How and when does Satan personate Christ?

[Martn]

On 3/24/2016 at 0:43 AM, Kevin(wrx) said:

The reason I believe SDA eschatology to be true is nowhere does the scripture say He will establish His earthly Kingdom at His second coming. Most denominations do believe Jesus does establish His kingdom on earth. If the SDA view is correct then the other denominations beliefs on the end times sets them up to be deceived by Satan. 

Dogmatic reliance on Sister White is what will set even Adventists themselves up for this deception. When things do turn out in many ways to be very different from how she thought they would, most Adventists (sadly) will lose all confidence in her, except for the few who have learned to understand her in view of a much larger testimony.

[Martn]

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[Martn]

The fraud must be perpetrated, first, in order for the real coming of Jesus to be revealed in contrast to it.

For Jesus will not come the way most, including most Adventists, have come to think he will.

[JoeMo]

1 hour ago, MCBGM said:

The real Jesus commands us not to worship him, but to worship God instead. Revelation 22:8-13. This will be the difference

"And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things.  Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God." (Rev. 22:8,9)

" I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star." (Rev.22:16)

It was an ANGEL that was telling John not to worship it; not Jesus.  The angel was showing John a vision of Jesus.

"But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him." (Mark 5:6)

"And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." (Matt. 8:2)

"And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him." (Matt. 28:9)

These and many, MANY other verses show that Jesus accepted worship while He was here on earth.  Jesus is God.  Read John Chapter 1 if you haven't read it 100 times before.  Genesis 1:1 says that God created the heavens and the earth. John 1 and Hebrews say explicitly that all things were created by and through Jesus.  Therefore, Jesus = God.  Denying that Jesus is God sounds like something a JW would say.  Not saying you are one; just saying that you sound like one.

 

 

[Martn]

The one who tells John not to worship him also says, Behold I come quickly.  Etc. He is speaking the very words of Jesus.

Revelation 22:8-13.

It's quite a mystery to me how so many can possibly gloss over this. Which is to add to the text.

Jesus says the same thing in Revelation 1:17, telling John to "Fear not" after John again fell at his feet.

Jesus, then, commands us NOT to fear him. Yet we are to fear God. Revelation 14:7.

To "fear" is to worship.

It was no ordinary angel therefore. That's why John kept worshipping him, as Christians probably had been doing.

There simply wasn't any angel other than Jesus whom John would have thought worthy of worship.

The angel (spirit) which Jesus sent was his own spirit therefore. He came to John in the form of a spirit.

Many early Christians did worship Jesus. Clearly, Jesus himself never wanted this.

[Martn]

On 3/25/2016 at 10:33 AM, JoeMo said:

Denying that Jesus is God sounds like something a JW would say.

 

 

JW's got their idea about Jesus from the SDA's. It was two SDA Bible teachers who taught this to Russell, founder of the JW's, among other teachings, making Russellites an Adventist offshoot by the way. This was, therefore, the official Adventist teaching about Jesus and remained so up until 1898 with the publication of Desire of Ages, in Sister White's name though she herself had little to do with it, as her own son verified many years later. It remained the majority Adventist position, by far, until well after 1898 even, and a minority (including pastors and church leaders) within the church still hold to it to this day, never having completely died out, in spite of what is claimed.

[JoeMo]

MCBGM,

No matter the origin, the Bible is PERFECTLY clear that Jesus is God, no matter what early SDAs, Mormons, JWs, or any other denomination might say.  I may not be EGW's biggest fan; but I would have to see some quotes by her that say Jesus is NOT God.  To my knowledge (which is limited) she never said any such thing.  Some offshoot SDAs might claim that, but it isn't part of the official SDA doctrine. Jesus IS God; and saying otherwise is grieving HIs Spirit.  Jesus - as our creator - is the only Entity in the universe qualified to pay the penalty for man's sin.  Any other being is not qualified to represent and redeem all of humanity.

[Martn]

On 3/25/2016 at 0:31 PM, Kevin(wrx) said:

the angel was relaying Jesus' message

That's what people keep saying, but that is not what the text says.

Nowhere in that text does it say the angel is speaking for Jesus. People merely assume this.

Instead, it has the angel speaking the very words of Jesus.

The very fact that John keeps trying to worship this "angel" proves he is no ordinary angel, but someone whom Christians had deemed worthy of worship --which would have to be Jesus. John wouldn't have deemed anyone else worthy of worship. The "angel" (Jesus) then corrects John's misunderstanding and tells him such worship is not appropriate.

 

[Martn]

On 3/25/2016 at 0:04 PM, JoeMo said:

I may not be EGW's biggest fan; but I would have to see some quotes by her that say Jesus is NOT God.

Some offshoot SDAs might claim that

Actually, it was the offshooters who changed to church's position to what it is now --the Catholic view-- and pushed the majority out.

Everyone knows about Kellogg's apostasy. What they don't tell you is that his position was the trinitarian one and that it was on this basis that he and his cohorts were originally opposed, by the majority, calling it pantheism.

I presented extensively the evidence for this on another forum. The only response they could make was to shut the forum down and delete my posts, so I won't try that again. It won't make any difference.

In the end it will be clearly seen which side opposes Jesus. Not to make them look bad, but to make his goodness plain by contrast.

[JoeMo]

MCBGM,

I myself am not a Trinitarian.  I believe that the Father Jesus are members of the Godhead; but I believe the Holy Spirit is simply the Spirit of the Father and/or Son - not a separate entity.  I was actually a JW for about a year on my journey from Catholicism to SDA.  I will always be beholden to JW's cuz they actually taught me how to study scripture rather than just read it.

[hch]

8 hours ago, MCBGM said:

Dogmatic reliance on Sister White is what will set even Adventists themselves up for this deception. When things do turn out in many ways to be very different from how she thought they would, most Adventists (sadly) will lose all confidence in her, except for the few who have learned to understand her in view of a much larger testimony.

EGW rightly understood will prove herself reliable. It is those who misunderstand her and place a meaning on her writings that she never intended that will have a problem. And it is happening now.

Christian regards

[hch]

7 hours ago, MCBGM said:

The one thing which will positively convince me (and others I know, both in and outside Adventism) that he is not Jesus is that he will claim to be God. It is a plain violation of the Law of God for anyone in finite form to claim this.

If the deception comes after the plagues have begun to fall, it will be like the antediluvians outside of the ark being convinced that Noah was right. Too late.Too late.Too late!

[hch]

7 hours ago, MCBGM said:

There will in fact be nothing supernatural about the deception.

As I read the deception, it will be as bewildering as the serpent deceiving Eve in the Garden. Let Satan appear as a human being like Pope John-Paul II in the flesh and prepare the way to come back as Christ and the world will wait until it is to late. The wait and see mode will get 'em.

[AliAgins]

On 3/20/2016 at 11:20 AM, MCBGM said:

Up until about 200 years ago, nearly all (religious) Jews believed in reincarnation --or Gilgul as it is called among the Jews. Only with the rise of modernist Jewish humanism (religious atheism, actually) has this idea become unpopular among Jews, found today only among very Orthodox Jews for the most part. There are differences, of course, between Jewish and Hindu reincarnation. Plant and animal spirits may become human, but not the reverse, for example.

Mormons, on the other hand, believe the same as Adventists, that the soul is a combination of body and spirit and that in death the soul ceases to exist, while the spirit of course remains as it did before, a less than fully human entity, not conscious (intelligent) in the human sense. Ask the Mormons.

"Mormons, on the other hand, believe the same as Adventists, that the soul is a combination of body and spirit and that in death the soul ceases to exist, while the spirit of course remains as it did before, a less than fully human entity, not conscious (intelligent) in the human sense. Ask the Mormons."

I've never found anything that Adventists and Mormons have in common as far as doctrinal belief goes.  There is a touch of health concerns...both against drinking and smoking.  Their beliefs regarding a "soul" and life beyond death... is very in line with Spiritualism.  There belief is that any man that keeps all the LDS rules can become a god and have his very own world where he and his many goddess wives will crank out spirit babies that will then be born into human beings for a testing.

I was in Utah visiting with some dear Mormon friends.  My plans for the day was going into Salt Lake to the library there to research some lines in my family tree.  My dear hostess said a prayer at breakfast that gave me chills.  "Heavenly Father,  Send the spirits of Alison's ancestors to be with her today as she looks for stories on her family tree."  etc.....  I was of course praying in my mind... "Dear Father, Please protect me from any so-called spirits of my ancestors...as I know they are demons."  

They also believe that the USA will suffer a terrible event and the "gentiles" (you and me) will be slaughtered and the "Saints" will move into the positions of power and run the country and eventually the world.  This is Dominionism...just the Mormon form. 

[Martn]

Please try and understand how sorrowfully sad our ancestors are to have us regard them the way we do?

To fear their visitations --as those of... demons?

A Lawless teaching it is, about the state of dead, which leads so many to dishonor their parents (in any generation before us) this way. Exodus 20:12. Malachi 4:6.

The very same state of the dead doctrine, believe it or not, taught by the Church of Satan (!). Taught by atheists too. And by agnostics. Such good company to be keeping...

Taught by the pagan followers of Aristotle also.

By the Sadducees as well (students of Aristotle). Whom Jesus condemned for their erroneous misuse of scripture. Matthew 22:29-32.    

Unlike the Pharisees. Who believed in spirits of the dead. Whose doctrines (though not their practices) were without error according to Jesus. Matthew 23:3.

"For the Sadducees say there is no resurrection. Neither angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees confess both. Acts 23:8.

Said the Pharisees:

"If an angel or a spirit has spoken, let us not fight against God."

Acts 23:9.

 

[Gail]

MCBGM, I think the difference is in the nuance of understanding. Adventists do believe in spirits, just not that they are of the dead. This does not reflect a dishonouring of parents, as they don't believe that the spirits are their dead parents. The spirits can impersonate those who live or have lived, but no further.

Just a clarification.

[Martn]

22 hours ago, JoeMo said:

 I believe the Holy Spirit is simply the Spirit of the Father and/or Son - not a separate entity.

I've encountered this idea in many SDA's over the years. It seems to have become the dominant position among nontrinitarian Adventists. Probably because most SDA's have never had a strong connection with the Spirit, unlike their connection with Jesus, and so it is easier for them to let go of one than the other.

The one idea nearly all SDA's once had in common was their rejection of the spirit as an entity or person in its own right.

The majority, according to numerous and competing ideas, also deemed Jesus to be less than fully divine, with a divine nature which was derived (not actual, in himself) from God, and though most did not think of him as a created being in the same way we are, nearly all believed there was a time when he didn't exist.

But, there was a minority faction which held that Jesus and God were equally divine while the spirit was not. And of course there was also a minority faction (mostly men of authority, in leadership positions) who were fully trinitarian, in the Catholic sense.

There was also a minority faction, from which I descend, which held that the Spirit alone is God. That the father and son, apart from the One Spirit within them both (and within all the rest of us parents and children too) were not themselves actually divine. Which is why sins against either the father or the son could be forgiven by Jesus, but not sins against the Spirit, which only God (Spirit) could forgive.

 

[Martn]

25 minutes ago, Gail said:

MCBGM, I think the difference is in the nuance of understanding. Adventists do believe in spirits, just not that they are of the dead. This does not reflect a dishonouring of parents, as they don't believe that the spirits are their dead parents. The spirits can impersonate those who live or have lived, but no further.

Just a clarification.

I understand the distinction. I do believe there are wicked (human) spirits who sometimes pretend to be our loved ones when they are not, and we need to be on guard against these, but I also believe in good spirits (as the Pharisees did) who really are our loved ones, and it grieves them terribly when we leave no room open to them. I believe we should test the spirits, therefore, as we are instructed to do, to see if they are from God, rather than automatically reject every one which comes to us.

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

31 minutes ago, MCBGM said:

I believe we should test the spirits, therefore, as we are instructed to do, to see if they are from God, rather than automatically reject every one which comes to us.

It would be very interesting to see a treatise on the word "spirits" from 1 John 4:1 (“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world”)

I've seen some commentaries translate it as "message" or "doctrine", so the idea of the text would be to "test the message" to see if it's from God.  But if the word "spirits" actually means something akin to the souls of the departed, or some other entity in the spirit world, that would be quite compelling...

[Gail]

I have also used it in the sense of testing the spirit, like, the attitude of the messenger, with the message. Literally I don't think that is the sense, but it is revealing.

[Martn]

On 3/26/2016 at 2:20 PM, rudywoofs (Pam) said:

It would be very interesting to see a treatise on the word "spirits" from 1 John 4:1 (“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world”)

if the word "spirits" actually means something akin to the souls of the departed, or some other entity in the spirit world, that would be quite compelling...

Thank you.

The word is "pneuma" which is almost always translated as spirit. Sometimes as breath or wind. Like the Hebrew word ruach.

Those are the only ways it is translated. It is never used to mean message or doctrine. One might paraphrase it that way, but it wouldn't be accurate.

It is the same word used for spirit in Acts 23:8, 9. The same word for unclean or evil spirits in other instances. Even translated as Ghost a number of times.

We find a similar idea in Isaiah 8:19, 20, where it says to test them by the Law and the Prophets. Any spirit which teaches against the Torah or the Prophets is to be rejected.

It is compelling, for sure, that where the spirit of Samuel appeared to Saul, it is the prophet writing the text who calls this spirit Samuel, and calls him Samuel repeatedly. In the Jewish religion it is taken for granted that this really was Samuel's spirit, therefore, since otherwise the prophet writing the scripture in which the event is recorded could not have called him Samuel.

Although it may seem strange that God would allow Samuel to appear before Endora the witch and relay a message through her, this is what happened. Not unlike the time God delivered a message for Israel through Balaam, a pagan male witch who was trying to curse Israel when God prophesied through him a blessing for Israel.

Samuel did not come at the witch's behest of course, but was sent from God. Since he stood up for God against what Saul was doing.

 

[Enabled]

Christ is not God, but according to scripture: God's son. By virtue of inheritance he is therefore Divine, but not the supreme Father as there is "one God" not two or three. Though he is indeed the father of the faithful. There is "one Lord" and that is Jesus Christ. All according to scripture. The spirit of Christ is the spirit of the Father, "one spirit" as the word's and gifts of the spirit are all according to Christ the Fathers. He himself stated that it was so, he also said the spirit would not speak of himself but only the things that Christ had already said, he then says I say this because all things I have received from the Father. The Father is the source, Christ is the channel (vessel) that the spirit of the Father comes through. He asks that we also become vessels of righteousness to a lost and dying world. Through Christ, God the chief architect made all things. Satan brings forth a spirit also and it is iniquitous, Satan alone professes to be worthy of worship, Christ saw it as nothing to be coveted, but service to others only. Good and evil wrestle for dominance, one through reasoning with us (service displayed) the other through the force of disception (power of force). Today many speak of God the Son, and deceive many, Christ never aspired to replace his Father but for a time has been given power above all to redeem his bride. Read 1 Cor, 15th chapter, it is clear all power was given him, except as is obvious over him who gave it.

Though Christs action and son-ship make him worthy of worship he has never aspired to it, but comes to us as a servant of all. This alone will reveal the person of any and all that is Anti-Christ. One last time he will come in great power and glory, his own will know him and all others will fear him. He will then take his own into the presence of the Father and he will have claimed his bride thus completing his vow to love her forever in sickness and in health never again to be separated. She the bride will then go forth unto all  in her shining glory to make known to all his unfaltering faithfulness which is his glory.

As an administrator of the Corporations will I daily command change and action, but at no time can I righteously claim the relsults for I am not the architect of the plans but merely a tool that sees to there advancement.

Come quickly Lord Jesus and shine in our hearts that we may see the Father in all his glory.

Enabled to see by him alone.