Transcript: Unlocking the Covenant of the Threshold: A Deeper Understanding of God's Promises

Thank you. Thank you. ORCHESTRA PLAYS ORCHESTRA PLAYS ORCHESTRA PLAYS ORCHESTRA PLAYS ORCHESTRA PLAYS ORCHESTRA PLAYS you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The End ORGAN PLAYS ORGAN PLAYS ORCHESTRA PLAYS ORGAN PLAYS Good morning, everyone. Welcome to all of our online viewers to Sabbath services here at Tomorrow's Church of God. For our first song today, if everyone would please turn to page number 114 and stand. We're going to sing, Oh, How I Love I Thy Law. Page number 114. O how love I, my love, it is ever with me. It is my meditation all the day in my thoughts. I am held at my feet from the place of this world. Thou hast given me wisdom by thy righteous commands. Oh, how loved I by law, it is ever with me. I have more understanding than the ancients of old. Of the priests that I learned every false way to hate, I have more understanding, for I dwell on thy love. Oh, how love art thy love, it is ever with me. Thy commands make me wiser than thy unfriendly foes. Oh, how sweet are thy words, more than money is sweet. From thy trustless eternal, let me never depart. Great start. And now if we'll turn over a couple pages to page number 102. We're going to sing Our God is Good and Upright, after which we'll get Mr. Johnny Padilla to come to our opening prayer. Page number 102. Amen. To those that keep His love at length And testable is pure Now for thy own mistake O Lord, I be entreat To pour in my iniquity For it is very great But man is he that fears the Lord and the things that he should do. Him shall be teach of his own way, the way that he should choose. His soul shall have peace and his prosperity Shall flourish still and of the earth in heaven's joy shall be With those that fear him is the secret of the Lord The knowledge of His governance We will to them afford Thank you, and now for the opening prayer, Mr. Johnny Padilla. In Jesus' name, we come before you, our Heavenly Father, glorious Father, on this Sabbath day to worship you, praise you to also to sing to you, Father. And we also do ask to come in may your Holy Spirit come in deep into our heart and mind and our soul and to be your children, Father. but we fall short of your glory and we need your help. And Father, will you inspire our speaker and so we may receive his message and edify us and be the context where it's yours, Father, so we may be closer to Jesus Christ our future husband. And for those on your infirmity, may you heal them and comfort them in your special ways, Father, by using the blood of Jesus Christ for protection and healing. And all this we ask. Thank you for listening to this prayer. Amen. Thank you, Johnny. And now for our main message today, Mr. Ron Harmon. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to everybody out there in Internet land. I hope you're having a happy Fourth of July so far. I know it's a whole lot cheaper this year than it was last year. Well, we were told that by our president. well i'm sorry okay all right okay i'll get over it okay uh just want to let everybody know that we do have the new rate sheets online so if you're planning on going down to new bronsville's and you're going to rent a cabin or an RV spot at the Hill Country RV and Cottages, you can go on there and see the rates. And then when you call, I have finally figured out what's going on with calling down there and not getting the right information or people not knowing what you're talking about when you say you get a discounted rate. because you're calling the 888 number, and that goes to a nationwide call center, and they don't know nothing. So if you call, call Hill Country Cottages and RV directly and talk to those folks, and you will bypass all that problem, and they should be aware of our rates and should be aware of our discounts. Okay, that's all the announcements I have today. and I want to jump right into my sermon because it's going to take a little while. That's okay. Buckle up. Here we go. This is one of the subjects that every time you go through it, you learn something different. And it's certainly true with me this time. going through my notes I saw that I hadn't done anything on the covenants in a long time so I figured well this would be a good time to talk about it and when you look in the scriptures there's more than one kind of covenant mentioned I don't think a lot of people are aware of that but there is and they very applicable to God people God people need to know what those covenants are and what they mean And actually, any agreement or anything that you see in the Bible technically falls under some kind of covenant. Okay, let me put it that way. Most people aren't aware of that. That's okay. Just want to get that out there. The most notable of them is the blood covenant of the three types. And then there's the salt covenant, and then there's the threshold covenant, which is what we're going to mainly talk about today. But I want to kind of go over briefly the other two, the salt and the blood, just right quick. But the blood is the most notable. But on occasions, what you will find is one or two of the other covenants that kind of are interwoven in with another covenant, and there will actually be two covenants involved with one oath or one agreement or whatever, and we'll see that in just a minute. So, as I said, there is also the salt covenant, and we can see it mentioned in the book of Numbers. Numbers 18, verse 9. And it says, All the heave offerings of the holy things which the children of Israel offer to the Lord I have given to you and your sons and your daughters with you as an ordinance forever. It is a covenant of salt before the Lord with you and your descendants with you. Now, God's covenant with the Arianic priesthood is said to be a covenant of salt. Now, also the sacrifices themselves are always to be made with salt, as it says in Leviticus 2.13. It says this about making an offering. It says, verse 13, And every offering of your grain offering you shall season with salt, and you shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your grain offering. With all your offerings, you shall offer salt. And they did that. They put salt on every offering that was made to God at that time. I don't think people were aware of that either, but that is one of the elements that had to go into making an offering in the temple. In Exodus, now notice what it says in Exodus 33, 8-11. So it was, whenever Moses went out to the tabernacles, that all the people rose, and each man stood at his tent door, and watched Moses until he had gone into the tabernacle. And it came to pass when Moses entered the tabernacle that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses. He always talked with Moses at the door of the tabernacle. That's another thing I don't think people are aware of. That's where Moses had his conversations with the eternal God. And anyway, verse 10, he says, And all the people saw the pillar of the cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and worshipped each man at his tent door. So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as the man speaks to his friends, and he would return to the camp. But his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle. Now those events were under a covenant of salt. But you made an offering that was sprinkled with salt, and you also made the offering at the tent door or at the tabernacle door. The altar stood in front of the tabernacle door or the tent door, the threshold basically. So also when the Levitical priesthood was consecrated, it was at the threshold where God came down and met with Moses when judgments were to be handed out. Now all those are significant events. and something people just gloss over and they don't really realize. But they have very important significance with God because God's making an agreement with man. And what you don't realize in ancient times, agreements were made at the threshold. And salt meant permanence. It meant eternity. It meant endurance. and that was the significance of those events. In Exodus 29, 4-9 it says, And Aaron and his sons you shall bring to the door of the tabernacle meeting and you shall wash them with water. Then you shall take the garments and put the tunics on Aaron and the robe of the epoth and the epoth and the breastplate gird him with intricately woven band of epoth. You shall put the turban on his head, put the holy crown on the turban, and you shall take the anointing oil and pour it on his head and anoint him. Then you shall bring his sons and put his tunics on them, and you shall gird them with sashes, and Aaron and his sons shall put the hats on them, and the priesthood shall be theirs for a perpetual statue. You shall consecrate Aaron and his sons. This was done at the threshold. And it was called a covenant of salt. Now, as I said, the same thing was sacrifices. They were always to be sprinkled with salt, but brought to the door of the tabernacle. At Leviticus 17, 1-9. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron and his sons and to all the children of Israel, and say to them, This is the thing which the Lord has commanded, saying, Whatever a man of the house of Israel who kills an ox, a lamb, a goat, or in the camp, or kills outside the camp, and does not bring it to the door of the tabernacle of the meeting, to offer an offering to the Lord before the tabernacle of the Lord, guilt of bloodshed shall be imputed upon that man. He has shed blood and that man shall be cut off from among his people. To the end the children of Israel may bring their sacrifices, which they offer in the open field, that they may bring them to the Lord at the door of the tabernacle, of meeting to the priests and offer them as a peace offering to the Lord. And the priest shall sprinkle the blood on the altar of the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of meeting and burn the fat of sweet aroma to the Lord. They shall no more offer their sacrifices to demons after whom they have played the harlot. This shall be a statue forever for them throughout their generations. Also say to them, whatever man of the house of Israel or of strangers who dwell among you who offer burnt offerings or sacrifice and does not bring it to the door of the tabernacle of meeting to offer it to the Lord, that man shall be cut off from among his people. That's interesting when you look at it that way. How those two covenants intertwine with one another. How those two covenants hold such a significance for God's people. And they involve the threshold covenant and they involve the salt covenant. One has to wonder if this in some way doesn't make it a double binding covenant in some way or somehow. I can't say for sure, but it does look extremely important, doesn't it? One more example on the salt covenant before we go on. In the second book of Chronicles, chapter 13, verse 5, it says God's covenant with David, with the Davidic kings, was a covenant of salt. And as I said, salt signifies permanence, loyalty, durability, fidelity, usefulness, value, and purification. So you can apply all of those to David's and his kingship down from David to the queen that's over in England today that sit on the throne of David. These attributes. and it also is applied to the offerings that we have, or to any offerings that are given with salt. And you can say that about your tithing, that they are to be a covenant of salt with God, because salt holds a lot of value. It held a lot of value then, it holds a lot of value today. Now, it carries great significance throughout the Bible with God, but let's take a brief look at the blood covenant, Before we go forward, and I think most people that are at God's church are very astute about this. We won't get too far into this. I may actually, if I'm doing the sermon next week, I don't know if I am or not. If I am, I may do something on the blood covenant. But in Jeremiah 34, 18 through 19, it says, And I will give the men who have transgressed my covenant, who have not performed the words of the covenant which they have made before me. When they cut the calf in two and passed between the parts. Remember in Genesis where Abraham had this happen? He was supposed to do this himself, but God did it for him. He walked both parts of the covenant in that instance. Verse 19, the princes of Judah and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf. They made a covenant. It's a blood covenant. He said, Israel made a blood covenant with me. Israel broke their covenant with God. And like I said, this reference is back to Genesis 12 and 15, where it's a reference. Now, God told Abraham, life was in the blood, which is what blood covenants are all about. life. You're offering your life as a guarantee that you will uphold your side of that covenant. That's a very important covenant. I don't think it's one most people would like to break because you're saying, hey, take my life, split me in two if I break this covenant. And I would assume that did happen at times in the past. I think that That's about all I could say about that. But anyway, no greater oath can be made than by a man's blood because it's his life that he is offering. But as I said in the beginning, those covenants are not our focus today. Our focus today is on the threshold covenant. It'd take entirely too much time to thoroughly go through all three covenants in one sermon. And it's actually the threshold covenant that I want to speak about. the covenant of the threshold. And this all came about because I had a conversation, one of our members here a couple of weeks ago, and I mentioned the threshold covenant, and a kind of little bell went off in the back of my head. Ding! You hadn't talked about that in a while. Maybe you ought to mention it, you know. And I thought, well, okay. And the threshold covenant, as I said, is lesser known of the three, but it's hugely important nonetheless, and you're going to see that as we go through this. And we'll start out in Zechariah 12, verse 2, where it says, in Zechariah 12, verse 2, it says, Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people around about, when they shall be in siege both against Judah and Jerusalem. And if you look at your translation, I don't know what your translations say, but cup in this verse is actually threshold or door. And the word for it, it's not an accurate translation. I went back to the Septuagint and looked at this just to be sure, and it's correct. The Hebrew word for cup in that particular verse is actually saf, S-A-W-F, and comes from the Hebrew concordance 5605 in Strong's, and its original sense of containing a vestibule as a limit, also a dish for holding blood or wine, a basin, a bowl, a cup, a door, as in doorpost, gate, post, or threshold. Now, so it can technically be used both ways. It depends on how you want to translate it. But in ancient times, and even today in the Middle East, a custom exists called the Threshold Covenant, as I said. And the custom was where the people made covenants with one another at the threshold. They made all kinds of agreements, which we're going to look at. And they did this at their door or threshold as a permanent fixture or permanent right to that oath or agreement. Now, God made His covenant with Israel at His doorway here on earth. I truly believe that. And that place, I believe, this is Ron's thought, okay? 101 Ron. It's where the Holy of Holies once stood. And I also believe it's where Jacob had his dream. Remember what he saw and what he said? Now this gives us a clue as to this. In Genesis 28, 16-17, When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it. He was afraid and said, How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven. and so I believe that's exactly what they're making reference to this is where God made his covenant this is where God came to this earth and perhaps there's some kind of spiritual portal there or something where they could come through I have no idea how the spiritual world works in that sense the Septuagint reads this is the door to the heavens when you read that verse. I thought that was very interesting. Doorways or gates in ancient times were portals one thought long and hard about passing through both in a physical sense or a spiritual sense. We just think of a door, we walk through it, no big deal. People covet it out of here, it's no big deal. You know, go covet it out of my house, no big deal. In ancient times, it was a big deal. It was a very big deal. Now, I'm going to be quoting quite a bit. Well, let me back up just a second. I learned of the Threshold Covenants and basically all the covenants about 25 years ago. And I've spoken on many times over the years. and I first learned about there being three covenants through the books written by Clay H. Trumbull. And I'll be quoting a bit from one of his books called The Threshold Covenant, along with Alexander Hyssop's Two Babylons and the Miracle... There's always the Internet, okay? where one can get information. But if you want to know more than I can give in this single sermon about this subject, you can get the book on Amazon. It's about $10, worth the time to read it. Anyway, and each of his books, the one on salt and the one on blood, they all run about $10. Now, I'm going to say some things as I go forward in this sermon at the risk of my own well-being. Possibly some ridicule, okay? But that's okay. Let me also say this. It's my humble opinion that one cannot truly understand God's will without first understanding His covenants. There is so much of our faith that's tied into these covenants that we don't even realize it. A lot of our traditions that we do today are tied into the covenants. People don't realize it. They just do them. They think, well, I have a wedding, I eat a cake, I drink some wine, you know, and that's part of the tradition. But that actually has to do with one of God's covenants. And people just gloss over these things. They don't think about it. Anyway, and because I've studied this subject at such a large extent, it's one of the main reasons I make the comment, you'll hear me from time to time say, I won't attend services in mainstream churches, especially churches that keep Sunday service. I won't do it. I won't walk through the doors. It's that significant. And you'll see why. Other than God's people, God's churches, His Sabbath-keeping people, I will not walk through those doors. and just the act of passing over a threshold or through a threshold of other churches outside of God's church is actually an act of acceptance. Do you realize that? It is an act of you saying, okay, you may not be thinking this in your mind, but it is an act of saying, I will accept what is being said, taught, and given His doctrine here. So that's one of the reasons why. Now, many disciples in Rome in the ancient time and its provinces, for the same reason, they refused to enter into any pagan temples whatsoever because they knew of its significance, of what they were saying when they walked through the door. And there are stories that have come down that have been passed down of those who refused to pass through pagan city gates. And they were, because they refused, were martyred for it. I remember one particular story. I read it once and I can't find it again. I tried to find it for today's service and I can't just sit and find that story anymore. It was about a man who had six daughters and his wife and he refused to pass through the pagan city gates. And somebody told on him, he found a way around it. He would go inside the city, but he wouldn't go through the main gate. And they found out about it, and they started killing his daughters one by one in front of him. Because each one, he would not accept going through the city gates. And finally came to his wife, and he still refused that they killed her, and he still refused that they killed him. And so there are stories like that out there of ancient times of people that will not, and you'll see why here directly, because I'm going to give you some more information as to what the pagan city gates were. And it was a very significant act to pass through a city gate. And like I said, you have to understand the makeup of ancient cities to completely understand why this was such a big deal. Each city had its own deity. Most people don't realize that. They had their own deity. Now, there may have been other churches or whatever inside that city, but the city had a main deity that the religious people that serviced that deity were in control of. And it might have been Diana, it might have been Zeus, it might have been one of the other pagan gods, but each city had one. and the deity, what they actually did is they would put a statue at the gate of the deity, or I mean of the city of that deity, and you would pass by it and give homage to that deity as you walked through the gate. And there's a lot of instances where people would sit there and kiss the deity or bow and pray to the deity as they walked through the gate. So, when you did that, when you walked through the gate, you said certain things. The act of passing this deity and walking through the gate said certain things about you. It said that you were going to accept the laws, you were going to accept the beliefs, you were going to accept everything that that city offered you in the name of that deity, including protection. And you also, by passing through that gate, were telling the people of that city, I will also fight for this city. I will protect this city. I will give homage to this deity. And I know your minds are going, Well, that's just kind of stupid. How can all that happen just by walking through a gate? It did That was the significance of walking through a gate or going through a gate in ancient times and ancient cities So if you a Christian I use the word lightly and you don't want to worship a pagan god, then basically you either had to find a back door and hope you didn't get caught, or you just didn't go into the city. And that's how come when you see in stories and you read in books and things and on television and movies and everything, when another army conquered a city, the first thing they did, they didn't tear the temples down or anything like that. They went and took everything out that concerned that church's deity and they put their own in. If it's Christian, the Muslim took over it. They put Muslim signs and emblems and everything else on it. If it's Christian, the other way around, they did the same thing. Because they turned the city into that deity's property. Now, Now, and during any other time of the day or any other time of the seasons or whatever, the city gates became the focal point for social and commercial activity. The chambers that surrounded the city gates were where the administrators did their work. That's where the judges were. They judged everything from the city gate. That's the legal manners, the business transactions were conducted. Everything was done at the city gate. That was city hall at the city gate. Remember the story of Lot in Genesis 19. And I just want to read this one verse. It says, Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom. There's a great amount of significance to that very little phrase right there where it says Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom. It's this passage we believe Lot was a judge or a high administrator of some sort or official in that city. He held great importance. Now, justice was also dispensed at the city gate. Appeals, sentences, or edicts were done at the gate of the city And executions were done outside the city gate or the city, not inside. And the significance of that is, is you did not want to defile the inside of your city. You did it outside. Remember Christ, He's taken outside the city of Jerusalem. It's called the Holy of Holies. and I'm sorry, he was taken outside the city of Jerusalem, the holy city. And because it said that there was not to be anything unclean within the camp of God, especially something dead or unworthy of protection. And Deuteronomy 23, verses 12-14, because it says, you also have a place outside the camp where you may go out and you shall have implement among your equipment and when you go sit down outside, you shall dig with it and turn the cover of your refuse. For the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you and give your enemies over to you. Therefore your camp shall be holy that you may see no unclean thing among you and turn away from you. Same thing when you're home. You kept your home clean of that kind of thing because your home was clean. That's where you invited God into. You don't invite God into, or the Messiah, into an unclean place. So the city was a place considered a place of cleanliness or a place where it wasn't to be defiled. It also says in Numbers 5, verses 1-4, it says, And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Command the children of Israel that they put out of the camp every leper, everyone who has a discharge, and whoever becomes defiled by a corpse. You should put both male and female, you should put them outside the camp that they may not defile their camps in the midst which I dwell. And all the children of Israel did so, and they put them outside the camp as the Lord spoke to Moses, so the children of Israel did. Now, in ancient time, there was a dump, and it was outside the city. And that's where all the trash and all the refuge was taken and it was put outside the city. And in Jerusalem, it was in the Valley of Gehenna. That's where the refuge, the trash, and everything went. And the dead bodies that weren't claimed so that they could dispose of them. Now, when you look, I just briefly want to cover this too. When you look at the city of refuge in the Bible, There were six Levitical towns originally in Israel in which the perpetrators of an accidental manslaughter or something of that nature could claim the right of asylum. Now, outside the gates of this city, blood vengeance against these perpetrators was allowed by law. Up to the gate. They could pass the gate, but they could not enact vengeance against the person inside the city. Within the gates of the city, that person was protected from vengeance, and it was protected by that city. Now, pagans often emulate God's way of doing things. and such as in the case of the manner of covenants of God. They emulate anything God does, anything that seems to be great for everybody else and they claim it as their own. So pagan sites, they viewed the importance of a gate or a threshold as significantly as God's people did at that time. and when you look at the Philistines when they captured the Ark of the Covenant of God and brought it from Ebenezer to Ashod they took the Ark of God and brought it into their temple of Dagon the fish god, the Philistine fish god and they set it by the statue of Dagon and no doubt The Philistines were jubilant and confident and having a good old time thinking, this is great, we have captured the emblem of the Israelite gods and we are making him own, we are putting him in subjection of the Philistine god Dagon. But look what happened. 1 Samuel chapter 5 verses 4 through 5. And when they rose early in the morrow morning, behold, Dagon had fallen upon his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold. Cut off upon the threshold. That is significant. And only the stump of Dagon was left to him. Therefore, neither the priests of Dagon nor any that come to Dagon's house tread on the threshold of Dagon and Ashod unto this day. You think these people didn't know what that meant? They knew very well what that meant. They defied the covenant of God. They defied any kind of agreement that God ever had with them, or if Eve ever had one with them, and He showed them who was a superior God. And so they said, well, we can't do this. The head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were broken off on the threshold. And only Dagon's torso was left. behind. Therefore, neither the priest or Dagon or anyone who came into that house from then on would pass or tread on the threshold of Dagon. Incredible. It was a display of God's power over His enemies. Over the gates in many cities, He was putting a show of his power over his enemy. Now, over the gates in a lot of these cities was rooms above the chambers, and they served as guardhouses and lookouts and different things like that. You can see that in 2 Samuel 18.33 as a reference. And 18.24. Now, they provided protection and lookout, and the area outside the gates, just outside where these towers overlooked, was oftentimes was a marketplace outside the gates. That way the people didn't have to come through the gates or come into the city. And there's a story in Nehemiah. It talks about something about this. In Nehemiah chapter 13 verses 15 through 22. It says, In those days I saw the people in Judah treading the wine presses on the Sabbath and bringing in sheaves and loading donkeys with wine, grapes, and figs and all kinds of burdens which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. They brought in past the threshold into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day products that they had bought outside in the market. And he went on and said, And I warned them about the day on which they were selling provisions. And men of Tyre dwelt there also who brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath to the children of Judah in Jerusalem. They were actually bringing them in. Then I contended with the nobles of Judah and said to them, What evil thing is this that you do by which you profane the Sabbath day? It was a defilement of the Sabbath day for this to occur. It said, Did not your fathers do thus? and did not God bring all disaster upon us and on this city? Yet you bring added wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath. So it was at the gates of Jerusalem, as it began to be dark before Sabbath, that I commanded the gates to be shut and charged that they must not be opened till after the Sabbath. Then I posted some of my servants at the gates so that the burdens would not be brought in on the Sabbath day. Now the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice and then I warned them and said to them Why do you spend the night around the wall? If you do so again I will lay hands on you and from that time on they came no more on the Sabbath. And I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves and they should go and guard the gates to sanctify the Sabbath day. They were to guard the gate. And they still did. There was a guardian at the gate or guardian at the threshold of the temple by a priest from then on. They made sure nothing would come through those gates that were not supposed to come through the gates into the temple. Now, we often talk about this story concerning the Sabbath, but what most fully don't understand is how much the gates of Jerusalem played a part in this story. Because by opening the gates is by saying that, okay, I accept defilement of the Sabbath. And that's kind of like the gates of our mind. Do we open the gates of our minds to defiling the Sabbath? So shutting the gates sealed God's people away from the outside world and away from those things that would defile them. the city gate became a gathering place for prophets, kings, judges, and other officials as I said. These leaders would sit at the gate for example. Jehoshaphat and Ahab, the king of Israel, sat at their thrones at the gate of Samaria. 1 Kings 22.10 I'm not going to read it. So this was a place sometimes where kings had their thrones. at the ancient pagan city gate of most cultures, during that time, a shrine or an altar stood, of their deity, as I said. There was a temple in Egypt discovered, the oldest one there they found in Egypt, and it held an altar or a doorway at the doorway or the threshold. There was an altar there. And there's this ancient temple in Thebes called the silver doorway, where above every entrance is placed a sun disc considered the eye of Horus. It was placed there to drive away unclean spirits from the temple. A sun symbol above the entrance of the religious holy places. What a unique idea. I wonder if you'd see that somewhere in the world today. incredible when a priest opened one of these doors he first had to prostrate himself at the threshold and as soon as he saw his God he was then required to kiss the threshold at the eastern border of Egypt which is the main pathway between Egypt and Arabia, was and still is called, can you guess the title? You got it, the Threshold. At the city of ancient Carthage, the Phoenicians, the most prominent people of that place, the Threshold was a series of steps that rose up to the Queen of Heaven. And it was called the brazen threshold. In Greek literature, the house of Zeus on Mount Olympus is often referred to as the house of the bronze threshold. And that's curious because also the underworld of Tartarus is described as having gates of iron and a bronze threshold. Now then, let's come up a few hundred, maybe a thousand years. In very early churches of Europe, the threshold became a sacred boundary in the churches. To cross the threshold meant, as I said earlier, you agree to certain covenant rights and willingly participate in their functions. And they were very serious about this too, by the way. And over the years, the churches began referring to the altar as the inner table of worship instead of the threshold of the building where it was initially, before that. It was a custom at that time, many European churches, to perform their marriages and their baptisms and things of that nature outside of the church door, outside of the entrance. At the end of those ceremonies, they would then and only then proceed across the threshold into the church. this signified the sealing of the holy covenant and represented a new foundation for a family or a member into the church and especially with marriages their vows became sacred rites at the family altar of the threshold and even marriage terms were sealed at the church threshold before the actual marriage Ever wonder where carrying your bride across the threshold came from? There you go. That's where it came from. The practice of thresholds being a sacred object just wasn't Egyptian or European. It also had prominence in ancient China, Japan, all over the eastern continent, all the way down to the South American continent, the African continent. the sacrificial altar in Mayan cultures and other Indian cultures sat outside the door of the sanctuary. When a sacrifice was made to the God, the blood of animals or humans was smeared on the temple doors as part of their right. It was smeared on the threshold. and I don't want to go into gory details but suffice to say it was a very serious thing even in northern America the Natchez Indians had a harvest celebration called the Festival of the New Fire in it was an altar before the door to a temple and the priest of the sun would stand on the threshold of the temple and watch for the first ray of the sun on that day and once he saw the first rays, he would then give a signal and a new fire would be started and would be kept blazing for the next year as sacred. Sacred fire. As I said, in many Indian cultures, a threshold was a sacred place with great meanings and it meant the same thing basically to them. It was sacred. So, all this might be of a lot of things that we look at as tradition today, and we just kind of overlook it. Look at the month January. The month January is named that way after the Roman god Janus. where we get in mythology, Janice was the god of doors, gates, and transitions. She is a two-faced god, one looking back and one looking forward. And Janice represented the middle ground between both concrete abstract dualities such as life, death, beginning, end, young, adulthood, rural, urban, war, peace, barbarism, civilization. but it was a guardian of doorways. The thigh god stands at the threshold of time. Some thresholds throughout this world were physically laid by the bodies of humans or animals. Yeah, you heard me. Before they put the threshold in a house, they would put a body of an animal, depending on the culture, of an animal, and some even put the bodies of a human under their threshold. The belief made the threshold sacred, and no harm could cross that barrier. The participants were required to walk across a threshold in acting that sacred bond. Once you did that, you could not break that bond. You could not harm somebody in that home. You could not do anything to anybody in that home that would bring defilement or evil. You were swore to protect it. When Jericho was destroyed, Joshua put a curse on that city. Do you realize that? He put a curse on that city. Look what it says in Joshua 6.26. Then Joshua charged them at that time saying, Cursed be the man before the Lord who rises up and builds the city of Jericho. He shall lay its foundation with his firstborn, and with his youngest he shall set up the gates. Now then, a few hundred years later, some six, seven hundred years later, this is recorded in 1 Kings 16.34. In the days of Hil Bethel built Jericho And he laid its foundations with Abram his firstborn and with his youngest son Sagam He set up the gates according to the word of the Lord, which he had spoken through Joshua, the son of Nun. His youngest son was set under the gates. Threshold covenants can be found going all the way back to primal men. And throughout the Bible, if you know where and what to look for. As I said, they were a huge part of marital ceremonies. One meant to become part of the family. Once you passed that threshold, you became a member of the family. Not just an in-law, you became a member of the family. Adopted from the outside of the circle of the family. A woman was brought into the family across the family threshold and now she had all the rights, privileges of any other family member inside that home. In the New Testament, Gates referred to as door. Remember what John said in John 10, chapter 9, Jesus said, I am the door, and if anyone enters it, he will be saved and will go out and find pasture. Now, one must cross that threshold of truth and faith and become what the Messiah asked him to become. It's not just a, I believe in Jesus and you get to go. We can see in Romans 8.12 where this is enacted by the words in Scripture. and it says in Romans 8, 12-17, it says, Therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if the Spirit you put to death, the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children of heirs and heirs of God join heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we also may be glorified. Everybody in the house suffered together. Everybody in the city suffered together. Every one of God's people suffered together when something happens to God's people. in your new family home, you can't bring your old self, your old pagan gods with you. You've got to leave them outside the threshold because you have made an agreement to come to God and do as He asks. And those things have to stay outside the threshold. And remember, Israelite, remember what I said, what that barrier between Arabia and Egypt was called, the threshold, Israel crossed that threshold into the Sinai. And they were supposed to leave all the pagan stuff on the other side. Because when they crossed, they made an agreement with God. All that you ask, we will do. You are judged at the door. Don't you see the parallels? Revelation 22.14, he says, Blessed are those who do His commandments that they may have a right to the tree of life and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexual immorals and murderers and idolaters and whoever loves and practices a lie. All of these contribute as to why I don't feel right about walking through a door of another church. And I'm actually going to take this a little bit further today. As I said, threshold covenants have a lot to do with oaths and ceremonies of marriages. But I'd like for those here today and those listening to consider this. One of the reasons it's believed that the threshold became so prominent in the marriage ceremony, The ancient woman was seen as a door in their marriage. Now, I don't want to hear the jokes about three O's and double doors and all that kind of... We ain't going there. But in fact, the term wife, a wife in Arabic means threshold. with rabbis the words gate or door means a special application of family coveting this together with the blood covenant became the basis of many rituals we see in the Israeli marriage and betrothal we see the custom of checking the linen at night after consummation of marriage to see if the covenant was made in good faith and the covenant was completed. Look at what Job had to say in Job 3, verse 1. After this, Job opened his mouth and he cursed the day of his birth. Now, jump down to verse 10. Because it did not shut up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hide the sorrow of my eyes. He used the word shut up the doors of my mother's womb. this is a story called the Shumite's brother in the song of songs 8 chapter 8 verses 8 through 9 song of songs it says we have a little sister she has no breasts what shall we do for our sister in the day when she is spoken for if she is a wall we will build upon her a battlement of silver and if she is a door we will enclose her with boards of cedar. So, when I look at how a woman is described by the Bible, I wonder why it is today that people treat relationship with strangers the way they do. The woman is a sacred door or threshold only to be opened by her husband once she is in covenant with. Women today shouldn't see their sexuality as an object. They're much more than that. They're greater than that. And I hope the young women in our church see themselves as more than just something to be desired by other men. Now, I don't want to get too explicit with this, but I hope you get my meaning. Now let's take a quick look at some spiritual aspects and I'll be done. I attended a funeral this past week, and there were some comments made to the effect, we can't wait to sit at the feet of Jesus in heaven. And the first thing that went through my mind, and I thought of, was, I don't want to sit at His feet. I'm sorry. I don't. I want to sit by His side. Because that's what He promised God's people in Revelation 3, verses 20-21. Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come to him and dine with him, and he with Me. And to him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with Me on My throne as I overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. so one must cross a threshold of faith and trust before this can happen the other thing about this comment was is they felt the dead would go to heaven when they die now stop and consider all that we just learned about thresholds and gateways death and life are the doors and the threshold between the physical and the spiritual one must cross the threshold with the true Messiah and the Father to gain entrance into the kingdom. And as we saw, you can't take your old beliefs with you. You have to change. Your mind has to change. You have to be in agreement with God. To enter that domain, you must swear of allegiance and be willing to do all that is asked for that person to become part of that family. Most aren't willing to do that. It's demonstrated by their attitudes today. it's kind of like what the American that was a traveling salesman once said and he was going through the Scandinavian Immigrant Society in Wisconsin. And as he was traveling through he noticed all the houses had their doors standing open. Broad daylight. Every house, doors standing open. And he wondered about this. and so he ran across a local Scandinavian clergyman and he asked him about this phenomenon. And the clergyman told the man, or he informed the traveler, that they had no need for locks. They didn't need them. And he told him, he says, it wasn't because they were such honest people that they didn't have thieves or robbers or anything. of that nature. The clergyman told the men, indeed they do have these people, thieves and whatever, but they would not cross a threshold or go through a door with evil intent because it would violate the covenant obligations by passing over the threshold. And it's much the same way, actually, in a lot of cultures around the world, believe it or not. thieves typically will not enter through a door. They may dig under the house, climb through a window, break through a wall or something like that, but they won't cross the threshold. They'll avoid that door by any means. So is this what the Messiah was referring to when He said in John 10, verse 1? He says, Truly, truly I say to you, the one who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up from some other way, he is a thief and a robber. Wow, when you blend the Scriptures into these traditions and cults and different things like that that's going on in the world out there today, you see how they just jump out at you at different times. And so my conclusion was, after reading that and thinking about that, I said, well, you can't steal your way into heaven. You can't cross a threshold of God without paying a price, without making the obligations, without doing what you're supposed to do. Now, this is where a lot of folks will probably drop away because of the veil of truth to be so blinding. For the relationship people have with the Messiah, one has to become what God wants him to become. Okay? And to truly understand that, let's look at an event we saw in Exodus 12, verses 5-7. It says, Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You shall take it from the sheep or from the goats. Actually, that's a mistranslation. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel will kill it at twilight, and they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the house where they will eat it. You smeared the blood on the lintel. Now what did that do? By painting the blood on the doorposts, it signified to everyone that that was a threshold that they should not cross unless they were one of God's people. In this case, it was even more special because the people who were inside weren't allowed to cross back outside, especially if they were the firstborn. You did not want to be caught outside the protection of the Almighty that was inside that house. Exodus 12, verses 12-13, For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. Now the blood shall be assigned for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. So when the death angel saw the blood on the doorpost, he understood that those behind the door were in covenant with God in agreement and were protected. Now think about this for a moment. When you look at a door, when you look at any door in here, you only see one side of it, right? You can't see both sides, especially if the door's shut. If it's swinging open, yeah, you probably can. But if it's shut, you can only see one side. And what's on the other side is a mystery. You don't know what's happening outside this door. There may be FBI agents ready to raid it. No, I'm just kidding. You can tell people all day long, describe to them what's on the other side of that door. You don't know. And you can't explain it well enough to let them know in most cases. They have to be on that side to experience it for themselves before they'll truly understand what's on the other side of the door. Well, God's people are on that side of the door. And the world is on the outside looking in best they can. And we're in the room that's under protection of the Almighty and the Father and the Messiah. Now, the Holy of Holies was a threshold the man couldn't cross until the Messiah tore it in two, which allows the people to enter across that threshold. Hebrews 10.20, By the new and living way He opened for us through the curtain, that is, through the flesh. It also tells us in 2 Corinthians 3.16, but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. You can cross that threshold. The threshold covenant holds promised security for God's people, God's holy people. But one has to cross over to God's way of life into the holy covenant with Him for that to actually take place. And the Messiah knows who belongs and who doesn't. He knows who He's in covenant with. And if you think all of this is just some Old Testament mumbo jumbo that's all passed away, then you'll regret that thinking one day. Dezepaniah 1.9 On that day I will punish all who leap on the temple threshold, who fill the house of their Lord with violence and deceit. You can't jump across God's threshold. You can't do it. you can't bypass God's ways to gain entrance into His kingdom. You cannot do it. By trying to do so, you bring the world with you, and as we've already seen, that ain't going to happen. God doesn't change to suit you. You're supposed to change to suit God. His ways, His laws, they don't go away just because you don't know or care about them. For the Messiah said in Hebrews 13, verse 8, Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Now, I could go all day with this, and I'm pretty sure we won't get something to eat here directly. But hopefully, I've given you a good taste of what the threshold covenant is about. and you can see for yourself in scriptures how significant it is. So, take those. Learn from them. And we'll talk about them some more at a future date. Thank you, Ron. Alright, for our final song today If everyone would please turn to page number 30 and stand, we're going to sing Go Ye Therefore, Into All the World after which we'll get Mr. Billy Steffen to come and do our closing prayer. Page number 30 Go ye therefore into all the world Preach the gospel unto everyone Teach all nations to observe all things I have commanded you. Baptize them into the Father's name in the Holy Spirit's and the Son's. Though I shall be with you to the end, though I am with you away. Those who have believed and are baptized shall be saved while others are condemned. Then as for those who now do believe, these lies shall surely follow. They shall cast out demons in my name, they shall not be hurt by deadly things, and they shall lay hands upon the sick, and the sick shall be made well. Christ was taken up into the heavens after he had spoken all these words. There his father did receive him and placed him at his right hand. His disciples went out as he said, and they preached the gospel everywhere. Christ worked with them and informed the word by those signs which followed them Thank you. And now of our closing prayer, Mr. Billy Steffek. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for everything that you provide us. Thank you for the food that you provided to nourish our physical bodies today. Thank you for the spiritual food to nourish our spiritual inner self. Be with all of us throughout the rest of this week and give a safe passage home. We ask all of this through your son. So let your will be done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.