautiful view of the mountains. We have the opportunity to fellowship every day. We have the opportunity to sing out and praise our Creator during the hymns. And it’s a blessing, isn’t it? And you can’t take that for granted.

And it really brings home the kind of that vision that we see often the distance of God’s kingdom, and it’s getting closer, isn’t it? For us every day. I am not a soil expert, but I’ve taken to improving soil wherever we’ve lived because if you take soil and you put it into a shelter, and you mix it together, it becomes something that’s more palatable for a plant to live in.

I’ve tried to plant little plants that I bought at the garden center in soil that has rocks, and concrete, and all this junk soil, and the plants don’t live. You can pump them full of fertilizer, and they still end up withering and dying. But if you take the time to cultivate the soil, add good soil to it, compost, everything becomes possible, doesn’t it? And the plants perk up, and you can grow fruit.

And the first time that we had lemons on the little lemon tree that we had back in Oregon, when we lived there, it was an exciting time. You know, this first thing, I was learning about gardening, and I had learned about certain ways to mix soil together and get the right level of acidity in the soil. And all of a sudden, we have these lemons on this lemon tree, like, “Wow, I need to plant some peach trees.” And then we got peaches on a peach tree. And it was just an amazing process.

But our garden is this feast site. We’re looking after certain areas. We’re improving the soil that we’re dealing with. And then by the end of the feasts, we have all this beautiful plant material surrounding us, don’t we? Just like at the God’s campus, are we dressing and keeping our garden? What reward can we expect if we’re exercising dominion now at the feast site and in our lives every day?

Revelation chapter one. Revelation one, verse number six. Revelation one, six. What is in our future? Revelation one, verse six, “And has made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; and to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” So that’s what is awaiting us. You know, this will have beautiful cities that we oversee. And I know my cities will have beautiful trees in those cities, maybe cobblestone roads. You can start thinking about these things.

And I’m thinking that I need bicycles in my city. It doesn’t all need to be horses and carriages, it’s not a combustion engine involved there. You can think about all those things. If it’s just a simple scripture like this, what will that be like? You know, you’re not necessarily standing on a hill, you’re just floating in the air and kind of looking, looking out over that city, and seeing the children play. And there’s an alligator and a lion and a T-Rex all in the general vicinity. You know, what will that be like?

There’s so many things that we can ponder, especially at this feast site, but that’s the promise of God, which we do what we’re supposed to do. If we exercise the dominion we’ve been given in a proper fashion. Revelation chapter five, turn forward a few pages. Just reinforcing the verse in Revelation one. Revelation five and verse ten, “And has made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on earth.” And we will reign forever, won’t we?

You know, thinking back, looking up at that night sky as a child when you think about all the stars that are up there, you can’t see them all, but we know that they’re there, and, you know, it’s just amazing, the vastness. And we’ve only scratched the surface, isn’t that right? We’ve only scratched the surface. And you think about what it means to live forever. It’s hard to fathom, isn’t it?

But we know that God’s promises are true. And we know that many things that we aren’t aware of now we will become aware of, but it’s just fun to think about. You know, we won’t be flying across the universe in a spaceship, we’ll just be flying across the universe, and it’ll be at a moment’s thought. And we can bounce around from one place to another. If we want to take a break, we can go see this star system, and then just bounce right back. And with God, all things are possible.

I found out that was a state model over the state of Ohio. So, we know that we have God on our side, don’t we? Please turn to Second Timothy chapter two. Second Timothy chapter two.

Second Timothy chapter two verse twelve, “If we suffer, we shall reign with him: we deny him, he will also deny us.” So, we’ve seen both of those scenarios today, haven’t we? We’ve seen that Jesus Christ by living that sinless life and suffering our mistake. And then we see Satan, the adversary, denying God. We know that that’s his lot as a being, he is the adversary. We see that. But right now, we’re doing what we need to do with this feast site. And we can also see off in the distance there’s an opportunity for us, isn’t there? In God’s kingdom.

Psalm chapter one hundred and forty-five. Psalm one hundred and forty-five. Just reinforcing God’s promise to us about what we have in stored for us. I’m not quite a scientist when it comes to planting plants and things, but I know there’s a process that you have to go through, and I described that a little bit with improving soil, but you need good soil, that’s kind of the first thing you need. Then you need water. Don’t forget the water, or your plant will die.

Then you need to have healthy plants and abundant sunshine, or some sort of light source. So, there’s all these things that go into it, but what is the crucial element plant surviving in you becoming success when it comes to growing something? And that’s the gardener. So just think of yourself as a gardener. And, you know, looking over all that plant material, all those trees, and bushes, and fruit trees, and raspberry bushes, and blackberry vines. How good of a gardener are you?

Psalm one hundred and forty-five, verse one. “I will extol you, O my God. My God, O King; I will bless your name forever and ever.” Verse two, “Every day I will bless you; and I’ll praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.” Verse four, “One generation shall praise your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.” Verse five, “I will speak of the glorious honor of your majesty, and of your wondrous works.”

Verse six. “And men shall speak of the might of your terrible acts: and I will declare your greatness. They shall abundantly utter the memory of your great goodness, and shall sing of your righteousness. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. All your work shall praise you, O Lord; and your saints shall bless you. They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom, and talk of your power. To make known to the sons of men his mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of his kingdom.” In verse thirteen, “Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations.”

I looked up the word everlasting. “Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom.” And two of the meanings of that word in Hebrew stuck out to me. One is, a vanishing point, and the other is time out of mind. You know, I think about telling my son again, he was trying to describe certain aspects of the universe, how big things are. And at a certain point, you know, he’ll end up getting that ten-mile stare. You know, you could tell that things are turning over, but nothing is computing anymore.

And that’s what it’s like when you think about the vastness of the universe, isn’t it? It’s like a vanishing point. You can see to a certain point out there but that point just keeps going. Or you can, you know, think about places and things and time and how long things have existed, but that’s time out of mind. It’ll make you crazy and out of your mind if you think about it too much almost. Just how vast and thinking about forever but that’s the promise we’ve been given. isn’t it brethren?

And being here at this feast site, we’re practicing for that time, aren’t we? Through all the things that we’re doing. If we are faithful over what we are given, we’ll all have that opportunity to enjoy eternity with our creator and every other God being in the universe. Please turn to Psalm chapter eight.

Psalm chapter eight. We’ll go ahead and read the entire Psalm, nine verses. Psalm eight and verse one, “O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who has set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings have you ordained strength because of your enemies, that you might still the enemy and the avenger.” We know that time is coming. “When I consider your heavens, and the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained; What is man, that you are mindful of him? and the son of man, that you visit him?

For you have made him a little lower than the angels, and have crowned him with glory and honor. You made him to have dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.” Verse seven. “All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passes through the paths of the seas. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth!” So, imagine singing that for eternity.

Maybe when you’re out on a walk or a hike or, you know, enjoying something beautiful today this afternoon, you know, think back to that Psalm. Let it just kind of ruminate in there and kind of bounce around in your head. And it, you know, really paints a picture, doesn’t it? Some of my favorite moments have been spent on a bicycle by myself just thinking. You know, it’s very often how I come up with ideas for messages and ideas for other things in my life.

But it’s just a great opportunity to sometimes just to go off and take a walk by yourself and just think and let things just kind of run around in your head. And that’s some of the most important time that we have, isn’t it? Think about that vanishing point. It’ll never get to the point where it ends. And that’s just the amazing thing to think about. Now, as we begin to wrap up, we can end with the theoretical.

We’ll go all the way back to the beginning, all the way back to the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve and think about that moment that Eve was deceived. What if she had said no? What if she had refused? We know that that was not what God had intended, but what if she refused? What would’ve happened? What would the universe look like today after all those many thousands of years since that moment in the garden? It would be a lot different than what we’re experiencing right now, wouldn’t it?

When you think about some of those news headlines I read earlier in the message, those things wouldn’t be going on, but they are. And there’s just a few of us that have God’s truth right now and we know that there’s a time coming when many, many more individuals will have their opportunity. Many that never had a fighting chance, maybe died when they were little or just were blown up in a war, and never heard of God and his truth.

You know, take those moments to meditate on God’s creation, on God’s kingdom that will soon be here. It’s important that you look beyond here and now at this feast and look forward, look towards that vanishing point. You know, the point that we know that never comes. It just goes on for eternity. And brethren, just as a reminder, look forward to a time and we’ll think about Revelation one, six. Think about that time it’s come to fruition, “And God has made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”