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Blessed
Registered user
Username: Blessed
Post Number: 20
Registered: 1-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, March 03, 2007 - 12:42 pm: |     |
My mom who is SDA has been listening to the Patriarchs CD's by Beth Moore. She mentioned to me that she did not agree with Beth on one point. I asked her what it was and she said that it had to do with Christ's feet touching the ground at the second coming. She believes in the 1 Thessalonians account where He comes in the clouds and we are caught up to meet Him. I did a little research and found Zechariah 14:4 where it says that "on that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives..." My mom said that the way that we will be able to differentiate between false Christs and the real Christ is because He will not touch the earth. Is this an Ellen White teaching. I have read Zechariah 14 but am not sure how this fits with end times theology. Does anyone have any insights for me?
Blessed |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 5482
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, March 03, 2007 - 8:58 pm: | |
OK, I asked my Adventist in-laws about this question, Blessed. The Adventist understanding is that when Jesus comes, His feet will not touch the ground, and He'll take everyone that's saved to heaven for 1,000 years. When He comes back to destroy the wicked and establish the New Jerusalem, then His feet will land on the Mount of Olives. This view is from Ellen.
The prophecy in Zechariah is talking about a time when the Lord will supernaturally intervene to deliver His people. The NIV Study Notes say that the prophecy in Zechariah 14:4 is probably referred to in Acts 1:11-12.
I'm not sure we can make specific conclusions from the general outlines given in Zechariah (note that after it has Jesus touching the Mount of Olives in verse 4, then it has people fleeing, and in verse 5 the Lord will come with all the holy ones with Him). But the Bible is not teaching that the feet being in the air or on the mountain is what determines if it's the true Jesus.
Those who know Jesus will recognize Himóand, according to Philippians 3, the day is coming when every knee in heaven, on earth, and under the earth will bow to Jesus. Further, those who pierced him will worship Him. Everyone, both the saved and the lost, will finally be unable to deny Jesus' identity, and all will bow.
He is awesome!
Colleen |
Blessed
Registered user
Username: Blessed
Post Number: 22
Registered: 1-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, March 04, 2007 - 2:20 pm: | |
Thanks Colleen for talking with your in-laws and also doing the research. This does make sense.
Yes we will know Him and if we are alive when He comes it is going to be incredible (it will also be incredible if we die and are immediately ushered into His presence). No matter what we win!!!! Praise the Lord.
Blessed |
Agapetos
Registered user
Username: Agapetos
Post Number: 708
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, March 04, 2007 - 9:53 pm: | |
I don't know where that SDA view came from, but somehow I also learned that point very specifically when I was growing up... the REAL Jesus wouldn't touch the ground.
Later on I remember some more fundamentalist/traditional SDAs who felt like the book "Desire of Ages" was NOT written by Ellen White specifically because at some point in it she refers to Christ standing on the Mount of Olives when He returns (citing Zechariah, of course). So they felt like the book was not really her writing, but an example of the church "selling out" and getting closer to becoming "Babylon", etc.
After leaving Adventism, some years later I reflected on the FEAR behind this idea of the real Jesus touching or not touching the earth. It is a terrible fear... that despite whatever love or conviction of the Spirit, you may be deceived if you don't know THIS THING. It is truly "salvation by information"... salvation becomes something like passing the SATs or MCATs. And you could never know if you truly would "pass"... you could only hope you wouldn't be deceived.
It is so completely foreign to the Gospel, to the knowledge that truly matters -- that is, that we are not saved by our knowledge, but by His knowledge, as God said in Isaiah, "By HIS knowledge My righteous servant will justify many."
People perish for lack of knowledge -- the knowledge that really matters. In life we collect a lot of what is falsely called "knowledge"... information, facts, trivia, etc. But the knowledge that matters is knowing Him and knowing that He knows you.
It seems sadly clear that this SDA idea really was made by folks who didn't know Him -- who didn't know how much He loves us and loved them, how much He wanted them to rest in His salvation and not on their own knowledge. If they had known that they could truly KNOW Him and trust Him to keep them from falling, they would have known the great Sabbath-rest that they were so desperately seeking. |
Jeremy
Registered user
Username: Jeremy
Post Number: 1721
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Monday, March 05, 2007 - 10:47 am: | |
Yes, it is absolutely a doctrine of FEAR and paranoia--worried that you will fall for a "false second coming" by a false Jesus (and yet sadly they don't have any concern that the SDA Jesus is a false Jesus). I know it was pounded into me growing up, that if "Jesus" touched the earth at all, then we could know that it was a false Jesus.
The worst part about this teaching is that they teach (and this comes from EGW) that Satan will appear as Jesus in the sky and perform a counterfeit "Second Coming" and deceive people into thinking he is Jesus! When I was growing up, I actually had a nightmare about this, where I dreamed that I saw what I thought was Jesus appearing in the sky and it turned out to actually be Satan and I felt like I had been deceived and may be lost forever. Even after waking up, I continued to worry about it, and thought that maybe it meant something.
What a horrific teaching it is! It's just more of their exaltation of Satan in the SDA/EGW teachings. To even think that Satan could have the power to do something like that, or that God would allow it, is just blasphemous.
Jeremy |
Snowboardingmom
Registered user
Username: Snowboardingmom
Post Number: 242
Registered: 11-2005
| | Posted on Monday, March 05, 2007 - 1:56 pm: | |
Jeremy, I had a similar dream growing up! It's funny, because it was so impacting that I also remember the details of it still to this day. I dreamed that the false "Jesus" had come, was worried that I wasn't sure if the real Jesus had really come or not, and wasn't sure whether to trust it. I was worried about being decieved and started to go down the list of proofs such as: every eye will see Him, Jesus touching the ground, had the Sunday law been passed, etc... I woke up extremely disturbed that I couldn't tell right off, and was worried maybe I wasn't as prepared as I should be.
Amazing how much fear and paranoia my "religion" caused me!
Grace |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 5494
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 05, 2007 - 2:09 pm: | |
Great points, Ramone and Jeremy.
Jeremy, I had forgotten that teaching that Satan would stage a counterfiet second coming. I remember hearing that as well, now that you reminded me. What a HORRIBLE teaching.
It's akin to Ellen's saying that when Jesus finishes the IJ and moves into the Most Holy Place, no one on earth will know when that happens, but Satan will take his place in the Holy Place Jesus has vacated, and all those who are lost (not knowing they are lost) will pray, thinking they are praying to Jesus, but Satan will be answering their prayers.
I realize now that this teaching is where the great fear so many of us have or have had comes from: that, as we are questioning and leaving Adventism, even though we pray for God's direction, we fear that Satan is deluding us, and he, not Jesus, is the one answering our "prayers" and confiming our desire to leave. It's also why so many people tell us, when we explain that God is blessing and guiding us, "You're being blessed and guided by the WRONG spirit." They actually believe that Satan will heap blessings on those "deceived" into leaving the church in order to "confirm" their great apostasy.
(I think they also hang onto this belief in order to calm their own fears that our experiences may be reflecting truth. If they can ascribe our peace and blessing to Satan, they can dismiss what we say.)
It's ironic, isn't it, that so many Adventists can explain our defection by calling it Satan's work, but when we point out that Adventist theology as well as its prophet espouse frankly unbiblical ideas and point out that those things, according to the Bible, can only come from Satan/evil, they have trouble believing we would ever think of such a thing.
Adventism, to be sure, makes much of Satanómore than Christians do. There is a reason for this "fixation".
Colleen |
Dennis
Registered user
Username: Dennis
Post Number: 1005
Registered: 4-2000
| | Posted on Monday, March 05, 2007 - 6:22 pm: | |
WHO IS MOST IMPORTANT: Longimanus, Miller, or White?
Even though Ellen White and William Miller are placed on high pedestals in Adventist circles, there is yet another person who looms even more important in SDA prophetic timelines. His name is Artaxerxes Longimanus I. King Artaxerxes I reigned over the Persian Empire from 465 BC to 424 BC. In "the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes" (Nehemiah 2:1 NASB), Nehemiah started the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Thus, in 445 BC (not 457 BC as Adventist apologists claim) Nehemiah began the rebuilding project.
How many Adventists have actually seen this ancient decree document from King Artaxerxes? SDA evangelists never even show pictures of it. If the year 1844 is really as important as Adventists claim it is, then the physical evidence of this actual decree document (supposedly issued in 457 BC) would be necessary to validate it as proof beyond a shadow of doubt. SDA apologists have never come up with this document as proof that their so-called "2300-year-prophecy" started in 457 BC instead of 445 BC. Amazingly, they actually built an entire religious system based upon a false premise.
Truly, the SDA view is unbiblical according to Nehemiah 2:1. Once again, we see that the Adventist pioneers were trying to rewrite ancient history. Being historically-incorrect by twelve years would come to 1824 instead of 1844. Our Adventist friends have actually MISSED their most important timeline date--the beginning date that would have supposedly given them a reason to exist. Yes, William Miller goofed again by not creating the sixteenth chart (smile).
Dennis Fischer |
Dennis
Registered user
Username: Dennis
Post Number: 1006
Registered: 4-2000
| | Posted on Monday, March 05, 2007 - 6:44 pm: | |
CORRECTION: I meant to say in my last paragraph: "Being historically-correct by TWELVE YEARS would come to 1824 instead of 1844."
Dennis Fischer |
Helovesme2
Registered user
Username: Helovesme2
Post Number: 853
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Monday, March 05, 2007 - 7:13 pm: | |
Colleen wrote: "Adventism, to be sure, makes much of Satanómore than Christians do. There is a reason for this "fixation"."
So true! I have found it so in my experience.
Just a niggly point of correction though.
Adventism teaches (or at least EGW taught) that Satan has ALREADY installed himself in the 'vacant holy place' that Jesus allegedly left on October 22, 1844 and that people who have not put their faith in Jesus' Investigative Judgment placement and work are currently praying to Satan rather than Jesus.
"In case you don't want to take my word for it you can read it for yourself:
quote:I saw the Father rise from the throne, and in a flaming chariot go into the holy of holies within the veil, and sit down. Then Jesus rose up from the throne, and the most of those who were bowed down arose with Him. I did not see one ray of light pass from Jesus to the careless multitude after He arose, and they were left in perfect darkness. Those who arose when Jesus did, kept their eyes fixed on Him as He left the throne and led them out a little way. Then He raised His right arm, and we heard His lovely voice saying, "Wait here; I am going to My Father to receive the kingdom; keep your garments spotless, and in a little while I will return from the wedding and receive you to Myself." Then a cloudy chariot, with wheels like flaming fire, surrounded by angels, came to where Jesus was. He stepped into the chariot and was borne to the holiest, where the Father sat. There I beheld Jesus, a great High Priest, standing before the Father. On the hem of His garment was a bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate. Those who rose up with Jesus would send up their faith to Him in the holiest, and pray, "My Father, give us Thy Spirit." Then Jesus would breathe upon them the Holy Ghost. In that breath was light, power, and much love, joy, and peace.
"I turned to look at the company who were still bowed before the throne; they did not know that Jesus had left it. Satan appeared to be by the throne, trying to carry on the work of God. I saw them look up to the throne, and pray, "Father, give us Thy Spirit." Satan would then breathe upon them an unholy influence; in it there was light and much power, but no sweet love, joy, and peace. Satan's object was to keep them deceived and to draw back and deceive God's children."
Early Writings pg. 55, 56
I believe this teaching is one of the reasons that many Adventists are so scared of formers, and in a lesser way of anyone who is non-Adventist. They do not know how to differentiate between God's voice and the devil's, and have been taught that if they don't accept and 'follow' Jesus into the Most Holy Place that any answers to their prayers that come are likely to be from Satan. Scary stuff even if you don't believe it, but when you do it can be downright terrifying!
Thank God for his mercy in opening our eyes! And thank God that he is continuing to woo, to call, and to change the lives of everyone who hears and answers!
Blessings,
Mary
(Message edited by helovesme2 on March 05, 2007) |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 3442
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Monday, March 05, 2007 - 7:45 pm: | |
Mary,
I am so glad I forgot all that "stuff". It was bad enough with the sabbath, even though I do not remember feeling guilty when I went dancing. My conscience would get to me on other things, but not on the dancing on Friday evenings. I had forgotten so much of that "stuff". Thank you God for letting me forget that. You are so awesome.
Diana |
Dennis
Registered user
Username: Dennis
Post Number: 1007
Registered: 4-2000
| | Posted on Monday, March 05, 2007 - 9:19 pm: | |
Mary,
Those are truly frightening quotes from our former infallible interpreter of Scripture. Adventism preys on the biblically-ignorant. Now I can better understand why my wife's longtime SDA friend converted to Catholicism.
Dennis Fischer |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 5497
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 05, 2007 - 9:30 pm: | |
Thank you, Mary. You're rightómajor time difference! No wonder, indeed, that SDAs are so frightened of formers!
Colleen |
Stevendi
Registered user
Username: Stevendi
Post Number: 102
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 06, 2007 - 11:10 am: | |
Hey Mary,
You are so right. SDA's are afraid of formers and especially afraid of the Holy Spirit. I remember raising my hand in an SDA service to receive the Spirit during a sermon, and the pastor stopped and asked me if I had a question! God forbid anyone should actually receive the Spirit in a SDA church. It's in vogue to ask, but no expectations please!
steve |
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