A Comment on an article of God’s Kingdom Community
internet address(http://gkcadvent.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=2068044%3ATopic%3A20338&xgs=1)
This is certainly a relevant issue. As we look back in Bible history from pre-Babylonian to post-Babylonian Israel, we see two kinds of religion, both loathing to God. The former, Baal worship, was rough-hewn, barbaric, with human sacrifices and openly sexually related aspects to it. This became impossible to escape from without the power from above.
Later, under the influence of the resurrecting Babylonian religion, it was the lure of the refined, mysterious qualities of the complex religion of the Chaldees that drew the Jews into it. Then, it was after coming out of Babylon and being directly exposed to the mother of all insinuating and mysterious false religions, following the Ezra/Nehemiah revival, that the Jews fell away again. Since Satan was moving the whole world in the direction of unification and centralization of power during the four world empires, the new religion to fear was a more sophisticated one, a philisophical religion.
Israel had departed from the truth on the more basic issues: resting in God by faith as manifested in true Sabbathkeeping, remembering the revival and keeping it alive instead of falling into apathy with regard to Sanballot and Tobiah, etc. This made them open targets for the tempter to eventually introduce Babylon’s new and improved philosophical ideas to the Jews. Thus Judaism was born. Judaism is a mixture of Hebrew religion and pagan philosophy, attaching human reasoning to the divine rationale of God’s pure righteousness. It fed humanism into the ancient truth, complicated and equivocating reasoning into simple obedience to the Ten Commandments. It looked moral and sounded like the old religion given to Moses, but was deviously far removed.
Here we are today, the modern Israel of God. We also have been through our more openly destitute period prior to 1888, when it didn’t seem like we could do anything right, according to the Testimonies! Yet, those testimonies, full of fiery admonition, came from a mother of Israel who dearly loved her erring children. And Christ, in the Most Holy Place, was the motivation for her love and her loving reproofs. Yet, in spite of all of the SDA waywardness, it was not termed the “alpha of apostasy.”
1888, it seems, changed the scene. New light, having come from the throne, must now have competition with new error. A philosophical form of the rustic doctrinal errors from the Dark Ages began to make its way into Adventist theology along with the new light of Righteousness by Faith by Jesus. Anything and everything must distract us from the tool needed to get the world ready for Jesus to come and to end the great controversy. That tool was the third angel’s message in verity, RBFBJ.
Today, we see the apostasy in full motion and gaining momentum. Desiring to re-invent the Adventist wheel, they are doing just what we were warned of:
Has not the same process been repeated in nearly every church calling itself Protestant? As the founders, those who possessed the true spirit of reform, pass away, their descendants come forward and “new-model the cause.” GC p. 385.
While the adherents of the new remodeling of Adventism celebrate their new freedoms under the “gospel,” they disinherit themselves of the wonderful heritage of the faith that was once delivered to the saints.
The Law, the Testimonies, every book of the Spirit of Prophecy, which break our pride and make us able to come to Jesus with a full acceptance of our need for grace, have been denied their place by the new generation of theologians. Therefore, without the Law to make the whole world stand guilty and speechless ( Rom. 3:19), the new re-inventers of the Reformation wheel have nothing to bring them to Christ to be justified by faith (Gal. 3:24). The inventers have only their own human reasoning, a proud human motivation for God’s acceptance. And every doctor knows that he can never diagnose his own problem honestly. Neither can a sinner convict himself of the depth of his sin. He will always flatter himself and never really get to the sin; after all, that is what sin is about, the preservation of self. Self can never crucify self; it takes an outside entity.
We need to go back to the old paths, where is the good way. Not back to the early Advent movement days, any more than the Jews should have used the period of the judges or prophets and kings as a pattern. They should have used Abraham, Moses, and David as models; and likewise, we should go all the way back to the earliest apostolic church days as described in Acts 2:41-47;4:31-37 when Righteousness by Faith by Jesus was the main stay. Then we will be ready to receive the Latter Rain on the tail of our own Early Rain experience. And Jesus, in the Most Holy Place, will make it happen—with our cooperation.
This is certainly a relevant issue. As we look back in Bible history from pre-Babylonian to post-Babylonian Israel, we see two kinds of religion, both loathing to God. The former, Baal worship, was rough-hewn, barbaric, with human sacrifices and openly sexually related aspects to it. This became impossible to escape from without the power from above.
Later, under the influence of the resurrecting Babylonian religion, it was the lure of the refined, mysterious qualities of the complex religion of the Chaldees that drew the Jews into it. Then, it was after coming out of Babylon and being directly exposed to the mother of all insinuating and mysterious false religions, following the Ezra/Nehemiah revival, that the Jews fell away again. Since Satan was moving the whole world in the direction of unification and centralization of power during the four world empires, the new religion to fear was a more sophisticated one, a philisophical religion.
Israel had departed from the truth on the more basic issues: resting in God by faith as manifested in true Sabbathkeeping, remembering the revival and keeping it alive instead of falling into apathy with regard to Sanballot and Tobiah, etc. This made them open targets for the tempter to eventually introduce Babylon’s new and improved philosophical ideas to the Jews. Thus Judaism was born. Judaism is a mixture of Hebrew religion and pagan philosophy, attaching human reasoning to the divine rationale of God’s pure righteousness. It fed humanism into the ancient truth, complicated and equivocating reasoning into simple obedience to the Ten Commandments. It looked moral and sounded like the old religion given to Moses, but was deviously far removed.
Here we are today, the modern Israel of God. We also have been through our more openly destitute period prior to 1888, when it didn’t seem like we could do anything right, according to the Testimonies! Yet, those testimonies, full of fiery admonition, came from a mother of Israel who dearly loved her erring children. And Christ, in the Most Holy Place, was the motivation for her love and her loving reproofs. Yet, in spite of all of the SDA waywardness, it was not termed the “alpha of apostasy.”
1888, it seems, changed the scene. New light, having come from the throne, must now have competition with new error. A philosophical form of the rustic doctrinal errors from the Dark Ages began to make its way into Adventist theology along with the new light of Righteousness by Faith by Jesus. Anything and everything must distract us from the tool needed to get the world ready for Jesus to come and to end the great controversy. That tool was the third angel’s message in verity, RBFBJ.
Today, we see the apostasy in full motion and gaining momentum. Desiring to re-invent the Adventist wheel, they are doing just what we were warned of:
Has not the same process been repeated in nearly every church calling itself Protestant? As the founders, those who possessed the true spirit of reform, pass away, their descendants come forward and “new-model the cause.” GC p. 385.
While the adherents of the new remodeling of Adventism celebrate their new freedoms under the “gospel,” they disinherit themselves of the wonderful heritage of the faith that was once delivered to the saints.
The Law, the Testimonies, every book of the Spirit of Prophecy, which break our pride and make us able to come to Jesus with a full acceptance of our need for grace, have been denied their place by the new generation of theologians. Therefore, without the Law to make the whole world stand guilty and speechless ( Rom. 3:19), the new re-inventers of the Reformation wheel have nothing to bring them to Christ to be justified by faith (Gal. 3:24). The inventers have only their own human reasoning, a proud human motivation for God’s acceptance. And every doctor knows that he can never diagnose his own problem honestly. Neither can a sinner convict himself of the depth of his sin. He will always flatter himself and never really get to the sin; after all, that is what sin is about, the preservation of self. Self can never crucify self; it takes an outside entity.
We need to go back to the old paths, where is the good way. Not back to the early Advent movement days, any more than the Jews should have used the period of the judges or prophets and kings as a pattern. They should have used Abraham, Moses, and David as models; and likewise, we should go all the way back to the earliest apostolic church days as described in Acts 2:41-47;4:31-37 when Righteousness by Faith by Jesus was the main stay. Then we will be ready to receive the Latter Rain on the tail of our own Early Rain experience. And Jesus, in the Most Holy Place, will make it happen—with our cooperation.
posted by David | 8:36 AM
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