A note regarding yesterday's post

I just watched the related videos on this man’s site. It is about casting out devils and speaking in glossolalia. It must be Pentecostal, which I do not espouse and will never. Nevertheless, he is a voice calling out a valid warning, a vital warning. Paul had preachers in his day that were not fully onboard while they preached the gospel. Apollos was one of them until he got straightened out. And Paul’s response to the less than perfect situation was, “What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.” (Phil. 1:18).

The organization that Jesus is leading is one of continual advancement in sanctification. This organization is an army in which all members must be willing to be humbled and taught. Therefore it is a school, a humbling missionary effort. It is not the church victorious, but the church militant against all forms of sin, outside or inside. Yet because of their determination to love the truth as it is in the Spirit of truth, all are wonderfully united. “I asked the angel if there were none left. He bade me look in the opposite direction, and I saw a little company traveling a narrow pathway. All seemed to be firmly united by the truth. This little company looked careworn, as if they had passed through severe trials and conflicts. And it appeared as if the sun had just arisen from behind a cloud and shone upon their countenances, causing them to look triumphant as if their victories were nearly won.” Early Writings, p. 263.

We are repeating the 2,000 years old history of the Jewish nation in the days of Christ. But, the apostasy is not yet fully ripe. We have a little further to go before the Beast goes into perdition, when the whole world will have boarded the train that is moving at lightning speed to destruction. Are we on board that train? Am I? When Jesus will have His very small, very faithful remnant then Satan will have his lightning speed train. It will be much scarier to get off the train at that time when it is travelling so fast. We need to be seriously seeking the sealing now to make sure we aren’t on that train. Everyone who has even one idol that he or she loves and obeys more than obeying and loving the only begotten Son of God, will find that devil completely overpowering their desire to please Jesus. King Saul did not diligently keep his salvation, and finally lost it. The Roman church was warned of that. The Advent movement has been warned also.

“Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.” (Rom. 11:18-22).

In this investigative judgment period, of which Jesus called the Advent movement to warn the world, we are to be constantly re-assessing our standing before God. This soul-searching was dogmatically required in the type and will be powerfully enforced in the anti-type.

“And this shall be a statute for ever unto you: that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you: For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the LORD. It shall be a sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, by a statute for ever.” (Lev. 16:29-31).

“And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD. And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the LORD your God. For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, He shall be cut off from among His people. And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work in that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among His people. Ye shall do no manner of work: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.” (Lev. 23:26-32).

Adventists are not called to preach what the Roman and Protestant Evangelicals are preaching. They preach and teach that the gospel ended with the death of Jesus on the cross. For them the gospel has ended on a nice a happy note. Our message at this awe-filled time of Atonement for the heavenly sanctuary includes that, but that we are also in a judgment period. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, to take our place, to minister His sacrifice for God’s grace upon His penitent peoples, and to finally judge them, weighing who was sincere and honest with His threatening judgment until the end, and who was merely faking their place before Him.

Yet, our message is not one of morose, depressed moaning. It is one of power to overcome sin and the separation from Jesus that sin has caused. The Spirit of Christ gives the correct response of the human heart that comes out in the life. We are to present to the world Christ’s righteousness as a robe to cover our repented of sinfulness. His robe of righteousness and love will cover a mountain of hated and sorrowed for evil. It will not cover a single darling sin. He will give beauty for ashes if we have wallowed in misery and have thankfully accepted His offer to help us leave sin, deny self, and copy His example, follow hard after Him. We must understand the following scripture and    apply it toourselves.

“...And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them. If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against Me, and that also they have walked contrary unto Me; and that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity: then will I remember My covenant with Jacob, and also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land. The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised My judgments, and because their soul abhorred My statutes. And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break My covenant with them: for I am the LORD their God. But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.” (Lev. 26:39-45).

Have Adventists “despised [His] judgments” and have their souls “abhorred [His] statutes”? Have we loved or hated all that He gave us through the counsels of Ellen White? Yes, we have largely hated His judgments and statutes and counsels. This is why the world under our care has grown thick with thorns and thistles in rebellion against the truth. And this is why we will have a first time of trouble, which has been called the “little time of trouble”. The Ellen White Estate rescinded that phrase many years ago. And I believe it was very wrong to call it “little”. Ellen White was simply contrasting it to the big time of trouble. I believe a better phrase is “first time of trouble” or “early time of trouble”, because it will in no way be little.

God will design it to punish, discipline, humble, and purify His people. It will rival the Nazi wave of terror and war against the world. Satan’s effort 70 years ago failed to conquer the world for the Abomination of Desolation, i.e. the restored papal supremacy. All who will accept the punishment of their unfaithfulness to all of God’s will, all who will admit to an uncircumcised heart and who will then allow “their uncircumcised hearts be humbled”, all who will say that “[Jesus has] walked contrary unto them, and [has] brought them into the land of their enemies”, will be sealed.

They will make up the company of 144,000 remnant preachers sprinkled around the globe whose repentance will be deep and their conversion sound. What we see today in the best Seventh-day Adventist is only a caterpillar compared to the final group that takes the world by storm, the fearless, unstoppable, beautiful as a butterfly, Adventist and Protestant complement, and a multitude from around the world that cannot be numbered. Some of this we are already seeing gathering shape in the YouTube witnesses to Christ’s salvation from drugs, New Age occult spiritualism, atheism, in church worldliness and lack of conversion, etc.

In the coming foray a great multitude in the Advent movement that no man can number will flee the truth and join in the unity being decried around the world, a unifying around lying wonders and seductive, spiritualistic falsehoods. They looked good during this relative time of peace, and never put their supposed faith to the test to see if it would stand firmly. Jesus brought them into troubles but their response to those troubles was only grumbling, resisting and fighting, and it never brought them to repentant. “Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to theh LORD: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.” (Prov. 16:5). No one can be humbled and repent without the heavy hand of God upon them. We need the troubles that are coming. No other way will our faith learn the patient endurance and fortitude in difficulty that it needs for the day Jesus arrives in power and great glory.

Let us keep our standing before Jesus. Let us tend to our justification like the farmer does his fields and gardens. Were we justified by faith? Are we still? No one is right before God while indulging a single, unrepented of sin. When we have discovered such a sin did we flee to Jesus for help to repent and overcome through His presence and power? Have we been letting that sin, that idol, that spirit from below, entice us further and further away from our original joy in the holy Spirit of God? Are we still on His radar? We can have wonderful hope, but it must be valid. Our hope in God must be valid and up to date. All that is going on in the world today should motivate us so that we will not permit anything to rob us of the fear of God. We must have the real salvation and victory over sin. This must be uppermost in our thinking, no matter how much the world promises that America or the world will become great again. We are entering the final downward spiral. We are cresting the final, lightning fast roller-coaster ride into the dark bottomless pit. We must be fearing before God and afflicting our souls.