Romans 12:2 Panel Discussion – Rick S, Joe M, Homer M

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary

Short Summary
The panel discussion emphasized the transformative Christian walk based on Romans 12:2, focusing on practical ways to “prove” God’s will as good, acceptable, and perfect through sanctification and separateness from worldly influences. The speakers highlighted the importance of reflecting Christlike character in personal conduct, especially in relation to the world and the brotherhood, advocating for unity, maturity, and love in speech, while cautioning against involvement in worldly politics and false doctrines. Ultimately, the message encouraged continual spiritual growth, personal responsibility in studying the truth, and active support of the ecclesia as part of the body of Christ.

Long Summary
Detailed Bullet-Point Summary of the Panel Discussion on “Transformational Characteristics of Walking in Christ”

Opening and Theme Scripture:
– The panel discussion opens with greetings and expressions of gratitude.
– Theme scripture is Romans 12:2 (New American Standard Bible):
*“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”*
– The focus is on *how* to live a transformational Christian walk, practical and scripturally based approaches.
– Key terms from the scripture are defined using Strong’s Concordance:
– *Prove* (Strong’s 1381): test, examine, scrutinize (1 Thessalonians 5:21 – “prove all things”).
– *Good* (Strong’s 18): pure, peaceable, gentle, reasonable, merciful, without hypocrisy (James 3:17).
– *Acceptable* (Strong’s 2101): fully agreeable (Ephesians 5:10).
– *Perfect* (Strong’s 5046): complete, lacking nothing (Matthew 5:48 – “Be ye therefore perfect…”).
– Emphasis on striving for completeness and godly standards, not just partial obedience.

Defining the Transformed New Creature:
– The discussion split into two main practical areas:
1. Personal associations and interactions with the world.
2. Personal involvement with the body of Christ (the brotherhood/ecclesia).
– Scriptural foundation mainly from Ephesians 4:11-32, focusing especially on verses 17-24 regarding personal life and worldly associations.
– Ephesians 4:17-24 advises laying aside the “old self” corrupted by lusts and deceit, being renewed in spirit and mind, and putting on the new self created in righteousness and holiness.

Personal Interactions with the World:
– Brother Joe emphasizes *separateness* as the hallmark of the transformed life — being set apart from worldly ways.
– Cites Matthew 5:14-16 about being the “light of the world,” shining before men so they may glorify God.
– Transformed Christians go beyond mere obedience; they often sacrifice worldly activities or possessions voluntarily to maintain separation.
– Brother Homer reflects on Psalm 90:1-2 (God as eternal dwelling place) and Colossians 3:1-3 (setting affections on things above), stressing the need for disciplined effort to maintain heavenly focus amid worldly distractions like social media.
– Both agree transformed minds avoid lingering in worldly darkness and influences.
– Brother Joe shares a personal reflection on letting the light shine to glorify God, sometimes only evident after one’s lifetime.
– Brother Homer highlights that the body of Christ (144,000) is small and spread over time and geography, emphasizing the need for individual dedication.
– Both emphasize that transformation means being *peculiar* or *radical* in the sense of being separate and devoted (1 Peter 2:9).

Engagement with Politics:
– Politics is characterized as deeply divisive and corrupted.
– Both brethren advise staying separate from political partisanship and conflicts.
– Politics is full of opinions, misinformation, and emotional manipulation; Christians should avoid involvement.
– 2 Corinthians 5:20 (ambassadors for Christ) and Hebrews 13:14 (no continuing city here) are cited to emphasize focus on the heavenly kingdom, not earthly political systems.
– Brother Joe quotes Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts,” urging discernment.
– When discussing politics among brethren, focus on scripture and avoid heated opinionated debates; practice humility and love.

Dealing with the Brotherhood (Ecclesial Life):
– Emphasis on unity of faith and knowledge (Ephesians 4:11-13).
– Sanctification through truth is essential (John 17:17).
– Encouragement to diligently study the volumes and participate in ecclesial studies, even if they are difficult (Ecclesiastes 12:11-12).
– The global nature of the body of Christ is recognized; fellowship and mutual support transcend geography.
– Importance of making the truth personal, growing spiritually mature, and knowing what one believes and why.
– Elders and brethren should serve willingly in various capacities for the edification of the body.
– Spiritual maturity means not “pouting” or withdrawing when differences occur, but recognizing all members contribute uniquely.

Guarding Against False Doctrine:
– Ephesians 4:14 warns against being tossed by “every wind of doctrine.”
– Growth into unity of faith is the best defense.
– Rightly dividing the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15) is vital to avoid deception.
– Awareness of current false teachings, including Christian nationalism, which is rejected as a futile attempt to fix the old world.
– Spiritual maturity requires vigilance against lukewarmness and deceit (Laodicean condition).

Speaking the Truth in Love:
– Ephesians 4:15 calls for speaking truth lovingly.
– Two contexts: to brethren and to the public.
– Truth should be shared humbly, avoiding combative or condemning attitudes.
– Examples given of showing love by not spreading rumors, approaching brethren with kindness, and offering gentle exhortation (Hebrews 3:13-14; 1 Peter 4:15).
– Sisters often excel in expressing truth in love, a model for brethren.
– Communication must be spirit-led, not driven by fleshly emotions or assumptions.

Contributing to the Whole Body:
– Ephesians 4:16 describes the body fitted and held together by each part’s contribution.
– Contribution includes prayer, encouragement, serving local ecclesia, and using individual talents.
– Even distant brethren contribute by faithful service and prayer.
– Personal stories illustrate the importance of individual roles and supporting one another.
– The exhortation: “Ask not what your ecclesia can do for you, but what you can do for your ecclesia.”

Final Focus and Encouragement:
– Recognition of Satan’s efforts to deter transformation.
– Understanding God’s will includes:
– Express will: clear commands with no deviation (e.g., “Thou shalt not steal”).
– Permissive will: decisions where personal judgment is used (e.g., choice of job, marriage).
– Growth involves learning good judgment through experience.
– Encouragement to press on faithfully, assured that the church will be completed in God’s timing.
– Closing exhortation quotes Romans 12:1-2 to present oneself as a living sacrifice, not conformed to the world but transformed.

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Key Bible Verses Cited:

– Romans 12:2
– 1 Thessalonians 5:21
– James 3:17
– Ephesians 5:10
– Matthew 5:14-16, 5:48
– Ephesians 4:11-16, 17-24
– 1 Thessalonians 4:3
– Psalm 90:1-2
– Colossians 3:1-3
– Hebrews 13:14
– 2 Corinthians 5:20
– Ecclesiastes 12:11-12
– 2 Timothy 2:15
– Jeremiah 8:20
– 1 Peter 2:9; 4:15; 5:10
– Hebrews 3:13-14

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Summary Conclusion:

The panel emphasized that walking a truly transformational Christian life requires a deep, practical understanding and application of scripture, characterized by separation from worldly influences, unity and maturity within the brotherhood, loving communication, and faithful service. Christians are urged to avoid worldly entanglements such as political partisanship, to grow in sanctification through truth, and to support the body of Christ by faithfully fulfilling their roles. Above all, they are to present themselves as living sacrifices, continually renewing their minds to discern and do the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God, relying on God’s grace, the Spirit, and mutual encouragement to persevere until the race is finished.

Transcript

Well, good morning, brethren. It is good to see you all here again in convention today. This is our panel discussion on the theme text from yesterday’s theme discourse, and before we get started, I just want to mention that I get the good job here because for two reasons. One, I get to ask the questions, okay?

But two, you know, brethren, we look at our lives and we go back and we see those who have influenced us and helped us in our own Christian walk, and I get to sit here with two of those brethren who have been great influences on my life, and it’s a tremendous privilege to just be able to talk to them and to you all about our Christian walk, the transformational characteristics of what it means to be walking in Christ, to be truly, truly walking in Christ. So I’m going to thank Brother Joe and Brother Homer already. Just thank you for being here with us.

Appreciate your zeal. Let me read our theme scripture to get us started, and then I’m going to just make a few introductory comments before we get into the questions. The theme scripture is on the wall. You can see it. Romans 12:2.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So. So that you may prove what the will of God is. That which is good and acceptable and perfect, and that’s from the New American Standard Bible.

Now, our job in this panel is to lay out some scripturally based practical approaches so that we can prove what the will of God is. Proof that which is good and acceptable and perfect. So what I’d like to do to get started is just define those words for us because we want to talk about the practicality. We mentioned in the theme discourse yesterday that it was about the what of our transformational walk. Today is about the how.

And we’re going to get into some things that may even be a little bit uncomfortable to talk about, because it’s all part of the how of our Christian walk. Also, thank you, Brother Jay, for setting up for us this morning with your discourse. It really was very, very beneficial. An introduction. So to introduce the transformational power of these scriptures, we’re going to define these terms.

These are those four words. Prove that which is good and acceptable and perfect. The word for prove, Strong’s 1381 means to test or examine, prove or scrutinize. I’ll just give you one scripture text for each one of these verses, these words, so that we can just have a basis first. Thessalonians 5:21 says, prove all things.

Hold fast to that which is good. Scrutinize what you’re looking at and looking for. Be particular. That’s a sense of that word, prove. Prove that which is good.

The word means good. It’s Strong’s number 18, James 3, 17, another use of that word. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable and gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering and without hypocrisy. So when we go about the proving, we’re learning to know. We need to learn to know the details of our Christian walk.

Prove that which is good. Our learning to know the will of God considers only that which is good from a godly perspective, and that’s going to be a big part of our discussion today is what what is good from a godly perspective? So prove that which is good and acceptable. The word acceptable, Strong’s 2101, means fully agreeable.

And we’ll just read one scripture for that. Ephesians 5:10. Proving. It’s the same word as prove. We used before what is acceptable unto the Lord, what is fully agreeable to the Lord.

That’s what our transformational walk is really all about. So our learning to know through the proving the will of God follows only that which is agreeable and well pleasing to God. So prove that which is good, acceptable and perfect, complete. The word means complete, strong. 50 46.

And we’ll look at Matthew 5 48. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect, complete. That’s a tall order. That’s not an easy thing. Our learning to know through the proving the will of God strives towards only that which is complete and wanting nothing in the sight of God.

We strive for, like Brother J said, finishing that race running so as to win that race for ourselves. So that just gives you a baseline of the practicality we’re going to get into. So on a practical level, brethren, with the very scriptural basis, how asking our brethren here, how would you define. Now, this is a big long question. This is a general introductory question and not going to ask for an answer yet.

Give me a moment. How would you define what a transformed new creature looks like as they learn to know the will of God regarding our personal associations and interactions with the world and then our personal involvement with the body of Christ? So we’re going to break this down into two big sections. One, our personal interactions with the world, and second, our interactions with the body of Christ. We’re going to be using Ephesians chapter 4, verses 11 through 32, not to discuss those verses necessarily, but as a baseline for our discussion, we’re going to discuss some of the more uncomfortable things first, get them out of the way, and then really zero in on the body of Christ.

So we’re not going to take these verses quite in order. We mentioned Ephesians 4, 11, 32. We’re going to start with verses 17 through 24, and this is the subheading of our personal lives regarding our worldly associations. So first, regarding the world around us.

Brethren, I’m going to read Ephesians 4, 17:24 for you. But here’s your question once we put that Scripture on the table. So after I read the Scripture, what do the thoughts and actions of a transformed life look like as we deal with the world and the sometimes subtle influences that it may have upon us? So here’s the Scripture, and then we’ll open it up to hear your thoughts. Ephesians 4, 1724.

This I say and affirm together with the Lord that you walk no longer. Just as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their hearts, and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. That’s right.

That’s right. But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard him and you have been taught in him, just as truth is in Jesus, that in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts and deceit, that you be renewed in the Spirit and the mind put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of truth. So once again, the question, brethren, what do the thoughts and actions of a transformed life look like as we deal with the world and the sometimes subtle influences and it may have on us?

Okay, brother, Brother Joe and then Brother Homer and turn the mic. Yeah, there you go. Thank you. I’ll start by saying that you mentioned you had a good job of this panel, and I want to say that you did a good job of the good job of this panel.

Because, brethren, I’ve chaired panels before, and I couldn’t believe how thorough, extensive and color coded Brother Rich’s outline was that he sent to us with all of these questions in the Scriptures that relate to. So you did a good job of the good job parsing the large question as you read it into the pieces. You want us to discuss now, I’ll word it this way. What does a transformed new creature look like as they learn to know the will of God in our personal lives regarding our worldly associations? And in addition to the scriptures that you gave it in Ephesians 4?

We’ll get to that later. I’d like to add this scripture, my favorite scripture, on the subject of what is the will of God for us that transforms us and that we learn more of as we are transformed. That scripture is 1st Thessalonians 4, 3. For this is the will of God. Even your sanctification.

Well, of course, that begs the question to be asked. Okay, then, what does sanctification look like in a transformed new creature? And I would add this. We typically, as Bible students, define that word sanctification as being set apart for a holy purpose. So as we go through your outline, I’m going to answer almost every one of your questions with the same word.

And that same word is separateness. That’s to me, what a transformative creature looks like, and there are many similar words. We could use different and so on, but I’ll use separateness, and so to begin with, what the separateness look like in our lives, in our worldly associations.

And I’ll start with another scripture again, not on your outline. They were all good, but I’ve got a few more. Matthew 5:14 16 from our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5:14 16. Ye are the light of the world.

A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. Short comment, and I have another one for later. It’s important to note that being separate from the world, being transformed, being different in the context of our theme, Scripture means much more than just refraining from committing the grosser sins or even the not so gross sins that is common in the world.

We transformed new creatures go beyond obedience to sacrifice. We sacrifice or forego inactivities and acquiring possessions that are approved by God. They’re not sinful, but we go beyond that because we voluntarily give them up. So that’s just the start. Brother Rick, I have something else on this verse, but let’s hear what Brother Homer has to say as well.

Okay. So before Brother Homer, so there’s a few things that Brother Joe, you put on the table. First, of all separateness. That’s kind of a bottom line, and then you talked about essentially being a shining light.

So we are to be separate, and in that separate place, we are to be shining out upon them, and I appreciated going beyond obedience onto sacrifice. Those are good baselines for dealing with the world around us. Brother Homer, turn the mic, Brother.

So we think about Psalm 90 to begin with because it tells us about our Heavenly Father in verses one to two, and it tells us that he has been our dwelling place in all generations before. Before the mountains were and anything existed. He’s from eternity past. You can’t go back that far.

But this is 2026, and so the question is, how do we relate what was in his divine mind always to how we should function in 2026? What is so interesting is that we talk about our associations. I would say that one that’s very much alive and well is doing what the world does, and what is that?

You know, there’s such a thing called social media. I don’t know how many of us ever use those things. You know, we’re looking at them and of course, oh, we’re looking at them from scriptures. That’s what we’re looking at them for. But the point is that we use them, but the world uses them.

And sometimes, oftentimes we’ll find things that are not godly, and do we ever linger and do we ever get involved in what those things say? And do we have opinions about them and pontificate as to, oh, the world is in darkness? Let me suggest also one of the scriptures that I happen to like, and there’s so many of them, and I just have to mention that, you know, social media is a thing of the relatively present. This did not happen in the Scriptures.

They were not doing that. They were absolutely not doing that, and yet through every stage of the church’s history, there were individuals who made their calling. Election. Sure.

But let me give you one scripture that I happen to like of many, many, Many Colossians, chapter 3, verses 1, onward. Because it talks about, if ye then be risen with Christ, set your affections on the things that are above and not those which are here on earth. For ye are dead. Are you dead? And your life is hid with Christ and God?

Is that really true of us? But, you know, as you set your affections on the things that are above, this has to be a determined, disciplined effort. Because I can tell you, I found in my life, and the president have already testified that, you know, it’s like a slippery pole and I think about a dear brother. I’ll mention his name, Brother Gene Burns, and he gave a discourse along this line.

He says, like climbing up a pole and then you fly back down, you have to reset your affections upon the things that are above, because if you don’t do that, by God’s grace, you’re not going to make it. So you have to have a totally different mindset, and so I just go back to what I said before. How much. How much of using that little thing that we have is helping us to set our affections on the things above.

Over. Okay, so Psalm 91:2, and then Colossians chapter three, and Brother Homer used a word, I think, that’s really very significant in the context of what Brother Joe had just said, because he talked about separateness and being a shining light and going beyond obedience to sacrifice, and you ask the question, do we linger in places where there might be darkness? Do we go slower through that because doing so is not in line with what our transformed lives are supposed to look like?

Brother Joe, thank you. I’ll come back to Matthew 5 in just a minute, but I’m going to pick up on something the Brother Homer said when he used the phrase social network. Social media, Social network. We had a panel discussion in Chicago not so long ago, and that subject came up, and I readily admitted that I am a dinosaur when it comes to a lot of the modern technology. If you ask someone younger than 30, 35 today, what is a social network?

Well, they will say, it’s Facebook, it’s Instagram. You ask me what my social network is because I don’t have any of that stuff on my phone or my laptop. Well, my social network was the people that I grew up with in high school and grade school and my friends and my co workers. That’s my social network. So there’s a big divide between us old dinosaurs and all of the younger ones in the room.

I apologize, but then again, no, I’m not really sorry. Okay, getting back to Matthew 5. The last part of that passage 14 to 16 said, Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. Now, hopefully the world will see in us today, in our separateness and in our conduct, that we hold ourselves to the highest standards of righteousness. God’s standards.

But that last part of that verse, and they will glorify God, which is in heaven. Well, I’m not sure that anyone who knew me, saw my life, will necessarily say, boy, I’m Going to glorify God because of what I saw in Joe Miguez. I don’t think that will happen. But I want to go back to something that Brother Jay said near the end of his discourse. Remember that picture of the woman runner who had fallen down, and she was on her knees finishing the race, And Brother J said that she started out really strong, and then the wheels fell off and she just barely finished the race and said three minutes better than her personal best.

She didn’t realize what she was doing as she ran the race. It was only manifested when she was done with it, and so I say in this context of people beholding us and glorifying God, which is in heaven, it may not happen in our lifetime, but hopefully at the end of that race, like when this woman looked back and realized how well she had done, it might be said of us. You know, I lived next door to that person. I worked with that person.

We roomed together in college, and now I understand why they were so separate, what was so different about them? To me, it didn’t make sense. In fact, I thought they were possibly not even doing the best they could with their lives. But I will glorify God now because I see his entire plan of the ransom, restitution, and the two salvations.

And so maybe that will be our blessing. I hope it will be for us if we are transformed and let our light shine. Okay, so the thoughts and actions of a transformed life are actually to be an example, and the question is, will those around us later, by God’s grace, see light when they look back over our existence? Anything to add, Brother Homer?

Yeah. You know, the body of Christ, I believe, is 144,000, period, and I sometimes give the illustration because, you know, we all encourage one another to make your calling election. Sure, and I. I’m not a numbers person, except that I will say that if you divide 144,000 across 2,000 years, equidistant, that means 72 individuals will make their calling election.

Sure. Each year throughout the entire globe. Throughout the entire globe. If you take 2000 years, I’m not saying that the church will be completed in 2033, but if you multiply 2000 times 72, that’s how the math breaks out. So, you know, there’s a song or a hymn that says, oh, when the saints go marching in.

Saints don’t go marching in. In large numbers, it does not happen. Dear brethren. That’s a very sobering kind of thing. Let me just give one other comment.

So, you know, Galatians 6:10 tells us to do good as to all as we have opportunity, especially the household faith. But you cannot live in this world and not have some interaction with those that you knew, and I’ve lived long enough to say that I used to be a principal of an elementary school. There are very, very few. I’ve lived longer than most of my colleagues because they always talk about.

They call me Mr. Montague. He said, we have to have a reunion because they were so touched by how they perceived me, that I was fair and so forth and so on, and I said, you got to hurry up, because we’re not going to have a reunion because they’ve all died out. I’m still the only one that’s still here. Okay?

So that’s how I put it. So the point I’m making is that, you know, you can talk the talk, and I love what Brother Jay said. You know, he was up here telling you, we can all give you a discourse. We can all tell you what you need to do, but if we don’t do it, it’s like, you know, sounding brass and tinkling system symbols. So that’s the way it works.

We have to be focused, serious, and that’s it. Okay? The thoughts and actions of a transformed life. You’ve heard several examples of what it’s supposed to look like in general in relation to the world. Now, let’s get uncomfortable, shall we?

What about politics? What about politics? What do the transformed thoughts, words and actions of the new creation look like when dealing with the contentious world of political perspective and divisiveness? And then following that question. If you want to put the two questions together, you may.

If not, we’ll handle them separately. What should the transformed new creature be and do with all of this going on? Should we be engaged? Should we pay attention? Should we ignore.

So politics, everybody’s favorite subject. How do we deal with it? Because it’s all over the place. Who’d like to go first on this one? Sure, go ahead, brother.

So I’m going to give you a North American United States perspective, because I think most of us live in the United States, okay? But I’m sure it’s global, and so I want to say that, you know, we should not be red state Bible students or blue state Bible students. I think you understand what I’m saying. But, you know, and we talk about, well, who’s a good president?

Who brought the Abraham Accords into being? Who’s my favorite president? Let me talk about, and I lived through. Well, I was born when Franklin D. Roosevelt was in office.

Okay? So you can count my perspective from then until now, okay? I don’t even know if there’s going to be another president. That’s another subject. Okay?

But the point I’m making is that, you know, if you think that God is control and that God’s got this, every single president, every single one was placed there, allowed to be there without undermining their free will to do what they as part of the breaking down process of this evil world. So when you look at, see what this one did. See what this one did, every single one, and they’re all different because they all have the mind of the flesh. That’s the point.

So I would say that we need to stay out of it. We can talk about stay out of politics, but again, the matter is that of discipline. Let me just make one brief comment. You know, there’s an expression that says, I’d rather see a sermon than hear one. Well, our lives should be a sermon in terms of what we talk about.

Do we stay away from that? You know, I don’t like to get into. I mean, if you come to me and say, well, Brother Holman, what is your opinion? This is what I’ll say, and it has been said already. Look, I love my opinions and I say, which one of you don’t love your opinions?

Okay? And the point is we think we’re right. If we didn’t think we were right, we wouldn’t share them with others. But they’re not focused upon thus saith the word, Thus saith the Lord God over. Okay, I appreciate that.

We all do love our opinions and politics is a place that’s full of opinions. Brother Joe, what are your thoughts?

Well, I’ll also start, like Homer did, with the historical perspective that I have living my life not quite as many years as Homer. The first president I really remember was jfk, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. I don’t go as far back as fdr, but my thoughts are very much like brother Homer’s. I’m old enough to have witnessed a regrettable decline in the political discourse between government leaders and general people in the population during my lifetime. When I was young, politicians disagreed with each other, but they simply regarded their opponent as being honorable and well intentioned, but misguided.

And then both sides struck a compromise. Later on, as I grew older into my teen years and my 20 years, the winds had kind of shifted and the opposing sides came to regard each other as not merely well intentioned, but misguided. Now my opponents are wrong. I’m right, they are wrong, and yet they both still found a way to compromise on important legislations.

Fast forward another 10 or 20 years or so, and now the opposing sides have declared each other as such evil haters of America and other people and its values that no compromise is achievable anymore, and then, most recently, my observation has been that each side not only regards the opposing side as being evil and unwilling or unworthy of compromise, each side wants to destroy the other side, put them out of business, so that there is no longer an opposing side, but only my side left standing because my side and my opinions are right. Now, this has led to misinformation, disinformation, the death of truth, and the end of free speech, and so why would we want to be involved with any of that? So here’s my thought on it.

We consecrated Christians are rightly offended by the corruption, the lies, the injustice, and so forth in today’s politics. But we must not take sides because both sides are wrong and will be destroyed prior to the full establishment of the kingdom. Let us not be caught up in wanting to put new wine in old wineskins, to put a new piece of cloth on an old garment. This old order cannot be healed. It cannot be made good.

It will be destroyed. So let’s not get ourselves involved in something that is being destroyed. Two final quotes. Brother David Durand once said, referring to revelation, chapters 12 and 13, whether it is a red dragon or a blue dragon, to civil powers, it is still a dragon, and Brother Russell famously said, let the world fight its battles.

To which I will then add, by letting the world fight its battles, let us stay separate from them. My favorite word. That’s going to be your word for the day. Yes, it is. Okay, so brethren, you both basically said, all right, back away, stay away, stay separate.

But we all do have our opinions. So should we, or. Let me rephrase that. How should we, or should we as brethren, have conversations about political events, political things, political figures, political stances? Is it something that we should be paying a lot of attention to?

Some attention, minimal attention? And how do we discuss it between ourselves? Or should we discuss it between ourselves? I’m really putting you guys into a corner, so go ahead.

So, as you probably know, because I referenced Brother Benjamin Barton in my discourse yesterday, I have a great affection for the way he used to express himself. I’ll give you one illustration that makes the point, and you know, and he had scriptural principles, and I know that it’s always good to talk about scriptures, you know, don’t Come to me with your opinions. Brethren, I. If you don’t come with me to Scripture, I’m going to say, I like what you say.

That’s a possibility. But again, it doesn’t mean that it’s so. It does not mean that it’s so. You got to get that. So back in the day, and Brother Barton was at a convention just like this, and, you know, there was fellowship time.

And of course, we can always talk about what is fellowship. It doesn’t mean that you can’t. You always have to talk about the scriptures. Doesn’t mean that. I mean, we are concerned with the welfare of one another, their health, whatever it may be, their family and so forth and so on.

But here’s one illustration. The Brother Barton was at a convention, and it was. I don’t know how long the break was. I don’t know if they had a full 45 minutes or not, but that’s another story, and they were talking, and the brethren were talking, talking, talking.

Brother Barton was standing back there, and finally he couldn’t control himself. What were they talking about? They were talking about the Choctaw Indians. Now, I don’t know how many of you know about the Choctaw Indians, but this is in Pilgrim Echoes, and so Brother Benjamin Martin said, you know, brethren, the scriptures say a lot about the Choctaw Indians.

And so, and so the brethren said, Brother Benjamin Barton, no, the scriptures don’t talk about the chocolate. Where is that? They say yes in the scriptures. What scripture talks about.

I never saw that. Colossians 3:13. Forgetting those things that are behind, that’s the scriptural principle. So again, if you want to talk about what do we focus upon, always go back to the scripture because, you know, and in today’s vernacular, God’s got this. Don’t think about.

We need to help God. Okay, My discussion about what’s going on and how this is going to turn out and my speculation doesn’t mean a thing. God knew the end from the beginning, and so it’s going to work out. What we need to do is focus, focus, focus. Okay.

Forgetting those things. Richard, behind. See, now, I thought you were going to say the scripture was Jesus died a ransom for all to be testified in due time, and perhaps that’s a principle to be able to put in place when we look at these very divisive kinds of subjects and conversations. Brother Joe, anything to add?

Yeah, just briefly, when we find ourselves, of necessity, having to discuss politics with friends, family, brethren, whatever, and as we ourselves see what we see in the news and on the Internet. Let us realize that much of the political discourse that appears in the news and on the Internet and podcasts is 2% facts and 98% opinion spin and outright distortion disguised as facts and purposely intended to trigger negative emotions such as indignation, jealousy and hate. Always remember that formula, 2%, 98%. Don’t get caught up in that. Separate facts from distorted opinion and don’t react to the latter.

The distorted opinion.

There’s a well known senator from New York from decades ago by the name of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and he once said, and I think this phrase actually preceded him, but he’s the one we all remember having said it. He said, you are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts, and so again, brethren, let’s if we must discuss politics, ignore opinion and stick to the facts. Be skeptical hearers and receivers of what is out there so prevalent today. Just two more short comments.

My response to many such discussions and when someone tries to engage me and says, well, did you hear about this? Did you read about this? Doesn’t that make you angry? My response is that’s why the world needs the kingdom. Amen.

I say that every time. I never answer directly. The item of news that is presented to me to provoke in me a different reaction. That’s why the world needs the kingdom. Because in fact, whatever one side says about the other side in a negative way is probably true.

Both sides have so much negative about them that they can be said. It’s a fruitless argument. That’s why the world needs the kingdom. Lastly, remember that we are ambassadors for Christ, 2nd Corinthians 5:20. Here we have no continuing city.

We are not invested in this country or city or state, but we seek one to come, the New Jerusalem, Hebrews 13:14, and in that posture that we present, let us show forth our separateness. Thank you. Just waiting.

All right, so brethren, this has been very valuable and we all do have opinions and emotions, and you know, we have a bent, you know, toward the political left or the political right. But the bottom line is it’s all wrong in relation to the new creation. That’s what I hear you saying. Not that you can’t have the opinion, but our business is not that business.

That’s part of the going back to yesterday’s discourse. Be not conformed to this world. Don’t be out of alignment with the thinking and the processes that are there to correct and put things in place. Because God’s got this like you said in a way that we can look through his eyes and see the blessing of his kingdom unfolding through the difficulty that we all know is coming. So let’s let sleeping dogs lie, shall we?

That’s the political world, the political realm. Okay, so just before we change gears and look at our dealings from a transformed perspective with our brotherhood, do you have either of you have any final thoughts on just dealing with the world with transformed thoughts and actions? Anything final to add to what we’ve already discussed? I’ll start. Okay.

Some years ago I gave a discourse entitled Are youe Peculiar? And it’s based on the scripture in 1st Peter 2. 9. It reads, but ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood and holy nation, a peculiar people, a peculiar people that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Now, full disclosure, the Greek word Translated peculiar in 1st Peter 2.

9 does not mean odd or strange as we commonly understand it. But there’s a manna comment on May 20th that uses that word peculiar and its Greek roots that way that we’re talking about a people who are odd or peculiar or different to make an important point, and I’ll read that manna comment and as I do, listen for the words separate and separateness. May 20 Manna Comment A peculiar people. Not peculiar in dress, nor in manners, nor in language, nor in foolish senseless forms and idiosyncrasies, but peculiar in that it is separate from the world and the spirit of the world.

It has the spirit of Christ, a spirit of full consecration to the Lord, and separateness from the world and its selfish aims. It is peculiar in that it is adherence to the word of the Lord as its only law. It is peculiar in that it rejects worldly wisdom when it conflicts with the divine revelation. It is peculiar in that it is in the world, but not of the world. It is peculiar in that it has a decided faith and acts in harmony with its faith and with zeal.

It is peculiar in that it is self sacrificing and knows no will but the will of its king. It is peculiar in that it knows the truth and is able to give a reason for the hope within, while others merely speculate and doubt, and so in that talk I repeatedly asked of the audience, are you peculiar as I went through all of these things? And so I ask all of you now, today, are you peculiar, different, separate from the world and transformed? And just one more quick comment.

Rick, I have a confession to make to you personally. I shamelessly copied in the format of my talk, a format of a talk you gave many years ago titled On Being a Radical, and when Brother Rick gave that talk a long, long time ago, if you were to describe someone as a radical, you are not giving them a compliment. But Brother Rick took that word and used it to make the point that in the eyes of the world, we should all be radicals, and you repeatedly asked the audience, after you discussed what it meant to be a radical, are you a radical?

And so I love that talk. I ask now in my discourse, and to you, are you peculiar and are we also radicals? Thank you for your discourse. Thank you, Brother Joe. Thank you.

Okay, Brother Homer. So some of us think that the word fake news is a relatively new term. But every time you lie, you’re giving fake news because it’s not the truth. So think about that, and I think that, you know, the Scriptures are really written for the admonition of new creatures in Christ.

They’re not really written for the world of mankind. I mean, they don’t apply to them. Let me give you one passage that we sometimes talk about, and I, and I listen to it, and it’s found in second Timothy, chapter three. Okay?

And it begins this snow, that in the last days, and probably most of us believe that these are the last days. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here. Perilous times shall come, for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous boasters proud, and so forth and so on. But, you know, one of the things that this passage tells us is that they.

And very often, very often we apply that to the world. We say, you see, it’s different than they used to be. Let me tell you something. That the consecrated. This is addressed to the consecrated.

This is emphatic. The world of mankind. They have always been lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Always, Always. So let’s not talking.

We don’t talk about what they’re doing. Oh, look what they’re doing. No, we have to put the spotlight on self and say, this is talking to me. In the future, they will understand what the Scriptures are all about. Over.

Well, thank you, and you’re right, fake news is not news. Matter of fact, fake news is actually written in Scripture. In Nehemiah, it was Sanballat, I think, when he was. He was telling Nehemiah to come and talk to him.

And all of this he says, and if you don’t, I’m going to create a story and publish it. He was. He was the writer. He was literally threatening fake news, and.

And now we have it all over the world. Okay? So brethren, to live a transformed life is to not be a part of this world. These are issues that are difficult and they are overwhelming and, and I might add, very likely very tempting to get into with how we feel, and it’s okay to have our feelings, but what we need to do is focus those feelings on that which is above.

Focus our conversation one with another, not on the brokenness, but on the glory that we are striving for. That’s how we want to be able to present ourselves when we are amongst those of the world and dealing with worldly things. Let’s continue, and let’s now focus our attention on ecclesial life, on the brotherhood, on living a transformed life amongst the brotherhood. Now, brethren, look, we are overwhelmingly blessed with what we have been given through the Scriptures and the meet and do season from the seventh messenger.

Think about where we sit in relation to what we get to know versus what the church knew throughout the age, and look at the privilege that we have. We are in a different situation. I just want to touch on Ephesians 4, 11, 13, and he gave some apostles and some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

That says a lot about working together towards this goal. So our first question for you, brethren, how then do we, in a transformed way, not an earth way, earthly way, a transformed way, live out these blessings that we just talked about and what the Scripture just told us? How do we do that here and now, day by day by day by day?

Well, I’ll start. The first scripture that I thought of on this part of our discussion is John 17:17. Our Lord praying in the garden of Gethsemane, said, sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. You know, we talked before about the will of God is our sanctification.

What does sanctification look like? What do the Scriptures say sanctification is? It’s through God’s truth. Now, of course, our first source of the truth that sanctifies us or separates us is of course the Bible. But all of us came into the truth through the writings in the ministry of Brother Russell.

And I’m glad you called our attention to that as an important part of this outline. When we discovered new brethren in other countries whom we never knew even existed. It was because they likewise read and appreciated the harvest of message. We had a unity of the faith with them, and that’s how we recognize them as our brethren, even though we knew nothing of their existence prior. So how do we live out these blessings?

That’s the crux of Brother Rick’s question. It’s simple, even obvious. Read the volumes, prepare for and participate in your Ecclesia Volume studies. If your Ecclesia doesn’t have a volume study, advocate for starting one up. Now I’m going to sound like the old curmudgeon that I am now, but I have little patience with some of our young ones in our fellowship who complain that the volumes are written in such an old style of presentation.

They’re too difficult, too tedious to slog through. Well, so is your algebra textbook. So is your physics syllabus. So are all of the books that you slog through in high school, and the truth is much more worthy of the effort to slog through.

Ecclesiastes 12 verses 11 and 12 is appropriate here. The words of the wise are as goads and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, and further by these my son be admonished. Much study is a weariness of the flesh, and so that Scripture says the words of the wise are like goads, a cattle prod pushing us to learn more and do more and be more. They are like nails feeding fastened by masters of assemblies, things that are put together with wood.

You nail the pieces together. When it’s all done, you’ve got this masterpiece of craftsmanship, and the words of the wise are what’s holding all of that masterpiece of truth, the chart of the ages, God’s divine plan together the words of the wise and faithful servant. Not one piece is superfluous or out of place, and much steadiness of the truth is of weariness of the flesh. But the effort is rewarded.

One last comment, and again sounding like an old curmudgeon. I think our modern advanced technology with its fast paced instant feedback has shortened the attention span of many of us and created in us an expectation that every question that we may ask can be answered quickly and completely and without much effort in a two minute Google search or a one minute TikTok video, and don’t even get me started on AI, which I don’t understand anyway, but I’m perfectly willing to talk about it and tell you things I don’t even know.

Lastly, technology is a two edged sword. Be careful you don’t hurt yourself okay, so admonitions John 17, 17, Ecclesiastes 12, 11, and 12. Read the vines, take the message of the seventh messenger and apply it, because, well, here we are. We are living in the time when that message was meant, and it’s all scripturally based. Good start, Brother Homer.

So let me begin by saying that because of COVID it reminds me of back in the late 80s when the Brethren behind the Iron Curtain didn’t know that there were any in the United States, and those in the United States didn’t know there were any, you know, behind the Iron Curtain. But because of COVID some of us in different parts of the world that we don’t generally travel realize that, oh, they’re brethren that we didn’t know about. In fact, I. I heard that there were 500 connections attending the Phoenix convention. 500, and you could not do that without.

Zoom. You absolutely could not do that. Okay, so let me go back and make a comment. You know, in my interaction with brethren across the ocean and the continent of Africa, they have some of the same problems that we have. In other words, some of them think that America is the promised land.

They tell us how difficult it is. There’s corruption, there’s fighting, there’s poverty, all kinds of things, and I say, well, you know, I say, you know, those things happen in America. You may not realize that if you’re in the wrong place. Sometimes I say to them, you know what?

You gotta be very careful, because if you’re in the wrong place in America and you don’t right now, you might get deported because you are not supposed to be here. That’s one of the things I said. So be thankful for what you have. But the point I want to make is that, you know, when we think about the scriptures, and I got to come back to the scriptures. The scriptures tell us in Revelation 5, 9, and 10 that the body of Christ will come from every tongue and tribe and kindred nation.

It’s not just North America. It’s not just North America. It’s the entire body of Christ. I’m going to give you another story. So I want to talk to you about my trip to India about 30 years ago.

I was there with the Lukes, my dear wife, Sister Beverly, and brother Austin Williams at that time in India, and I trust I’ve only been to India once. At that time, you know, it was assumed that sisters could not be part of the body of Christ. They could only be part of the great company, and they said, well, sisters, they love to serve.

Yes, they love to serve. They’re going to be serving throughout the ages. I said, look, brother, you come to the United States and tell that to the sisters, they’ll run you out of the country, you know.

But the reason I’m mentioning this is that it is important to recognize that God’s principles are such, you know, that there, as I said, there’s neither male nor female Christ, and I would submit. I would submit. Look, I’m going to tell you a story. I’m not going to say who told to me, but it happened to be a sister in the United States.

The sister said to me, you know, Brother Homer is an elder. My husband tells me, don’t speak.

Don’t speak. So that phenomenon is not limited to overseas. Some of us who may be elders don’t want our wives to speak. I mean, I’m going to tell you like it is. I mean, they tell me this, and so I actually believe it’s true.

So I want to say that the inclusive nature of the body of Christ is built upon sanctification, separateness, and getting, imbibing those principles that will enable you to become more than conquerors. If you do that, you don’t have to worry. It has nothing to do with gender. It has to do with applying, applying principles of righteousness, truth and individual consecration, making the truth your own. Because you know, if you happen to lose a spouse, you can’t say, well, my husband, you know what?

I’m lost, I’m lost. So I’m going to stop for the time being. Okay? So making the truth your own, putting things and making use of what we have, seeing the broad perspective of the gifts that we’ve been given. We’ve been given present truth and back into the Ephesian scripture.

We’ve also been given a structure with which our scriptural, scripturally based, ecclesial lives should be operating, and you’re, both of you brethren are basically saying, make sure you participate in all of it. So our separateness is about the world, and in that separateness, I think, Brother Joe, we’re looking at a unity in our separateness so that we make sure that we are working together. Having said that, and I’m just watching the time, so I want to see if we can move through these next questions here.

Okay? Ephesians 4, 14, 15. The next two verses in the Ephesians Scriptures are, as a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and Deceitful scheming. Two basic questions on this. In our separateness.

Our unified separateness. Let’s call it that. Our unified separateness from a transformed perspective. What does no longer being children actually look like from the transformed perspective? And are there winds of doctrine and trickeries of men that particularly need our attention here and now?

So the first. What does it mean to no longer being children look like Brother Joe? I’ll just give a short answer to this part. No longer being children in the words of Peter’s first epistle, 1 Peter 5:10. First Peter 5, 10.

But the God of all grace, who hath called you unto his eternal glory, by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you, and so we should all be established and settled in the doctrines of truth as we grow, after we have suffered a while, experienced our consecrated lives, and I’ll just repeat what I said before. Know what you believe and why you believe it and why you believe it better not be because Joe Miguez said it in a discourse or in a panel or some other brother said it in a study, and I respect his view. Each of us have different abilities to study the truth and come to an understanding of it.

And the Lord will hold each of us responsible for making the truth our own. To whom much is given. Of him, much will be required. Make the truth your own. Okay, so there’s that personal responsibility in our unified separateness.

So I can’t rely on you for everything you can help and inspire, but I have to do the work for me Brother Homer. So I’m going to talk about the elders.

So do you really believe that those who do not dot the I’s across the T’s as you do, you should fellowship with them? Would you be willing to go to their convention and sit and listen to what they have to say because they evidence consecrated life? Are you so familiar with the harvest message that you know that the pastor said that your most important meeting is a testimony? If you really believe that. Suppose somebody sent you an invitation to serve and said, you know, brother, we want you to travel 3,000 miles and serve our convention?

We don’t want to hear what you want, what you say. We just want you to leave two testimonies. Would you be glad to go and say that and serve in that way to hear what the others have to say? I think what I’m saying is maturity. Spiritual maturity recognizes that we cannot pout and say, they don’t appreciate me.

That’s all they wanted me to do. Spiritual maturity requires us to recognize that every joint supplies and we supply in different ways. So if we are a joint, what is it that we’ve been gifted with? And let us serve. Okay, that’s a very good illustration.

I would have never thought of that question about being called to serve just as a testimony leader, and I say that almost sarcastically now, just as a testimony leader or being privileged to be a testimony leader. Thank you for that. So there’s that sense of the cohesiveness that even if we may not be exactly in line, Brother Homer, you’re suggesting that we stay in line anyway as best as we can. All right, let’s talk about the winds of doctrine part.

All right, next question. Are there winds of doctrine or trickeries of men? This is from the Ephesians 4 scripture that particularly need our attention here and now in the year 2026. Is there something specific in either of your perspectives that we should really be watching out for?

Brother Joe well, notice again, as you read before, that from the context of the previous verse, Ephesians 4:14, it is the children who are at risk of being tossed to and fro, carried about by the winds of false doctrine. So what’s the best defense? Well, it’s to grow up into the unity of the faith. You heard that expression before and you’re going to hear it again. How do we do that?

Well, I’ll expand on my answer to the previous verse study to show thyself approved a workman that needeth not be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth our well known second Timothy 2:15. That phrase rightly dividing the word of truth means to know when and to whom any scripture, especially prophetic scripture, applies, and knowing what the work appropriate to the time that that scripture applies is. For example, if our Lord has not yet returned, then Acts 3:19 21 is unfulfilled, and the times of restitution has not begun. Neither has the call to come out of Babylon in Revelation 18:4 been proclaimed and we should still be sitting in a meeting of the nominal church systems. Or if we are further along in the stream of time to when the time of trouble and tearing down of the old order are behind us and we are on the upswing, the kingdom is now being set up, then Jeremiah 8:20 is fulfilled.

Jeremiah 8:20 the harvest has passed, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. The high calling has ended, and the church is complete, and just to give a final comment about again the current discourse among the world and even some brethren today, there is some talk among the brethren about Christian nationalism in our country as if it’s a good thing, a return to Christian values and standards of righteousness. Don’t be deceived, as I said before, trying to improve this present old world order through Christian nationalism or any such efforts as is like putting new wine in old wineskins. The new order will be torn down.

Let not our faith be torn down with it. So the old order is on its way out. Why would we participate in it in any way, shape or form is really what you’re saying, and so we need to grow up in Christ. It’s not enough to be here, but again, it goes from and from yesterday’s discourse, from being not conformed, out of alignment, being transformed, this new creation that has never before existed.

Brother J touched on that this morning. It’s never before existed, and the qualifications and the guidelines for it are extremely high. We can’t be sitting back and sitting there kind of with your mouth open, saying, feed me, because that’s not what it comes down to. Yes, that’s important, but pick up the spoon.

Okay? Pick up the spoon. Make the truth your own. Appreciate that very much, Brother Homer. So I think making the truth our own requires us to recognize principles, ples.

That have always existed. Let me give you an illustration of a principle, and it goes back to, and I have to make a distinction between the apostles, who were divinely inspired, and yet they were imperfect beings. One of the most familiar ones that I use quite often goes to the Book of Jupylations, where it was that Peter was guilty of dissimulation because when the Judaizers came in, he withdrew himself because he did not want to be seen with them, and Paul said, I have to withstand you to your face.

He and Barnabas also were guilty of double dealing. He said, you know better than that. You know better than that, and so he withstood him through his face. Let me talk about also, and I’m thinking about Babylon.

You know what’s so interesting in this particular convention? And we had it at the very beginning. Who is new? There are brethren who have come in to the fold, who have appreciated. They have come out from wherever they were.

And they’re here in this audience now. Let me tell you about. There are two reprint articles, and they have the same title. But I’ll give you the time later on, if you ask me. I have my notes, but the point is.

Oh, it’s the hour of temptation. That’s what it is. Okay, there’s two. Two briefing articles. The Hour of Temptation.

And I smile because the pastor wrote about an old gentleman in the Philadelphia state of the church. You know, I fully believe that we are Laodicea. But what he said about this old gentleman of Philadelphia, he said he was about 90 years of age. Old gentleman of 90 years of age. Not that old.

No, no, not that old anyway. But he said that in his opinion, he was illustrative of a class that will be spared the hour of temptation, which is layered as there by not understanding and recognizing that the Lord had been. Was present. When the pastor wrote, you know, that he proclaimed that the Lord is present. So this is one of his late reprint articles.

So it’s well into it, and he’s saying that he believes that he’s illustrative of a class that lapsed over into Laodicea and that it would not be necessary for them to recognize that the Lord is present because he had all those qualities. You know, discussion of the Lord’s second presence. You know, again, even back in Thessalonica, there were those who were deceived, who thought the Lord was already present. Way back then. There is nothing new, brethren.

We have to talk about the principles that have existed from the beginning, even until now, and if you look at principles, that’s what you got to get, and you find them in the Scriptures, okay? So that. That dissimulation is an important principle, and that can.

That can be a trickery that we can fall into, and we need to have scriptural principles, like you said, guiding us, and you mentioned the stages of the church, and we know that in the Laodicean stage of the church, the big issue is lukewarmness. The big issue is neither hot nor cold, but just kind of going along to get along.

And this whole discussion is about not being lukewarm. It is about making sure that our fellowship together, our interactions together, are driven by that which is above, not that which is below or that which is behind. All of those things we’ve kind of tried to put away. Okay, so let me go to the next question, and perhaps we’ll spend a little bit of time here. Ephesians 4:15, the next verse.

But speaking truth and love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ. So, again, from a transformed point of view, and if you notice, every single question I’m asking practically starts with from a transformed point of view, because it’s not. We’re not interested in hearing what the human being, Homer, the human being, Joe, has to say, but we’re interested in what Brother Homer and Brother Joe, New creatures in Christ have to say, from a transformed point of view, what does speaking the truth in love look like and feel like? What does it look like? Because sometimes you’ve heard of tough love.

Okay, love might have to be tough. So what does it look like from a transformed point of view? Brother Homer? No, that’s mine.

He’s the head.

So let me suggest that, you know, we have to believe that our brethren are our brethren, no matter where they are, because we see evidence of their zeal, their love, their sacrifice. They’re willing to go out of their way to help one another, and I love again this picture that Brother J had this morning about, you know, helping our brethren. No matter what it was, you helped them. Okay, in one way.

So, you know, I was thinking about an illustration. You know, sometimes we hear rumors about our brethren. You ever hear anything that was not really true? Have you ever heard someone say to you, brother, so and so. I didn’t know that you were doing that.

And do you. Do you go to your brother and do you ask your brother, how is everything with you? Or do you take it and run and spread it and so forth, and before you know it, your brother is being defamed? Do you do that? That’s not what we do.

And so we go to our brother or sister and we ask, how is it with you today? They may have some issue that’s really true and how can I help? How can I help? Or it may well be that someone does not take the time and they make an assumption. I will tell you an illustration of someone that I know who’s no longer in the scene.

And you may have heard it, so I won’t mention any names, but if you’ve heard it, you’ll know it, and I know at least one person that has heard this story. There’s an old time brother who was an elder in a class.

And you know, he had to. He was seen coming out of a bar, he’s an elder class on the way to meeting, and someone saw that brother and he ran to the class and said, you know, brother, so and so our elder, he’s not living the life that he should be. I just saw him coming out of the bar. Nobody.

That individual didn’t go to ask their brother, is everything okay? You should have known that if he’s an elder, that he would have an answer, and so what would happen? That brother traveled a long way, and at that time, the only place where he could go relieve himself is to go to the bar.

They had a facility and he relieved himself so he could make it to the meeting in time. So I guess what I’m saying is don’t spread rumors. Think the very best. Have you ever had anybody spread a rumor about you and you know it’s not true? How do you react?

So that’s just one illustration. Okay, so that’s not speaking the truth in love. That’s what not to do. Okay, so good. That’s a good start.

Brother Joe. Well, there are two contexts in which we could discuss this concept of speaking the truth in love. One is to our brethren, but the other is to the public who have not yet heard the truth, and I think that really is what Paul is referring to in the context of the theme passage for our panel today in Ephesians 4. He’s talking about speaking the truth in love to those who have not yet heard the truth.

And I think the warning that Paul is giving here is that when we preach the truth to others who have not yet heard the truth, we should do it in love, not in a combative style like, I have the truth and you don’t. I am in the light, you are in darkness. Everything you’ve been taught by your church is wrong. Let me straighten you out. That is not speaking the truth in love.

And sometimes it’s hard to find the right loving words at, say, a funeral of a friend or a loved one or business associate, someone who’s not one of the brethren, and the relatives of the deceased comfort themselves with the thought, well, he’s in a better place now. He’s in heaven, and so I’m actually kind of glad for him, and how do you tell someone, no, you’re wrong, Your husband or your wife or whoever is not in heaven like you think?

Well, I recall a technique I once learned from Brother David Duran, who recalled a conversation he had in a similar vein with an individual who was convinced that God had cured him of a fatal disease through his prayer for healing as a result of his faith in God, and so, rather than trying to argue or dispute with his brother that he was mistaken, God had not healed him of his fatal disease, Brother David Durand sort of pivoted and said, I’m glad to hear that you’re better. Won’t it be wonderful in the kingdom when all mankind will have all of their disease healed? Let me tell you about that kingdom. Isn’t that a wonderful way to speak the truth in love?

Now, there is, of course, the other context that Brother Homer touched on about speaking the truth in love to our brethren who already have the truth, and I’d like to touch on that just real briefly. There’s a scripture in Hebrews 3:13 and 14, Hebrews 3:13, 14, which says, exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end. So we are told to exhort one another daily, but then almost in a contradictory way.

1st Peter 4:15. 1 Peter 4:15 says, but let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men’s matters. So where do we draw that line between exhorting one another daily and being a busybody in other men’s affairs? Unfortunately, each one of us will draw that line in a different place, and I may think that I’m giving you some well deserved exhortation, and you may think that I’m busybodying and that I should just leave it alone.

So about the only advice I can offer is that we should always be sure it is not our flesh that sees the need for exhortation, the life of one of our other brethren. Likewise, let us be sure it is not our flesh that refuses to receive a needful exhortation. Speak the truth in love, humility and simplicity, and brothers, learn from the sisters, they are much better at this than we are. Amen.

Amen to that. So the concept then is to speak, communicate, whether it be to those on the outside or those within the body, from the perspective of that which is above, like you said, and not from the flesh. It is to not, as Brother Homer brought out, jump to some kind of a conclusion. A that’s the first issue. The second issue is you jump to a conclusion and then potentially tell someone else.

So you’ve taken a wrong conclusion and now you have just multiplied it and it becomes like a virus that just spreads and contaminates. So our responsibility is to, in all of our communication, all of it, all of it, to have that higher, grace filled, spirit driven approach rather than how I feel, and it’s such an important piece to put in place in our communication one with another, and it is important for us to be supporting one another, and that’s where we’re going to go with our next question.

Ephesians 4:16, and we’re using Ephesians as a general principle here. Ephesians 4:16, 4:15 ended. We grow up in all aspects into him who is the head Even Christ, and then 4:16 picks up and says, from whom, Christ? From whom the whole body being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

So now you’ve got this very focused picture on the body which is under the head of Christ and all of the joints supplying. So the question here, how do we in a transformed way contribute to the whole body of Christ? To the whole body of Christ, especially when we may not meet or see many of our prospective body members? How do we. Is there a way to contribute to the whole body when maybe we’re not in a position to be able to see them or touch them?

Brother Homer So I’m going to combine what you said before with the answer to that because I was wanted to say this. Let me tell you that in my previous life, my. I was a principal of a school. The population was black in the main, but the staff was Jewish. Okay.

There’s a specific teacher whose parents were Holocaust survivors that worked in my School from 1984 to 1988 in New York. She now lives in Florida. We meet every Tuesday, unless something prevents it. She tries to teach me to speak Hebrew and I tell her about God’s plan. That’s the way it goes.

And I want to tell you this. I could tell you about one other person who was my closest friend outside the Bible student movement. We were so close that we were known as Salt and Pepper. You can decide who was pepper. Okay.

But the point is that I spoke at the funeral of his son where there were 400 Jews in the audience, and one of the things that I spoke about his son Stephen was to talk about his good qualities, and he was somebody that was really, really. He died of the same thing as my son in law, Tim died of. He had an incurable form of leukemia.

And so what was so interesting, and I say this to brethren because sometimes brethren who do not have that kind of exposure, they think that all who are Jews are reading the Scriptures. I sometimes use it as, you know, third volume Jews the Restoration of Israel. That’s why I sometimes say, and so I spoke about Stephen and there was somebody who was a Lutheran, who was a colleague of mine.

She attended the funeral also, but they were always talking about Stephen and so forth and so on. There were 12 speakers. I was the 11th. The parents spoke first and his surviving siblings spoke 12th, and so I said, I’ll tell you when this happened.

This happened in the time of the Scud War, and so I said, you know, I was thinking about Stephen. One of the things that struck me so much was his faith. What’s this? You see?

He loved baseball. He had all kinds of things. Steven said that he believed that Israel was not decimated by Saddam Hussein’s missiles because divine intervention. Well, when I said that, you could have heard a whisper, you know, when did my son. Okay, and the point I’m making is that the other one, who I speak to on Tuesdays, she does not believe.

It’s a real question as to whether or not she really believes that there is a divine of God, and so I talk to her and I talk about what the scriptures say, and I give her, like Isaiah 35, and I tell about, you know, what happens in the future, and she says, oh, my God. I said, yeah, you’re getting it soon. Yeah, oh, my God.

Yes, there is a God, and he’s going to have a plan that’s going to bless all the families of the earth. So what I’m saying is that you don’t shy away from what you believe. You say if you have a relationship with someone, you can talk to them about anything, and if you don’t, don’t be like some of us. When we see somebody who is new to our fellowship, then we pounce on them and we give them the whole plan of the ages in one moment.

And before you know it, you don’t see them anymore. Over. Okay, so you’re talking about using discretion in our support of one another, and we can certainly apply that to our contributing to the whole body of Christ as a principle. Brother.

Brother Joe, I’ll make this real quick because the time is passing on. The sense of Ephesians 4:16 is that we contribute to the whole body by doing a good job of our little part of the whole body. Because when one member suffers, they all suffer. So if you want to contribute to the whole body, do a good job of being a finger, a toe, or whatever your part of the body is. What is that in thine hand?

What are your talents? What can you put to the use of the entire body? Certainly we can’t minister to every member of the body all over the world, but we can always pray for each and every one of them, and to bring it more closely down to the focus of our ecclesia as a chunk of the whole body. I remember that famous saying that the first president.

I remember when I was a boy, John F. Kennedy, once said, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. So I say that to us as brethren, and I modified it, adapted to read, ask not what your ecclesia can do for you, ask what you can do for your ecclesia. Well, thank you, and so in supporting and encouraging the ecclesia, we are essentially encouraging and supporting the whole body. Because you’re right, you may be the ligament that’s between this joint right here, but that has to play a part for the rest of the body.

And if that can function well, it can be supportive in a different way, and it’s really, really important, brethren, to make sure that we recognize that this life of transformation, be not conformed, but be transformed, means that you play a role, and that’s what both of your comments were very, very specific on. We all play a role in. In this, and we need to strive.

And if you’re not sure what the role is, then you play the role that everybody has, and you play the role of prayer and supplication on behalf of the brotherhood. That is a tremendous, powerful role. I would tell a story, but I don’t think we have time. I’m going to tell it anyway. Well, just because it’s one of those things that.

And many of you may have heard this in the earlier days of. Of doing Christian questions. When we were on the radio on Sunday mornings, I was at a convention somewhere, and Sister Edith Harp, she and I were having lunch together, and she was asking me, she was very intent, asking me, how is it going and what’s happening? And so I was sharing experiences, and then she looked at me very, very sternly and said, brother Rick, I need you to know something.

She says, I pray for you about this, but I don’t pray for you on Sundays, and I said, okay, because I had no idea where this was going, and Sunday morning was the broadcast. She said, I pray for you every other day of the week because that’s when you have to do the preparation. So she was specific.

She was specific in saying, this is how I can support you, and I just want you to know, and I’ve never, ever, ever forgotten that. 30 seconds. 30 seconds. I appreciate the brethren in Phoenix because we can help the body because they took the trouble to transmit all of this program so that all those who are online listening can hear what we’ve said.

And then finally, I told my daughter yesterday, I said, do not let me forget to sign the cards. The fellowship is so wonderful, but, you know, you can be so happy to see your brethren and to talk about other things you may forget Unless you take a deliberate effort to take time out of your enjoyment. Sign those cards to give comfort to others. Thank you. Brethren, our time is just about up, so I’m just going to combine the last two questions that we have here for the two of you.

What are the most important things that we as new creatures should be focused on? And then your final thoughts to wrap this all up and then we’ll close.

Brother Joe, I’ll go first. Thank you. As far as what we should be focused on, I think one thing that hasn’t been mentioned yet is Satan. You know, Satan will endeavor very hard to deter us from being transformed, from knowing and proving what that good and acceptable will of God is, and from our advancement along the narrow way and our growing into Christlikeness. I had a longer comment that I wanted to give on some of the tools that Satan uses, but I’ll pass that over and instead go to the final thought that I had, and that is this.

You know, we’ve been discussing being transformed as new creatures in the framework of learning and doing the will of God, and a long time ago, one of my mentors, Brother Carl Hagensik, gave an excellent discourse in which he explained the will of God as having two features, the express will of God and the permissive will of God. Now, the express will of God are definitive statements of God’s will from which there is no deviation is acceptable. Like the lane markings on a highway. You drive your car straight and you don’t deviate from your lane on that highway.

Some of the examples are, thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not commit adultery. This do in the remembrance of me. Those are the express will of God. We do them.

There is no variation, no slack. But then there is also the permissive will of God, which is like a wide, unmarked roadway. You can safely drift to the left or the right as long as you don’t go too far and end up off the roadway in a ditch. Some of the examples of what might be, well, what are the questions or the facets of the permissible of God are, well, should I go to college or not? Should I marry or not?

Should I attend this ecclesia or not? Should I take this job or that job? These are all part of the permissive will of God. God is able to shape our Christlike character development no matter which decision we make among those of his permissive will, and so let us always be mindful of the fact that when we are striving to learn that good and acceptable will of God and be transformed that there are two parts to God’s will.

One part, there’s no deviation. We follow it to the letter. The other part, we use our own soundness of judgment. Because the development of that soundness of judgment is part of our growth in Christ and our transformation. There’s an old saying that wisdom comes from good judgment.

Good judgment comes from experiences, and experiences come from bad judgment. So we progress from bad judgment through our experiences to good judgment and to wisdom, and in everything, let us demonstrate our separateness. I had to get that in there somehow. I was waiting.

It had to come, and there it was. Thank you, Brother Homer. Final thoughts on what’s most important. Final thought is, and I won’t read it, but the ManACext for January 4th.

About time. Let us not become. Let us continue to preach the word, give out the good news. Because we have seen that there are still hearing ears to come in, to embrace it. Don’t say it’s too late.

The church is going to be completed. It takes time. That’s the point. It takes time for the development of the entire church, and finally, I’ll just simply say, as a sister that we meet with from time to time says, press on, press on.

Don’t stop. Press on. When it is time for you to get your reward, if you’re faithful until the end, he will say, come up higher over. Thank you, Brother Homer. Thank you, Brother Joe.

So, in closing, brethren, very, very quickly. Romans, chapter 12, verses 1 and 2. Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is that which is good and acceptable and perfect. You have a mission for your life.

It is a lofty mission. It is a mission to do what most would never think of, and by God’s grace and by His Spirit and by his providence, let us strive in that mission every day, and remember, you do not walk alone. We have our Heavenly Father.

We have our Lord, and look around. We have each other. May the Lord add his blessing.

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