[134] The 3 Annual Festivals and the 3 Maledictions

Love is greater than all sin. Because it is love that has conquered all sin, God's love through Christ Jesus. We are not talking about love for God, and we are not talking about love for your brothers, and neither are we talking about love for the rest of mankind. We are talking about love, period. We are not talking about 'Agape' love (the Greek word for principled love) or 'Philia' love (the Greek word for brotherly love) or 'Eros' love (the Greek word for sexy love) or 'Storge' love (the Greek word for family love), just love. For God is love, and all love comes from him, and all the love in the whole universe was his in the first instance. In fact it was his even before he created the universe for he has not changed. It is like John said, the one Jesus loved, referring to God:

19 As for us, we love, because he first loved us (1 John 4).

For before God created life he had already in his possession love, the love preceded the life.

True is the scripture which says that the gift God gives is everlasting life. But to Gordon this is not the greatest gift that God gives. The greater gift he gives is not everlasting life but is everlasting love. For life without love is no sort of gift. And he speaks to you, as he is trying to establish in this book/website, as a man who has everlasting life as a promise, but there is a greater promise that both he and you have and that is everlasting love. For whereas no man can put a price on the invaluable gift of everlasting life, and were it not for the Jehovah's witnesses Gordon never would have known that such a gift was a real possibility. He does now know that this gift is far exceeded in value by everlasting love. Like David said:

3 Your loving kindness is better than life (Psalm 63).

And we know also this, that the one who has everlasting life will eventually possess everlasting love, for one is our God and one is our teacher the father of them both, as Paul would say. So to have life within yourself is one thing, and this is good, but to have love within yourself is another thing and this is better, as Jesus would say. And since God is love and God is life, then love is life and life is love in the final analysis. Hence Moses has said:

19 And you must choose life in order that you may keep alive, you and your offspring, by loving Jehovah your God, by listening to his voice, and by sticking to him, for he is your life and the length of your days (Deuteronomy 30).

Moses here did not ask anybody to listen to him or to love him, he asked them to listen to God and to love God. And we ask this too. But look! There exists a gift even better and even greater than God's everlasting love and it is this: The capacity that he has given us to love everlastingly ourselves. For there is more happiness in giving than there is in receiving, as Paul would say, and there is no greater happiness in giving than there is in giving love.

So here it is, the relationship between the 3 maledictions and the 3 festivals. The Exedenic times ended on 1473Nisan15, the first day of 'Cakes', the Alienation times ended on 33Sivan5 the first and only day of the festival of Pentecost, and the Continuous Gentile Times ended on 1914Tishri15, the first day of the festival of 'Booths' and the 98 year Maccabean, 4 year Jewish Ministry and 4 year Gentile Ministry and 4 year non adamic lease gapped Gentile Times ends on 2020Tishri15 . These 3 festivals are celebrations of the ends of the releases from the 3 great maledictions on mankind, in their greatest meaning.