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I became a Christian back in 1974 down in San Jose Calfornia. at the age of eighteen. When the hippies were getting saved through the Jesus People Movement. I had moved to San Francisco Bay area in 1967--the summer of love--from Vancouver British Columbia. I got involved in taking drugs at the age of fourteen. We mostly smoked marijuana and took LSD, but did everything that came along including main lining. Once I took eight doses of acid and went on a bad trip and as I asked Jesus for help I saw His face as He talked to me in the Spirit. Another time we had smoked some marijuana and as we drove down the street I saw a person in a white robe with angel wings and a halo. We stopped a block away at our destination thinking nothing of it. As we were talking amongst ourselves this same man that I saw in a white robe walked towards us dressed in blue jeans and carrying a bible asked us if we knew Jesus Christ. These were just some of the main things in short detail that caused me to believe in God. A friend of mine once said that he is waiting for the third coming of Christ. I asked him why the third and he said that because back in the late 60's early 70's he saw the second coming of Christ all the time.
I enjoyed reading books like the Lord of the Rings series and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Trip that had stories about a well-known motorcycle club. For those who do not know what I'm talking about is not hard to figure out. At the time all I ever hoped for was to ride with them on a chopper as a club member and play guitar in a group like Led Zeppelin. But after living in a hell on earth in my teenage years not believing in God. I became convinced that God is alive, and to abide in Jesus Christ and Him abiding in and manifesting Himself through me was what I really desired. After all He is the King of kings and Lord of lords.
Before I becoming a Christian I meet James O'Connel where we worked, after talking to him he invited me out to a Gospel Rock concert where he would be playing. From that point on I decided to follow the Lord. Within a month I had moved out from my parents home and shared a place with James and four other brothers. It was one of the best years of my life. After four years of total drug abuse I had enough of it. One night James and I burned all the things that at the time I thought held me in bondage to the world--roach clips, needles, books, and rock and roll albums all went up in smoke. At the time, all I thought that was sin at that point of time was doing sex, drugs and rock and roll. A month later I was baptized in the Holy Spirit and then on my nineteenth birthday James baptized me in the pool in our backyard.
Later I met a woman in San Jose, Calfornia. at a bible study who asked if I was a biker. I told I owned a Harley 58 pan-head and before becoming a Christian I wanted to join a well-known motorcycle club. Their history goes back to the Second World War. They were a group of people with a good purpose in life. They were part of the freedom fighters that were willing to die for us so that we could have the freedoms that we enjoy today. She told me that a family member of hers (a Father or brother) was one of the original group members from World War II that flew in a crew of a bomber plane, most likely a B-17. She said that He told her that they called themselves by the name they had, because they were going to be dropping bombs on evil people that took away freedom and human rights from others, and that because they do not know Jesus they would be going to hell. In other words the reason they called themselves by this well-known name was because they were bringing God's wrath to those who did evil. Later on when a motorcycle club was formed, mainly because the war had ended, they had changed their original purpose. After hearing that I wanted to start a Christian motorcycle club and call it the Heavens Angels, but it never happened. When I finally started that ministry in 1999 I found out that many people were afraid to join because of the name. I found out later that there were other attempts to form clubs, with that name down south, but those clubs were shut down by another club with a similar name.
I became involved in a ministry that reached out to street people in Calgary, Alberta between 1987-1989. Eighteen years after becoming a Christian, my wife and I went to a Revelation Seminar not knowing that it was held by the Seventh-day Adventists in Victoria, B.C. Back in 1991. My wife and I were re-baptized as Seventh-day Adventists. At this point in time, not braking the Ten Commandments were sins we needed to repent from, and of coarse believing in the gospel, which we already believed. So to be good Pharisees we decided to join the "remnant church" trying to keep some old covenant laws along with trying to live in the new covenant ways by life in the Holy Spirit. We meet some beautiful people and had a good time with some we knew back then in Victoria, but after five years things were changing and I lost my job with BFI, so we moved back to Calgary Alberta in 1997 for my seventh time living there. Now I enjoy hiking back in the mountains after discovering them instead of just driving by wishing I lived on a ranch and desiring a cowboy way of life. So I'm finally happy at last to live here close to the Rockies and being a weekend mountain man. When I was living in San Jose, Calfornia. People at work called me Grizzly Adams because of my beard and love of the grizzly bear.
My wife stopped going to church because she could not find a friend that she could talk to anytime other than once a week on the Sabbath. We bought a house just a block and a half from my wife's sister's house so she hangs out with her family for fellowship. They have two young girls and a teenaged son. The girls come over a lot so [my wife] Sheila and I enjoy having kids without full-time responsibility.
I continued to go to a liberal SDA church where I had some good friends. The two friends of mine read a book called Sabbath in Crisis and had a bible study on the book at the Pastor's house. The Pastor stepped down from the SDA Ministry as a result from this and a few others went off to another church that meet on Sunday.
Two years later I read the book and another one not yet published at the time and in February. 2002 I was set free from the delusion that God wrote the Ten Commandment on stone to signify they were forever. I found out God wrote them on stone because of the stony hearts people have. In Ezek. 11:19 it says,
Ezekiel 11: 19. Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh.
God will take out the stony heart and give us a heart of flesh and put his Holy Spirit in that heart of flesh. A person with a stony heart is not capable of loving others as Christ loves us until God replaces it with a heart of flesh filled with the Holy Spirit. Just like the Ten Commandments were on two tables of stone the stony heart is a broken heart that is divided between good and evil. God will give us one heart as it says in Ezek.11:19, and that is the heart of Jesus Christ as the Tree of Life. We all ate from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil before coming to Christ. The Ten Commandments were written for the Sons of Israel along with the rest of the old covenant laws. The pattern of the tabernacle of David was for the gentiles. The Tabernacle of Moses represented the old covenant ways. King David was gifted to see the new covenant like no other in his time and he dared to move in that direction to some degree when it came to praise and worship and entering into God's presence. Deut. 1:8 is an example of children who have no knowledge of good and evil being able to enter into the promised land with Joshua and Caleb, where as the rest had to take their journey into the wilderness of sin where they received the laws from Moses. The law was a shadow of Christ and what was external and for the nation of Israel became internal and worldwide in the new covenant.
Deuteronomy 1
38. Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall go in there. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it.
39. "Moreover your little ones and your children, who you say will be victims, who today have no knowledge of good and evil, they shall go in there; to them I will give it, and they shall possess it.
40. But as for you, turn and take your journey into the wilderness by the Way of the Red Sea.'
And I found out that the weekly Sabbath Day was a Feast of the Lord as in Lev. 23:1-3. The weekly Seventh Day Sabbath had animal sacrifices and the eating of shewbread by the priests that made it even more convincing that the weekly Sabbath was a Feast of the Lord and had to do with sacrifices. That made the Sabbath Day a ceremonial law not Moral law as we were taught. And to think that I helped cause my family to keep a ceremonial law as a moral law for ten years to the point that they no longer desire to know the real Christ, may God forgive me. If any good thing that has come out of keeping a day holy is in what it pointed to and that is that we should rest in Christ from our own works so that He can live in us and manifest Himself in and through us. I believe this is our glorification in Christ.
The SDA's teach that Lev. 23:1-3 refers to the Sabbath Days that the other Feasts had in them and had nothing to do with the weekly Sabbath commandment written on stone. They taught that the Sabbaths that were in the other three Feasts could have occurred during any day of the week. All Christians believe including Seventh-day Adventists that all Feasts were ceremonial and ended at the cross as it was foretold in Daniel 9:27 and in Hosea 2:11. We had assumed that the weekly Sabbath was a moral law because it was written on stone and because of that, the Sabbath Day rest would also last forever because of being written on stone. Through this way of twisting the scriptures we were deceived and had some people convinced that Sunday was the mark of the beast. This was because the Sabbath command has the name, title, and territories of God written into it in Ex.20:11 where it says the Lord (His name) created (His title as Creator) Heaven and Earth (His territories). But Deut.5 was the original of what was written on stone. But Deut.5 does not have the things that contain a seal. It has been said that a Jewish Priest took Ex. 31:16,17 and inserted it into Ex.20: 11 to make it a seal with this commandment being right in the middle of the Ten Commandments. The SDA Church also says that because Deut.8:6 says for the sons of Israel to write the laws on their hands and foreheads refers to the Ten Commandments and if changed (like the Sabbath Day to Sunday) would mean the mark of the beast. But those laws referred to the two greatest commands--to love God and to love others as your selves.
The old covenant law was only a shadow of good things to come that pointed to Christ and the rest that we have by abiding in him. They were to be sealed with the law in the old covenant, which represented by being sealed with the Holy Spirit in the new covenant. The mark of the beast is the spirit of antichrist or being under the old covenant law now that Christ has come and given us the Holy Spirit. The Sabbath Day Feast pointed to our rest for our souls by abiding in Christ.
In the new covenant if we overcome as children of God growing into the image of Jesus Christ, after a reasonable amount of time in our Spiritual growth--the things written in Revelation chapters 2 & 3--we will receive rewards. There are seven spirits of God that God will give us to help overcome. If we do not overcome those things we will end up in spiritual Babylon, a type of what Israel went through in their times in Babylon because they did not overcome. As a newborn in Christ all we have to do is believe in the gospel for salvation. But as we grow we have to overcome a few things mentioned in Rev. chapters 2 & 3 if we want to grow into His image. At some point in time, as the Spirit leads us through this journey, we will reckon ourselves as dead when Christ died, and being caught up to live with Him as Christ rose from the dead, then Jesus Christ will manifest Himself through us, by speaking and doing the works that the scripture says that He would do at His Coming. At this point in time in our walk with God if we draw back we will also lose out what God wants to reveal through us, and that is Christ revealed in us the hope of glory.
One of the rewards we can receive is to eat from the Tree of Life with the help of the spirit of wisdom. When the Sons of Israel observed old covenant laws even though they were good, perfect, and holy, they were eating from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. That is why Paul called the old law the law of sin and death. The day Adam and Eve ate from that tree they became gods like God. They exchanged being made in God's image to being like God as Lucifer did when he sinned.
Before I was set free from the Sabbath command, my son and I started a ministry called "Heavens Angels & Associates International" in 1999. We had the colors on a black leather vest with the three Angels blowing trumpets. The first angel was with a cross after the trumpet signifying the everlasting gospel to be preached. The second angel had the Ten Commandments as to judge Babylon as being fallen. The third angel had the Seal of God (from an old covenant and SDA point of view) after the trumpets signifying a warning about the opposite of the seal of God that being the mark of the beast. The colors looked like the colors of a well-known motorcycle club except they were blue and white instead of red and white and had the three Angels instead of the death-skull. I think that the Lord brought that book called Sabbath in Crisis to me just in time before that ministry took off or was put down by a motorcycle club that would not have approved. After seeking the Lord we decided to change the name and colors to the Manifested SONS of GOD. The HEAVENS ANGELS will remain as a side-line name that may be used or not in the future. What ever the Lord wills it to be will be, maybe in a hundred years from now--who knows. It would have a whole new meaning than what the Seventh-day Adventist Church has presented the three angels message to be. But it will not happen unless some members of the infamous motorcycle club turn to the Lord and allow it, or better yet, make it happen.
Since February. 2002, I have been so relieved to know that I can truly rest in Christ as I abide in Him and it is no longer I that lives but Christ lives in me. Sin is separation, but abiding and believing in the Father and Son is not, and as Paul said, so do I. That I died with Christ when he died and rose with him and I'm seated in him in heavenly places so that Christ can now manifest Himself through me and many others who believe and rest in Him.
Grace and Peace in Christ to all
Brad Baker
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BRAD BAKER