Read Contenders
WHAT
DO THE SCRIPTURES SAY?
PART
1
OCTOBER
2003
IT
SEEMS NECESSARY AT A TIME SUCH AS THIS, TO TRY TO ESTABLISH IN
THE MIND OF TRUE BELIEVERS, EXACTLY WHAT THE SCRIPTURES SAY ABOUT
CERTAIN CONTROVERSIAL MATTERS THAT HAVE PERMEATED THE RANKS OF
CHRISTIANITY. I JUST ASK THAT YOU WOULD PRAY FOR ME AS I GO INTO
THIS SUBJECT, BECAUSE IT IS NOT MY DESIRE OR PURPOSE JUST TO HURT
OR DEGRADE THOSE WHOM I BELIEVE TO BE IN ERROR. MY EARNEST DESIRE,
IS THAT EVERY PERSON WHO CLAIMS TO BE CALLED TO THE MINISTRY,
WILL GIVE FIRST PLACE TO THE VINDICATED WORD OF GOD, EVEN AT THE
COST OF HAVING TO SAY, “I WAS WRONG!” GOD
IS THE FINAL JUDGE, REGARDLESS OF WHAT ANYONE BELIEVES AND DESIRES
TO HOLD ON TO. WE ARE LIVING IN AN HOUR WHEN GOD IS GOING TO REVEAL
THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH TO ALL THOSE WHO HAVE SETTLED IT IN THEIR HEART’S
TO WALK WITH HIM AT ANY COST, SO LET US LAY ASIDE OUR TRADITIONAL
IDEAS AND TEACHINGS, AND OPEN UP TO WHAT GOD DESIRES TO REVEAL
TO US IN THESE CLOSING HOURS OF GENTILE TIME.
As
I go into this message today, I just simply want to title it,
“What do the Scriptures Say?” I was given a part from
a magazine some time ago, that I will be reading from as we go
along. Much of what we are going to be dealing with in this message,
is the Seventh Day Adventist’ belief. They have taught that
man is just created out of the dust of the earth, and God has
just breathed into him the breath of life, and only then does
he become a living soul. They say, that when man dies, the breath
leaves the body and the spirit that is life itself goes back to
God, and the body goes into the ground just to rot and decay away,
and that there is no such thing that the spirit and soul, going
to either heaven or hell. I want everyone to realize, I am not
here merely to belittle anyone’s belief. I do thank God
for what He has allowed me to see and understand through the years
of my life though; and I desire to help as many as I can. The
Gentile world today is filled with people of all kinds of beliefs.
When you say anything about certain things they believe, they
say, Well that is what the Bible says! Sure, they can say the
Bible says that, but how far are you willing to take that verse
of scripture and go through other parts of the Bible. Remember,
the Bible is a big book. It has many, many verses of scriptures.
In fact, it is so big, and covers so much time and space, it would
be almost like traveling out west, to try to immediately understand
it all. You could spend a day traveling through the state of Texas
and still be in the state of Texas. It reminds me of the poem
on a postcard that I have at home: It says, The sun has risen,
and the sun has set, and I am in this God forsaken Texas yet.
(Those are not my words: That is what it says on the postcard.)
It definitely is a big place. Well they believe that death is
the end of it, until there is a resurrection. On this page, are
many scriptures they use trying to prove their point. I am going
to use some of them as we go along. I will say this, The Seventh
Day Adventist teaching, is something like the Jehovah Witness.
The Jehovah Witness’ have their origin going back in the
later part of the 1800's.They started out much like what is called
the International Bible Students. As time came into the twentieth
century, actually in the later part of nineteenth, there was a
teacher of theirs that rose on the scene by the name of Judge
Rutherford. I know much of what he taught. Well a Jehovah Witness
man came by our house one day while I was working outside. (I
have always said, If they come around while I am on the outside,
I will not run into the house to avoid them. I am not ashamed
or afraid to meet any of them.) As he came up, he introduced himself,
and I likewise introduced myself to him. Then I said, Now before
you even start, I know what you believe, because I have in my
bookcase some of the literature that was put out by Judge Rutherford
years ago. He asked, Did you know him? No, but I sat and listened
to him. I began to review some of the things that they believe,
then I began to tell him some of the things that I believe and
he sat and listened. He was a young man, and I treated him as
I would want to be treated. I said to him, I will never walk away
from any of you, because, if I do not know enough about the Bible
to stand here and talk, then I would be ashamed of myself as a
Christian. God did not call you and save you just to leave you
ignorant of the true revelation of His word. Somewhere along the
line He is going to require you to begin to learn something about
why you are here, what you believe and why you believe it? Are
you sure that what you believe is truth? Can you go into the Bible
and vindicate it? The Bible many times, is also like going through
a huge forest: If you do not know your direction, you do not know
where you will wind up. On the other hand, if you begin to develop
a picture in your mind of what your faith is based upon, what
it constitutes and what your end picture is going to be, then
you will begin to understand how to read certain scriptures that
confuse so many. True revelation of God’s word is a precious
thing: Only when you know the truth, can you have that perfect
peace in your inner being. As long as you have unanswered questions,
you will always be subject to a certain knawing sensation inwardly.
Therefore because we are seen and heard on the Worldwide Web,
and because we have colleges and universities hooked on, and probably
many wondering, What kind of people are those of Faith assembly
Church, I want to say, Well, as I have said many other times,
we are not like the Waco Texas Cult you have heard of and read
about: We are not people that desire to harm anyone anywhere.
We have no high explosives stockpiled, waiting to blow up the
White House or anything. We are true, genuine, Bible believing
Christians. We believe what the Bible says, regardless of whether
the president likes it, and whether the mayor likes it, we believe
it like the early Church in the book of Acts believed it. They
did not have the New Testament teachings written into a book like
we do today, but they had a true revelation of the things Jesus
taught; and as God moved upon them, some of them were led to record
what they believed, so that future generations would have something
to align their lives with. Much of what was written in the Epistles,
was written to correct error in the assemblies where antichrist
teachings had drawn some away from the truth, but regardless of
why it was written, we are privileged to have it at our disposal;
and God has a ministry that is ordained to preach it the correct
way: even the Old Testament scriptures that present types and
shadows of things to come. Yes, we believe what the Bible says.
We believe this Bible teaches that Jesus Christ who came upon
this earth two thousand years ago, right on schedule according
to the will and purpose of God the Creator, and was crucified
because of His teaching, is coming the second time right on schedule;
but only the great Creator Himself knows the exact time. The people
of the world we live in today are not ready for His return. In
fact, most of them do not even want Him to return to earth. As
proof of that, the Bible says, (and these are the words of Jesus,
found in Luke 18:8.) “Nevertheless
when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?”
He is not going to find many with very much faith. The 19th
chapter of the book of Revelation,
plainly tells you that when the heavens open and Jesus is seen
coming to earth with that great white linen robed army of His,
the kings and the beast and all the men of the earth are gathered
together to make war against Him. That is why I say to all of
you of atheism and such, You are going to be in that crowd and
you will not be given another chance to believe the word of God
and be saved. You may boast of your weapons of high technology
and such, but none of that is going to be worth a dime to you
in that day. Why? Because, out of His mouth goes a sharp two edged
sword, (The word of death to the ungodly) and He is going to smite
the earth dwellers who oppose Him. The wicked will be slain with
His word. Death will be instantaneous. It is not going to be propagated
by a disease. Every wicked and ungodly person will be subject
to His wrath. I am thankful to be on His side.
SEVENTH
DAY ADVENTIST BELIEFS
As
we come back to the Seventh Day Adventist belief, I want you to
know that I have the history of it; and I am going to be bringing
it down step by step, but at this time, we are going to deal mainly
with the question, What is man? Is he just a piece of clay out
here walking around? What does the Bible say man is? I am going
into Genesis 2, for that
answer. On this page of their book where they have used many scriptures
to establish what they believe, here is where they start the beginning
of man. Verse 7, “And
the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.”
That is where they start man’s beginning, but that
is not where the Bible starts man’s beginning. It is written
here in their advertisement, but we must ask ourselves, What does
the scriptures say about man’s beginning? That is what we
have to go by. If we are only going to go by these scriptures
they use trying to prove their point, we are going to miss the
true revelation that is written so plainly. I am going to show
you what the Bible says about man’s beginning. Turn back
to Genesis 1:26. Right
here, is where we find man in his original beginning. “And
God said, Let us make man in our image, (a spirit being,
without a tangible body) after
our likeness.” There is nothing said of how He formed
him out of the dust of the earth, because this was long before
the flesh part came into the picture. This creation of the man
as a spirit being took place on that sixth creative day that you
read of in Genesis 1. (Only
a spirit being could be in the image and likeness of God, because
that is what God is, a sovereign SPIRIT. He has no visible body.
Those six creative days were not days of twenty four hours as
some believe. I will dispute that with any doctor of divinity
or anyone else who wants to try to push that twenty four hour
day idea. There are a lot of educated religionists today, that
have a traditional belief in their mind, and will say, Well that
is what the Bible says. Yes it does say day, but are you open
to any further understanding of how God looked at time? Let us
hear what the apostle peter wrote, concerning days with God; and
he went so far as to say, Don’t be ignorant about this!
Listen, (2 Pet 3:8 ) ‘But,
beloved, be not ignorant
of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day.” Why do you
suppose God led Peter to say that?” It was to give a clue
to those who are led by the Spirit, so they could understand what
terminology like that means, because at the end of that sixth
day when He had already created this man in His image and likeness,
God observed a day of rest. I want you to know, God
is not a person, as some are so prone to believe. I expect
that to give some people something to scratch their head about,
but they need to face the reality of what the scriptures really
do say. He is not a person, because when you look up the description
of a person, it is an object that has a form, it has a shape,
it is tangible. On the other hand, God is invisible, He is not
tangible, because He is SPIRIT. He is not composed of anything
that is matter. He is a Spirit being; and the only body He ever
dwelt in, except theophany bodies momentarily, was the body of
His only begotten Son Jesus. God is not limited to one spot in
space, His presence fills the universe, because He is a supreme
Spirit being, a life giving Spirit . He is all wisdom, He is omnipresent,
meaning everywhere. He is omnipotent, all powerful. Omniscient,
because He knows everything, He knows the past, He knows the future,
He does not live in the past, and He is not living in the future,
because everything else that has life got that life from Him.
He dwells, not
lives, among all of His creation, and He dwells IN
those who have answered the call to this great salvation plan
and have surrendered their lives to Him to fulfill His purpose
in them. He knows everything from the beginning to the end. That
is God. He needs no help with anything, so who or what is God
talking about here when He says, Let us make man in our image?
The Seventh Day Adventists believe in a trinity, so naturally
they have Jesus in on the creation of all things; and literally,
Jesus was not in the picture at all until two thousand years ago,
except in the mind of the Creator. I ask you, Why do the Seventh
Day Adventist people rebuke the Catholic Church for believing
in a trinity, when they themselves believe in it? My point is,
Only that which the Bible will vindicate, should be adhered to
as fact. I am not pointing my finger at any individual person
that is a Seventh Day Adventist: I am pointing my finger at the
things they uphold as being the cardinal truth they base salvation
on. You cannot do that. I am going to go slow with this, because
I want all of you to be able to understand my points. When God
said, Let us, (Genesis 1:26)
I want you to know first of all that Jesus was not standing there,
but there were spirit beings present that God was going to make
man in the image of, or more properly, in the likeness of, because
there were no tangible beings in that picture. There was nothing
else present, other than the angelic beings. No matter how you
want to look at it, angelic beings were somewhere in the process
of time, created by God to assist Him. Not that a sovereign Spirit
has to have help, but that is how God chose to do things. They
had to have been created back in a prehistoric era, because all
the angelic beings back then, that were actually created to assist
God and to serve Him, were put on earth in that prehistoric hour
to be tested. They were tested and some of them failed. That is
why it says in (Jude 1:6),
concerning the angels that kept not their first estate, that they
are chained in darkness, and also in
(2 Pet 2:4), we
find this, “For if God spared
not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered
them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment,”
which actually shows us that some of the angels sinned
and God separated them from the righteous angels. Jude and Peter
both wrote the same thing. The angels were not created in our
beginning: they were already here; and that is what God created
us in the likeness of, because they are spirit beings. I know
many people reject this truth, but when man was created on the
sixth day of creation, he was created as a spirit being only:
no flesh was involved in that creative act. Those righteous angels
that God was speaking collectively to concerning the creation
of man, were spirit beings that the man was created in the image
and likeness of, and God being a super Spirit being Himself, He
could say, Let us make man in our image. You find in the scriptures,
that man is made a little lower than the angels. That is what
it says in the Psalms,
and also in Hebrews, speaking
of man in general, and of Jesus. God crowned him with glory and
honor and set him over the works of His Hands, which is His earth.
Yes saints, Adam was given dominion over all that God had created
upon the earth, but let us look at man in that original beginning,
in Genesis 1:26. In His
image we see there, and God is a Spirit, so man must come from
that which is God, a Spirit. God took of Himself, and once He
separated that from His own being, He gave that individual, we
will say, a separate identity and called it man. Then we see the
word likeness. Well God is all wisdom, so we have to believe He
made the man in a little resemblance of that. He gave him a certain
wisdom. He gave him knowledge, in which is the five senses, see,
hear, taste, smell and feel. You can say, But that is in the flesh.
No that is not in the flesh, because, when the spirit leaves that
body it is dead: you can burn it and it will not utter a sound.
Is that not true? All these senses and attributes that point to
your individuality, is what helps make up your image and likeness
of God. You were actually made to be a miniature god on this planet.
I want to say this to the Seventh Day Adventist person, When God,
on that sixth creative day, made man, he was the last thing that
was made, but he was made a spirit being, without a tangible body.
Incorporated in the knowledge He imputed into the man, was a capacity
of knowing and understanding the commission God gave him. God
said, Be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth. He did not
say that to Adam when He put him in flesh, after He (God the Creator)
had rested on the seventh day, which was also a thousand years.
He said it to him when he created him as a spirit being, one thousand
years before he ever even had flesh to dwell in. Now we must let
the Bible talk to us some more. Let us not just take certain things
and paint a huge thing and then put all the rest of what is written
in a closet. I am not pointing my finger at the individual person,
but if anyone is concerned about having eternal life at the end
of this present earthly journey, they want to be sure that they
have absolutely surrendered their faith, their life and will to
God, that God can mold them into the vessel that pleases Him.
GOD’S
DAY OF REST
As
we continue on with this picture we are putting together, the
next day after the sixth creative day, was God’s Sabbath.
Where was man, that spirit being that God had created, while God
rested from all His work? He was not on earth: He was still in
heaven, in the presence of God. Then be sure you catch the point:
God rested the seventh day. I want to say to every one of you,
and I pray you catch what I say: On that seventh day of God’s
creation, which was His Sabbath, there was not a living thing
crawling or walking on this planet. Everything had been spoken
into existence as a spirit life, with whatever potential God had
delegated to it, but there was nothing in a tangible body yet,
because God was still letting this planet warm up, coming out
of that long, dark, Ice Age. It took all that time for this planet
to be slowly brought back into its intended relationship to the
sun, letting the glaciers melt, rivers form, and lakes establish.
By the time God’s Sabbath was over, the planet earth was
finally warmed to the point that plant life was growing and it
was able to function and give off oxygen and all the other things
that physical life can exist in. That is the way you have to look
at it, if you ever intend to understand what is written in this
book (the Bible). That is what the scriptures bring out, if you
will allow it. I realize it is not worded in the words I have
used, but we have to realize that when the man left the presence
of God, so to speak, God had taken of the elements of the earth,
clay, and shaped a body for him to dwell in. Now I ask you this,
as we look at what He shaped for Adam to dwell in, When He shaped
that body of clay, do you think that body looked anything like
the Creator? How could it? The Creator is, and always has been
a Spirit. Yet the Seventh Day Adventist are teaching that this
was the beginning of man. No, I must differ with that: simply
because the beginning of man was in Genesis
1:26-27, long before he ever had a body. He was a spirit
being, he had knowledge, he had certain attributes, but he had
no tangible body. All of those attributes gave him the identity
of what he was going to be. In that makeup, was his soul, because
the soul is what actually makes up his individuality. That is
exactly why some people are born with certain likenesses, and
others are born with other likeness. I am not talking about the
evil side: I am just talking about the natural side of those that
God put here to function and fulfill His purpose. When God saw
that there was not a man to till the earth, (It was not that He
did not know where this spirit man was.) the time had come for
him to be put on this planet, so God formed his human body from
the very soil of the earth. This body was going to bear the image
and likeness of a lot of the other animals. Right? Do not ever
tell me that God is shaped like this or shaped like that: A Spirit
has no shape, so keep in mind as you read Genesis
1:26-27, that image and likeness used there has nothing
to do with flesh. It is the spirit of the man, that is like God.
Can you see that? Then, when you come to Genesis
2:7, there, is when He forms a body for the man. He can
give that body any shape, any likeness He desires to, so when
we actually see man we have to say, He was made just a little
higher than the animal kingdom that would be under him. That makes
common sense to me. With that in mind then, think about the female
counterpart. In many ways you would have to say she is just like
the man, except for the feminine and masculine qualities of their
makeup. The female side of what is referred to as man was also
created in the presence of God, up there in heaven, because, when
He created the one, He created man and female in His image and
likeness, but they were both incorporated into that one body.
Therefore when we follow this all the way through the continuity
of the Bible, there is no such thing, that God just breathed into
him the breath of life and that is all that man is. If that is
all you can see there in the first two chapters of Genesis, I
would have to say this, You are saying that God Himself is nothing
but a puff of breath, because it plainly tells us the man was
created in the image of God. Let us read that again: This is important
to a proper revelation. ( Gen
1:27) “So God created man in
His own image, in the image of God created He him; male
and female created He them.” If you only look at
man as what you see walking around out there, then tell me how
he is like God, because we cannot see God walking around in a
tangible form. Far too many people who profess to be Christians,
have a tendency to think of God as a person. Therefore I will
say again and again, as many times as you need to hear it, GOD
IS A SOVEREIGN SPIRIT: He is not a person. He is in the midst
of all of His creation. In other words His presence fills the
universe. He created another spirit being and called him man.
Then after He rested on the seventh day of creation, He formed
a body for that spirit to dwell in, a body that would have physical
contact with all the animal kingdom He had created, and He gave
the man dominion over all of that, so when you read Gen
2:7, you have to allow your spiritual eyes to see more
than just the actual words of that verse alone. Notice,
“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became
a living soul. (Gen 2:8) And the LORD God planted a garden eastward
in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed. That
is when the man began to function as a person, able to express
feelings, emotions and so forth, but I must stress the fact, that
when the breath of life leaves this body of clay, the spirit,
which actually is the person, does not just cease to exist: it
returns to its former estate, a spirit being without a body of
flesh, abiding either in the paradise of God, or in hell, crying
out for a drop of water to cool that burning sensation of torment.
Surely you do not think Jesus spoke those words of (Luke
16:22-24) just to be talking: They absolutely give you
a preview of where a spirit being goes, once it leaves the human
body it has resided in. “And
it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the
angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
(Luke 16:23) Notice now, And
in hell he (the
unbelieving rich man) lift up
his eyes, being in torments,
and seeth Abraham afar
off, and Lazarus
in his bosom. (Luke 16:24) And he cried and said, Father
Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip
the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for
I am tormented in this
flame. Does that sound like the spirit and soul
of man just ceases to exist when it leaves the body of clay? It
is foolish, to refer to yourself as a believer of the Bible, the
Word of God, and then just disregard scripture that is so essential
to a proper revelation. You can build a doctrine on just about
any thought you may have, but will the word of God vindicate it?
I absolutely assure you, that God did not just breathe oxygen
into a piece of clay and call it man: (just a figure of speech
of course) What He did was place the man He had created in that
body of clay, because, until that time, that spirit being He had
created was still up there with Him, without the ability to fulfill
the commission given him, to be fruitful and multiply. When He
placed that spirit in a body, right then, is when his soul, which
is part of the spirit, became active. The soul and the spirit
are inseparable in humanity, because the soul part of the spirit
of man is what experiences emotions, feelings, conviction and
so forth. That is why I say they are inseparable. We have a lot
of people today, that take that and want to run wild with it.
Well when you start doing that, getting so technical about it,
wanting to know exactly, what part of the spirit is your soul,
you are doing it with a wrong motive. Why would anyone have such
an interest? You cannot see the spirit, so I am saying, When God
took that little vessel of clay, however long He was in the process
of molding it, and placed the spirit of life in it, He knew exactly
what He had in mind. When it says He breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life, that is just an expression to convey a truth.
God has no hands; and if He did, a spirit cannot be handled with
hands, so what better way is there to express what God did, to
get the spirit of life into that body of clay? He imputed that
spirit life into that body of clay and then the soul incorporated
in that spirit that came from God, became alive in its earthly
surroundings. Right then, is when the soul with all the senses
became earth oriented. I do not believe Adam, when he awakened,
said, Well where am I now? He knew exactly where he was. He knew
that he had been created for that purpose and to that function,
because God gave him his commission while he was still just a
spirit being, without an earthly body to carry it out.
KNOWING
WHAT BELONGS WHERE
Some
who read the first two chapters of Genesis, never really get the
process of creation straight in their mind. They will say, Adam
was the last thing God created, just leaving it that the entire
animal kingdom was walking and crawling around on earth before
the man was created to rule over them. Well that is right as far
as it goes, but when you realize that Adam was the first living
thing that began to walk on this earth after Genesis
1:2, you have to admit that the initial creation did not
manifest any of those living creatures upon earth until after
God took his day of rest and then began to bring them forth in
literal bodies, Adam being the first to receive a body. After
God molded a body for Adam He then said, It is not good that man
should dwell alone. One man, on what looked like an empty earth,
with a lot of foliage and stuff growing, but not another moving
thing anywhere, and then, is when God said, I will make him a
help mate. He started making bodies for all the animals, the fowl
and all; and I do not believe He did all of that in a day of twenty
four hours. There was time involved. Not that it had to be, but
the point is, you do not hurry God. He has a plan, He has a purpose;
and He has plenty of time, so let us just let Him carry it out
His way. Well He created all the other animals, from the least
worm and on, (All these worms are important in God’s plan.)
but none of them were suitable for a help mate for Adam. As for
the worms, some people say, Well I don’t see any good in
any of them. You ought to study a little about agriculture: then
you would see a benefit of having them around. Every worm out
there functions for a certain purpose. There is microscopic life
out there in that soil, and it has to be there. If you did not
have microscopic life, which is life that you cannot even see,
the soil would not be in any shape to grow plant life in. It is
out there for a purpose: In this present phase, earth has been
inhabited for six thousand years, so if it were not for that microscopic
life in the soil there would be so much rubbish left over from
all those years, you could not get through it. That is exactly
why last years leaf crop is soon decayed and returned right back
to mother earth. That is the cycle God has ordained. The microscopic
life as well as all the worms, all have a part to play in that
soil recovery process. There is no need for us to dwell on that,
so let us continue on. I can read these various scriptures that
the Seventh Day Adventist have put out here, which causes them
to say, What is the spirit that returns to God at death? The body
without the spirit, (They have it breath.) is dead. They have
James 2:26, the spirit
of God, the breath which God gave him is in the nostrils. Brothers
and sisters, that is only when I am breathing oxygen. If you did
not have that oxygen, you would not last long, but it is the spirit
of life in you that causes your body to take in this oxygen. I
pray you everyone realize that. I only have an eighth grade education,
but I have sense enough to know this, Oxygen in this earthly life,
is as important to this body in the renewing of itself, as you
eating a piece of bread and digesting it; and it goes to help
rebuild the elements of the flesh. Really though, my point is
this, God did not just breathe oxygen into Adam’s nostrils
to cause him to become a living soul. That is just an expression
to call attention to the fact that God imputed life into that
body of clay. I believe all of you sitting here know that already.
With what we have said in mind, let us go on with this. The question
is, What is the soul? They give this answer, that a soul is a
living being. A soul is always a combination of two things: body
plus breath. Well now I have to say, Breath is not a spirit. How
many realize that? When you say that is what you are, then you
just as well tell me that God is nothing but a puff of air, because
man was made in His image and likeness. I am not degrading, but
the point is, When they take that approach, they are just trying
to prove their side of the argument, when the truth is, The spirit
is life itself, and the Bible is full of proof of that, but not
one verse of those scriptures have they used. Well I am going
to use scripture. I would like to ask and answer, Where did the
Seventh Day Adventists start? What was its origin? Back in 1800
and something, there was a man named William Miller, a Baptist
preacher, that I suppose we would have to say dates this present
movement. Back then, the denominations, whether Baptist, Methodist,
Presbyterian, Lutheran, or any other of them, that for centuries
never taught the second coming of Christ. When they came through
the long Dark Ages of Catholicism, and then the Reformation started,
man had lost his knowledge of practically everything in the Bible
pertaining to the first advent of Jesus the Christ, as well as
His second advent. They were all taken up in rituals and ceremonies
of various sorts. In fact, there was a time when it was more important
for thousands of people to keep the traditions and just look at
certain scriptures and say, Nobody understands: we are not supposed
to understand: we are supposed to believe what the church teaches.
Saints: Christianity did not start out with that kind of outlook.
Christianity started with every individual having an experience,
a personal experience with Jesus Christ, as ordained according
to the grace of God. They had that individual understanding of
how that grace was imparted to them through faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, the fact that He had given His life to that purpose.
That is the way we must look at it. Well coming into the middle
of the 1800's, in 1831 to 1844, William Miller a Baptist preacher
who had been a former army captain in the war of 1812, came into
prominence. He launched the great second advent awakening. The
word advent means coming. There was a first advent, the coming
of Christ the first time. The second advent is pointing to a second
coming. He launched the second advent. It was an awakening which
eventually spread throughout most of the Christian world. It went
like a house afire, because denominations prior to that time had
said very little about the coming of Christ. They did not know
what to say: They did not know how to take the scriptures and
really bring it out, that the time was getting close.
“Doctrinally,
Seventh Day Adventists are heirs of the interfaith
Millerite movement of the 1840's.
Although the name Seventh Day Adventist was chosen in
1860, the denomination was not officially organized until May
21, 1863, when the movement included some 125 churches and 3,500
members.”
During
that period of time, others within the movement calculated a specific
date when Christ was going to come. They took a certain scripture
in the book of Daniel, in the
8th chapter. With this, October
22,1844 was approximately when Jesus would appear,
but when He did not appear at that time, some of the followers
fell away in despair. Many of them fell away into disillusionment,
but as a whole they kept on going. A short time later, there was
a young girl in a Methodist church, that had an experience. There
is nothing wrong with an experience, if you know how to handle
it. She was seventeen years of age; and after she had that experience,
they began to take her to different places in the Methodist Church
circle, also the Baptist Church, and so on. In the Advent movement
there was a man by the name of
James. He became an Adventist Baptist, believing in the
second coming of Christ. As these two young people meet, they
take a liking to each other: they fall in love and get married.
As they become engrossed in the Adventist teaching that the second
coming of Christ has to be soon. I hate to read all of this because
it tells how many experiences she had. I want you to know, there
is a real Holy Ghost experience for every true born again child
of God, but as we go along the Christian life, we are required
by God to take a look at what we have experienced, what we have
felt, what is it causing us to look at. Do we know enough about
the Bible to know how to acquaint ourself in the Bible. It is
one thing to say, Oh I had an experience last night, I did this
and did that. That is well and good, but what are you going to
do with it. It has to lead you to something more than just a succession
of experiences. These experiences are not just to be thrown away.
So with this marriage between these two, during the first few
weeks following their marriage, James and Ellen gave earnest study
to a forty six page tract published by a man named Joseph
Bates. This really began to become the cardinal teaching
that formed the Seventh Day Adventist background, where they really
began to push it hard. In this experience, which happened April
3, 1847. Ellen White was shown in a vision, the law of God in
the heavenly sanctuary with a halo of light around the fourth
commandment. That is what the testimony says. I am bringing this
in to give you an outlook toward this, what this vision was, what
was this testimony she saw, and what is it going to lead to? Because,
if you do not know anything about the Bible, and if you do not
know how the God of this Bible looks at certain things, what happened
to them can happen to you or me. If you do not have respect for
the Bible, the devil can blow something up so big you will interpret
it completely out of scriptural continuity, and it becomes a one
track route. That is exactly what happened with them. I am not
saying this to belittle: I am saying it to warn those who would
be wise. It all started with the advent teaching, the soon coming
of Christ, because when time moved into the 19th century,
or 1900 and something, that was right on schedule. That is why
we printed the article dealing with all the prophecies that have
been fulfilled in the last one hundred years. This is the last
days. They were right on schedule, to begin to tell the world
Jesus is coming soon, but they did not know how to take that scripture
in Daniel and interpret it to the right point. Ellen White had
the vision, and when she began to tell it, this immediately turned
them back to Exodus the 20th
chapter: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. I say
this with respect to every human being of the Seventh Day Adventist
movement: I have read their literature. That in itself was enough
to get every Adventist looking at the entire ten commandments.
From there on, it was the Sabbath, and after awhile it became,
According to Leviticus, don’t eat this, don’t eat
that and so forth. All you have to do is go to the internet, you
can get every bit of their belief printed out for you. I am not
saying this to belittle the people, but the time has come, that
Jesus is coming for a Church that is not made up of all kinds
of beliefs, but every member grounded and standing in unity upon
the one true belief. It is people that have been brought out of
that, washed by the water of His word, and made to become one
in Jesus Christ, just like it was in the early age, that will
be ready to meet the Bridegroom when He comes. Ellen White was
a very busy lady. It states that she had, in her years of life,
over two thousand dreams and visions. All this circles around
some parts of the Law, teaching certain laws of Leviticus for
health benefits. I am not going to condemn that, but I will say
this, When you go into some of these God forsaken countries where
they are so poor they do not have a morsel of anything to eat,
how can you teach, Don’t eat this or don’t eat that,
unless you take a truck load of food along to give strength to
your teachings? That is why Paul could say, For God has created
everything to be eaten, if it is eaten with thanksgiving and prayer.
Do not tell me I don’t know what the Law says: I do know
what it says. I also know, that from 1491 when the Israelites
made the exodus out of Egypt, it was in the Sinai wilderness,
there from the mount, that they received these commandments, or
these laws. Those laws were given at a time when the human race
on this earth was pagan, living in total ignorance. They did not
know one day from another. Therefore through this, God was teaching
the natural minded man, that there are certain disciplinary things
He wants the human race to begin to exemplify and subject themselves
to. That is why the children of Israel were the first people to
embrace such eating habits, or values. We have to realize, that
as long as that Law was applicable, God imputed life to that Jewish
person based upon their observance of it. It demanded a lot of
things without variableness. We have to keep in mind though, as
we pick up the epistles that Paul wrote, (which were fourteen
in all in the New Testament, more than all the rest put together.)
That he shows exactly how and where the law applied.
PAUL-CHIEF
APOSTLE TO THE GENTILES
It
was the apostle Paul that showed exactly what place the law had
in the plan of God. Let me use this figure of speech, because
actually, it is just like a document, and he put a stamp on it,
Cancelled. In Rom 3:20
we read this, “Therefore
by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His
sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Rom 3:21 But now
the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being
witnessed by the law and the prophets.” Christ is
the end of the Law for righteousness, which actually means salvation.
Why? Because He fulfilled every type that the Law was pointing
to. The Law was from its beginning to the advent of Christ, applicable
and necessary. However the Jewish race did not even see the types
and things that it was pointing to. Then when the Messiah did
come along to fulfill all the sacrificial things that were offered
there, that was all pointing to Him, did that religious bunch
of Jews even recognize it? They did not. They were still looking
backward to the Law, and the prophets, and holding to the Torah,
which is the first five books of the Bible. As for all their other
prophets, most of them could not have cared less what they had
written. Some did, but most did not. That is why the Jewish nation
is in the shape it is in today. God is gathering dispersed Jews
from far and near and bringing them back to the land of their
forefathers for this end time wrap up: yet the Jehovah Witness
people will tell you that God is not going to regather Israel.
The Seventh Day Adventist teach the same thing. How can they be
so blind? It is every bit right here in their writings. I just
have to ask, What are all those Jews doing back there? I had a
Jehovah Witness say to me one time, But they are not true Jews:
they are all mixed up. I said, Don’t kid yourself: There
might be a lot of them all mixed up, but God knows where that
genealogical line is, what it will take to get them back there;
and He is in the process of getting all back in the land, that
are supposed to be back there to fulfill His purpose. They are
scattered out there among the human race and He is going to bring
them back, just as sure as you are sitting there. With this in
mind let me say this, We are living in a day and hour after God
has sent us a man to get our mind out of the tangled web it has
been caught in. He was not a religious leader like the world would
expect, a big doctor of divinity and well known historian, that
would come on the scene and teach us. No, but when the time was
right in the twentieth century, God sent a man to fulfill a scripture
of prophecy, and not one doctor of divinity in all the denominations
will verify it, or in any way confirm that he was such a man.
They are all just like the Jews of old: When God sent His Malachi
4, prophet in the days before Jesus began His ministry:
did they believe it? They did not. They thought John was a very
crude heretic. That is why the public officials were not long
in having him arrested and put in jail, then beheaded. Basically
the Gentile church world of today, has done to the Malachi
4, prophet, exactly what the Judaistic leaders did back
then, except for the way he was killed. A drunk killed him in
an automobile crash, but Gentile church leaders have crucified
the image of this man, his name and his ministry. No wonder one
of the last messages Bro. Branham preached was, “I
Indict This Generation,”
for crucifying, not of the flesh, but the revelation of Jesus
Christ. When God had given them something to see, hear and believe,
they just closed their eyes to it and found fault. All through
this page I have been reading from in this little book that was
given to me, they use all the scriptures that speak about the
body dying, but to them there is no hell, and the spirit does
not go anywhere except back to God that gave it. Brothers and
sisters: How are we going to reconcile that to what Jesus said?
Turn with me to Luke 16; and
let us read the very words He spoke.
FACING
REALITY - SUFFERING TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES
One
day when Jesus was eating at the table of one of the chief Pharisees
on the Sabbath, some of that bunch of Judaistic Jews watched every
move He made; and when He healed a man on the Sabbath they really
came down on Him, but He began to speak to them in parables and
when He reached a certain point He said, (verse
19) “There was a
certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen,
and fared sumptuously every day. (We have a lot of them
all around us. We have thousands that do not believe in life after
death in any way. They are taught that in schools, and all of
that comes with the spirit of atheism that is engulfing our society
at large.) And there was a certain
beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,
And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich
man’s table: (That is logical.) moreover
the dogs came and licked his sores. (Sure, this is a parable,
but it is not a tale to deceive anyone: it expresses a truth.)
And it came to pass, that the
beggar died, (According to the Adventists, his spirit just
went back to God, not being conscious of anything.) and
was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: (Look
at that: he was carried by the angels. They did not just carry
his body out there and bury it: human beings buried his body,
but the angels took his spirit and escorted it into the presence
of Abraham.) the rich man also
died, and was buried; (His body was placed in the ground
also. Right? Listen to these next words though.) And
in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment (Where
is that? The Seventh Day Adventist believe it does not exist anywhere
after death, that all of this is just a myth. No saints, that
life remains in existence, but cannot be seen by the natural eye;
and before Christ arose from the dead, the spirits of both the
wicked and the righteous existed in a place in the heart of this
earth called hell. It was referred to as torment, or Hades, where
the wicked went, but the part of hell referred to as paradise,
is where the righteous spirits rested. Notice.) he
lift up his eyes, (Well then, there is no wisdom nor device
in the grave, the dead know nothing, we are talking about the
body, but in hell he lift up his eyes, so that goes to show that
the five senses are not parts of the body: they are parts of the
soul, see, hear, taste, smell and feel, because the spirit of
that rich man was in torment. He could still see, and he sure
could feel.) being in torments,
(the body was not in torment, it was just rotting away,
but the inner person, or spirit and soul was in torment.) and
seeth Abraham afar off, (That is in another part, so listen
carefully, because we know Abraham was not in heaven: he was in
another part of hell called paradise. Hell, at that time, was
as I just stated, a place in the earth which consists both of
torment and paradise. That is why before Christ died on the cross,
no dead person, no matter how righteous they were, went to heaven,
because the atonement had not paid for that. The righteous spirit
went to the paradise part of hell; and the wicked went to the
torment part of hell, so the rich man was in hell. Hell was a
place of imprisonment of the spirits. We will back that up with
the writing of St. Peter, a little later. That is why Christ went
down into the lower parts of the earth when He left His body of
clay, which Paul picked up in Ephesians
4, and He (Christ) preached to the imprisoned spirits.)
and Lazarus in his bosom. (So
Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham, in a place called paradise.
Which was not in heaven, at that time.) And
he (the rich man) cried
and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus,
that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue;
(Now this man was very conscious of his surroundings, and
where was he? His body was laying in a grave not saying a word,
laying out there somewhere in a cave or some place of burial,
but this which is crying out to Abraham, is that spirit man that
incorporates the soul, and he feels the flames, the misery, but
he can see with his sense of sight, the old man he kicked many
times as he stepped out the door. Look at him now, resting in
the arms of Abraham. Oh yes! Let him dip the tip of his finger
in water and cool my tongue. No, the natural tongue in the grave
is decaying, that is what we have to realize. There is no wisdom
nor device in the grave, the dead know nothing, they do not even
think, but wherever that soul is, in the spirit, there is where
the knowledge and conscience and all the senses are.) for
I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember
that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise
Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.”
Saints: To me that is very clear. It can be looked upon
as a testimony, that the spirit of the righteous is in bliss,
but the spirit of the bad one is in torment. Therefore you cannot
say, as the Seventh Day Adventist say, that there is no wisdom
nor device in the grave and call that the end of the story. The
dead body out there in the grave knows nothing, but that which
dwelt in it is still very aware of circumstances. That is just
another case where they use the scriptures wrong. It is true,
the body does not know a thing, but that piece of clay has never
known anything. That in itself, has nothing whatsoever to do with
how and where the departed spirit which is life, is. In that body,
is how the spirit man which is made in the image of God, is able
to function in his earthly surroundings. Notice now,“And
beside all this, between us and you (This is Abraham talking
back to him.) there is a great
gulf fixed: (It is not a gulf between heaven and hell,
it is a separation between those two parts of hell where imprisoned
spirits of the Old Testament era were kept, a place for the righteous
and a place for the wicked.) so
that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can
they pass to us, that would come from thence. Then he said, I
pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him (Lazarus)
to my father’s house: For
I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they
also come into this place of torment. (Scripturally, this
is proof that there is a place called hell, which is a place of
suffering for the wicked.) Abraham
saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear
them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them
from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they
hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded,
though one rose from the dead.” At this point, I
want to say something in this light. We just received a large
manuscript from a man in Phoenix, claiming he knew Bro. Branham
from way, way back. He went through all the tapes, messages and
books, where he has taken statements from Bro. Branham’s
messages and tried to set forth a true vindicated revelation that
Bro. Branham is coming back from the dead to fulfill the rest
of the third pull; and that he is going to preach to the Bride
saints and give them the revelation of the seven thunders for
their final departure from this earth. I want to say at this time,
and I say it with all respect to everyone that has ever really
believed in Bro. Branham, that he was God’s messenger to
this age, that if Jesus said here, that those five brother would
never have believed though one came back from the dead, this movement
would not get better if Bro. Branham did come back from the dead,
because they are already locked up, and have been for almost thirty
eight years. No saints, God is not sending Bro. Branham back to
straighten up this terribly mixed up movement that claims to be
following his message. When God took him off the scene, it caught
a lot of those people with a spiritual attitude that had not let
them know where they were at that time; and they still do not
know where they are. They saw a man, a very humble man of God;
and as long as they thought that man was going to be with them,
what did they care whether they learned anything or not, just
so they could follow the man. If he said jump, they would just
jump. If he said pray, then they prayed, or sing, they would sing,
but when God took the man out of their vision, it was like he
had brought them to a big river and taken the bridge away. I hope
you understand my point. The reason I say this, and please listen
carefully how I say it, The Bride of Jesus Christ had better begin
to have an ear to hear and an eye to see the truth that is laid
out before them. This goes beyond memorizing what you hear, because
you have to know how it is to be believed, how it is to be applied
in the heart and in the every day walk of life, because God is
going to have a little Church walking on the face of this earth,
with every member perfectly in accord. They are going to see eye
to eye and they are going to be in perfect agreement scripturally.
That little Bride of Christ is going to put that old spirit of
tradition to shame. Therefore if we do not wake up and get our
revelation straightened out and understood, we are going to be
just like a lot of other people that do not understand the Bible
and just look for the nicest element of human flesh they can get
behind and follow. Scripturally they will not know north from
south, or east from west. They are going to follow that flesh,
because that is all they know to follow. We have to have the Holy
Spirit inside us, in order to get our lives straightened out.
That Holy Spirit inside of us is what is going to teach us and
enable us to take on the mind of Christ. That takes you right
back to Romans 8:14 “
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons
of God.” He will teach you and show you things to
come. He will bring to your remembrance everything that has been
written in the Bible to benefit true believers. He will take every
mystery out of it and let you see the true picture. For as many
as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. That
is pure and simple. If it was that way in the beginning, it is
going to be that way in the end. I have to say, The little Bride
of Christ, with the ministry God has put among them, are going
to be a living testimony of the Spirit of God, and the revelation
of truth. They are going to walk hand in hand, in perfect agreement,
and there is going to be a joy in their hearts that few Gentiles
have ever known.
DREAM
AND TESTIMOY
I
have something here, and I hope you do not think I am doing this
to exalt anyone. There is a young lady here, which my grandson
Chris met several months ago. She was with the Seventh Day Adventist,
because that is the way her parents had brought her up, especially
her father. I do not say this to belittle anyone, but to make
you aware of something. It will go on the tape for all to hear.
In fact, if her father would hear this tape, I want him to know
that I say these things with proper respect. When the young lady
began to come here with Christ, I knew she was an Adventist, and
that she had been raised from a child up in the Adventist teaching.
Later, for three Saturday’s over a period of time, she came
and spent about two hours each time asking me questions, for me
to explain certain things. She would ask me this question, When
we die, what happens to the real you? I explained to her the best
I knew how. I referred her to Psalms
16:10, where Jesus went into hell and preached to the imprisoned
spirits. I said to her, If there is no part of the being that
is a spirit that goes somewhere, then what did Jesus go into hell
to preach to? I prayed all along, Lord, help this young woman
understand what we are trying to explain. Well this is a testimony
of how God dealt with her: She had a dream, and this is what she
told me.
THE
DREAM
“I
awoke on Friday morning around 2:30 out of a scary dream February
14th. I was feeling tormented and afraid. A voice was
saying to me, (It
was the devil.) “I have
you now Jana, I’ve got you.” (You
know saints, that is the way the devil has us when we are in scriptural
ignorance, no matter whether you are a Catholic, a Methodist,
or what. I know a lot of people that do not even believe in the
second coming of Christ: They are Nazarene and Pilgrim Holiness.
You cannot even preach the second coming of Christ to them. They
believe in holiness: They will not wear this, they will not wear
that, they will not do this, and they will not do that, but try
to talk to them about the soon coming of Christ, and you would
just as well try to sell them a brand new fifty thousand dollar
car sight unseen. They are not interested in anything like that.
How many understand what I am trying to say? You have to have
God dealing in your life, or you are never going to go any further
than what you were raised up to believe, whether a Catholic or
what.) I was very disoriented
and confused. The voice was very evil and wicked sounding. It
was as if there were someone right beside me. It sent chills through
me. I suddenly fell back asleep. I again began to dream.
(Here is where God began to change the picture.) I
saw myself lying there with the blanket wrapped around me just
like I fell asleep earlier that night. In the dream I was above,
looking down on myself lying on the couch. (Here, is
the real person.) I then heard
a voice saying, “This is you.” I looked on the floor
beside the couch and my Bible was lying there beside me. I had
been reading it before I went to sleep and laid it there. I saw
a hand very strongly flipping through the pages as if it were
in fast motion. Then the Bible fell open to a certain page and
the hand pointed to a specific chapter and verse. It was moving
so fast I could not tell which chapter or verse. Though I did
not remember which book of the Bible it was pointing to, I awakened
in the dream, (Notice, she awakened in the dream.)
and Corinthians was going through
my mind. A voice said, “Don’t forget the Bible.”
I then felt my spirit leaving my body. It raised up out of my
body and knelt beside the couch where I was lying. (
This goes to show, that there is another part of you other than
just the body of clay? There really is.) I
could now see two images of myself, the one lying down and the
other kneeling beside it. The image that was kneeling on the floor
was transparent. I could see through it. (Sure you
can see through it: it is a spirit.) I
could still feel my body lying on the couch but I could not move.
It was as if I were paralyzed. My spirit was kneeling down praying
and crying with its hands folded. I could feel its hair lying
on me. I looked on the floor at the Bible again, and then looked
back at myself on the couch. My spirit then stood back up and
entered my body again. I saw the words Holy
Bible ,in very large size and heard a voice saying, “This
is important, believe it, the Bible is beside you on the floor,
please do not forget about it: you left it beside you, and it
is the truth.” The pages began to flip faster and faster
until it was a blur.
The
scene changed, and I was standing in my room. (This
is all in a dream.) I could
hear Chris reading out of the Bible. He said my name and told
me to come in and sit beside him. I walked into the room and he
was sitting on the couch and looked very excited. Then I saw the
Bible close up again. I read the words Holy Bible. Chris began
trying to explain something to me, saying he understands something
he was confused about before. He was being very serious about
what he was saying. He began telling me about God and that I have
to trust and believe in what He says in His word. The Bible then
began to flip to certain pages on its own. A voice told Chris
not to forget the Bible. Chris said that his grandpa was preaching
about the truth and that he understood it. I began to feel very
comforted and peaceful and happy and excited. I heard a voice
say “What you are hearing is the truth, go to church and
believe.” (Now here is another part I will read
before we stop.) The scene
changed again and I was in the church I used to go to. (Listen
to this. This is how God looks upon these old religious ideas.)
I could see some of the people
that went to the church with me. I could hear crying from everywhere.
They were saying they needed help. The people looked old and miserable.
Some looked as if they were dead. Their bodies were all beaten
and scratched up, so were their clothes. Their skin looked burned.
I felt very afraid. I could see the outside of the church and
it looked abandoned. (This is a picture of the old
denominations, they are dead.) The
windows were all broken out and the doors were locked.”
The
doors to those old systems are locked to a true believer, because
there is no Holy Spirit revelation that is going to lead you back
to those old systems. How many understand that? I did not read
that to glorify any person’s flesh, but God knew exactly
how to deal with the inner being of a person that wanted to know
truth. I just have to say, I am glad God is still a God that knows
how to deal with your spirit and soul. Therefore in this day and
hour we are living in, let us not say, Well I am this, or I am
that. You are either a child of God filled with the Holy Spirit,
and a revelation of truth and understanding of what God wants
your life to be, or you are just another natural minded human
being walking on the face of this earth, wandering around like
animals that are lost, knowing not where you are going. The true
and living God is a God that is going to be very real and near
to us as we choose to walk with Him in a true revelation of His
word. He is not finished giving dreams: He knows exactly the state
of your mind and heart; and He knows exactly how to speak to you,
to get you to understand what He wants you to do and how He wants
you to walk from now on. I want to say also, I am not picking
out any Seventh Day Adventist to belittle or make fun of them.
Neither the Jehovah Witness. The Jehovah Witness people for the
past number of years, has thought that by believing in the Millennium
and the second coming of Christ, this makes a believer out of
them. Jehovah Witness: Listen to me! If you do not open your eyes
and read this Bible right, you can go straight to hell believing
in the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ, because you have bypassed
the scriptures that tell you, You must be born again.
HIS
EXPERIENCE - THEN SOME ADVICE
Several
years ago, a Jehovah Witness man stopped by our house, and started
out with this and that. I plainly said to him, Sir: I know what
you believe: I believe in the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ
also. I believe in the second coming of Christ, but you Jehovah
Witness’ do not do what the scriptures say you must do.
You must be born again. When I said that, it made him angry and
he said, Oh, I know what you believe, and he took his briefcase,
and back to the car he went. If you talk to them like the Christians
in the book of Acts, that is the response you get from them. Do
you know what I mean? Christians: Listen to me: you do not have
to run and hide when they come to your house. Take a little time
and learn something that you can say back to them. You do not
need to be insulting, if you speak to them of what you believe
and stand for. If you have just been sitting around, going to
church and going through the motions, and you do not have anything
you can say to those who peddle what they believe door to door,
then maybe you do need to go somewhere and hide, because they
know more than you know. If you do know what is written in the
Bible you carry to church, you have a right to use it, so just
present the truth to them and leave the rest in the hands of God.
My point is, I do not attack a Catholic, a Jehovah Witness, a
Seventh Day Adventist, or any other denomination any more than
a Methodist or Church of Christ or whatever. There are thousands
of denominational people around us that have religion, but they
do not have Holy Ghost salvation, and a knowledge of the plan
of God. They do not know what a genuine Holy Ghost, truth believing
person knows: They have a traditional belief in the head and they
are ready to get very angry, argue, and even insult you if you
do not allow them to present their entire spiel. If you cannot
open your mind to the scriptures, to see what various writings
apply to, and how they are beneficial to your life, then you do
not know what you ought to know. God expects bride saints to grow
in the stature of Jesus Christ the Bridegroom, and be ready to
give an account of what you believe and why? That does not mean
every person should be able to explain every scripture, but you
should have some revelation that causes you to stand where you
stand. As we continue on, let us open our Bibles to the 115th
Psalm. I said earlier, when I referred to the article I
have here, that the Seventh Day Adventist use every scripture
in the Bible that speaks on how the dead know nothing, the dead
don’t do this, and there is no wisdom nor device in the
grave, and so forth. They try their best to bring out the idea
that when you die, that is it, that there is no consciousness
or memory of existing anywhere else. They deny the fact that if
you are righteous, you die and go to heaven, or if you are wicked,
you go to hell. They say it does not exist. But I am going to
give you the other side of the Bible that they don’t even
look at. Here is a scripture they use, the 115th
Psalm, the 17th verse. Who wrote these words?
David wrote them and said in the 17th
verse, “The dead
praise not the Lord, (The Adventist say, Amen, that is
right.) neither any that go down
into silence.”Meaning death. Now I ask you, Is that
as far as we are going to go with the subject? If you take all
those verses that deal with death, that it is the end of the flesh,
so there is no wisdom nor device in the grave, and the dead body
knows nothing, and you go no further, then you are being robbed.
Any person who only feeds on one line of thought, and they get
every scripture out of the Bible to justify that thought, that
person does not have Holy Ghost salvation: He or she only has
religion. I have to say again, You do not have salvation, you
only have religion. You can take that negative part of the Bible,
and you can memorize it, quote it word for word and impress a
lot of people, but you do not have eternal life. If that is all
you see: you only have religion. It is time to wake up, if you
are ever going to. I have had good Catholic neighbors for years:
I have worked for them, and they have worked for me. There is
nothing wrong with the person: it is the religion that holds the
mind and the spirit of the person, and keeps it locked up. If
a person never has a hunger for anything more than what they have,
that person just remains locked up spiritually speaking. Most
every prisoner has a hunger to get out of confinement, but there
are a lot of people shut up in the various denominations, that
are not hungry; they are contented with what they have. They sit
in there and go through the rituals and ceremonies and traditional
programs and say, I believe what this says, I believe what that
says, but that is not salvation: that is just religion and God
will have no part of it. Do you understand my point? If you are
like that, God did not put you there: the devil did it. When he
sees something in your life that lets him know you do not have
a spiritual attitude about you, and that you have no desire to
learn truth and compare different things of the scriptures, nine
times out of ten, he can derail you somewhere, because it is just
like throwing the switch on a railroad track and diverting the
train from the main line. As for where we go when death takes
us from the scene, we looked at Psalm
115, so now let us look at what David said in,
(Psalm 16, verses 9-10) “Therefore
my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall
rest in hope. (10) For
thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou
suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” The same
man, David, wrote both of them. The Adventist say there is no
memory after death, there is no conscience, just your spirit goes
back to God, and your body goes into the ground, but they have
not considered the whole picture. They have interpreted it to
suit their ideas, but the same David that said what he did in
the 115th Psalm,
also said something in the 16th
Psalm, 9th and 10th verses. Let us
look at that.
DAVID’S
HOPE
We
will read two verses in the 16th
Psalm, verses 9-10, which reveal the hope David held in
his heart. He was looking at the hour when he knows he is going
to be dead and in hell. Keep in mind, that in the Old Testament,
when the person died, the righteous did not go to heaven because
the perfect sacrifice had not yet been offered for atonement.
As we said earlier, He went to a place in hell in the heart of
the earth called paradise. The wicked went to hell also, but in
another place called torment. That is where Jesus, in the 16th
chapter of Luke, told about. Here, David was talking about
the same place Jesus spoke of in the parable, saying,
“Therefore my heart is glad, (He had a revelation
of something way back then.) and
my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope. (That
is not his body talking.) For
thou wilt not leave my soul in hell.” He is
not talking about the body that is in the grave, and he is talking
about his spirit and his soul, down in the heart of the earth
in that place called hell, but not in torment, because his expectation
was, he rested in hope, down in paradise. To me, that is as plain
as the nose on your face. I am going to start with this 8th
verse. “I have set
the Lord always before me: because He is at my right hand, I shall
not be moved.” Nothing is going to destroy this,
nothing is going to deter me from believing like this. When you
see something to put your faith in, it gives you something to
look forward to. You do not look forward just to the grave, you
look forward to the fact that you are conscious somewhere, and
God has made provision for you to enjoy that somewhere, and you
are not in torment. “Therefore
my heart is gland, (He can rest with this hope.) and
my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope. (with
the assurance) For thou wilt not
leave my soul in hell.” (Who is talking? David. He
is not talking about the grave, he is talking about his soul in
hell.) neither wilt thou suffer
thine Holy One to see corruption.” (Prophesying concerning
Jesus) Adventist: please,
I have talked to many undertakers about decomposition: Jesus was
not in the grave a full three days and three nights, which is
seventy two hours. I say that because Jesus was crucified in the
month of April, when it is warm over there. In seventy two hours
the body goes through a chemical breakdown, then the gases begin
to build, the body starts to decompose. Mortification sets in.
David had the promise, thou shalt not suffer, or allow my Messiah
to see corruption, mortification. Hallelujah! Go on and argue:
you can go to hell arguing about that, because you still have
to face reality sometime. The point is this, One day, you will
stand before Him in judgment and meet Him. Now, did Jesus go to
hell? He sure did. So that proves that there is such a thing as
the spirit of man going to hell. Furthermore what did Jesus die
on the cross for? Do you think it was just to give that body of
clay something to hope for, when it cannot hope? It is dead: there
is no wisdom nor device in the grave, but if the spirit that kept
it alive here on earth is somewhere, conscious of its surroundings,
then it is that spirit that incorporates the soul and has the
hope. As we have already said, The spirit and soul are inseparable.
When God took of Himself, Spirit, which is life, and imputed into
it certain attributes that make up the soul, and that became the
individual man He created to have dominion over the earth; and
those imputed attributes are what makes him think like he does,
that was God’s plan. Therefore when death takes that spirit
out of that body, that spirit is absolutely alive somewhere, whether
in paradise or torment. Otherwise the words of Jesus are of no
significance and if you take that attitude I have to ask, Why
do you even read the Bible? I choose to believe that Jesus had
a purpose in everything he spoke to the people who followed Him,
so the parable we just read, lets me know the righteous soul goes
to paradise and the unbelieving soul goes to torment. Now with
that in mind, I will read this verse again, “For
thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer
thine Holy One (which is the Messiah) to
see corruption.” He will not be in that grave seventy
two hours, that body of His, which was taken down in haste and
was not embalmed, but wrapped up and stuck it in the grave, (which
was a cave.) or else His body would have been subject to corruption.
Let us just see what happened then when Jesus did go into hell.
When we take that and go to 1st
Peter, you must keep in mind that these epistles were not
written by Gentiles. They were written by Jewish men who had a
revelation. Let us see about this Holy One, where David said,
Neither will thou suffer
or allow thy Holy One to see corruption. Notice what the
apostle Peter said about it. 1st
Peter 3:18 “For Christ
also hath once (Where? On the cross.) suffered
for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God,
being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
By which also He went
and preached unto the spirits in prison.” Where
was the prison? In hell itself. So when He went to prison, what
was His purpose? He preached unto the spirits in prison, in hell.
Remember, the wicked and the righteous were all there; only one
element was in paradise and the other in torment. How much clearer
does anything have to be, to satisfy those who truly believe the
scriptures are the inspired word of God? These scriptures let
us know, that even though the body of Jesus was up there in a
grave, a tomb, the spirit of life that had dwelt in that body
had gone down into hell to preach to souls in captivity. He preached
to those spirits, that according to Peter’s revelation,
were disobedient. “Which
sometimes were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God
waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing.”
That period of time came to an end; Listen now; during this long
period of time, while Noah was building the ark, there were a
lot of people around; and they knew very little, because there
was no law written, but even though there was nothing written,
something was guiding their conscience; and as Noah preached to
those people of that hour, many of them died believing in something,
yet not understanding what it was all about, but they knew that
something was coming. Some of those people were good, that is
according to the best they knew how to be, and they died. Others
paid no attention, they died also. The one group went to torment,
the other went into that place of paradise, never understanding
what this was all about. That is the ones that Jesus went to preach
to. Let us read on. “Wherein
few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. (That is
at the end of that period of time.) The
like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not
the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of
a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
My point is this, When Jesus went down into hell, into
that place of paradise, and preached to those people that were
righteous, yet not based on how they had kept a law or anything,
they were just guided by their conscience, by something that kept
them from being so wicked, He revealed to them something they
had never known, concerning what God had done for them. Listen
carefully, When Jesus, on the third day, did rise from the dead,
meaning His spirit came out of hell and was reunited with His
body, (You can find this in Matthew.) He rose from the dead, according
to what David had expressed; and that fulfilled exactly what Paul
was talking about in Ephesians
4. Now He that ascended, meaning went up, is the one that
descended first. He went into the bottomless pit, down into hell
itself, and then to do and accomplish everything for all that
had believed, to fulfill the hope that had been held. He overcame
death, He overcame hell and the grave, because the grave was where
the body was held. Therefore when He did that, He accomplished
what Paul expressed in Ephesians
4, He led captivity captive, those that had been in captivity
by Satan down there, the atonement has been made for their souls,
so He took out of paradise those captive, righteous saints, and
brought them up in a resurrection and they were reunited with
their bodies. When He ascended on high, and those resurrected
saints went with Him, that was the first phase of the first resurrection.
He conquered death, He conquered hell, and the grave. That is
where Paul got his revelation in Ephesians
4. He that ascended is the same one that descended first
into the lower parts of the earth. He preached to those righteous
spirit, that had been held captive in paradise; and then He took
them that were captive of Satan, out of captivity and they became
captives of His. He took them to glory with Him. That is the first
phase of the first resurrection, which will be a total of three
phases in all. For many that were in the graves came forth and
appeared in the cities after Jesus had risen from the dead. Therefore
you have to get the Psalms,
you have to get Ephesians 4,
and you have to get Luke 16,
and Matthew 27, all lined
up, to get a clear picture. If you only take one scripture and
go to seed on it, you will wind up in the closet somewhere, wondering,
how do I get out of here? That is why I say, Do not just take
one verse of scripture to try to prove something: you take it
all, because there is an answer to every bit of it. The final
conclusion is, Paul said Jesus descended first, when He gave up
the ghost on the cross, then man took the body and laid it in
a tomb, but His spirit went down into paradise, into hell itself,
into the lower parts of the earth, where He preached to those
spirits. Then when it was time for Him to rise from the dead to
fulfill the scriptures which state that He suffered, He tasted
death for every man, He took all those righteous souls out of
paradise, so literally, He conquered hell, because that part of
hell no longer holds anything. How many understand? That part
of hell no longer holds any righteous spirits captive, because
they were resurrected and taken to glory. What does that leave
in hell? Only the wicked. Why did He take the righteous spirits
to glory? Because His atonement, the shedding of His blood, had
made the way for it, so He took up with Him. I like that. I know
this for sure, if I die before Jesus comes for His bride, you
can bury this body wherever you want to, but that grave is not
where my real spirit self will be. It is going to be with my Lord.
There is a hope in believing in Jesus Christ, that He conquered
death, and hell, and the grave. That is our hope and our assurance.
We have a lot to look forward to. We do not want to just get hung
up on one line of thought that someone throws before us. Some
people read a verse, a thought comes to them and soon turns into
a doctrine, and without ever comparing scripture with scripture,
others grab hold and hit a cold trail. That is not the way God
ordained His truth to be perpetrated. He has ordained that certain
chosen vessels be those to whom He reveals hidden truths.
THE
GRAVE IS NOT THE END
Since
we have been speaking of the resurrection, let me carry it right
on through, right into the book of Revelation. Bro. Jackson, are
you saying all those righteous saints back then, when Jesus went
down into hell into paradise and preached to them, were taken
up with Him? They sure were. When you read in Matthew
where it says that many bodies arose and were seen by many, (Mat
27:52-53) “And the graves
were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
And came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into
the holy city, and appeared unto many.” naturally
the writers were writing about those that were in the graves in
and around Jerusalem. Some people are so narrow minded they cannot
see what is so clearly seen by those who have eyes to see. They
will say, Well Bro. Jackson, that was in Jerusalem, but there
were a lot of Old Testament saints buried in other places. Brother,
why will you put yourself in somebody’s junk yard? When
Jesus went down there, He did not go just for two or three, He
went down there for the whole bunch: He died for the sins of the
whole world, So He brought all of them out, whether black, white,
or whatever they were. He brought all of them out of there, and
all of them went up. As He was restored back to His body, those
others began to appear in the city and were recognized by many.
It should be understood, that this was familiar people that had
died before the people in Jerusalem, so they knew them when they
came forth. That is why they knew that something had happened.
That did not mean that some of those old saints that had been
buried two or three hundred miles away, came into Jerusalem: They
were all taken up though. The point is, He conquered paradise,
that part of hell, for a purpose. So when He took them up, from
then on, as we enter the New Testament era, the Grace Age, He
made a way for every born again Holy Ghost filled child, that
when his spirit leaves that body of clay, the body will go in
the ground just like anybody else’s body, but the spirit
of the righteous person goes immediately to glory. It does not
go down to paradise, because paradise does not exist anymore.
It goes to heaven. You Adventist may say, Well I do not see the
scriptures like that. It is because you are not reading your Bible:
You are just reading parts that seem to support your traditional
teaching. Since the New Testament age started, there have been
many testimonies; and I have read many of them of different eras
of time, where people in times of serious illness have been allowed
to die for just a temporary period, and God let them see the glory
world. When they were allowed to pass out of that body, they knew
that they were dead because they could look back and see their
body lying there. They would see themselves entering that beautiful
realm where the spirit life of others who have passed on is now
dwelling; and that place is not fifty million light years beyond
Mars: It is just right out there in another dimension, that nothing
tangible can touch or penetrate. Therefore regardless of what
others may say, that is where the righteous spirits of those who
have passed on during this Grace Age, are. That is what brings
us to 1st and 2nd
Thessalonians, where Paul, the only apostle of the New
Testament era that taught about the rapture, described the event.
He had a full revelation, that when the time came that the early
Christians, or the middle age Christians, or any of them of all
the era of Grace would pass on, they awaited a time when they
again would be reunited with their body. This is what he wrote
in his first Epistle to the Thessalonian Assembly. Notice,
(1 Th 4:15-17 ) “For this we say unto you by the word of
the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of
the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord
Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice
of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead
in Christ shall rise first: Then
we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with
them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so
shall we ever be with the Lord.” That was written
by the apostle that wrote 14 books of the New Testament, the apostle
to the Gentiles, called out of Judaism by the Lord specifically
for that ministry, so by what authority could anyone reject what
he taught? This is not the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to
rule and reign on earth as King of kings and Lord of lords: It
is His secret coming for His Bride Church. He already has the
Old Testament saints up there, in their glorified bodies; and
this second phase of the first resurrection takes the bride saints;
and the third phase at the end of the week of Daniel will complete
the first resurrection. The first resurrection (which is in three
phases) has life, but the second resurrection, at the end of the
Millennium, is a resurrection of the wicked dead: It has no life:
That resurrection is strictly for the purpose of pronouncing judgment
upon those who have rejected God in their lifetime. I hope that
is clear to all of you. Those Old Testament saints did not come
up out of the graves, enter in the same kind of mortal body that
they lived in before they went into the graves, walk around a
few days and then die again, to be found somewhere and buried
again. No. He brought them out in a glorified body and took them
to glory. For He that ascended is the same that descended first.
(Eph 4:10) “He that descended
is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that
He might fill (or fulfill)
all things.) He led captivity captive. When He went up,
He fulfilled Psalm 68:18.
Who is prophesying this? David himself. He had seen exactly what
Christ would do as He would come to fulfill that beautiful hope
he had. “Thou hast ascended
on high, thou hast led captivity captive: (Those that were
in paradise, He has taken them captive, and moved them to heaven.)
thou hast received gifts for men;
yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among
them.” When you take that to Ephesians
4, Paul plainly tells you, He that ascended is the same
that descended first.
GIFTS
AND CALLINGS OF MEN
When
Jesus ascended, what did He do? He sent back those gifts and callings
that caused God to set in the Church, first apostles, secondly
prophets, then evangelists, pastors and teachers. (Eph
4:11) “And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and
some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; (For
what purpose?) For the perfecting
of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying
of the body of Christ: (For how long?)
Till we all come
in the unity of the faith,
an |
