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? We robbed Thee? Mal 3:8 Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.

Just because you are afraid of your mother-in-law does not mean she's not dangerous! (In case my dear mother-in-law is reading, I don't mean you! You are a sweet, kind, wonderful woman!)

I think I need to give some perspective to this discussion: * The book in question was published in 2015, and the individual chapter written by Susan earlier. * This piece is one of a number of things written by Susan. * The current Conference President had only been in office for a few days when I contacted him. * IOW, This whole issue is brand new to people who are now dealing with it. This is not a situation where this President could have dwelt with it years earlier. * A process has begun. But in a sense it must start from the beginning. Susan must be treated fairly. In addition to learning the demands of his new job, the President must be given time to become aquainted with the issues associated with these charges. * This is going to take time Let the process work.

Lou: I was fascinated by your reference to ancient mystery religions that seem to have closely counterfeited the Christian faith. How popular were these? Graham: The mystery religions were very popular throughout the New Testament era and for some time thereafter. They were so popular that some people joined several of them, just to be […] The post Questions and Answers (17:10) appeared first on Jon Paulien's Blog. View the full article

Good point. There may well be a "Temple" built there again one day; HOWEVER, I am confident that it will not be THE TEMPLE that the prophecy is referring to.

A process is taking place that is attempting to determine the truth and to be fair to all.

Let's just say the Temple is rebuilt on the Mount at Jerusalem, and reconsecrated with the ashes of the Red Heifer. Let's say a priesthood of men with the right DNA is consecrated to minister there. Do you really think they will admit Christians? No way! They will require Pharisaic circumcision, with instruction, and likely a verbal rejection of Jesus as Messiah. Even if they do restore the Temple, with sacrifices, I doubt any one of us would be admitted there. So glad that Christ has already made atonement - for me, and I am justified before God, by faith.

Law is within ? Psa 40:8 I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.

See ;https://atoday.org/cyruss-or-artaxerxess-decree-issues-in-dating-the-70-week-prophecy/

Stinsonmarri & Anyone else: In my experience the critics of the SDA Church often post material that contains partial truths and some falsehood along with some truth. In addition I have seen the stories grow and expand as one person after another adds their input to the tale. Speaking frankly I have seen people knowingly make false charges against a denominational leader who have actually confessed to lying against that leader.. In my personal research on this case I have determined that some aspects of the charges against her may be partially false. I am not going to say any more at this time, on this. I am engaged in on going discussions with the involved Conference President. I have suggested some issues that need to be addressed. A process is taking place. Susan is being treated fairly. The alligations against her are being carefully considered. I hope that at a later time I will have a statement from the Conference that I can post and that I can share some of my thoughts. But that is not for now. In the mean time speculations on this issue will not be allowed. I want to thank Photodude, who posted the opening post, for allowing this process to continue to take place. I am keeping in touch with this process, which for the moment is confidential as it should be.

Today is Yom Kippur; arguably the highest holy day on the calendar of feasts ordered by God. For my Jewish friends, "g’mar chatima tovah" and "tzom kal" . For my gentile friends, have a "good final sealing" and an "easy fast".

Some of the sources that has helped me in developing my understanding of hell, and helped me to notice this in the Bible and Mrs. White, are of course the religion classes at Atlantic Union College and also applying the writings of the poet - philosopher Eli Siegel to the situation. The most important thing about hell fire is the beauty of Jesus. Our deepest desire is to be like and with him. To love the world as he has loved it. Yes, at the fall we got the sinful nature, or a disposition to think we are for ourselves by making less of the outside world, to esteem ourselves more highly than others, to serve self, to seek the highest place. But unlike what Calvinism teaches, that is not all there is to us. Yes the other part was given to us from God in Genesis 3:15; God put something in us that finds evil not only attractive, but also ugly, there is also enmity between us and the serpent. A longing to be with the one who will crush the serpent's head. Jesus is the fairest of 10,000, the Lilly of the valley, the one more desirable than gold and sweeter than honey. He's the desire of all nations, the desire of ages, the one beloved by women. When Jesus was born the angels did not say that it was great joy for only the honest at heart, it was not great joy for the seekers, but great joy for ALL people. Each and everyone. Even Herod who tried to kill him, was still trying to use all of his evil to try to do what he thought he needed to do to find the world likeable. The traditional understanding of the Judgement: We stand before God with our knees knocking. Our record is reviewed and God either tells us that we are allowed into heaven where we run with joy and relief wiping the sweat off our brow and hoping to get into heaven before God changes his mind. Otherwise we are judged and God says we have to go to hell were we are dragged off screaming and begging for mercy and suffer the physical pain of the fire forever. Now we (and Mrs. White has helped us to see this) that hell fire is the glory and beauty and love of God. Moses was unable to see God's face because it would have consumed him. He was able to only see the back of God. And from just seeing the back of God he shone so bright that he had to wear a veil. When Jesus cleaned out the temple we find that his divinity flashed through humanity and people ran in 2 directions. The money changers were running away from it, and children and the poor were running TO it. How often to you see children running with joy to an angry man with a whip? Yet there was something about Jesus' anger that made the little children and the poor want to run and be with him. That flash of divinity that made the money changers run away and children and poor and ill run towars him was a peek at hell fire. Mrs. White pictures that when Jesus comes and we see him in all his glory It will be so awesome that we all ask "Who shall be able to stand?" There is a moment of awful silence, the angels stop their singing. Then Jesus says [sings?[ "My grace is sufficient for you" Notice Jesus does not say "My grace is sufficient for some of you" He does not say "My grace is sufficient for you and you but not you over there, and it's sufficient for you, no not you I'm talking to the person standing behind you, sorry for the confusion and false hope you held until you realized that I was talking to the person behind you" Jesus tells all of us that his grace is sufficient for me! However Mrs. White points out that despite what Jesus just told me, that the people who hear him give 2 responses. The one group says "Of course his grace is sufficient for me! This is my God and he will save us!" But other people who just heard Jesus tell them that his grace is sufficient for them feel that he's lying, and with the influence of existentialism on our culture they have become slaves to their feelings. They feel that his grace is not sufficient for them and as they see their lives in contrast to his purity they believe that God is going to get them for their sins, they run in terror to the hills and caves and say "Fall on us and hide us from the one who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb." "Wrath of the lamb" Can you picture yourselves hearing a news bulletin "Lamb escapes from the children’s zoo lock your doors and stay inside? The lost have no more need to be afraid of Jesus than they are of a little lamb. However they are terrified like never before and the brightness of his coming consumes them. We have the truth here at the second coming, but then we fall apart and into tradition and superstition at the third coming instead of carrying out what we saw a taste of at the second coming to be in it's full force at the third coming. So at the end of time. Isaiah 33 asks who can live in the eternal fire. The answer is that the righteous live forever in that fire. When prophets first saw God in vision they felt like they were being burned alive. But learned that they could not only survive in that fire but thrive in that fire and hated not to be burning in that fire. Deuteronomy 4:24 reads For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God. We, all of us have 2 attitudes fighting with in us. One is our sinful nature or a disposition to think we are for ourselves by making less of the outside world. To esteem ourselves more highly than others, to serve self, to seek the highest place and often this results in evil surmisings and bitterness of spirit. Fighting disposition this is a gift that God gave us in Genesis 3:15 which is not only a promise of the messiah, but that there is something in us attracted to God and beauty and repulsed by the ugliness of sin. That our deepest desire is to love the world as Jesus has loved it. Then for us his mission is accomplished. We are fitted for heaven for we have heaven in our hearts. Everything we do builds on one of these two attitudes and weakens the other. Yet even at our worst we are trying to manipulate the world into what we think we need to be able to like it better. And even at our best there is a taint of selfishness and thus truly our best is like filthy rags. Thus everything we do has both elements of respect and contempt in it. At the end of time we do what Moses was not at that time ready to do, see God's front (granted there will still be the unapproachable light and deep darkness reminding us that there is more to God then what we are seeing so that we don't commit the sin of idolatry and think we are seeing God in total). But we will see him in love and glory. Jesus is our deepest desire. The one altogether lovely, the one sweeter than honey and more desirable than gold. The one beloved of women (a forgotten Biblical name of Jesus). We are all overwhelmed by his beauty and glory. The righteous find it heaven to be in this situation and we respond to the overwhelming aspect of seeing our filthy rags in contrast to Jesus' holiness by casting our crowns at his feet singing "Holy, Holy Holy, worthy if the lamb!" and at the second coming our sinful nature, or the disposition to think we are for ourselves by making less of the outside world will been burned out of us. To the lost they are in a dilemma. Jesus is their deepest desire. They are overwhelmingly attracted to his beauty. They long to run into his loving arms and give themselves fully over to him. They are welcomed by Jesus who tells them that his grace is sufficient for them. But as they contrast their selfishness to his righteousness they do not sing the song of the redeemed. They are unforgiving people and thus they cannot comprehend forgiveness. They think that sooner or later God is going to get them for their sins. Jesus in John 3:18-21 said that there is only ONE reason why people are lost. And that it because they won't come to the light for fear their deeds will be exposed. For fear that God is going to get them for their sins. (while those who do come to the light find not a condemning God but a welcoming God who changes them). The lost see loved ones around the throne who they long to be reunited with. But they also remember how they would use things like criticizing, complaining, blaming, nagging, threatening, punishing and rewarding to control to make these people do what they wanted them to do. They see how horrible and selfish their interactions with even their loved ones has been. And they see others who they did not love and who they wanted to hurt. And they are horrified especially as they contrast their behavior with the purity and beauty and self-sacrificing love of Jesus. And they know that the one who sits on the throne knows the deepest recesses of their mind and heart and they want to pull away from the source of life. Hitler does not see the final solution from the results of thousands of years of sin and excuses, but sees how these acts were seen through the pure eyes of God. So everyone will see themselves. The redeemed cast their crowns and sing out of gratitude, while the lost want to pull back and hide from the only source of life. Yet Jesus is still their deepest desire. They are in a dilemma. They want to run to Jesus and accept his grace, but they refuse to yield to this desire. It's God's nature to love and forgive and to draw all unto him, but God's love is a power that brings out the best in us. For those who do not want the best in them to be brought out, who are horrified at the ugliness of their sin and don't trust in God's grace but are slaves to their feeling where they feel that God is going to get them so also want to pull back from the one they so long to run to. It is a very uncomfortable position. It is even worst than the traditional Catholic/Baptist hell. Heaven and hell are not two different places. God does not say to some of us we can go into heaven and send the rest to hell. We are wrong when we say that the fire burning forever does not mean forever. "The Glory of him that is love will consume the wicked" When does the glory and beauty and love of God burn out? Never. It's just that some of us will find it to be heaven to burn forever in the fire of God's love and beauty and glory, while others will find it to be hell and consuming and death. God treats each and every one of us the exact same way. Lucifer is treated the same way as Gabriel. Judah is treated the same as Abraham. The only difference between heaven and hell is that one is embracing all of reality with joy and enjoying reality and enjoying their friends and loved ones and have allowed the selfishness to have been burned out of them and to cast our crowns at Jesus feet and sing "Worthy is the lamb" and others are following a sick figment of their imagination that God's grace is not sufficient for them, are slaves to their feelings that God is going to get them for their sins. They become prisoners of their minds where they have created their own morbid heaven of complaining and whining about how unfair everything is only to see that God is indeed fair, and to come up with excuses but see that they have no excuse yet they refuse to leave this state of mind. Hell is locked not with a pad lock but a sliding lock and it's locked from the inside. As they see all their excuses melt but refuse to yield to their desire to run to him they make a compromise. They go on their knees and admit that God is indeed right, but they refuse to go further. This dilemma between wanting to run into his loving arms and have him wipe their tears from their eyes and wanting to be with him like nothing else they have ever been attracted to ever before, yet their refusing to yield to this desire and instead stay in their fear of what God would do to them and their morbid heaven of complaining and whining becomes so intense that it quite literally rips them apart and disintegrates them. God is the great purifier, he does not need some other flame for a clean up job. He is the great consuming and cleansing fire. On the one hand God is completely active in the destruction of the wicked. He is not passively twiddling his thumbs. The event that is so horrible for the lost is seeing God in full beauty and love and glory. If he did not show them this they would not have to suffer hell. On the other hand the lost are completely active in their own destruction since they make a different choice in how to respond than the saved.