Sabbath 21/3/32/120

Dear Friends,

We are living in difficult times. Although some of us are living in so-called civilized countries with relative riches, we can see people facing diverse hardship everywhere. There are still famines and diseases in Africa and elsewhere despite the existence of powerful organisations such as the United Nations whose main objective was supposedly to eradicate poverty in underdeveloped countries. Its true purpose is yet to be uncovered to the world. The wars have made countless victims, besides AIDS which is claiming thousands every year.

Some ask why is there so much suffering and death in this so-called civilized world?

Some devil’s advocate would blame God for all the misery on earth. They would ask: “Where is your God when we need Him? Why doesn’t He stop this suffering, especially for the children?” These are legitimate questions but the spirit behind those questions is one that does not know the One true God Eloah, or His plan.

In general, many do not know the story behind all this suffering. They do not know the plan, which the Creator Eloah has in store for all humanity to save it from itself and from its enemy Satan.

We believe that the almighty God Eloah, Father of all creation, knows the end from the beginning. He knew beforehand that Satan would rebel and cause all this havoc and suffering. If He knew this, why would He go ahead and create Satan anyway? Why would He let Satan ruin His creation and especially His new Adam?

Our Creator did not create Satan to destroy him after so many years without having a superior plan. Obviously parents, with sound minds, would not procreate children with a plan to love them for some time and then willingly kill them as a planned course of action.

In this human history, there is a hidden plan that explains all the suffering. His church knows that His plan of salvation is perfect regardless of the suffering that we and others must endure. Why did He choose this particular way with suffering and rebellion to bring us to His perfect will?

The answer is in the freedom of choice that He gave us from the beginning. Furthermore, this freedom must remain forever. He created all beings, men and angels, with the capacity to choose between good and evil with no exceptions. As we are now supposedly free to choose good or evil, in the future, as immortal beings, we must still have the capacity to choose between good and evil. His first son, Yahoshua, had this capacity from the beginning. Later, as a resurrected being, he still retained this freedom and will for the rest of eternity. Yet he chose then to do His Father’s perfect will without fail, and will always continue to do so. We must also come to this capacity in freedom to choose the perfect good will of the Father without fail.  How will this achievement be accomplished in us and all His children? In fact, it is the necessary condition by which all created beings will be given immortality.

The basic premise is that the Father, Eloah, the Elohim or the One True God, created limited beings who did not have the necessary knowledge in the beginning. Angels had to exercise faith to remain faithful to their Creator Eloah. He did not create robots with programmed behaviour that learn nothing but do only pre-established actions. A machine does not choose but acts or rather reacts in a limited way to preconceived values or set points or conditions. He created free thinking creatures that needed to learn about Him and would learn to choose the good over the evil. He is working with us to teach us to choose life over death.

Before signing a contract, the parties have to be clearly informed of the content, consequences and opportunities being offered. In this case: obedience or disobedience to the Creator was at stake in this contract. Obedience brings life while disobedience brings death. Although Adam and Eve were told about the wages of sin, i.e. death, they did not really know personally what disobedience would really entail. They had not known or seen suffering or death before. It is like explaining to a young two-year old child about the death of a relative and the meaning of this cessation of life while the child has no such concept. How do we explain that this person has ceased to exist and has gone away?

We can agree that, after their expulsion from the garden and when Adam and Eve began suffering from their ailing bodies and saw others die, they knew much more of what death really was. Out of the two choices, death was the one choice that Adam and Eve had made but not in the full knowledge of the details they would taste for the rest of their lives. Although legally valid then, the contract will certainly be more meaningful in the resurrection when they will recall the suffering from which they have learned their lesson.

What lesson has humanity been learning and still is learning today? Is it not the lesson about suffering and death obtained from disobedience? Was there any other way we could have learned it? Angels and humans could not acquire this experience in their imagination for it to be effective. They had to live and/or see firsthand, as eyewitnesses, the effect of disobedience for this knowledge to be real and effective.

Eloah has planned to give immortality to all His created beings. But before He can give this immortality to anyone, He must be sure that everyone will always choose the true and the good course of action. How could He ensure this behaviour? How could He show His created children to choose always the good and reject the evil? We define “good” as the perfect will of God and “evil” as not the will of God – that is simple. We do it or we don’t. Sin is defined as disobedience to God’s law

1John 3:4  Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

In His wisdom, our Creator Eloah created a possibility for us to reject His will (that is to do evil) for a certain time. Indeed, as created beings with a limited experience, we are faced with an unknown factor. We do not know the result of sin unless we see it or experience it with our own eyes. Our Creator did not implant this experience in us nor did He implant it in the angels. We see many animals with built-in behaviour: nest building, eating patterns, etc. Man has no such internal patterns but has to acquire his behaviour through learning.

Thus, our Creator had to devise an opportunity for all His children to experience the unknown result of doing evil. Obviously, it was not sufficient to tell Adam and Eve that they would die if they disobeyed and ate of the forbidden fruit. It was apparently necessary for them to disobey and then to taste the bitterness of their disobedience until they died and lost consciousness.

It should be obvious to us that we almost only learn through our mistakes. We call it the experience of life. We all try to tell our children to do it the right way the first time around but no, they want to try it their way, just like Frank Sinatra sang: I did it my way.

Again, we need to realise that our Creator would not give anyone immortality unless the person would know the result of sin firsthand through suffering as to never again choose that course of action, never in eternity. This involved every created being. On the one hand, we know that all men have sinned and have seen, firsthand, the result of sin which is suffering followed by death. In the case of Yahoshua, the Christ, who did not sin himself, he did see firsthand the result of sin and he did suffer the result of sin in his own body by suffering and dying on the stake. He did bear our sins and diseases for us in his body. Although he did not sin, he felt the wages of sin more than any man. Although, he knew before as an angel not to sin but to do his Father’s will, he still learned perfect obedience through physical and mental suffering in his human body.

Hebrews 2:10  For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

As for the fallen angels, they are also learning the hard way. They are suffering in their fallen positions until the judgment of the last great day. They are learning the wages of sin and will still be suffering for many years more. The fallen angels are called unclean spirits by the Messiah.

Luke 11:24  When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.

As for the loyal Host, they must have seen firsthand also the result of sin. Certainly, Father Eloah has shown them what they needed to know to remain faithful in His will. There was no need that absolutely every angel would rebel to attain His objective. That is apparently different with mankind since all men have sinned. However, not all angels have sinned. Only one third sinned. He allowed one third of all angels to sin with Satan to attain His plan. Hopefully, one third of the angels and all humanity would be sufficient to show the wages of sin in an undisputable manner. The havoc caused by this rebellion in the whole universe would be sufficient to clearly establish that “other choice”, which was death, should be avoided forever.

We speak of freedom of choice when there is more than one choice. Furthermore, we cannot choose anything else than what is offered to us. Absolute freedom does not exist for anyone since not all choices are available. We only have limited freedom. Obviously, as humans, we cannot choose to fly or walk on water unless it was allowed to us. But the choices we were given were to obey or disobey God. Because of our parents, Adam and Eve, we were born in sin and we were made weak in the flesh to succumb to sin. Our purpose in this life then was to get acquainted with sin and know well the result of it, which is suffering and death. Without the Spirit of God we cannot be free of sin.

Romans 8:20  For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,

Again, why would our Creator subject us to sin without our will? Why would He allow so much suffering and death? It must be for the sake of eternity. He must be assured that no one having immortality would not know the wages of sin, and in ignorance allow sin and suffering to enter amongst the eternal elohim, where the Father Eloah dwells through the Holy Spirit.

When the human history is completed and we look back to the havoc caused by disobedience (sin), the lesson will be complete. All created beings will have their eyes opened and their minds made clear to see the perfect will of our Creator Eloah. Every single person will have seen and experienced the bad choice which we all had to experience before really making the final and good choice, i.e. obedience. The lesson was a hard one that took 6000 years of human suffering.

The lesson must be learned well by all without any doubt whatsoever before we enter into eternity with Father Eloah. In the Church of God, we believe that our Creator and Father Eloah is infinite love and power and wisdom. We believe that He is able and has planned to save all His created beings through the sacrifice of His son Yahoshua called the Christ. He is able to bring all His children to the knowledge of His perfect will and to perfect obedience as Yahoshua has shown us, both as angel and as man.

We must then view our errors, sins and suffering as part of our sad but necessary lesson. We need not willingly sin more to complete our lesson.

Romans 6:1  What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

The Holy Spirit alone can guide us away from sin (disobedience) to bring us to more perfect obedience. As elect, we are being shown and given the firsthand result of sin now so that we are learning the lesson well, before the First Resurrection. We can view God’s plan not only as a salvation plan but also as a creation plan in two phases, which correspond to the two choices being offered. The first phase (temporary) is to choose disobedience and know the consequences of sin which is suffering and death. The second phase (permanent) is to make the right choice to obey God unto immortality. This is God’s way where the bad choice is made first in a temporary mortal body and the right choice will be made in a permanent immortal body.

Deuteronomy 30:19  I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

Thus when He will again ask His resurrected people to choose life, they will know clearly what is being offered and will be able to choose the only right way. All created beings, angelic and human, will thus be shown the clear results of disobedience in the Second Resurrection. All will clearly see the fantastic offer which Father Eloah had in plan from the beginning for all His children.

We can clearly witness today in the world, mental diseases, blindness and evil to the point that people cannot be helped now. People too often choose suicide as the only deliverance from their plight. 

2Corinthians 4:4  In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Today, men are blinded so that they cannot to see the good choice. In other words, when left to himself, the spirit of man is doomed for death and destruction. But Father Eloah is giving a new life and power to man’s spirit through His own spirit to prevent it from its otherwise inevitable fate.

The final objective is for our Father Eloah to remove all blindness, all mental diseases, all errors, all sins, all deceits and all frauds so that all His created beings will be truly free to choose life. What foolish man will choose death? But folly itself will be removed. The choice will be obvious to all. The love and the perfect will of Father Eloah will be made visible to all.

Then true freedom is the ability and capacity to choose righteousness and truth. Before, we were not free but slaves to sin. This verse then can take on a new meaning.

John 8:32  And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Some are now being given this opportunity and true freedom to attain the First Resurrection through Yahoshua’s sacrifice. We will soon see God’s plan being implemented with the Two Witnesses and many people being given this true freedom by the pouring out of His Spirit.

We have many reasons to give praise and worship to our only True God, who is our Saviour and Creator, through Yahoshua, the first of His creation.

Jacques Guérard
Coordinator in the French Work