Page 15 of 16 pages 

 

DANIEL and the END 

 of the AGE PROPHETS

William Miller and the Adventists -- Pentecostals and the Secret Rapture.

 PUT TOGETHER A DESIRE FOR THE END OF THE WORLD WITH DANIEL AND REVELATION AND STIR!

 Daniel 7

(in a newer re-interpretation)

       9 "I beheld till the thrones were cast down (meaning "gone", irrelevant), and the Ancient of days (now replaced by the Trinity, represented in the person of a divine Jesus Christ) did sit (on a cloud, not on a throne), whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool --(ignore the rest of verse 9, and all of verse 10, which no longer applies!).

      13 "--- One like the Son of man (but totally God) came with the clouds of heaven,  (having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a  sharp sickle -- Rev. 14:14)---(ignore the rest  of verse 13).

       14 "And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people (that are not destroyed by the brightness of his coming), nations (that survive), and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."

OR INSTEAD

(in another even NEWER re-interpretation)

        9 "I beheld till the (no) thrones were cast down (and things were progressing normally on earth, with no sign of anything unusual about to happen), and the Ancient of days (now replaced by the Trinity, represented in the person of a divine Jesus Christ) did sit (on a cloud, not on a throne, but invisible to all except a chosen few), whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool -- (ignore the rest of verse 9, and all of verse 10, which no longer applies!).

      13 "--- One like the Son of man (but totally God) came with the clouds of heaven, ---(ignore Rev. 14:14, and the rest  of verse 13).

       14 "And there was given him dominion (over those relative few ready to meet him in the clouds), and glory (but an invisible glory), and a kingdom (in heaven, and 7 years later on earth), that all people (that are not destroyed by the auto accidents, crashing airplanes, burning buildings, and generalized chaos), (but NOT) nations (because they are busy following Antichrist), and (NOT) languages (which are also following Antichrist), should serve him: his dominion is (eventually, 7 years later) an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."

    These two divergent views of the second (second?) coming of Jesus Christ to bring an end to our present age (world?) are supported (supported?) doggedly, persistently, and in spite of vast amounts of evidence to the contrary by vast blocks of humanity (16+ millions in first group, maybe more in the second group) who are quite certain each of them has the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!

    And each relies heavily on a literal Daniel living in the court of king Nebuchadnezzar (and Belshazzar, and Darius, and perhaps Cyrus) who had visions and dreams absolutely supporting each of these groups "visions and dreams."

      I mean, how silly can one get and still keep a straight face!

THE TWO PILLARS

OF THESE TWO VIEWS ARE

Fundamentalism

     (although there is absolutely nothing "Fundamentalist" about butchering up Bible Texts and supplying totally different meanings to these texts as we have done here twice to Daniel 9:9,10,13,14)

and Trinitarianism

(the idea, current since the Council of Nicea, 325 AD, that Jesus is divine, and totally equal in every way to Yahweh and the Holy Spirit, who make up three equal entities of a triune God-head -- whatever that may be conceived as meaning!)

     There is no real evidence, in the past or present, that either of these "Pillars" represent reality, but there they "stand" holding up the "doctrine" of the Second Coming!

FUNDAMENTALISM

HISTORICALLY: (WIKIPEDIA) "Fundamentalism as a movement arose in the United States, starting among conservative Presbyterian theologians at Princeton Theological Seminary in the late 19th century.   It soon spread to conservatives among the Baptists and other denominations around 1910-1920. The movement's purpose was to reaffirm key theological tenets and zealously defend them against the challenges of liberal theology and higher criticism.

The term "fundamentalism" has its roots in the Niagra Bible Conference (1878–1897) which defined those tenets it considered fundamental to Christian belief.   The term was popularized by the "The Fundamentals", a collection of twelve books on five subjects published in 1910 and funded by the brothers Milton and Lyman Stewart.   This series of essays came to be representative of the "Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy" which appeared late in the 19th century within some Protestant denominations in the United States, and continued in earnest through the 1920s.  The first formulation of American fundamentalist beliefs can be traced to the Niagara Bible Conference and, in 1910, to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church which distilled these into what became known as the "five fundamentals":

  • The inspiration  of the Bible and the inerrancy of Scripture as a result of this.
  • The virgin birth of Christ.
  • The belief that Christ's death was the atonement for sin.
  • The bodily resurrection of Christ..
  • The historical reality of Christ's miracles."

AS AN ATTITUDE: (WIKIPEDIA) "Fundamentalism" is sometimes used as a pejorative term, particularly when combined with other epithets (as in the phrase "right-wing fundamentalists").   Fundamentalist groups generally refuse to participate in events with any group that does not share its essential doctrines."

MAIN FOCUS: (WIKIPEDIA) In practice, the first point regarding the Bible was the focus of most of the controversy. (The inspiration  of the Bible and the inerrancy of Scripture as a result of this.)

AS A DELUSION: (Dr. Robert Holt, MD) The idea that something must be inerrant because it is inspired is not supported by logic and outside of the strange world of religious ideas has no credibility in the real world.

TRINITARIANISM

HISTORICALLY: (WIKIPEDIA) Trinitarianism is the Christian doctrine that God exists as three persons (Greek hypostases) but is one being.. The persons are understood to exist as God the Father, God the Son, (incarnate as Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit, each of them having the one identical essence or nature, not merely similar natures. 

According to this doctrine, God exists as three persons but is one God, meaning that God the Son and God the Holy Spirit have exactly the same nature or being as God the Father in every way.  Whatever attributes and power God the Father has, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit have as well.  "Thus, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are also eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, infinitely wise, infinitely holy, infinitely loving, omniscient."

In the 3rd century views that were later considered unorthodox  were adopted, such as subordination and modalism.   The doctrine of the Trinity took the form that has since been maintained in all the historic confessions of Christianity by the end of the 4th century as a result of controversies concerning the proper sense in which to apply to God, Christ and the Holy Spirit terms such as "person", "nature", "essence", and "substance".

Trinitarianism contrasts with non-Trinitarian positions which include Binatarianism (one deity/two persons), Unitarianism (one deity/one person), the Oneness or Modalism belief, and The Church of Jesus Christ of the Later-day Saints' view of the Godhead as three separate beings who are one in purpose rather than in essence. (Most current Seventh-day Adventists that I know quietly share this similar view of the "Godhead" but not officially because they don't want to be seen as denying any of the Trinitarian dogma as decided in the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople.)

COUNCIL OF NICEA: 325 AD (WIKIPEDIA) Constantine had invited all 1800 bishops of the Christian church (about 1000 in the east and 800 in the west), but a smaller and unknown number attended.  Eusebius of Caesarea counted 220, Atanasius of Alexandria counted 318, and Eustathius of Antioch counted 270 (all three were present at the council). Later, Socrates Scholasticus recorded more than 300, and Evagrius, Hilary of poitiers, Jerome, and Rufinus recorded 318. Delegates came from every region of the Roman Empire except Britain.

A special prominence was also attached to this council because the persecution of Christians had just ended with the February 313 Edict of Milan by Emperors Constantine and Licinius.

THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY: (WIKIPEDIA) Arius maintained that the Son of God was a Creature, made from nothing; and that he was God's First Production, before all ages. And he argued that everything else was created through the Son.  Thus, said the Arians, only the Son was directly created and begotten of God; and therefore there was a time that He had no existence.  Arius believed the Son Jesus was capable of His own free will of right and wrong, and that "were He in the truest sense a son, He must have come after the Father, therefore the time obviously was when He was not, and hence He was a finite being," and was under God the Father.   The Arians appealed to Scripture, quoting verses such as John 14:28: "the Father is greater than I", and also Colossians 1:15: "Firstborn of all creation."

Homoousians countered the Arians' argument, saying that the Father's fatherhood, like all of his attributes, is eternal.  Thus, the Father was always a father, and that the Son, therefore, always existed with him.  Homoousians believed that to follow the Arian view destroyed the unity of the Godhead, and made the Son unequal to the Father, in contravention of the Scriptures ("I and the Father are one"; John 10:30). Further on it says "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me"; John 17:21.

The Homoiousian compromise proposal. The Homoiousians proposed that God and the Son were alike, but not the same, in substance.   This compromise position did not gain much support and eventually the idea was dropped.

Result of the debate. The Council declared that the Father and the Son are of the same substance and are co-eternal, basing the declaration in the claim that this was a formulation of traditional Christian belief handed down from the Apostles.  Under Constantine's influence,  this belief was expressed by the bishops in what would be known thereafter as the Nicene Creed. The Emperor carried out his earlier statement: everybody who refused to endorse the Creed would be exiled.. Arius, Theonas, and Secundus refused to adhere to the creed, and were thus exiled to Ilyria, in addition to being excommunicated.  The works of Arius were ordered to be confiscated and consigned to the flames while all persons found possessing them were to be executed.   Nevertheless, the controversy continued in various parts of the empire.

CONSTANTINE'S INITIAL  "UNDERSTANDING" OF THE "TRINITY" (WIKIPEDIA) Constantine had little theological understanding of the issues at stake, and did not particularly care which view of Christ's nature prevailed so long as it resulted in a unified church.   This can be seen in his initial acceptance of the Homoousian view of Christ's nature, only to abandon the belief several years later for political reasons; under the influence of Eusebius of Nicomedia (an Arian Bishop and his cousin) and others.

CONSTANTINE'S LATER ROLE (WIKIPEDIA)  In the short-term, the council did not completely solve the problems it was convened to discuss and a period of conflict and upheaval continued for some time. Constantine himself was succeeded by two Arian Emperors in the Eastern Empire: his son, Constantius II and Valens.  Valens could not resolve the outstanding ecclesiastical issues, and unsuccessfully confronted St. Basil over the Nicene Creed.  Pagan powers within the Empire sought to maintain and at times re-establish paganism into the seat of the Emperor  Arians and Meletians soon regained nearly all of the rights they had lost, and consequently, Arianism continued to spread and to cause division in the Church during the remainder of the fourth century.   Almost immediately, Eusebius of Nicomedia, an Arian bishop and cousin to Constantine I, used his influence at court to sway Constantine's favor from the orthodox Nicene bishops to the Arians.   Eustathius of Antioch was deposed and exiled in 330. Athanasius, who had succeeded Alexander as Bishop of Alexandria, was deposed by the First Synod of Tyre in 335 and Marcellus of Ancyra followed him in 336. Arius himself returned to Constantinople to be readmitted into the Church, but died shortly before he could be received. Constantine died the next year, after finally receiving baptism from Arian Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, and "with his passing the first round in the battle after the Council of Nicea was ended."

AS A DELUSION: (Dr. Robert Holt, MD) What now prevents modern priests and ministers from accepting or even considering the Essene history of Jesus and the Twelve Apostles (and Saul of Tarsus, "Paul") is the that to do so would deny the "Doctrine of the Trinity".   The real history of Jesus shows him to be truly a man, and like other men, capable of mistakes in judgment, and of truly consorting with "sinners" (as he was accused of doing repeatedly in the gospels).  There were many Essenes much more "holy" than he was.  The standard he was held to by the other Essenes was a Davidic standard, not a priestly standard. 

Having foreknowledge of the "Trinity" Doctrine, Paul warned about it in 2 Thessalonians 2:11 "--God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:--"  Earlier in that chapter he exactly describes the Trinitarian "lie" in terms that anyone should be able to recognize.  Verse 3c "--that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; 4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God (1) sitteth in the temple of God (2) shewing that he is God (3)." (Paul's clear, numerologically correct, depiction of the trinity delusion!)

Semi-Arianism

   Semi-Arianism is a name that has been used for identifying a position that held to a version of the Nicene Creed that omitted the formula “of One Substance”. This position was taken after the First Ecumenical Council in 325 condemned Arianism as heresy by those Christians who kept a Trinitarian view but in practice took a compromised stand whereby they remained in communion with Arians without adopting Arianism itself.  The group, led by Bishop Basil of Ancyra, advocated the use of the term Homoiousios over that of homoousios, an iota of difference that denied the consubstantiality of Christ.   During this time the Arians, who took the original position of Arius that Jesus of Nazareth was of a different nature from and in no way like that of God the Father, were known as Anomoeans, from anomoios, unlike.

After the First Ecumenical Council’s decision on Arianism, strong efforts continued to be exerted by some bishops, who were to be termed Semi-Arians, who had denied being Arians, to find a compromise position between the use of homoousios (of One Substance) in the Nicene Creed and the Arian position that Jesus Christ was subordinate to, and unlike, God the Father. These bishops, who were not firm Arians and supported the Nicene Creed at the First Ecumenical Council at Nicea yet were not fully Orthodox Trinitarian themselves, received repentant Arians to communion. 

The Council of Ancyra in 358, chaired by Basil of Ancyra, used the term homoiousios, while the fourth Council of Sirmium used the term homoios, by which the Son is “like” the Father.  At a Council of Constantinople in 361, the use of homoios was advocated by those that became known as Homoeans, stating that the Son was “like the Father who begot him”, and rejected the use of ousia (substance). With the ascension to the imperial throne of Julian the Apostate in 361, after the death of Constantius II, the original position of Arius re-appeared supported by the Anomoeans at a Arian council in Antioch.

After the death of the Apostate in 363, the leaders of the Nicene orthodoxy, Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianus, with a re-vigored Nicene party in the West, consolidated their position affirming the use of homoousios. In 380, Emperor  Theodosius I, who was a stanch Trinitarian, outlawed Arianism when he ascended the throne. He also, convened the Second Ecumenical Councill in Constantinople in 381 that upheld an amended version of the Nicene Creed: the Nicene-Constantinoplitan Creed..

By 383, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed stood alone without being further contested by further statements of faith from the Arians or Semi-Arians

William Miller 

(the ex-Deist)

and the Semi-Arian Adventists

  (After Jesus failed to appear on October 22, 1844, the group that were later named Seventh-day Adventists were frequently accused of being Semi-Arians by their critics because of their insistence that Jesus was their High Priest  --- this is inconsistent with Jesus being of the "same substance" as God the father --- basically the same theological point being made by the Semi-Arians of the fourth century -- until they were suppressed to extinction).

    William Miller was a Deist as a young man, but converted to a Baptist when he thought about the possibility of his dying without the Christian hope of life after death.  He began studying the Bible for himself without commentaries, and eventually became interested in the "Numerology" of the Book of Daniel.  He discovered in the Bible several places where a day equaled a year.

    Reaching Daniel 8:14 without any knowledge of the Maccabees, or of Jewish history connected with the "Feast of Dedication" he assumed that the "Sanctuary" of Daniel 8:14 was the earth, and that 2300 days could mean 2300 years.   Now he needed a starting date and found it in Daniel 9:25 "Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem to the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times."

     Miller's KJV Bible gave 457 BC as the date King Artaxerxes made a decree allowing the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem (Ezra chapter 7), so now Miller had a starting point for his 2300 year prophecy.   After a little more thought on this subject his time-chart looked like this.

    At first William Miller resisted sharing his views with others, but in the 1830s he saw his predicted time of Christ's "Second Coming" fast approaching, and others were showing interest, so he began to preach an "End of the World" by March 1843, adjusting this date to October 22, 1844 when he discovered there was a year missing between 1 BC and 1 AD, and that Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) was the most important "Fast" for Jews. In 1844 much larger crowds came to hear Miller preach.

      It was not until Jesus Christ (as God) failed to appear and destroy everyone on earth but the "Millerites" on October 22, 1844 that a relatively small part (perhaps 50) of Miller's originally quite large group of listeners began to entertain the idea that perhaps Jesus was a "High Priest" (not totally equal with God) and stepped as a High Priest into a Most Holy Place in a "Heavenly Sanctuary" on October 22, 1844.

Secret Rapture

1988

     There is no "Secret Rapture" imagery in Daniel, but Daniel numerology ("midst of the week" and "7 years" ) and "Abomin- ation of Desolation" concepts are indeed used extensively as precedents.

 

Matthew 24's

"Great Tribulation"

     Matthew 24: 21 "For there shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.  22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened."

     Increasingly, the Seventh-day Adventist preaching on the Second Coming of Christ after their "great disappointment" in 1844 had come to focus on a coming "tribulation" to be endured mainly by Seventh-day Adventists themselves.   They were encouraged in this focus by Ellen G. White, who by December of 1844 was having visions and dreams explaining things in a way the former Millerite Adventists could understand.

     Ellen White had an early vision of being with Jesus dressed as a Jewish High Priest in a "Sanctuary" in heaven that encouraged Adventists in their tendency along Semi-Arian lines, that Jesus may be of a "different substance" than God the Father (truly human, as the Nicene Creed declares, but no Trinitarian actually  believes) and to throw their support towards keeping the Jewish Seventh-day Sabbath.  

       Early Writings page 32 "I saw an angel flying swiftly to me.  He carried me from the earth to the Holy City. In the city I saw a temple, which I entered. --- Jesus raised the second veil and I passed into the holy of holies. --- Jesus stood by the ark, and as the saints' prayers came up to Him, the incense in the censor would smoke, and He would offer up their prayers with the smoke of the incense to his Father. ----I saw the ten commandments written on them with the finger of God -- the fourth, the Sabbath commandment, shone above them all; for the Sabbath was set apart to be kept in honor of God's holy name." 

      Adventists started to believe they were the "New Jews", chosen by Jesus to replace the nation that had betrayed him and crucified him.   So when Ellen White had visions about a time when "Sabbath-keepers" would be persecuted, and a "death decree" issued against the "Sabbath-keepers" they assumed that the Great Tribulation of Matthew 24:21-22 would be mainly directed at Seventh-day Adventists. 

     Early Writings page 33 "I saw that the holy Sabbath is, and will be, the separating wall between the true Israel of God and unbelievers; and that the Sabbath is the great question to unite the hearts of God's dear, waiting saints. --- At the commencement of the time of trouble we were filled with the Holy Ghost as we went forth and proclaimed the Sabbath more fully. --- I saw the sword, famine, pestilence, and great confusion in the land.  The wicked thought that we (the Sabbath-keepers) had brought the judgments upon them, and they rose up and took counsel to rid the earth of us (later called a 'death decree' in other visions), thinking that then the evil would be stayed."

     "In the time of trouble we all fled from the cities and villages, but were pursued by the wicked, who entered the houses of the saints with a sword.  They raised the sword to kill us, but it broke, and fell as powerless as a straw."

    

       And they failed to notice, since they themselves were the "Elect", the real chosen people of Jesus, that those other "rejected" Jews were being hunted down and put in concentration camps and gassed to death in Germany and Hungary in the late 1930s and 1940s. 

       These atrocities were done by Hitler and the Nazi party, who had indeed issued a "Death Decree", the "Final Solution" against all living Jews on this earth.  It is estimated that 6 million Jews were killed during this period.

Those holocaust victims who were not incinerated were buried in mass graves

       Adventists, seeing themselves as the "Sabbath-keepers" referred to in Ellen White's second major vision, were assured that they themselves would not be killed, but be rescued by "the voice of God."

      Early Writings page 37 "A decree went forth to slay the saints, which caused them to cry day and night for deliverance.  This was the time of Jacob's trouble.  Then all the saints cried out with anguish of spirit, and were delivered by the voice of God."

      It was in this same vision of Ellen White's, in 1849 (100 years before Israel became a nation again) that Ellen saw Jesus dressed exactly as Jewish high priests were dressed 1900 years previously.   I think it's significant that Ellen White never, in all her visions saw Jesus in a "Trinity" vision in which Jesus appeared identical in every way to "the Father" as the three pictures I have shown previously.

     Early Writings page 36 "I was taken off in vision to the most holy place, where I saw Jesus still interceding for Israel.  (Which Israel?  Israel-S.D.A.'s or Israel-Jews?)  On the bottom of His garment was a bell and a pomegranate.  Then I saw that Jesus would not leave the most holy place until every case was decided either for salvation or destruction, and that the wrath of God could not come until Jesus had finished His work in the most holy place, laid off His priestly attire, and clothed Himself with the garments of vengeance."

Israel "Reborn" May 1948

 

   Matthew 24:32 "Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: 33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. 34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled."

     To a new generation of those looking for a Second Coming of Jesus, those of the 1950s, looking now for a "Secret Rapture" not a literal coming of Christ seen by everyone at the same time, the rebirth of Israel in May 1948 was a real eye-opener.  The "Secret Rapture" would occur in one generation, thought to be 40 years. The date was set as the Fall Feasts of Israel, September 11-13, 1988.    At that time all the strange and wonderful predictions of Daniel 9:27 would be fulfilled in a "week of years", 1988 to 1994.

     "And he shall confirm the covenant with many (those waiting for a Secret Rapture in 1988) for one week (7 years): and in the midst of the week (1991-1992) he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease (in the newly rebuilt Jewish temple in Jerusalem), and for the overspreading of abominations (by the Antichrist) he shall make it (the modern civilized world) desolate, even until the consummation (the literal end of the world), and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate."

      The "desolate", the last word of Daniel 9:27 describes not those who are raptured in September of 1988, but those "Left Behind."

   Early Writings page 37 "Then I was shown a company who were howling in agony.  On their garments were written in large characters, 'Thou art weighed in the balance, and found wanting.'  I asked who this company were.  The angel said, 'These are they who have once kept the Sabbath and have given it up.'  I heard them cry with a loud voice, 'We have believed in Thy coming, and taught it with energy.'  And while they were speaking, their eyes would fall upon their garments and see the writing, and then they would wail aloud.  I saw that they had drunk of the deep waters, and fouled the residue with their feet -- trodden the Sabbath underfoot -- and that was why they were weighed in the balance and found wanting."

     It's now 162 years since Ellen White had this vision in Brother Belden's house in Rocky Hill Connecticut January 5, 1849, and lots of books have now been written in the "Left Behind" series.   Like a lot of other visions and dreams of Ellen White, this particular paragraph requires a bit of re-interpretation, but the principles are the same, the group "Left Behind" is correctly identified, and their sense of disappointment is real, although as is usual in prophetic language, perhaps exaggerated.

      The first item requiring a re-explaining is my own statement that the group "Left Behind" is correctly identified.  In Ellen White's first few visions, those that became Seventh-day Adventists and those who became Pentecostals (like Ellen herself was in reality) are lumped together as one group.   One group, both later believing in a Second Coming of Christ, with some (SDAs who began keeping the Seventh-day Sabbath) and others (Pentecostals) who did not keep the Seventh-day Sabbath, were both disappointed (the anguish of this vision) when Christ did not come in the manner that each had predicted, but instead came in May 1948 and saw to it that the real Jews (now the 144,000) were restored the real country of Israel.   

     An example of this lumping together is shown on page 14 of Early Writings. "But some grew weary, and said the city was a great way off, and they expected to have entered it before." A lapse of time of indeterminate length is indicated here. "Then Jesus would encourage them by raising His glorious right arm, --" This "right arm" was interpreted by Adventists themselves as the "Health Reform Message" of the late 19th century. "--and from His arm came a light--" A "new light" Pentecostalism, which SDAs rejected-- "which waved over the Advent band,--" Pentecostal authors, such as Hal Lindsay, were Adventists also in that they promoted a Second Coming of Christ.  "Waving over" suggests a more active service, more enthusiasm. "--and they shouted, 'Alleluia'." Now we're completely into Pentecostal territory!

      Having proved (to myself and perhaps some others) that Pentecostals that never kept the Sabbath are in this "disappointed" group, the paragraph from page 37 can be read literally in regards to Sabbath-keeping.  "On their garments was written in large characters, ''Thou art weighed in the balance, and found wanting. and etc." (While preaching "Holiness" and assuming the Laws of God to be binding, most modern Protestants don't want to keep them literally.) "We have believed in Thy coming, and have taught it with energy." Certainly more true of Pentecostals than Seventh-day Adventists since the 1950s. "I saw that they had drunk of the deep waters and fouled the residue with their feet -- trodden the Sabbath underfoot -- and that was why they were weighed in the balance and found wanting."  Jesus can be imagined as laughing as he reads the Left Behind series of books.  Mostly imaginary, and fiction of the most deplorable type.

       How about the Seventh-day Adventists who never left off keeping the Seventh-day Sabbath and indeed also continued preaching Ellen White's own approved scenario of the Second Coming, not to Jewish Israel but to Adventist "Israel"?   How can Early Writings page 37 first paragraph be applied to them?   More easily than you think!

      The early Adventists of 1849 were neither Trinitarians nor Fundamentalists, and indeed were looking for whatever "Truth" they could find anywhere they could find it unencumbered by creeds and councils.  They did not discover what they called the "Sabbath Truth" in the decisions of the Church councils of the 4th century AD.   By going back to the dogma of the Trinity as decided in 387 AD, they separated themselves from the real Jews by a wall that cannot be climbed over.  In this prophecy "Sabbath-keeping" is symbolic of Judaism, and Jesus was fully intent on fulfilling in 1948, 100 years after giving this warning to Ellen White, some age old promises to "real Israel." And warning  Seventh-day Adventists of the results of rejoining between 1888 and the 1950s, what Ellen had always called "Nominal Christians", or the "dark world below."

 

 To continue with the real story of 

  DANIEL

And his Hebrew companions, and, of course, learn to understand "his" PROPHECIES 

CLICK HERE

OR; Return to Unofficial SDA Index 2

Next we'll take on Daniel 11 and 12, where there

is some surprisingly accurate "Numerology".

Main Index ..ENJOY! 

This page updated 11-4-2010, and May 4,2011

redone Nov. 25, 2011