Revelation 7: The 144,000 and the 233,000

[Cassie (Cassandra of Perelandra)]

Surely, the God who notices the sparrow fall did not miss out on what happened to the 233,000.

The God who knows how to count to 144,000 will also know the other numbers that should be memorized and remembered.

Amen.

And there are other numbers, as you suggest, Sigve.

The ongoing deep tragedy of the Falun Gong religious practioners in China has been largely ignored by Adventists.

https://www.adventistreview.org/archives/2002-1509/news.html

This is particularly heartbreaking in regard to the “organ harvesting” of Falun Gong political prisoners for profit.

I understand why no one wants to stand up to the Chinese government any more than they wanted to stand up to the Third Reich.

SO HERE WE ARE AGAIN.

I would like to see a discussion of LLU ethicist James Walters’ book, What Is a Person? in relation to the issue of organ harvesting, as he advocates changing United States law to allow the harvesting of organs from living anencephalic infants.

What is a Person? An Ethical Exploration

In the face of the continuing atrocities against the Falun Gong, surely this ethical discussion is long overdue, particularly since Peter Singer is invoked as a mentor in the book.

The notion that human life is sacred just because it is human life is medieval.

—Peter Singer

I have to wonder if Walters’ book would, or could, even have been written if Adventists had grappled authentically with their collusion with the Third Reich.

To (correct me) charge a hermeneutic method (Storm Clouds Over Historicism), or blame the devil (Timeout: From Daniel to Revelation) for the abject Adventist failure in Germany is to have failed to learn anything from history, it seems to me.

[Cassie (Cassandra of Perelandra)]

We are in a black hole of the deeply inexcusable.

Pilgrimages won’t save one Falun Gong believer from being murdered by doctors for profit this week.

Tweaking our hermeneutics or our metanarrative will not help us see them as human beings, or give us the courage, or the ability, to do something for them.

HERE WE ARE AGAIN.

Can you do anything about this, Sigve?

Neither can I.

I would want to go on your pilgrimage, but I know it would be symbolic, and the Falun Gong will still be butchered by doctors for filthy lucre in the land of large Seventh-day Adventist churches and ordained woman pastors.

Do those women pastors want their parishioners to meet the fate of the Falun Gong?

They have to be silent, at the very least.

They know this. We all know this.

Let’s surrender to the reality of how helpless we all are in the face of our own evil.

There is nowhere else to start.

GYC Annual Meeting Offers End-Time Inspiration and Outreach Opportunities

Perhaps eisegesis is not the root of the problem, but only a symptom of the problem? Maybe the root of the problem in Adventism and in the Middle East is our “divided hearts?” A world religion is not going to unite our divided hearts. Only God can heal our divided hearts. The best, most rigorous, most erudite exegesis of the best minds on earth can’t heal divided hearts. Only the Lamb that was slain can open the Seven Seals.

…

North American Division Hosts First Religious Freedom Prayer Event

Religious persecution and slaughter of Falun Gong practitioners in China: This has particular parallels to Seventh-day Adventist ethical thinking and boundaries.

…

North American Division Hosts First Religious Freedom Prayer Event

Does the State-sanctioned Seventh-day Adventist Church in China take a stand on these atrocities? Does the world organization of Seventh-day Adventists take a stand on these atrocities? Are atrocities now normalized in Seventh-day Adventism? … Where is the definitive book written by Seventh-day Adventist scholars on lessons learned from collaborating with Hitler in the German Third Reich?

…

Falun Gong

I went on a pilgrimage to the Branch Davidian property outside of Waco a couple of years ago.

I sat on the side of the swimming pool and wept.

During the siege, I tried to get in touch with Vernon Howell/David Koresh through KRLD radio in Dallas. He said on air that I was his friend.

I went to Waco twice. I got as far as the forest of media trucks. I could see where the Davidians were.

His mother told me I was the only person who could talk him out.

But I failed. There was nothing I could do.

The whole world lieth in wickedness.

If we understood that, it would crush us.

[juge (Linda Nottingham)]

As I understand the meaning of ‘burning or being tormented forever’ in scripture, it simply means until something is burned up. The text references back to Isaiah 34, where God’s vengeance on Edom is described as burning so that the ‘smoke shall ascend forever’ ( vs. 10)…but of course Edom is not still burning, and in vs. 11, the prophet describes the destroyed Edom as being possessed by various animals, which of course would not be possible if it were still burning.

[frankpeachamvt (Frank Peacham)]

As I understand the meaning of ‘burning or being tormented forever’ in scripture, it simply means until something is burned up.

Of course I agree with you that hell fire is not eternal, but until one is consumed. I know that I am asking questions that should not be asked. Yet it seems to me that even the act of burning is painful and cruel. The “smoke” that ascents to heaven indicates that the punishment may be a very slow. In USA such a means as a death penalty is illegal, on the grounds of human dignity. I find it hard to understand why God would use a means created by evil–for good to triumph in the universe. Maybe hell fire is just all symbolic in language of some other means for good to exterminate evil. I hope so.