The Two Great Issues of the Last Days.

[wayfinder]

John317, The Greek word for tongue is glossa, it is also the word, used for language. The plural form is glossai this is not the word used in Acts 2:3, at least in the lexicon I am using.

This is what Robert Eisenman has to say about the Greek in Acts 2:3, this is taken from his book "James The Brother Of Jesus" page 205. In Acts' revised portrait of it, Pentecost rather confirms the descent of the Holy Spirit on the whole Community and, in the process, the new mission to all the Nations. This is accompanied by the imagery of 'a rushing, violent wind', 'forked Tongues as of fire', and 'the speaking in other Tongues as the Holy Spirit gave it unto them'...

How would this professor, at California State University, Long Beach, ever get the idea that the Tongues were forked if that is not what the Greek word is conveying?

[ClubV12]

While I strongly support the Church, I am not blind to the errors, significant errors within any given institution OF the Church. Many of our hospitals, I believe, have drifted so far from the "blue print" I am not sure recovery is possible. The same could be said for some of educational institutions.

But I will continue to support the Church, the official, organized, real Seventh-day Adventist Church no matter how dreadful it appears to be. No matter how many institutions or whole Churches bite the dust. We KNOW it will appear the Church is about to fall, but I have faith in God that will only mean the purification is about to take place. Praise His name, the Church WILL be purified, a terrible ordeal, many will leave, I will not with His help. My only hope is to cling to Him, to keep my eyes focused on Him, NOT on the devastation that is SURE to come to our beloved Church.

Stay the course, though the Churches and institutions around you are going up in flames. Flames purify!

[wayfinder]

While I strongly support the Church, I am not blind to the errors, significant errors within any given institution OF the Church. Many of our hospitals, I believe, have drifted so far from the "blue print" I am not sure recovery is possible. The same could be said for some of educational institutions.

But I will continue to support the Church, the official, organized, real Seventh-day Adventist Church no matter how dreadful it appears to be. No matter how many institutions or whole Churches bite the dust. We KNOW it will appear the Church is about to fall, but I have faith in God that will only mean the purification is about to take place. Praise His name, the Church WILL be purified, a terrible ordeal, many will leave, I will not with His help. My only hope is to cling to Him, to keep my eyes focused on Him, NOT on the devastation that is SURE to come to our beloved Church.

Stay the course, though the Churches and institutions around you are going up in flames. Flames purify!

ClubV12, You are absolutely correct, God is about to cleanse the SDA Church, possibly starting this summer. Those who have the oil of the Holy Spirit of God will enter the marriage feast, and those without the oil will not.

[ClubV12]

Well, I won't even come close to putting a "time" of when it may happen. I'm more focused on that "time", for me, personally, could come tonight, if I don't wake up in the morning! I trust that God knows what is best for each of us and I leave it with Him to make that determination.

[jamesonofthunder]

The extra measure of oil that the wise virgins have, comes from meeting Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, the meeting place where He asked His disciples to watch His torment unto prayer. Gethsemane is translated "Olive Press" and it is the place that the olives were 'beaten' for the lamps in the Holy Place.

Hebrews 13:10-13 “We have an altar (Miphkad altar on Mt Olives above Gethsemane) from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat. The high priest carries the blood… into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city (Eastern) gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.”

This is where to get the extra measure of oil, Holy Spirit.

“Have you followed him in the garden of Gethsemane? Have you seen the bloody sweat bedew the ground?” {RH July 12, 1892, par. 6}

“The garden of Eden with its foul blot of disobedience is to be carefully studied and compared with the garden of Gethsemane where the world’s Redeemer suffered superhuman agony when the sins of the whole world were rolled upon Him.” {Ms 1, 1892}

“And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). “We believe, then, that Christ did really sweat blood…If you will notice, he not only sweats blood, but it was in great drops; the blood coagulated, and formed large masses. I cannot better express what is meant, than by the word ‘gouts’ – big, heavy drops…when it is said ‘falling to the ground’ – it shows their copiousness, so that they not only stood upon the surface and were sucked up by his garments till he became like the red heifer which was slaughtered on that very spot, but the drops fell to the ground. Here he stands unrivaled. He was a man in good health, only about thirty years of age…but the mental pressure…so forced his frame to an unnatural excitement that his pores sent forth great drops of blood which fell to the ground”.

“This heifer was to be red without spot, which was a symbol of blood… He chose to exchange all the riches, honor, and glory of Heaven for the poverty of humanity, and his station of high command for the horrors of Gethsemane… He became a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, that by his baptism of suffering and blood, he might purify and redeem a guilty world.”

{RH, January 9, 1883 par. 4}

‘The psalmist, in his prayer, refers to this symbolic (red Heifer) ceremony when he says, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." The blood of Christ is efficacious, but needs continually to be applied. If any have become selfish, and are withholding from the Lord that which they should cheerfully give to his service, then they need the blood of sprinkling thoroughly applied, consecrating them and all their possessions to God.’

{RH, January 9, 1883}

The cleansing we need to be a part of the rebuilding of the Temple, or the body of Christ occurs in Gethsemane. This is where we go to be sprinkled, to be cleansed to prepare us for the great tribulation.

See whole article here. http://redheifersbloodysweat.blogspot.com/2011/12/red-heifer.html

[jamesonofthunder]

“Christ has directed the church by his own example, to the source of their strength in times of need, distress and peril. The attitude of watching is to designate the church as God's people indeed. By this sign the waiting ones are distinguished from the world and show that they are pilgrims and strangers upon the earth… This important night-watch should have been signalized by noble mental struggles and prayers which would have brought them strength to witness the terrible agony of the Son of God. It would have prepared them, as they should behold his sufferings upon the cross, to understand something of the nature of the overpowering anguish which he endured in the garden of Gethsemane…. He was bearing the griefs of others, for on him was laid the iniquities of us all. Through divine sympathy he connects himself to man, and submits as the representative of the race to be treated as a transgressor. He looks into the abyss of woe opened for us by our sins, and proposes to bridge the gulf with his own person. Those who cannot see the force of the sacred claims of God's law cannot have a clear and definite understanding of the atonement.”

{ST, August 14, 1879 par. 10}

I saw this in vision and my whole life was changed. This is for us NOW not later.

[jamesonofthunder]

Gethsemane is the point of transference of sin, the propitiation. My sinful nature was put on His soul in Gethsemane and His righteousness on me that night. I could ask anything of him right then, I was shown how few meet Him there. It is righteousness by faith in verity.

The temptation for Jesus to leave us alone was tremendous because no one cared. He was alone, but afterwards the disciples met him there in faith that is why Paul said to meet Him there and bear His reproach.

This is the sign of Jonah also. Jonah means 'dove' and Mrs White said the image of the dove overshadowed Him there after His hour of darkness, that is why it is so important to meet Him there. Without transferring our sins to His head there is no atonement.

And THIS is a very important point. If our sins were not placed upon His head...He would have lived forever and could not have died on the cross. Death is the reward for sin and He hadn't sinned.

There would have been NO CROSS without Gethsemane. The Spirit of Prophecy says Jesus won the battle against Satan in Gethsemane.

[jamesonofthunder]

In the service of the Red Heifer, which had to be endured if you had touched the dead otherwise you couldn’t take part in the Atonement; after the 7 day cleansing, “a sign was put over your families tent which read ‘I am not my own, Lord I am thine’ {RH, January 9, 1883 par. 9}”. How perfect to illustrate that the Red Heifer cleansing has to be part of the sealing. As in the cleansing service a sign was applied above the dwelling place of the cleansed, we need to receive the seal of God in our foreheads—“it is not any seal or mark that can be seen, but a settling into the truth, both intellectually and spiritually, so we cannot be moved.” {Mar 200.1}

[jamesonofthunder]

Mark 10:38 (ESV) “Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" 39And they said to him, "We are able." And Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.”

After Jesus offered the symbolic cup in the upper room where did He go to literally 'drink the cup' that night? In Gethsemane.

So where do we go to drink the cup? In Gethsemane.

“Hear that agonized prayer of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane!”

{ST, December 2, 1897 par. 7}

[jamesonofthunder]

10 snoring virgins?

Another mystery explained; the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25:5 has been translated this way… “While the Bridegroom tarried they all slumbered and slept”, and I have often wondered "why they are all depicted as sleeping, but 5 of them awake with enough oil?" So I did a word study.

The word used for ‘slumbered’ is nustazó. This word can also be translated “got drowsy”.

The word that is here translated ‘and’ is the Greek word ‘kai’, which can also be translated ‘also, both, but, even, for, if,' and 'so’. But, it is also translated ‘or’ 11 times in scripture.

The true translation of Matthew 25:5 should read “While the bridegroom tarried they all got drowsy or slept.”

Now look at this quote from Signs of the Times about the Garden of Gethsemane.

“In this fearful hour of trial Christ's human nature longed even for the sympathy of his disciples. A second time he rose from the earth and went to them and found them sleeping. This was not a deep sleep. They were in a drowse. They had a limited sense of their Lord's suffering and anguish. . In these sleeping disciples he sees a representation of a sleeping church.”

{ST, August 14, 1879 par. 10}

In this parable of the 10 virgins; the wise ones have an extra measure of oil when they come out of their slumber telling the foolish who slept to go buy for themselves. Where did they get the extra measure of oil, or Holy Spirit? In Gethsemane! They tell the foolish ones to go ‘buy for themselves’, which means it’s too late for them to prepare because the gate is shut and they have to pay for their own sins by their own blood at the second resurrection. The wise virgins have a limited sense of Jesus’ suffering and anguish, while the foolish ones are depicted here.

“They forget the Man of Sorrows, who was acquainted with grief. The sufferings of Jesus in Gethsemane, His sweating as it were great drops of blood in the garden, the platted crown of thorns that pierced His holy brow, do not move them. They have become benumbed. Their sensibilities are blunted, and they have lost all sense of the great sacrifice made for them. They can sit and listen to the story of the cross, hear how the cruel nails were driven through the hands and feet of the Son of God, and it does not stir the depths of the soul. Said the angel: "If such should be ushered into the city of God, and told that all its rich beauty and glory was theirs to enjoy eternally, they would have no sense of how dearly that inheritance was purchased for them. They would never realize the matchless depths of a Savior’s love. They have not drunk of the cup, nor been baptized with the baptism. Heaven would be marred if such should dwell there. Those only who have partaken of the sufferings of the Son of God, and have come up through great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, can enjoy the indescribable glory and unsurpassed beauty of heaven."

{1T 155.2}

[ClubV12]

"...but a settling into the truth, both intellectually and spiritually, so we cannot be moved."

Conversly, there seems to be, for some, a settling into error, intellectually and spiritually, from which they cannot be moved.

Two groups, choose wisely.

[Dr. Rich]

Thanks "jamessonofthunder", I enjoyed what you wrote. Now can you help me out and tell why Jesus did not come at that time? (1844)? Also can you tell me what the trimming of the wick means?

[jamesonofthunder]

In 1844 He was not scheduled to come yet, there were many unfulfilled prophecies. God most certainly did want the message to go forth, because it would lead to a greater comprehension of truth. The disappointment was foretold.

The seven thunders are in relation to time. God showed us that 1844 was in fulfillment of the first and second angels messages, the understanding of the book of Daniel, sweet to the tongue yet bitter to the belly. But from 1844 to 1888 if they had fully embraced to good tidings from the land of milk and honey, Jesus could have returned. But because they weren't ready, we're still here. In 1888 Caleb and Joshuah (Jones and Wagoner) brought back the good report, but no one listened so the church has wandered in the wilderness for a long season.

I believe that when all of the prophecies come true we will see it was always scheduled for the moment it happens. But even Jesus does not know that hour yet. That is why He is seen pleading for the Father to hold the four winds until His servants are sealed. If He knew when the time was, why would He plead?

Almost all of the signs have come now. Next we are waiting for Satan to appear as an angel of light, the son of perdition going into perdition. That is when the three angels messages will be proclaimed in force accompanied by the Holy Spirit later rain, like the day of Pentecost.

But since 1888 He could have come by then if everything was in order. If the church had done it's part.

[jamesonofthunder]

Trimming the wick means that the light is brightened, the Holy Spirit shines through them, their faces shine with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, and darkness is seen on the faces of the foolish.