Ronald Weinland

Truth #52 states, “God is restoring knowledge concerning the rightful place of women in the family. This involves the start of the greater removal of the curse laid upon women from the beginning which was the result of sin.”

In past sermons and in a post addressing this subject, it has never been stated that women would ever experience a time when labor pain would no longer exist or that God would remove it. Women experiencing labor pain at birth has very little to do with the curses that came upon Adam and Eve after they sinned, and it has nothingwhatsoever to do with the 52nd Truth. Although this truth has been addressed in sermons and a post, it would be good to now build upon what has already been covered.

Restoring that Knowledge
From the beginning, when God began to reveal this truth to His Church, it was always in the context of both men and women throughout the world and their coming out of the bondage of spiritual Egypt in the Millennium. As God’s truth spreads into all the world through the establishment of His one true Church and the removal of all other false religions, the rightful place of women, especially in the family, will begin to be restored to the true purpose and beauty God created it to be at the beginning. God has partially begun to restore this in His Church, which is the means of removing the curse (not physical labor pain), just before the Millennium.

It would be good to begin by focusing more closely upon what this truth actually does say as stated within the “57 Truths.”

It states that this truth about women is something God is “restoring knowledge” of, but only within His Church, as the world cannot receive it. The reality and truth is that this knowledge was lost not long after God created Adam and Eve. This knowledge concerned how husbands and wives should “live” toward one another and toward God. It was knowledge based on spiritual law – that which affects the mind and thinking process that can work in harmony with the mind (the word, the ways) of God. This “spiritual process” at work in the mind of mankind requires access to God’s spirit, as God’s spiritual knowledge (of His laws, ways, truth) cannot be seen or sustained in the human mind without God’s spirit and a continuing access to it.

God did not create Adam and Eve and then abandon them as some kind of caveman and cavewoman. God educated them and taught them how to live life. This means they were not left to themselves to have to figure out (decide for themselves) how to live. How people live determines what their experience in life will be like – good or bad, fulfilled or lacking and filled with emptiness, rewarding or suffering loss, joyful or sorrowful, exciting or filled with dread and fear, happy or sad, etc. God’s ways that are contained in His word (His ways, His laws, and His truths) produce (yield) only one way – one result: fullness, joy, excitement, reward, contentment, and happiness in life – true peace.

Once Adam and Eve sinned, they began to “think differently” from what God had given to them as “the way” to think, which was one of unity and agreement with His ways. From that point forward, mankind became “cut off” from a true relationship with God, and the true knowledge of God’s ways became polluted and defiled by mankind’s “own thinking,” which is deciding for oneself what is right and what is wrong. God’s own words as the only true source of the right ways of life were rejected – God was rejected. That is the “way of mankind.”

From the beginning, mankind became cut off from God – from His spirit. After this, for the next 6,000 years, only those whom God specifically called could come into a relationship with Him and then receive of His word, knowledge, truth, and of how to live life His way. But even in this, God has only progressively revealed His ways in an increasing manner through time, as He has been leading mankind back into the kind of relationship they could have with Him and one another, just as it was given in the beginning.

From Adam and Eve and up through the next 6,000 years, God has worked to bring mankind into the millennial reign of His Kingdom on earth. It is in this Kingdom that His Son will “restore all things” purposed in the beginning that mankind should have had as the true ways and true knowledge of life. This is why the words of Peter on the Day of Pentecost in 31 AD are so profound and meaningful.

“Repent (Gk. – think differently) therefore and become converted (“changed” – back to becoming what God offered in the beginning) so that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19).

Before quoting the rest of what Peter said, it is important to stop here and explain the word used as “refreshing.” It is from a Greek word meaning “revival” or “the recovery of breath (life).” This is explaining the very process we are covering in this post. Adam and Eve turned away from the “thinking” (mind, word, revelatory thought) of God to their “own thinking” which is what mankind has followed ever since. Mankind judges for himself what he decides is right and wrong. Mankind does not look to God for such true knowledge. God’s plan is about a process of bringing mankind back into a unity and harmony with Him that He offered in the beginning.

So Peter is stating that there is a need for people to “think differently” (repent) than they presently do (selfishly as from their own authority). They are to become “changed” (converted) by doing so ­– by thinking and then living differently, and thereby coming into harmony with God’s ways – living them, which God had given from the beginning. Then their sins (walking contrary to God) will begin to be blotted out. This process is then referred to as a “time of refreshing” that comes from the very presence of God in one’s life.

This word translated as “refreshing” is incredibly meaningful when understood in Greek. Its meaning is also the very context of this post. Upon repentance and becoming changed (converted) by what we are living, we begin to be “revived” – to “recover the life” God offered in the beginning. But even more interesting and meaningful is that this Greek word is from a compound word. The first word means “repetition or reversal.” The other word means “in the past” or “of yesterday.” All this is literally speaking of the need to think differently and to now become changed into what God offered from His very presence “in the past” – in the beginning.

When are those “times” of refreshing that can only come from the presence of the Lord? For the Church over the past 2,000 years, that “time” came for each person whenGod called them. That “time of refreshing” will come to the whole world in the Millennium.

Repeating Lesson
The misapplied and misappropriated statement quoted in the beginning of this post, coupled with the subject of the 52nd Truth, is the crux of the issue at hand regarding what Peter was preaching on that Day of Pentecost when the Church was born. The greatest lesson in all this is one that has been repeated constantly throughout the history of God’s Church and it all began with Adam and Eve.

In the beginning, in the Garden of Eden, God began to educate mankind in His ways of life. There was much knowledge of God’s ways and purpose to be given, but it was cut short in sin. The first two, who were a married couple – the first parents – were cut off from God. Adam and Eve not only ceased to learn more of that which God had offered to continue to give them, but they began to lose what they had already received.

The example of what happened to Adam and Eve has been repeated constantly throughout the history of God’s Church. However, there is one great difference. Adam and Eve were given access to God’s spirit from the beginning, but in time they made a choice to disobey God and they became cut off from that spiritual life sustaining power that enables mankind to “see” what is of God and to be able to retain it. Once sin entered, their eyes were closed and they could no longer continue in God’s ways.

Since that time, individuals have had to be “called” (invited) into a relationship with God through God’s mercy and grace that is extended to them. Once the Church began, the means for the forgiveness of sin and the greater purpose God was working in mankind (to become Elohim) through the Passover became manifest. Upon being called into God’s Church and receiving the Passover sacrifice into their lives, individuals were given constant and continual access to God’s spirit as they consistently would repent and change. However, there are those who have been tried and tested who would no longer follow God as they reverted back to the old sin of deciding for themselves what is right and wrong about following God. They became cut off from God’s spirit, just as Adam and Eve were cut off from the tree of life. But for someone in the Church to do this, when turning against what God had drawn them to, they multiplied sin upon themselves by not only rejecting God, but by rejecting His sacrifice given to mankind – His Son who became their Passover. The apostle John actually teaches that they become antichrist at such time, and continue to be so unless or until they come to repent of not following where Christ leads. Obviously, this is no small thing with God.

This reveals one of the most important and most basic lessons of life. God’s laws, ways, truth and word are spiritual and can only be learned and sustained by God’s constant spirit – from the presence of the Lord – abiding in one’s life. Sin cuts off that constant flow of God’s spirit, and in the Church one must additionally have consistent repentance and change (conversion) in how one is living (growing spiritually) and applying God’s way of life.

If someone today becomes cut off from God’s spirit, they can no longer hear what they could hear before. The much needed removal of the curse upon women can then be seen as a physical matter of physical labor at childbirth rather than the spiritual result of wrong thinking in the mind that comes from the absence of God’s spirit in the reliance upon self to make decisions in life of right or wrong. Rather than seeing God as their “rock” of safety and protection, people will look to a physical location of Petra for safety and protection. Rather than seeing who the man of sin was in the Apostasy of the Church, people will begin to turn to the identity of the pope being the man of sin or of his being “the antichrist.” This list could go on and on, for these are the kind of things that have happened to people who once had the life of God and Christ abidingin them, but became as Adam and Eve – separated from God’s spirit.

If one encounters sin of which they will not repent or if one ceases to apply what is being learned (taught – as the “57 Truths”), then God’s presence (indwelling) of His spirit will cease to live in that person’s life. They can no longer continue learning what God progressively reveals, but they will quickly begin to lose what was given. A person cannot be sustained in the spiritual truths and ways of God without His spirit dwellingin them. It seems so simple, but when cut off from God’s spirit there is no longer the ability to see what is spiritual – what is from God.

“Repent (think differently) therefore and become converted (changed through transformation) so that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. And He (God) shall send Jesus Christ (once called, both can come to dwell in one’s life), who was preached unto you. Whom the heaven must receive until the restitution of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:19-21).

The “restitution of all things” will come to all mankind through Jesus Christ once the Kingdom of God has been established. This “restitution” in Greek literally means “reconstitution” and is a compound origin meaning to “restore again.” God is going to restore again what He began to give and reveal in the beginning. Through time, God has been progressively restoring truth – His ways and purpose – to mankind for 6,000 years (primarily the 144,000 up to this very end-time). As we are nearly to the end of that period and about to enter the Millennial period, God has been accelerating His restoration of His ways to help prepare and pave “the way” for the restitution of all things in the Millennium.

(Part  2 will be coming some time next week)