Stimulation
“All I want is some stimulation!” This sentence broke into the conversation between my best friend and me as we drove down the road. We were chatting about his difficult marriage. I wanted to be of help because both my friend and his wife were my good friends. I was offering this solution and that, but never anything satisfactory for my friend. Their marriage sounded doomed to fail. Then this outburst.
Stimulation. My friend needed something to awaken life in his soul. He needed an outlet for sorrow and regret. He felt he needed release from a bondage that to him looked eternal. His marriage trapped him in a straitjacket, his mind forced into hard labor and drudgery, his heart unable to express his natural Latino need to be affectionate.
After much intimacy, two toddlers and a new born, his wife had no more joy and happiness. She had lived in a home where the father was alcoholic and abusive to her mother. Finally, his mental state broke down and he was partially debilitated. Their daughter had experienced much sadness growing up and seen much in the way of emptiness in marriage and unhappiness in the life. And now that became a cycle that she would pass on to her marriage and children.
My friend’s wife was a petite, pretty girl. She lacked a little in personality and intellect, but was likeable. However, my friend was her alter ego in personality and emotion, and opposite in intellect. He was outgoing and excitable, loved to laugh and play, talk and preach. To him life was to be relished and involved in. Quick-witted, his intellect was sharp, his vocabulary far surpassing mine. The mastery of his native tongue, Spanish, and now English, made him an expert translator of sermons. His spirituality was strong and his love for Bible study made him dig deeply into that fountain of truth, which brought he and I many hours of discussion, speculation, and exploration into the scriptures. He loved to communicate; he loved to be in a group. He was a natural in the front of the church and very comfortable with pubic speaking, his voice melodious and warm and joyful, his volume easily heard by the deafest saint. His gestures, facially and bodily, were naturally expressive.
But, despite all this abundance of talent, something was missing that would destroy my best friend. That missing part was love. He was getting no love from God. Adventism no longer declared God’s grace; and therefore it no longer declared God’s love. This lack from the pulpit created a lack in the congregation. The first love in Adventism was long gone, and her candle was about to be removed from its place.
Their effect on the people was and still is untraceable to its source because no one knows how to restore it. The masses within the denomination, within Protestantism, and within all of the world’s religions, like the lost sheep in Christ’s parable, have no access to God’s grace and no knowledge of how to get there. But they all presume that God is with them and they go through the motions, their love going no higher than human friendship. They attempt to be good, moral people who donate some time and money to charitable causes, and hope that God is OK with a system that forgets Him while passing for a religion that remembers Him. The multitudes of religious folks are caught in the middle of a pervasive and tenacious famine.
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord:
And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.
In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.” (Amos 8:11-13).
Thus my friend’s statement expressed the yearning of 7 billion people, “all I need is some stimulation.” Their hearts are dried up and atrophied; their souls tormented, and many are spiritually devoid of life. The 5th trumpet, which sounded from 1849 to 1999, continues to affect the earth, even while we have entered the 6th trumpet period and speed toward the 7th trumpet and its final, great tribulation and WWIII.
Beginning in 1849, “there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.” (Rev. 9:3-6).
This prophecy is aimed at Protestantism and its empty profession of faith in God’s justification and sanctification. Evangelical Protestantism has not improved anything over the traditional Protestantism in the way of making contact with God’s heart. The New Age movement has only descended deeper into the dark Protestant trend of spiritualism. The angel of the bottomless pit, Satan and his hosts, have left God’s people, including the SDAs, devoid of Christ’s grace and love and the understanding of His sacrifice of Himself.
“And when they [the Reformation] shall have finished their testimony [in 1798], the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.” (Rev. 11:7).
Spiritually, we are lifeless. We look around for something, anything, to jumpstart our hearts and to stimulate our souls; but nothing results. All of my friend’s abilities dysfunctioned; his mental gears lost their calibration, skipped cogs, and jammed to a sudden stop. The stall was explosive. He divorced and married another woman he had known, got custody of his little ones, left the Advent movement, and joined a Jewish synagogue.
Now he no longer talks with me because I spoke to him about leaving the truth and the faith of his beloved mother.
How would his life have turned out if the grace of Christ had been taught from the pulpit and in Sabbath school? The grace of the Holy Spirit would have implanted grace in his heart for his wife’s poverty of spirit in childhood and for her difference in personality and intellect. “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.” (Eph. 5:25-26). His knowledge of God’s grace would have deepened with his exercising of the grace he was receiving and it would have grown bigger and bigger with the increasing knowledge of God’s grace.
“For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.” (2Pet. 1:8,9).
Now my friend is shaken out and being “driven to darkness.” (Is. 8:22). I don’t know what to expect but I still hold out hope for him. And I see why God hates Christless, loveless religion.
Stimulation. My friend needed something to awaken life in his soul. He needed an outlet for sorrow and regret. He felt he needed release from a bondage that to him looked eternal. His marriage trapped him in a straitjacket, his mind forced into hard labor and drudgery, his heart unable to express his natural Latino need to be affectionate.
After much intimacy, two toddlers and a new born, his wife had no more joy and happiness. She had lived in a home where the father was alcoholic and abusive to her mother. Finally, his mental state broke down and he was partially debilitated. Their daughter had experienced much sadness growing up and seen much in the way of emptiness in marriage and unhappiness in the life. And now that became a cycle that she would pass on to her marriage and children.
My friend’s wife was a petite, pretty girl. She lacked a little in personality and intellect, but was likeable. However, my friend was her alter ego in personality and emotion, and opposite in intellect. He was outgoing and excitable, loved to laugh and play, talk and preach. To him life was to be relished and involved in. Quick-witted, his intellect was sharp, his vocabulary far surpassing mine. The mastery of his native tongue, Spanish, and now English, made him an expert translator of sermons. His spirituality was strong and his love for Bible study made him dig deeply into that fountain of truth, which brought he and I many hours of discussion, speculation, and exploration into the scriptures. He loved to communicate; he loved to be in a group. He was a natural in the front of the church and very comfortable with pubic speaking, his voice melodious and warm and joyful, his volume easily heard by the deafest saint. His gestures, facially and bodily, were naturally expressive.
But, despite all this abundance of talent, something was missing that would destroy my best friend. That missing part was love. He was getting no love from God. Adventism no longer declared God’s grace; and therefore it no longer declared God’s love. This lack from the pulpit created a lack in the congregation. The first love in Adventism was long gone, and her candle was about to be removed from its place.
Their effect on the people was and still is untraceable to its source because no one knows how to restore it. The masses within the denomination, within Protestantism, and within all of the world’s religions, like the lost sheep in Christ’s parable, have no access to God’s grace and no knowledge of how to get there. But they all presume that God is with them and they go through the motions, their love going no higher than human friendship. They attempt to be good, moral people who donate some time and money to charitable causes, and hope that God is OK with a system that forgets Him while passing for a religion that remembers Him. The multitudes of religious folks are caught in the middle of a pervasive and tenacious famine.
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord:
And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.
In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.” (Amos 8:11-13).
Thus my friend’s statement expressed the yearning of 7 billion people, “all I need is some stimulation.” Their hearts are dried up and atrophied; their souls tormented, and many are spiritually devoid of life. The 5th trumpet, which sounded from 1849 to 1999, continues to affect the earth, even while we have entered the 6th trumpet period and speed toward the 7th trumpet and its final, great tribulation and WWIII.
Beginning in 1849, “there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.” (Rev. 9:3-6).
This prophecy is aimed at Protestantism and its empty profession of faith in God’s justification and sanctification. Evangelical Protestantism has not improved anything over the traditional Protestantism in the way of making contact with God’s heart. The New Age movement has only descended deeper into the dark Protestant trend of spiritualism. The angel of the bottomless pit, Satan and his hosts, have left God’s people, including the SDAs, devoid of Christ’s grace and love and the understanding of His sacrifice of Himself.
“And when they [the Reformation] shall have finished their testimony [in 1798], the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.” (Rev. 11:7).
Spiritually, we are lifeless. We look around for something, anything, to jumpstart our hearts and to stimulate our souls; but nothing results. All of my friend’s abilities dysfunctioned; his mental gears lost their calibration, skipped cogs, and jammed to a sudden stop. The stall was explosive. He divorced and married another woman he had known, got custody of his little ones, left the Advent movement, and joined a Jewish synagogue.
Now he no longer talks with me because I spoke to him about leaving the truth and the faith of his beloved mother.
How would his life have turned out if the grace of Christ had been taught from the pulpit and in Sabbath school? The grace of the Holy Spirit would have implanted grace in his heart for his wife’s poverty of spirit in childhood and for her difference in personality and intellect. “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.” (Eph. 5:25-26). His knowledge of God’s grace would have deepened with his exercising of the grace he was receiving and it would have grown bigger and bigger with the increasing knowledge of God’s grace.
“For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.” (2Pet. 1:8,9).
Now my friend is shaken out and being “driven to darkness.” (Is. 8:22). I don’t know what to expect but I still hold out hope for him. And I see why God hates Christless, loveless religion.
posted by David | 5:40 PM
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