If one’s love for God and His truth is not enough healing balm to heal the wounds of the offended, how deep is that love, when people leave the church? What about going to a different church? When you take charge of what you believe there is no one else to blame. The passion for truth is a power for the weak.
As regards me moaning, that is your characterization, which you think you can stow away onto the ship to help you build your tower of Pizza, Johnny. I do not need to moan. I defend what I chose to believe with God’s words. But that is not very popular here. I see the Adventist church overloaded with Gracer’s doctrines and I fight against it with reason, not moans or threats to leave the church. That deceptive characterization did not get you many miles.
But that did not stop you. I thought that we agreed that calling you Gracers is not a pejorative, but you changed your mind and again reverted to imputing offense to the clear term. You are proponents of Grace… Aren’t you? So you are Gracers without sanitization, Johnny. But having no other foothold you break the agreement and revert to imputing offence, for the second floor of the tower of Pizza. Do you not call others by similar terms like LGTers? And you guys use it as pejorative put-downs.
Next is the 3rd floor of the leaning tower of Pizza. Separating the goats from the sheep? What would you like me to do, say that Grace theology is innocuous and go on whistling Dixie? I love the Adventist truths. My heart aches when I hear the dejections of the Adventist faith on this forum. You, however, seem to enjoy that.
The 4th floor is the best. “Maybe a means of driving all of the sinners from the denomination in order to purify it leaving only those who are perfect so that Christ can come?” Wow, where did this come from, if not despair?
Seriously? Common, Johnny… Calm down Bro! Nobody is out to get you…
You do not bother me one whit. Feel free to stay, but you cannot expect me to endorse your views. That is not about to happen soon!
I was perusing over some of the comments here and it reminded me of tactics which were used by counter insurgents operatives. The one side would sent spies to inseminated not false information, but rather to incite a reaction or action which would distract people from the main issue.These so-called sympathisers could bond with the enemy, and then rat them out. I was taught this, and many other techniques, like the one which might be the most effective in many countries, the fear factor, by making an example. I would not recommend this technique, but it has been used, and to " good " effect. I am talking about the same principle, ok. Group A would eliminate two or three people, in the presence of a multitude of people, this would be a warning to anyone else, " who’s next". The multitude would understand, if we don’t comply, it might be " us"!
i don’t see this story in this way at all…if we put ourselves into the mindset of that time, where the military might of national gods meant so much, we can see that rahab wasn’t being kind, or feeling sorry for the spies…she was acting out of self-interest…first of all, she knew that the spies weren’t in jericho on a sight-seeing trip, but on a spy mission to determine the best way to overthrow the city…and having heard what israel had done to other city kingdoms, she understood full well that she, her family and her city - in other words, her world - were on borrowed time…she even conceded that her land had been given to the spies by their god, and was in full harmony with that…
in the trauma of the moment, having no real choice, she cast in her lot with the spies…and acting on her fledgeling faith that their god really was the true god, she bargained for her life, and the life of her family, by forcing them into an oath, Joshua 2:12-14…
and let’s not kid ourselves: the bargain between the spies and rahab was the cold calculation that because she had helped to spare their lives, they’d spare hers…that’s it…and even then, the spies put the further condition on the oath they had taken, namely that rahab had to hang a scarlet thread out of the window she had helped them escape through, and bring all her family into her house…and if that wasn’t enough, they added the threat that they’d be released from their oath if she in any way reneged, and spilled the beans about them…
i think you’re investing rahab with evangelical sentimentality - “milk of human kindness flowing through her veins which melted the hearts of the spies and apparently god’s heart, too” - that isn’t supported in the story…the spies, and god, didn’t spare her because she had melted their hearts…they spared her because she had had enough resourcefulness and forethought to make the spies take an oath, and oaths were everything in those days…even god used oaths in his dealings with the patriarchs…
It’a a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black, Dennis. You are “hoist on your own petard” as the saying goes. Need I take apart this missive point by point or should I stop now? I think I’ll stop. There are times when a conversation is simply not worth continuing. Thankfully I know when that moment has come, which it has. Good luck to you in all of your missionary endeavors.
Is it just me, or has there been a precipitous increase in what appear at first blush to be breathless evangelicizers here?
Someone needs to update the dictionary to reflect the correct definituon of being a missionary and giving ones testimony. Witnessing does NOT mean repeatedly expounding your own opinion of why you are right and everyone else is wrong regarding esoteric religious conversations.
If i were inclined to conspiracist theories i would question whether the nearsighted oversight committees were already sending operatives into the lay member milieu in order to identify and root out those they deem are “out of compliance” with our standard narratives, but since I’m not, I wont suggest such a possibility.
Your equivocation does not stand. I am not leaving the Adventist church truth, come hell or high waters.
Is this not a pejorative, something you wrongly imputed on me earlier? At the very least be consistent to earn the respect of your own friends.
I have nothing against you. My “petard” is a careful understanding of the truth, which seems to annoy Evangelicals/Gracers like poison ivy in the undies.
Can we at least agree not the bastardize the words of God, so peace could reign, if but for a moment?
I quote the words of God and you guys present me as someone trying to evangelize and preach. I am not preaching to you. I am defending my sound beliefs and God’s words are better than mine. If you do not figure that out, we will be dancing this dance for a long time. I will never stop defending the words of God. The Savior did that earnestly. Find a way around that, if you can.
Calm down Johnny, I do not want to see you in anguish.
There is a lot more that goes on inside NASA and in the astrophysics world than what you can find on Google, George.
#1 There are two gases which disappear after the Solar Flash or the birth of fusion. I forget the name of the 1st gas, (I will look it up in my notes from decades ago) it takes 6500 years to dissipate and from the corona of the sun and the second it lithium, which takes about 10,000 years to dissipate. The first gas is nearly depleted and lithium is more than half gone. This became a serious puzzle for astrophysicists. The trouble is that they looked at the earth as an indelible companion of the sun until 6 months ago and the age of the sun has been gauged by what has been discovered on planet earth. When the far infra-red telescope, launched recently, discovered that planets between suns are exceedingly numerous, floating in space and meandering between suns. Suddenly, the picture is different. Our planet was known for a while already not to be consistent with the planets of this solar system. It is very possible that it was blown off from another sun billions of years ago, in one way or another. Then it arrived into this solar system. So, with this new discovery, it will take some time for the pros to reform the theory of where the earth came from and when.
#2 Another study 20+ years ago which involves the deep vibration of the sun itself suggests that we have a very young sun. That debate was furiously fought on both sides. The frequency on its own suggests without a doubt that the fused helium core is nowhere near what is needed for a sun born 6 billion years ago. But too many times researchers have their mind set that the sun must be old, so they violate their own discoveries and make up rationalizations to make things work out as they wish to see them. We call those Band-Aid theories. And that is nothing new. It has been going on for years. Ether, Steady State Universe… the list goes on and on.
Give it some time and that will come to light as well. But for our world we need the belief that the sun is super old, just like the Darwinian beliefs that we come from monkeys. A new satellite has been sent to orbit the sun and collect data at a very close distance from the sun, recently. Give them time to collect the data and report it once they realize their former Band-Aid theories need to go. This satellite study is very exciting for all cosmologists and the world of astrophysics.
Patience “Mon Capitain!” The truth will come up soon enough.
It seems that we (the spectrumites) are a missionary field. But a poor one. We get the missionaries, one after another… but we never get any compensation money as any missionary field should.
Thanks Dennis for the vaulable info.
I was not searching anything about it on Google. I hope you didn’t miss the meaning of the numbers I used in my prior post…
The Cleansing of the Sanctuary is not the Atonement Day Ceremony. But it does not really matter that our pioneers were mistaken. Starting with Hiram Edson they began to preach “Christ in His Sanctuary”. The Sanctuary was not polluted with the sins of believers which were forgiven. It was polluted by Rome which fell apart and reformed into a religious empire. The first thing they did was to take away the core doctrine of how Christians are supposed to have their sins forgiven. They accomplished that with their famous Sacrament of Reconciliation which demanded Christians to come to priests and ask “Father forgive me, for I have sinned”. The Savior said, “Call no man Father, for one is your Father”. That pollution was removed by the Adventist Movement. You can cite what you will, from the writings of other Christian churches, but the reality is that Protestants introduced Intercessory Prayer when they rejected Rome’s religion. That made them nothing different from the Roman church teachings. That still resolves to intercession outside of the Savior and I can cite many, many doctrinal references of that practice throughout Protestantism.
Adventists introduced the idea of the Savior still in His Sanctuary in heaven interceding on Man’s behalf. It is the “one and only” church which hit the target of “Then shall the Sanctuary be Cleansed!” No religion which delegates intercession to men is a Christian religion. The Savior is our ONE AND ONLY intercessor. That realization is the purging of the Sanctuary of God, bar none! That which was polluted in 538 AD (Sacrament of Reconciliation) was realized in the throes of despair of the little group of Adventists at the moment when Hiram Edson looked up and realized what happened in 1844. That message became “Christ in His Sanctuary”, George, and it is still preached today, though Adventists are barely aware of that realization. They just know that it is the right message. God works in mysterious ways and He does not require for people to understand everything that He is doing.
Ford can sing his songs all day long (And I respect that man). His objection only works on those who rendered the Daily as the Secular Roman Empire. Those who believed, and there were many great and small, in the Daily being the ministration of the Savior in heaven were outside of Ford’s objections. The others simply needed to do more thinking and they too accepted the doctrine of “Christ in His Sanctuary”, though they did not see it in its glory. Primitive Christianity was restored in 1844 as God promised and the message circled the globe. Look at all the places that Adventists have gone. Isaiah 58 tells it like it should be told. The old paths which God had instituted and ministered by the Savior, were polluted. At the end of the 2300 prophewtic days they were restored among God’s chosen few for the purpose of circling the globe as Isaiah stipulates.
Isa 58:12 And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
Isa 58:13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:
Isa 58:14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
The Lord keeps His promises. Men may fail, but God does not fail… In spite of us being like bucking mules and going in all directions, God’s plan was accomplished and there is much more to come.
If I were traveling in a subway with you, and had asked you, “What is so glorious about the Adventist message?” and had gotten this answer, I would conclude that the center of the SDA message is “something” about the year 1844… something that, as a Bible reader/student, I have never heard of before.
Therefore, I would just go back to reading my BIBLE, and would never step into a SDA Church. Ever! What for? To find just “that glorious message?” Nah… , I have my Bible and other churches if needed…
I am a SDA for over 60 years, and I stick with the Bible.Yes, Sola Scriptura.
But thanks for taking the time.
PS - One more little thing please, Are you a LGTarian? … ____ YES … ____ NO
Don’t ask people about that in the Subway. There is not enough time. The pollution of the Sanctuary is quite involved and as you can see, God did not require the SDAs to have a perfected understanding of it. That does not mean that no one should understand it in detail. Most SDAs are not aware of any of this. But today some people, unlike you, want real answers. This is definitely not for the faint at heart. A feel good video on Netflix is not a model of this truth and reality. Impatience is definitely an impediment here.
The LGT definition is too vague for me to decide. Kim tried to explain it to me, but her definition was vague. Maybe you can give it a shot…
Hmmm,…A little out of order characterization, isn’t it? So…, you are making a judgment without even knowing me?
I have difficulty understanding how a person so well trained in Adventism does not know what LGT is.
Just FYI: Most people who come here saying the same thing are actually LGTarians coming here on a “missionary trip.” Not saying you are one too, because I don’t know. Just telling you what we have seen.
Maybe you don’t know what LGTarianism is. Have you ever heard about the Perfectionism Theory that tried to infiltrate the SDA barracks so many times? Well, LGT is the same thing, but this time disguised with a fancy name to confuse people, to impress people, and to deceive people.
Sorry, I am not a LGTrian instructor, so I won’t invest time in teaching it to you. But you better look into it, not to be deceived just because the definitions you got are … “too vague.”
Just another observation, Sooner or later the LGTarians start to make ad hominem attacks on those who refuse to agree with their deceitful ideas. Stay away from those people…
Considering what you said so far, would you actually confirm then that,
So far you are not a LGT adept/sympathizer/follower because you actually don’t know what it is?
Yes, there is probably some rather small actual disagreement as to the dates among those schooled in such things (various types of scientists), but for most of us not studying the many details of this long history it doesn’t matter. The key is the reality that the earth is very old and has hosted live for a very long time. It’s an irrefutable fact that makes the bible stories simply unbelievable as literal history.
Take it from a Christian Theologian who is very concerned about the future of Christianity and even the belief in God among modern people.
