The Three Temptations of Jesus Christ make me think of two extremes of Christians. The Surface, or skin-deep Christians may observe all of the outward forms of religion: regular church attendance, church leadership, church duties, kids in church school, etc. The Core Christians may do all of this, too, but they also make a sincere effort to walk with God via Bible study and prayer and confession of sins. Of course, there are many levels of commitment scattered in between the extremes.

The Surface Christians may look good and impress others by their apparent devotion or ability to bring others into the church, but they will scatter like dry leaves when the winds of adversity or persecution or temptation arise. They have not acquired any defenses to carry them through difficult times, and will pick the easy path in life-or-death choices.

The Core Christians have stored the Word of God in their hearts and are unmovable by external forces and highly resistant to internal doubts. They are ever conscious that everything they think, say, or do is recorded by their spirit, and they know there is a better world waiting for them. To them, nothing in this world is worth missing the next.


Main Ideas of Ch 13

In the Second Temptation of Jesus Christ, Satan transports him, using some sort of anti-gravity force, to the top of the Temple in Jerusalem. At this point, he quotes scripture to induce Jesus to prove he is the Son of God by jumping off. Jesus, of course, refuses to risk his life to prove anything to the Evil One.

Although he wanted to force Jesus to comply, Satan could only make suggestions. Likewise with us. Satan can make suggestions in our minds, but he cannot force us to commit evil acts or thoughts. It’s the evil desires we cherish that give him a foothold, opening a door for him to access our minds and destroy us. Cherishing the Word of God will protect us, even though tempted, from sliding down the wrong path.

Those who demand signs and wonders are faithless and unbelieving, and will always demand more. Faith leads to trust and obedience. Distrust leads to demands for proof, then transgression. Faith without obedience leads to transgression, also. If we depart from the Path of Faith and Obedience, we are sure to fall. Only meditation and prayer will save us from danger and defeat.

If you do experience difficulty or trying situations or strong temptations, you should not be discouraged. The Spirit of God may be leading you there for a purpose, for your ultimate benefit. Don’t be despondent, for God will not tempt you more than you can bear.

Jesus remained undefeated by Satan’s suggestions, even in the most discouraging and hopeless situations.

So can you.

This sounds a little better:

If we do experience difficulty or trying situations or strong temptations, we should not be discouraged. The Spirit of God may be leading us there for a purpose, for our ultimate benefit. Don’t be despondent, for God will not tempt us more than we can bear.

Jesus remained undefeated by Satan’s suggestions, even in the most discouraging and hopeless situations.

So can we.




The final part of this chapter, the Third Temptation, barely mentions something really interesting. The “high mountain” Satan puts Jesus on is either a real mountain, probably a little cool at the top, or, it’s one of the flying “mountains” that Satan stole during the war in Heaven. Satan could have easily given Jesus a grand tour by traversing the globe in a few minutes time, or he could have just played a panoramic “video” of the best scenic views of earth.

We actually see the same huge, high-flying “mountain”, a spacecraft, really, in Rev. 8, concerning the 7 trumpets.

1st Trumpet:

Hail and fire mixed with blood thrown down to the earth
1/3 of earth set on fire, 1/3 of trees burned, all the grass burned

2nd Trumpet:

Great mountain of fire thrown into the sea
1/3 of water became blood, 1/3 of living things in sea died, 1/3 of ships on the sea were destroyed.

3rd Trumpet:

Great flaming star fell out of the sky, burning like a torch
It fell on 1/3 of rivers and springs of water

4th Trumpet:

1/3 of sun, moon, and stars, and day and night struck with darkness

5th Trumpet:

A star that had fallen to earth given the key to the bottomless pit. He opened it and out of the smoke came unusual locust-like creatures.

These verses describe Satan’s flying “mountain” being destroyed in-flight and sent to the bottom of the sea.

First it’s blasted out of commission, scattering debris and fuel over a large area far below, creating a major biological contamination problem. Remember, these craft looked as big as mountains to the primitive humans lucky enough to have seen one. Falling slowly at first, the flying mountain is de-orbited, erupting into flames on it’s descent into the sea. Satan ejects, perhaps in some kind of craft, a bright streak headed towards land, where it causes further environmental contamination.

The fleet that shot Satan’s flying mountain out of the sky hovers out in space between earth and sun, making an artificial solar eclipse.

Now stranded on the surface of the earth, the “star” of the 3rd and 5th Trumpets, Satan, opens the doorway to another dimension, bringing in nasty little creatures he previously modified for torturing his human slaves into submission.

Jump ahead to Rev 18.

Remember that the New Jerusalem is a huge city that can travel through space, arriving here at our little planet sometime in the future.

Satan knows that the civilizations on earth will be destroyed by a bombardment from space of rocks and ice. Either he stole it, or built it , but Babylon, his counterfeit starship city, is similar to the New Jerusalem, only much smaller. He’s loading it with the riches of earth, intending to escape earth’s destruction. Within, scenes of wicked pleasure take place, while horrible things are done to the Christian slaves before they’re killed.

As it’s leaving the surface of earth, it is also shot down, crashing into the sea, slowly sinking, as a huge cloud of smoke hovers over the burning wreckage. Eventually it settles to the bottom. Babylon the Great has fallen, fallen. His escape attempt has failed.

Babylon = Rebellion

Satan’s Rebellion is nearly at an end. Along with his forces of evil, he is now trapped on earth, snarling with rage.

In the Garden, Adam abdicated his rulership of the earth to Satan, the Father of Rebels, by rebelling against God. No longer fit to rule the earth, Adam became a nobody instead of a king who would represent our world in the great meetings on the Sea of Glass. The whole world subsequently saw him as the cause of everything evil happening there, a most humiliating experience, I imagine.

Rebellion is one of the symptoms of the Virus of Evil. Left untreated, it’s fatal. Anyone harboring the disease will be quarantined to the earth where they will face permanent destruction when time runs out for the rebels.

Thousands of years after Adam, Jesus, after shedding his powerful celestial body to become a human weakling, took the first steps needed to become the king of this world. He had to be unfailingly obedient to God by resisting his human-nature impulses of hunger, thirst, and power.

We can do this, too.

If we can conquer and control our selfish human natures, we can accomplish great things for God. The reward is greater than our limited mental capacities can imagine.

Nico, Chrys, and friends, do any of you have good speaking voices?

I just found the website of Remnant Publications where audio CD's of EGW books are offered. No audio samples of her books were available. Their KJV audio CD Bible reader had a British accent. They're charging $100 for GC and DA, 25 and 27 DC's, respectively. If you or anyone else wanted to, you could record a book on CD, also. I'd gladly pay you $100, too.

I recently bought the complete Bible on DVD. It also displays the text as the reader reads. The bonus feature is a slide show of the Holy Land. The man's voice is so-so, more like the voice of an opera singer and a little too fast, and the character actors are difficult to listen to. They speak in harsh, strained voices, probably because they're professional actors. I only paid about $16 at Walmart for it, though. It is just 1 DVD, which is much nicer than the 63 CD version I bought last year.

The CD Bible I have is very nice to listen to, especially the accompanying music. There are the obligatory scratchy-voiced character actors though, too. Can't seem to get away from them. The reader has a natural, pleasant, Grandpa voice. I've listened to Revelation many, many times, trying to understand the book.

I think you could record a book at home with your computer, a good microphone, good acoustics, and a little technical advice. A pleasant music track would be nice to add, too. If you attend large churches, I'm sure someone there could offer technical advice, if you're interested.

A few more thoughts on Babylon:

Babylon is the seat of government for the One-World Government, symbolized by the seven-headed beast of Rev. 13 and 17:

7 heads = 7 continents or land masses or regions
10 horns = 10 kings or rulers---Eurasia probably has several rulers to cover such a large area.

The Babylon of Rev. 18 is a large city, hanging in the sky over an ocean using Satan’s antigravity technology. The city covers so much area that it can’t hover over land because of the shadow it would cast. Merchant ships park below and their cargoes are uploaded into the city by the evil angels using the same technology used when Jesus was pulled up into a cloud-shrouded mountain/throne.

Satan will trick the world, taking its riches, giving advanced technology and other items in return. What he doesn’t tell everyone is that their planet has a rendezvous with a lot of rock and ice and an asteroid or two from space, which will have a major impact on life on earth as we know it. He plans to escape before the doomsday arrival.

People who speak out against the evils of Babylon are captured and taken aboard the city where they are tortured and killed. One member teritory of the World Government is destroyed, possibly by civil war, but is quickly restored. Everyone is amazed at the power of the One-World Government.

Now the lamb-horned beast appears:

Horns = kings
Baby horns = baby kings

The two little horns of the beast coming up out of the earth indicate that a small or sparsely populated country will be ruled by a couple of children. These are no ordinary children, for they are uplinked to Satan and his Evil Network. They can direct Satan’s spacecraft to any area of the world they choose to blast opposition using powerful weapons from space (fire from heaven). They will control the entire world, via telepathic powers connected to the Evil Network, and force everyone to receive a mark to indicate their allegiance. Those without the mark are enemies of the world, and are not allowed to conduct any business. Only 144,000 of the unmarked manage to escape death. The number of this beast/country is 666.

Unfortunately for Satan and his crew, the hovering city is ripped apart before it can depart. Its anti-gravity machinery is destroyed, sending the wreckage earthward onto the hapless merchant ships below. The rest of the world is basically destroyed in the subsequent bombardment from space and the resulting earthquakes.

After Babylon is destroyed, there is very little time before Jesus arrives, sitting on the apex of his cloud-shrouded mountain/throne, surrounded by a rainbow-colored force field.

Wow, AlienSanctuary,

That is an awesome description, what a wonderful imagination
you have!! Where do you come up with this stuff? I have not read all of your posts in this thread, but what I have read is impressive. Like the plot to a really good SciFi movie, blockbuster of the summer.

I have to admit that I have read Revelation and had a really hard time trying to imagine the scenes that are described. In fact, I am reading Rev now with the "help" of a book I found in our personal library entitled: "Unfolding the Revelation" by Roy Allan Anderson.

Your posts/stories, whatever you call them really have me intrigued. Keep it up!!

Regards

My intent is not to write SciFi, but to come up with reasonable explanations for understated events or powers in the Bible, ie., to provide reasonable explanations that decrease its mysticism and the mysteries of its imagery.

Some allusions in the scriptures involve technology we have'nt discovered yet, so we compare it to SciFi. When the end of earth nears, we will see signs and wonders, such as dog fights in the skies between evil and good angels. The craft of the evil angels, one third of all those visible in the night sky, are all shot or forced down, their occupants marooned on the surface of our planet, awaiting the Final Judgment.

To me, that's a reasonable explanation for the meaning behind one-third of the stars falling from heaven. John, the writer, saw points of light falling to the earth. He could only describe them as being stars.

I think erroneous or mystical beliefs, based on misunderstandings of the Bible, can hinder us in our journey on the Road to Life.

GT

thank you. I didn't mean to indicate that you were writing sci-fi but that was all I could compare it to as I lack the words or understanding for anything else. Your interpretation is so interesting.....I have never heard anything like it before.

I never understood, really, what the Bible meant when it says that a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day to God until I saw an episode of one of those space shows. In this episode, the space ship was exploring a planet. They send down one of their men. He is gone 10 min, and when he returns he has completely different clothing on.....he explained that even tho it was 10 min to his crew mates, it was 3 years on that planet!!

That really got me to thinking about that verse.....and how time as we know it is different to God. So, thank you for your "different" approach to some of these "mystical" scenarios.

I always understood John's seeing 1/3 of the angels falling like stars from heaven to earth to reflect back to the original war in Heaven when they were "kicked out" of heaven. So, again, thank you for a different perspective.

Quote:

---

Living Bible
Revelation 12:3-17

12:3 Suddenly a red Dragon appeared, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns on his heads.
.

12:4 His tail drew along behind him a third of the stars, which he plunged to the earth. He stood before the woman as she was about to give birth to her child, ready to eat the baby as soon as it was born.
.


12:5 She gave birth to a boy who was to rule all nations with a heavy hand, and he was caught up to God and to his throne.
.


12:6 The woman fled into the wilderness, where God had prepared a place for her, to take care of her for 1,260 days.
.


12:7 Then there was war in heaven; Michael and the angels under his command fought the Dragon and his hosts of fallen angels.
.


12:8 but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.
.


12:9 This great Dragon--the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world--was thrown down onto the earth with all his army.
.


12:10 Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens, “It has happened at last! God's salvation and the power and the rule, and the authority of his Christ are finally here; for the Accuser of our brothers has been thrown down from heaven onto earth--he accused them day and night before our God.
.


12:11 They defeated him by the blood of the Lamb, and by their testimony; for they did not love their lives but laid them down for him.
.


12:12 Rejoice, O heavens! You citizens of heaven, rejoice! Be glad! But woe to you people of the world, for the devil has come down to you in great anger, knowing that he has little time.”
.


12:13 And when the Dragon found himself cast down to earth, he persecuted the woman who had given birth to the child.
.


12:14 But she was given two wings like those of a great eagle, to fly into the wilderness to the place prepared for her, where she was cared for and protected from the Serpent, the Dragon, for three and a half years.
.


12:15 And from the Serpent's mouth a vast flood of water gushed out and swept toward the woman in an effort to get rid of her;
.


12:16 But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river which the dragon had poured from his mouth.
.


12:17 Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.

---

In these verses are two accounts of Satan and his evil company descending to the surface of the earth. The purpose of the first (vs 4) was to lie in wait for the arrival of the Messiah, then destroy him. This could have been many years in duration.

The second (vs 7) occurs when the Remnant Church flees into hiding near the end of the line for life on earth. At this time, there’s a war in the skies over the heads of the astonished, primitive earthlings. Outnumbered by the Forces of Good, the Evil fleet of starships (what else would they travel across space in?) is destroyed, stranding Satan and his Evil Angels on the dying planet. From a great distance, their craft look like rapidly moving stars.

Unfortunately, heaven in the Bible means, basically, up. There is no distinction, except sometimes in context, whether the writer meant sky, or the Place in Space Where God Dwells.

Quote:

---

heaven: Strong's Ref. # 3772


Romanized ouranos
Pronounced oo-ran-os'
.


perhaps from the same as GSN3735 (through the idea of elevation); the sky; by extension, heaven (as the abode of God); by implication, happiness, power, eternity; specifically, the Gospel (Christianity):
.


KJV--air, heaven([-ly]), sky.

---

An interesting sidelight is that Uranus, the 7th planet in our system, sounds very much like the Greek word for heaven, OO-ran-os. Uranus has more than 12 moons, though.

Unsuccessful in his pursuit, the Dragon/Satan begins preparations for the Last Battle when the New Jerusalem arrives and lands on the ruined planet of earth. More like docks. The NJ, a starship city, is about 1400 miles in 3 dimensions. That's something like the distance between northern California and Texas, more or less, and then straight up, the same distance. It could be a cube, but not necessarily.

Satan will have plenty of time...more than a thousand years... to get his army ready, while the frozen earth is hurtling through deep space to some unknown destination.

Way off topic, but still trying to figure this time period out, and how it relates to the dragon and stars of Rev 12:

Rev 11:2
.....(nations) will trample the holy city for 42 months
.....(42X30=1,260 days)

Rev 11:3
.....two witnesses...will prophesy during those 1,260 days

Rev 12:6
.....woman fled into wilderness for 1,260 days

Rev 12:13
.....(woman) would be cared for (in wilderness) and protected from the dragon for time, times, and half a time.

(If 3.5 times=1260 days, then 1 time=360 days)

Holy city trampled, two witnesses testify, woman flees into wilderness, Dragon drags 1/3 of stars to earth, Dragon and his angels forced out of heaven.

The question is, are all of these periods/events concurrent? Is this past, future, or both? Have Satan and his angels already been imprisoned on the earth?


Who exactly is the woman with a crown of 12 stars? Who or what is her baby? Are Protestant religions her children?

Any ideas before moving on to the next chapter?