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Thank you D____,
I don’t know where I’d be today without the Spirit of Prophecy. Mrs. White’s counsel and high standard and insight on the Bible have had a strong effect on me. Even my perspective on the scripture is molded by Jesus through her. So much of what she wrote of the past lays over situations today.
Lately, as I drive around, more and more the impression hits me that we Americans believe we deserve all this nice living. I was talking with a friend Sunday and repeated it to a church member today that the ten tribes had completely forgotten that they were Israelites and indebted to Jehovah for the abundant life they had. They had served Baal for so long that they believed that life was just on auto-pilot and that they had no one to be accountable to. Baal worship was a religion of atheism. Nature just functioned on its own and there was no need to be thankful for anything.
Protestant Americans are in exactly the same situation. The vast majority of Americans have no idea that they are Protestants. Half of our population are openly atheist, secular, hedonist, or homosexual. The other half go to church, but unbelief runs rampant, even as they go through the motions at church. But unbelief is only a sanctified version of atheism. The knowledge of the true God and the true Jesus, and a deep knowledge of the Bible is nowhere to be seen.
Yet, these people are Protestants, living in the land that God gave Protestantism for a refuge from persecution. He delivered their forefathers, and now no one has the slightest idea that He did that for them, and established a land flowing with milk and honey for the obedience of their forefathers.
After about 200 years of the northern tribes living apart from Jehovah, He finally raised up a violent and vicious empire, which swooped down and conquered the Israelites. Judah barely escaped under King Hezekiah, who would not have been able to handle the fearfulness of it all except that Isaiah was present and God was able to give the king strength and courage.
So, today Jehovah is raising up a vicious and vengeful Roman papacy that is just about to bring Protestant America to its knees. All the good life is going to go away. Our country’s economy is being systematically drained. 9/11 created an ongoing war that was designed to bankrupt our government. 9/11 is central in the destruction of the one Protestant empire today. And all the Protestants are deluded into thinking 9/11 is about Islamic terrorism. They lost their protest with Rome because she cajoled them and giggled with them. All the while she was working to destroy them. How true it is that history is being repeated.
“And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.
And with the arms of a flood shall they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the Prince of the covenant.
And after the league made with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people.
He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers’ fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time.” (Dan. 11:21-24).
We can’t have much more time left on this world. But, before the first vile king of the north came to power, i.e. the papacy, the Roman Empire stood in the way. “And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.” (2Thess. 2:6,7). But, before Imperial Rome could be moved out of the way, the gospel was given to the pagan world by the apostles and the Early Rain of the Holy Spirit. And before that happened, Jesus was manifested in the flesh to them. And before He came to show Himself to the apostles, John the Baptist began preaching and preparing the way for the Jews to receive the Messiah.
This must happen all over again. Before the Papacy can be reinstated and the world unites under the Vatican, the Latter Rain must use Adventists to preach the 4th angel’s message to the secular, atheistic, hedonistic world. “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” (Matt. 24:14).
But, before the Latter Rain, “when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord” “and he shall send Jesus,” through His Spirit being poured upon us (Acts 3:19,20), the Lord must raise up a John the Baptist to get the Adventists prepared to receive Jesus in the Latter Rain when that time comes. Most Adventists are woefully sunken in unbelief. They have lost the purpose and mission we had in 1844. Myself included.
Most of us live like Jesus’ coming is a fairy tale. Most live like He will never return. We must be woken up. It reminds me of EGW’s statement in Desire of Ages concerning John.
He saw his people deceived, self-satisfied, and asleep in their sins. He longed to rouse them to a holier life. The message that God had given him to bear was designed to startle them from their lethargy, and cause them to tremble because of their great wickedness. Before the seed of the gospel could find lodgment, the soil of the heart must be broken up. Before they would seek healing from Jesus, they must be awakened to their danger from the wounds of sin.
God does not send messengers to flatter the sinner. He delivers no message of peace to lull the unsanctified into fatal security. He lays heavy burdens upon the conscience of the wrongdoer, and pierces the soul with arrows of conviction. The ministering angels present to him the fearful judgments of God to deepen the sense of need, and prompt the cry, “What must I do to be saved?” Then the hand that has humbled in the dust, lifts up the penitent. The voice that has rebuked sin, and put to shame pride and ambition, inquires with tenderest sympathy, “What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?”
When the ministry of John began, the nation was in a state of excitement and discontent verging on revolution. At the removal of Archelaus, Judea had been brought directly under the control of Rome. The tyranny and extortion of the Roman governors, and their determined efforts to introduce the heathen symbols and customs, kindled revolt, which had been quenched in the blood of thousands of the bravest of Israel. All this intensified the national hatred against Rome, and increased the longing to be freed from her power.
Amid discord and strife, a voice was heard from the wilderness, a voice startling and stern, yet full of hope: “Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” With a new, strange power it moved the people. Prophets had foretold the coming of Christ as an event far in the future; but here was an announcement that it was at hand. Desire of Ages, p. 103, 104.
Here we are again looking at Rome’s violent revenge on us. The Protestants who have come to view the good life as their entitlement are going to be just as ready to revolt as were the Jews and every other nation within the empire’s power. I see many Adventists in the future, joining with other Protestants in trying to fight against the storm that’s coming.
But, it’s God’s will that the world gets punished and restricted from its life of ease and convenience. He needs to separate people from their ties to this world, because this world is going away. Heaven and eternity stretches out before them. The Lord must give one last opportunity for the whole world to give up their idolatry and love of this world. Only those who will cede their loss of everything and look to God for His acceptance will hear the final message of mercy to the world.
What we need is a John the Baptist message to wake up the Adventists.
David
I don’t know where I’d be today without the Spirit of Prophecy. Mrs. White’s counsel and high standard and insight on the Bible have had a strong effect on me. Even my perspective on the scripture is molded by Jesus through her. So much of what she wrote of the past lays over situations today.
Lately, as I drive around, more and more the impression hits me that we Americans believe we deserve all this nice living. I was talking with a friend Sunday and repeated it to a church member today that the ten tribes had completely forgotten that they were Israelites and indebted to Jehovah for the abundant life they had. They had served Baal for so long that they believed that life was just on auto-pilot and that they had no one to be accountable to. Baal worship was a religion of atheism. Nature just functioned on its own and there was no need to be thankful for anything.
Protestant Americans are in exactly the same situation. The vast majority of Americans have no idea that they are Protestants. Half of our population are openly atheist, secular, hedonist, or homosexual. The other half go to church, but unbelief runs rampant, even as they go through the motions at church. But unbelief is only a sanctified version of atheism. The knowledge of the true God and the true Jesus, and a deep knowledge of the Bible is nowhere to be seen.
Yet, these people are Protestants, living in the land that God gave Protestantism for a refuge from persecution. He delivered their forefathers, and now no one has the slightest idea that He did that for them, and established a land flowing with milk and honey for the obedience of their forefathers.
After about 200 years of the northern tribes living apart from Jehovah, He finally raised up a violent and vicious empire, which swooped down and conquered the Israelites. Judah barely escaped under King Hezekiah, who would not have been able to handle the fearfulness of it all except that Isaiah was present and God was able to give the king strength and courage.
So, today Jehovah is raising up a vicious and vengeful Roman papacy that is just about to bring Protestant America to its knees. All the good life is going to go away. Our country’s economy is being systematically drained. 9/11 created an ongoing war that was designed to bankrupt our government. 9/11 is central in the destruction of the one Protestant empire today. And all the Protestants are deluded into thinking 9/11 is about Islamic terrorism. They lost their protest with Rome because she cajoled them and giggled with them. All the while she was working to destroy them. How true it is that history is being repeated.
“And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.
And with the arms of a flood shall they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the Prince of the covenant.
And after the league made with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people.
He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers’ fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time.” (Dan. 11:21-24).
We can’t have much more time left on this world. But, before the first vile king of the north came to power, i.e. the papacy, the Roman Empire stood in the way. “And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.” (2Thess. 2:6,7). But, before Imperial Rome could be moved out of the way, the gospel was given to the pagan world by the apostles and the Early Rain of the Holy Spirit. And before that happened, Jesus was manifested in the flesh to them. And before He came to show Himself to the apostles, John the Baptist began preaching and preparing the way for the Jews to receive the Messiah.
This must happen all over again. Before the Papacy can be reinstated and the world unites under the Vatican, the Latter Rain must use Adventists to preach the 4th angel’s message to the secular, atheistic, hedonistic world. “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” (Matt. 24:14).
But, before the Latter Rain, “when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord” “and he shall send Jesus,” through His Spirit being poured upon us (Acts 3:19,20), the Lord must raise up a John the Baptist to get the Adventists prepared to receive Jesus in the Latter Rain when that time comes. Most Adventists are woefully sunken in unbelief. They have lost the purpose and mission we had in 1844. Myself included.
Most of us live like Jesus’ coming is a fairy tale. Most live like He will never return. We must be woken up. It reminds me of EGW’s statement in Desire of Ages concerning John.
He saw his people deceived, self-satisfied, and asleep in their sins. He longed to rouse them to a holier life. The message that God had given him to bear was designed to startle them from their lethargy, and cause them to tremble because of their great wickedness. Before the seed of the gospel could find lodgment, the soil of the heart must be broken up. Before they would seek healing from Jesus, they must be awakened to their danger from the wounds of sin.
God does not send messengers to flatter the sinner. He delivers no message of peace to lull the unsanctified into fatal security. He lays heavy burdens upon the conscience of the wrongdoer, and pierces the soul with arrows of conviction. The ministering angels present to him the fearful judgments of God to deepen the sense of need, and prompt the cry, “What must I do to be saved?” Then the hand that has humbled in the dust, lifts up the penitent. The voice that has rebuked sin, and put to shame pride and ambition, inquires with tenderest sympathy, “What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?”
When the ministry of John began, the nation was in a state of excitement and discontent verging on revolution. At the removal of Archelaus, Judea had been brought directly under the control of Rome. The tyranny and extortion of the Roman governors, and their determined efforts to introduce the heathen symbols and customs, kindled revolt, which had been quenched in the blood of thousands of the bravest of Israel. All this intensified the national hatred against Rome, and increased the longing to be freed from her power.
Amid discord and strife, a voice was heard from the wilderness, a voice startling and stern, yet full of hope: “Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” With a new, strange power it moved the people. Prophets had foretold the coming of Christ as an event far in the future; but here was an announcement that it was at hand. Desire of Ages, p. 103, 104.
Here we are again looking at Rome’s violent revenge on us. The Protestants who have come to view the good life as their entitlement are going to be just as ready to revolt as were the Jews and every other nation within the empire’s power. I see many Adventists in the future, joining with other Protestants in trying to fight against the storm that’s coming.
But, it’s God’s will that the world gets punished and restricted from its life of ease and convenience. He needs to separate people from their ties to this world, because this world is going away. Heaven and eternity stretches out before them. The Lord must give one last opportunity for the whole world to give up their idolatry and love of this world. Only those who will cede their loss of everything and look to God for His acceptance will hear the final message of mercy to the world.
What we need is a John the Baptist message to wake up the Adventists.
David
posted by David | 6:26 PM
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