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WATCH! JESUS IS COMING! |
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The Essene Jesus tells the Western World of a COMPASSIONATE GOD! BUT NEGLECTS TO TELL US CLEARLY AND OUTRIGHTLY ABOUT THE INVISIBLE ESSENES |
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Pastor Bryan Aarborg in his sermon for September 17, 2011, quoted first Matthew 24, various verses, then finished with Mark 13:32-37. One of the major points he wanted to get across is that setting dates for Jesus to come back is a risky business, especially so since Jesus did not himself authorize it, and claimed to not know himself what that date might be. Nothing makes this more CLEAR in Pastor Bryan's opinion than Mark 13:32-37. On this page I'll present this viewpoint, and on the next page I'll disagree, for reasons that will become evident when I get to that page.
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Mark 13:32-37 "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray; for ye know not when the time is. For the Son of man is as a man making a far journey, who left his house, And gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. WATCH ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: Less coming SUDDENLY he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, WATCH!" |
On page 1 of this series I pointed out that scriptures like this one have a different meaning depending on whether one sees Jesus as a part of a Holy Trinity of three equal, all-knowing, all-powerful gods, or if one wants to play games with words (and people's brains)-- "One God" who is really three persons -- OR, as an Essene Christ-Messiah with a whole lot less power and knowledge than he would have, were he really a part of such a "Trinity". Bryan Aalborg sees Jesus as God, I do not. So he took a risk by emphasizing Mark 13:32-37, which contains a duplicate of one of the 10 or more New Testament texts that is "Anti-Trinitarian." Here's the reasoning. Text
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Matthew 24:36 “But
of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father
only.” So God knows things that Jesus does not know. So they have no ‘unity of Godhead’. "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." Mark 13:32 To the Essenes listening to their Christ- Messiah, Jesus the son of Miriam, there was no problem here. Not even in their wildest dreams could they imagine Jesus knowing everything that Almighty God might know -- but for us Christians, "brain-washed" for 1600 years to accept this as a great and unquestionable "Truth", it's easy. In fact, it's now harder NOT TO BELIEVE that Christ knows everything, and is all-powerful. More New Testament Anti-Trinity texts
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On page 1 of this series, I gave a third
interpretation to each of the texts we looked at from Matthew 6
based on how a NON-RELIGIOUS person would see these
verses. By NON-RELIGIOUS I don't necessarily mean
someone who is "Godless" as someone who makes rational
decisions based on logic and experience, not influenced unduly by
Church dogma and promises of "Eternal Life" for accepting
and believing what is nonsense so far as logic and everyday
experience are involved. And not terrified by a threat of an
eternity in hell for non-compliance and unbelief in a particular
church's viewpoint.
Astonishingly, everything we are reading in Mark 13:32-37 appears to be logical and not attractive to the type of hot heads and fanatics who might wish for us to give them all our money and follow them into the wilderness to meet Jesus there! |
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Pastor Bryan Aalborg gave honorable mention to Harold Camping, pictured above with the more Adventist-type "Second Coming of Christ" than Pentecostals usually visualize. True believers sedately walking up cloudy stairs into the sky dressed in their Sunday best instead of being whisked away as naked spirits leaving a pile of clothes behind and their cars and airplanes crashing into those belonging to unbelievers. But Bryan didn't care for his date-setting, once again wrong, this spring. Pastor Aalborg put a picture up of William Miller, the Baptist preacher and would-be "Prophet" whose provocative interpretation of Daniel 8:14 made possible Pastor Aalborg's own livelihood as a Seventh-day Adventist preacher. And reminded all of us present in the Foster Seventh-day Adventist church on September 17 that all throughout the almost 2000 years (lacking now 22 years) since Jesus gathered a small group of disciples on Mount Olivet (next to Herod's temple) -- and gave them hints as to how long this might be -- there have been those like William Miller and Harold Camping willing to imagine they know what only God Almighty knows, --- when the world will end. |
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The
only really subversive idea, perhaps even heretical to fanatical
believers in the Trinity, that Pastor Aalborg presented, and this
only by innuendo and walking carefully around this suggestion
without stating it outright, is that Jesus and the Gospel writers
PLANNED for everyone reading such chapters as Matthew 24 in EVERY
GENERATION to see their own generation in these descriptions
of events, and ASSUME that Christ would come back in their
generation. This would amount to deception, of
course. Not a very good thing for part of the Holy
Trinity to be involved with. Or even for the
"Only-begotten Son of God" to be a part of.
Which is why Pastor Bryan never spelled it out in so many
words. And definitely did not label it as such!
It is essential that Jesus be thought of as the only "Perfect" human that ever lived on earth in Adventist theology as now taught, by Bryan Aalborg and all like him. Otherwise his sacrifice would be unacceptable to God Almighty, Christ's Father, and Jesus, as well as all of us, would be worthy only of extinction, not salvation. "Eternal Life" is the goal we must either strive for, or accept that Jesus has it, and can give it to us, whether or not we are worthy of it. Where, indeed, can we fit a liar and deceiver into this equation? Of course this is once again NO PROBLEM to those of us, myself included, who see Jesus as an Essene Christ-Messiah, one of several that "reigned" during the late 1st century BC to the late 1st century AD. The Essenes were known for their seclusion and keeping secrets. They felt no compunction to tell Gentiles and ruffians such as we are the "Truth" about anything important, and their hidden history shows they used a type of "double-talk" known as "Gospel Pesher" to hide important information from those they felt would use it improperly. In this "Gospel Pesher" history of Jesus he was far from "Perfect" in the way we might define "Perfection". Indeed many of the Essenes referred to him by using such unpleasant terms as "the Liar", and the "Wicked Priest", who catered to those they called the "Seekers after Smooth Things." Such a person as both "Pesher History" and the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal Jesus to have been would be fully capable of either Himself writing a description of historical events designed to "trick" every generation into thinking theirs was the "final generation," or of directing Essenes fully as tricky as he appears to have been to do so. Right on, Pastor Bryan! You're really not that far from the Truth! Only never go the rest of the way -- or Foster Church will again be looking for another senior pastor. One who doesn't think, or reason, or study too much. |
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OR --take a closer look at Mark 13:32-37 | ||
OR --Continue on to learn more, as I did, about those tricky Essenes! |
Because she learned a lot about Essenes, their calendars, how they kept time at night, and how otherwise they hid the details in the Gospels of their day-to-day and more important events, Dr. Barbara Thiering PhD was able to discover the "INVISIBLE ESSENES" in our very visible Gospels and New Testament books. Others are content to let them stay INVISIBLE, and preach as if the Essenes, their scrolls, and their religious beliefs had never been discovered! I bought and read Thiering's book in 1992, and that same year started taking trips to Israel and Qumran. What she wrote checks out, and I am no longer a "false witness". Here I am below standing by the Dead Sea where Peter and Andrew, and James and John the "Sons of Zebedee" --- FISHED FOR MEN! Behind me (the square hole) is a cistern (still mostly plastered inside) that stored water at this location (Kherbit Mazin) 6 kilometers south of the Qumran monastery on the western shore of the Dead Sea. The fresh water stored here from rainwater coming down the wadi allowed the Gentiles being baptized here to wash off the salt water they had just been baptized in. This baptism (wrote Peter in 1 Peter 3:20-21) can be likened to Noah saving a few people (8 in all) during the flood. To Peter, Andrew, James, and John, they were doing Noah's work, saving Gentiles as well as Jews! A little far-fetched? Perhaps. But if you don't learn to deal with "Gospel Pesher", you'll never be able to discover the
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