Protesting... us

[OzarkWoman]

The IJ was established by scripture BEFORE Ellen White had any comments on it. It is the FIRST foundational belief of the Adventist Church and biblically supported without need of the Spirit of Prophecy.

OK, where is it please?

[Kevin H]

1: Some background to understand the Investigative Judgment"

A: Hell is NOT some kind of divine spanking where the wicked are destroyed by a barbecue. It is that Jesus is our deepest desire, the one altogether lovely, overwhelming beauty. We have two attitudes fighting with in us, our sinful nature or a disposition to think we are for ourselves by making less of the outside world; and something that God gave us in Genesis 3:15, a desire to want to be like and with Jesus. That is us that finds stories of disasters or crime horrible and is attracted to beauty. We make choices that place one of these dispositions in control of our lives.The Bible says that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. According to John 3:19, it is we who condemn ourselves when we are outside of Christ. We refuse to come to him. We want to but refuse to yield to our deepest desire. The lost end up wallowing in their excuses and why life was so unfair to them and create their own morbid heaven where they wallow in their complaints and excuses that prevent them from running into Jesus' open arms. They are a prisoner of their own mind. And they are under the constant pressure of the Holy Spirit on their hearts, but they have hardened their hearts and just suffer under the love and pleading and offered forgiveness by God. When we see Jesus we will either find it heaven to be with him, or hell depending on which of these two dispositions end up controlling us. Thus God treats us all the same at the end. If there is an investigative judgment it plays a role in this situation.

B. The Hebrew word "Kippur" from which we get our words "Judgment" and "Atonement" is ANYTHING God does that can bring us either closer to him if we accept it, or we end up missing that blessing if we reject it. For God not to judge/atone means that God can never do anything to bring us closer to him. Nothing to deepen our relationship with him, never again be able to do anything special for us. We may as well stop praying because prayer is asking God to investigate our request and to act upon it. It is an investigative judgment. Thus if any of you does not want to accept the idea of investigative judgment, give up praying.

Now confusion with this has come from the writings of the reformers, who had the false view of hell and saw judgment as being sent to hell while atonement is, to them what it takes to be allowed into heaven. And of course it is what Jesus did on the cross that get's us into heaven. But that is NOT the implications of the Biblical word Kippur.

C. In the ancient world there is the concept of the sacred mountain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_mountains is an introduction, but could do a better job. The ancients believed that the sacred mountain reflected the heavenly sacred mountain, and that events that happened on one happened in the other. Thus for something major to happen on earth it was seen to be reflected in the heavenly realm and visa versa.

D. In the ancient world all court trials had an investigative judgment with specific language to that phase of the trial. The Bible uses that specific language in places.

E. We never find God doing something in the Bible without first having an investigative judgment. God came and gave an investigative judgment to Adam and Eve before having them leave the garden. There was an investigative judgment before the flood and Noah was found righteous. Passover was an investigative judgment where God saw who would welcome him to pass over for a visit and who wanted God to just pass on through and not have a place in their lives. You can go through the Bible with these investigative judgments, many that uses the specific investigative judgment court language.

Thus, the doctrine of the Investigative Judgment is where God is doing something special for us to deepen our relationship with him. Only a misunderstanding of hell fire would cause someone to think that the investigative judgment is against them. Garbage in results in garbage out.

[Kevin H]

2. Why 1844?

A The ancient world believed in cyclic thought: See Henri Frankfort's "Before philosophy" 1944(or 1946?) university of Chicago press. and "The Myth of the Eternal Return" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return_(Eliade) [Note: Read especially the last section of this reference on cyclic time]

Daniel 8:14 was written in the term "Evenings-mornings" cyclic time based on the daily cycle. In Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy you read the Hebrew cycles. A Hebrew week was days, the two growing periods between Yom Kippur/Passover and Passover/Yom Kippur, years, and sabbatical years. Deuteronomy does not have the Jubilee (the Sabbath to the Sabbatical years) and Daniel was a deuteronomist. Therefore the cycles he used was days, half years and whole years.

Daniel 8:14 was given the year that included the day which was 2300 literal days to Belshazzar's feast and the fall of Babylon. The exile was supposed to end with a great second exodus lead by the messiah and the exegesis of Daniel 8:14 was for the Hebrews to share the gospel with their neighbors so that the gospel is spread to all the world so that the exile could lead into the messianic kingdom.

Daniel 9 reapplies it to the 70 weeks of years. Ezekiel 38 and 29 applies it to how the 70th week could have ended and it's last 2300 days had Jesus been accepted when he came.

Our application to 1844 comes from that Daniel 8:14 could be any of the cycles "Days, growing seasons, years" and going for years. However it points us to the time of a major change in church history. In the 1830s Robinson explored the holy land which rediscovered Biblical Geography. This lead to archaeology, which lead us to be able to study the Bible like never before. If we choose to accept this, the deeper Bible study can lead us to a deeper knowledge of the God of the Bible. We are living in a day that people like Usher, Luther, Wesley, Tyndale would love to be living in. We know things about the Bible since the mid 1800s that they just longed for and thirsted for, but was buried under the sands waiting to be rediscovered.

The investigative judgment is a time where the beings on other worlds review what Jesus did for us, which helps them understand their own salvation better and deepens their relationship with Jesus. And it's reflection on earth is that we get to study the Bible deeper and thus is a tool that can be used to lead to a deeper understanding of Jesus. The more we know about Jesus the more we behold him, the more we become like him. This is the Investigative Judgment, no more and no less.

[LifeHiscost]

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This is the Investigative Judgment, no more and no less.

Thanks so much for that explanation, Kevin. I believed it before you said it, but I didn't have the gift to give it to someone else.

Kinda like ""God is Love." No more and no less. What we take home with us is determined by what we accept of God's promises.

"I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord In the land of the living."Psalm 27:13 NKJV

God cares!/Jesus saves!

[LifeHiscost]

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even though at the church I was attending most did not push EGW stuff and I was ever so thankful for that.

Why? If she's a figment of our imaginations, or no more important than the Wizard of Oz, we have only to leave her in fairy land, something not worth losing sleep over.

The Truth is that she's more than that and your heart won't give you rest until God knows you have given your last hoorah. Then you will receive that which you have determined to hold onto. That which leads unto death, or hopefully, that which is Life unto Life.

God will not take away your right to choose for yourself. However the god of this world will enslave anyone who believes freedom is free. Jesus gave all of heaven in Himself, to make sure you had that freedom.

God cares!/Jesus saves!

[OzarkWoman]

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even though at the church I was attending most did not push EGW stuff and I was ever so thankful for that.

Why? If she's a figment of our imaginations, or no more important than the Wizard of Oz, we have only to leave her in fairy land, something not worth losing sleep over.

The Truth is that she's more than that and your heart won't give you rest until God knows you have given your last hoorah. Then you will receive that which you have determined to hold onto. That which leads unto death, or hopefully, that which is Life unto Life.

God will not take away your right to choose for yourself. However the god of this world will enslave anyone who believes freedom is free. Jesus gave all of heaven in Himself, to make sure you had that freedom.

God cares!/Jesus saves!

Believe me, I do NOT lose sleep over EGW and I have never implied any of the other things you are implying that I did. All I have said is that I am interested in the Bible and not her. There is nothing wrong with that. The fact is that if one has to use EGW to explain something they believe and not the Bible then it is nothing. I want all to be proven in the Bible. PERIOD!!! I really don't know why it is that you and some others have a problem with that fact.

[phkrause]

And I'm in very much agreement OW, but the fact is she proves all the issues we may have with the Bible.

[OzarkWoman]

And I'm in very much agreement OW, but the fact is she proves all the issues we may have with the Bible.

If she does then all anyone has to do is also provide the scriptures she used.

[phkrause]

In that case we need to read her books and read for ourselves what she has to say about the IJ and all other issues!

[OzarkWoman]

Well, I am not alone in what I believe or say. Even our pastor, past and present said that many SDAs use EGW as a crutch and should be able to explain and prove anything and everything they believe from only the Bible.

[ClubV12]

Recently had a prayer meeting with a LONG TIME Pastor heading up the group. We were talking about Moses and there was major speculation going on about the details of his life.

I sat there thinking, has anyone here even READ Patriarchs and Prophets? It sure didn't sound like anyone had.

[Kevin H]

Well, I am not alone in what I believe or say. Even our pastor, past and present said that many SDAs use EGW as a crutch and should be able to explain and prove anything and everything they believe from only the Bible.

That is true. So why are you trying to leave us? Mrs. White tells us to go to the Bible. People like to use her for exegesis, but she tells us not to do that. She explains her visions as seeing snapshots of important points, then she would study it out and present it. Although she was a literary genius, she did not realize her gift for words. She felt that she could not describe it, so she read and had a staff to read for phrases that she felt she could use to explain what she saw. It is the person that is inspired with a frame work and principle that she claims comes from visions, not the filling that she used to explain what she saw.

Her visions tended to follow different themes: First that God was leading in the Millerite movement and that they should not give it up saying that it was not from God. What we could do better is not only read what she says about this theme, but also what she does NOT say about it, that we may think she says. And although we made the mistake to believe in the "Shut Door" which kept us away from others, it did prevent us from being so influenced by two waves that have sadly hurt so many churches: Dispensationalism, and Preterism. While our historisism needs some updating and fine tuning, we are at least in the ballpark of the method God used to lead the church through history. We have a good starting point. Sadly, we don't want to move on, and we expect to go back to the 5th head.

Second theme was the organization of the church. She had to work with the people willing to accept her visions. Some of these people had some strange ideas, but they were the ones who were willing to listen, so they are who she worked with. But she brought us back to an orthodoxy. Yet it was not forced, but lead through trial and error and seeing the problems and being convinced on points were we were on the right track and where we were on the wrong track so that we could get back to the right track. And were we were not on the right track because flesh and blood told us, but that the Holy Spirit would lead us. Flesh and blood only encouraged us in the right direction, and would warn us if we were so far off the path that we were in danger.

The third theme was to set up our education system and medical system. A medical system that respected God's laws and cooperated with them, as opposed to a system of wanting God to arbitrarily make people well despite their life style, if we can just appeal to him and get him in a good mood. I remember working on a burn unit. A family had a meth lab that blew up, burning their home and their children. The night the children were dying, they had a pastor with them. The pastor was continually calling upon God to raise them up and saying that miracles were going to happen. However it never came and they fell asleep. Now, I believe that God is not currently able to heal as much as he would like. Our systems tend to be focused on the health message but with a fundamentalist mindset that if God would bless too much would leave us in the fundamentalist ditch instead of leading us out of it. Or we are so modern medical minded, caught up in the big business and big pharmaceutical etc. that God really can't bless us and encourage to stay in that rut. However, we will see in the future, as we balance the health message with a willingness to grow and to accept in principle but study out proper applications, where the natural and supernatural will unite in a way that will only be secondary to the miracles of when Jesus himself was on earth.

The fourth theme was the Great Controversy. This is fantastic. The roles of the 3 members of the Godhead. How these roles were attacked in the 3 deceptions of Satan. How God answers these deceptions, including the use of the Investigative Judgment and the truth about hell fire.

A fifth theme, but when she was old and becoming frail and where she lost and where she died, was fighting fundamentalism and trying to give us a balanced view of inspiration. This lead to the 1919 Bible conference in Washington DC in contrast to the 1919 Bible conference in Philadelphia, how sadly many of our leaders continued on from Washington DC to Philadelphia and came home with the message from the Philadelphia Bible Conference, and at the next General Conference threw out Elder Daniels, demoted Prescott, allowed Willie White to keep his job, but stripped it of all authority (basically fired him but allowed him to come to this office and get his pay check), the throwing out the religion faculty of Washington Missionary College, and the witch hunts at our other colleges and churches. God is still punishing us for this action, bur our war against God and Mrs. White's last message against fundamentalism continues.

But Ozark Woman, please don't give up on us too quickly. I hope that what I wrote in a nutshell about the Investigative Judgment helps. But even though we are not perfect, I think you will find equal and worst imperfections in other places you go. At least with us you will not be overwhelmed with dispensationalism or Preterism. You don't have the everlasting spanking of God roasting and toasting folks for ever and ever to just dish out physical pain of people who want mercy but too late. You run into voices of protest about Fundamentalism, while others just take Fundamentalism for granted. There is an openness towards both the more conservative churches and the less conservative churches, and an acceptance of little "c" Christians as opposed to only capital "C" Christians, and even then distrusting those who are not just like us. (Capital "C" Christians are those who have joined the Christian Church. Small "c" Christians are those who the Holy Spirit are working with, who reach out to God at the level of their knowledge and background. People like Abraham Joshua Heshel, Anwar Saddat, Gandi, and even comedian Ben Stein and magician David Copperfield, who are Jewish, but who love God, worship God in Synagogue, but are open to Jesus and very friendly towards Jesus and Christians, but still consider themselves Jewish and have not left the synagogue to join a Christian church.) One of the things I like about the Investigative Judgment is that it reminds us that we are all in this together, that God is working with us individually and that our purpose is not to say "have you said the magic words about Jesus" but that we are to lead those who have not accepted the Lord in one way or another to accept him, and for those who have to help them grow in their relationship with him.

[Gail]

OW, I love discussing Biblical themes as well. Feel free to share what you're learning or some gem that lifts you :)

[Gail]

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E. We never find God doing something in the Bible without first having an investigative judgment. God came and gave an investigative judgment to Adam and Eve before having them leave the garden. There was an investigative judgment before the flood and Noah was found righteous. Passover was an investigative judgment where God saw who would welcome him to pass over for a visit and who wanted God to just pass on through and not have a place in their lives. You can go through the Bible with these investigative judgments, many that uses the specific investigative judgment court language.

What came to my mind right away when I read this are the cases of Cain (your brother's blood cries to me from the ground) and that of Sodom and Gomorrah. In each of those cases even though God knows what is happening He comes down to, well, investigate, before handing out the sentence.

In my Bible reading I'm now at Ezekiel. He, Isaiah and Jeremiah all wrote to Israel warning the nation that its wickedness was going to end in tragedy for itself. Ezekiel himself ended up in Babylon. But the point is the nation KNEW that the path they were taking was, according to the prophets, going to end badly for them. God could foresee the danger, and in His love He warned them that their behaviour would reap disaster. He was able to warn them by bringing to mind the evil overtaking them at the time.

He also in Scripture warned the surrounding wicked nations of their upcoming downfall, even Babylon, which He ordained to bring judgment upon Israel.

It is just the way God deals with people and nations. And that is from the Bible, without any EGW comments. When you then do a study on Numbers and the wilderness tabernacle, it becomes clearer as you see the ties between it and the sacrifice of Jesus. The more you read Scripture the more you will see how connected it is and how the picture of a big war between Christ and Satan is THE big picture of that Biblical theme.

[Johann]

Recently had a prayer meeting with a LONG TIME Pastor heading up the group. We were talking about Moses and there was major speculation going on about the details of his life.

I sat there thinking, has anyone here even READ Patriarchs and Prophets? It sure didn't sound like anyone had.

So you helped them?

[ClubV12]

HA HA,,, used to do that, I've learned to keep my mouth shut around lifelong Adventists who assume because I'm fairly new and didn't go to our school I couldn't possibly know more than them.

Here's the secret: Read the Conflict Series, gaurentee you will know more than 75% of the Adventist you meet in any given Church. That simple.

[LifeHiscost]

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Christian fundamentalism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christian fundamentalism, also known as fundamentalist Christianity, or simply fundamentalism,[1] refers to a movement begun in the late 19th- and early 20th-century British and American Protestant denominations among evangelicals who reacted energetically against theological and cultural modernism.[2] Fundamentalists argued that 19th century modernist theologians had misinterpreted or rejected certain doctrines, especially biblical inerrancy, which evangelicals viewed as the fundamentals of Christian faith.[3] A few scholars regard Catholics who reject modern theology in favor of more traditional doctrines as fundamentalists.[4] Scholars debate how much the terms "evangelical" and "fundamentalist" are synonymous.

Fundamentalism is a movement manifested in various denominations with various theologies, rather than a single denomination or systematic theology. It became active in the 1910s after the release of the Fundamentals, a ten-volume set of essays, apologetic and polemic written by conservative Protestant theologians to defend what they saw as Protestant orthodoxy. The movement became more organized in the 1920s within U.S. Protestant churches, especially Baptist and Presbyterian. Many such churches adopted a "fighting style" and combined Princeton theology with Dispensationalism.[2] Since 1930, many fundamentalist churches in North America and around the world have been represented by the Independent Fundamental Churches of America (renamed IFCA International in 1996), which holds to biblical inerrancy, the Virgin birth of Jesus, substitutionary atonement, the literal resurrection of Christ, and the Second Coming of Christ, among other doctrines.

underlined mine LHC

The only thing I would have a problem with is the subject of inerrancy, unless there is some other point in the underlined that might reveal more than is admitted in this excerpt.

God cares!/Jesus saves!

[LifeHiscost]

Quote:

What came to my mind right away when I read this are the cases of Cain (your brother's blood cries to me from the ground) and that of Sodom and Gomorrah. In each of those cases even though God knows what is happening He comes down to, well, investigate, before handing out the sentence.

Astute observation, and I might add He gave the participants of the guilt, opportunity to defend their actions, although it is not specifically spoken of re: Sodom and Gomorrah.

God cares/Jesus saves!

[ClubV12]

Given the opportunity to defend her actions,,, Eve didn't do so well. Nor did Adam.

[Johann]

Are you doing better, Club?