So you definitely aren't a church, leave alone part of a remnant one.
Posted on 06/06/2024 4:25:04 AM PDT by Cronos
For those of us who have raised children, you might remember the question. There was a commercial, as I recall, that used the question to emphasize one product or the other in a humorous way.
Children in the back seat of the car in the commercial kept asking, “Are we there yet?”
We who transported our young kids on those times – especially on longer trips to Grandmas or other destinations – have heard that question, often in whining tones as time went on. I certainly remember hearing it. And I’m sure my parents heard it on those long trips from Pekin, Illinois, where we lived when I was a child, on the road to Hampton, my grandparent’s home in south Arkansas.
At this late moment of this Church Age I, myself, seem to be whining this question, and I’m hearing it from others on a growing basis.
“Are we there yet?”
It is coming from God’s children – believers in Jesus Christ who, like myself, sometimes grow weary –or vexed – as ol’ Lot might have put it while enduring to the end his time in Sodom.
“Are we there yet?” That is, how long before we reach the end of our Lord’s tolerance for the evil flourishing all around us while we keep looking up,” as my friend the late J.R. Church used to put it at the close of his Prophecy In The News TV program each week.
Each and every day – actually, each and every news cycle – we are inundated with end-times storm warnings. And it seems as if the Words of Warning from the Chief Prophetic Meteorologist of all history is speaking directly to those who, as commanded by Him – are “watching in order to discern where this generation stands on God’s Prophetic Timeline.
Jesus gave the signals to look for as Earth’s inhabitants near the outbreak of history’s most virulent turbulence – that of the Tribulation era. The following is that Storm warning.
“Are we there yet?” Is that great storm of the ages about to invade at this particular time? Let’s listen again to that Heaven-Sent Forecast that we can rely on as 100% accurate because it was issued by God Himself.
“And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved” (Matt 24:6-13).
Heaven’s Prophetic Forecast, of course, covers a broad scope of history, so many parts of this Olivet Discourse prophecy by Jesus applies to much of history that has already un-scrolled since He issued this Prophetic Weather Bulletin. Let us very briefly dissect this Warning, first in terms of its broad, historical sense.
“And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars.”
Hundreds of wars have afflicted humanity since Jesus spoke these words. The greatest wars of all time, World Wars One and Two, have caused the deaths of millions. The Romans waged war on the Jews, the Temple was destroyed, and the Jewish people scattered to all the world.
“For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.”
As a matter of fact, it has been ethnic disputes and warfare that have wrought the deaths of millions across the world.
“And there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.”
Earthquakes have continued to rumble throughout history, while the wars have brought famine and disease to countless generations. We have seen in our brief time on the planet as of late, a tremendous increase in these things.
“All these are the beginning of sorrows.”
These great troubles have been accumulative. They have indeed been like birth pangs, growing more intensive and coming in greater frequency.
“Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.”
The history of hatred of the Jews is in full view of the eyes of the world. The Nazi holocaust is the number one sign of history that highlights the satanic hatred God’s chosen people have endured. Their rejection of the very name of Jesus Christ and their being blamed for His crucifixion has been the basis Satan has used to incite the world against all of Israel.
So history has proven the absolute accuracy of Jesus’ Prophetic Forecast. But it is the question “Are we there yet?” I wish to address with regard to whether this generation has reached the moment when the Lord will say enough is enough and call believers to Himself so the greatest Storm of all history can rage upon a world ripe for Judgment.
We must place the same template over what is going on at this very moment to try to help answer, “Are we there yet?”
“And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars.”
The most profound threat of nuclear conflict of history might now be in the offing. Even the Cold War could not match the danger. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was effective, as the world’s two greatest superpowers were able to control escalation into man’s final war.
Not so now. There seems no control, as the power centers with the nuclear weapons are scattered around the globe, and many decision-makers among the most diabolical of their leaders seem bent on having their way, regardless of possible ramifications of all-out nuclear war.
The primary cause of the conflict again centers around ethnic differences and demands. Greatest among these conflicts is the hatred of the Jews and of Israel by their neighboring countries.
And that hatred has expanded to include many within nations of Europe and even the United States of America.
The seas and waves of peoples are roaring in that the protests against the Jews and Israel are front and center in even what is generally considered the civilized West.
At this very moment, even some among the Jewish people themselves are shouting along with the Israel-haters, “Stop the genocide,” and “From the river to the sea.”
As Jesus forewarned, these Jews on the politically ideological left are “betraying one another.” The genocidal rage is building swiftly toward another holocaust. Jesus also had a forecast about this evil that will mark the very end of the age.
“For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matt 24:21).
And hatred is building, too, against the Church – all believers in Jesus Christ and His Message of being the One and Only Way to Salvation (John 14:6).
The comment by a legal defense fund for Christian persecution states the following:
Biden is empowering the radical Left to wage a surreptitious war on our Christian faith – prayer, churches, the Bible, and even Christian kids sharing their faith in school are all under attack. The Biden FBI has even placed spies in churches and targeted “radical traditionalist” Christians for investigation…
We’re in court right now defending a teacher who was banned from praying anywhere a student might see her.
I’ve never seen anything like it… [Source: Jordan Sekulow, ACLJ Executive Director]
While unbelieving Jews must undergo the Tribulation Storm to bring forth a Remnant that will bring about God’s great Promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, believers of this Church Age (Age of Grace) will be taken (paralambano) to be with Jesus in the Clouds of Glory – In the Rapture. All indicators are that we have come to be right smack in the breaking turbulence of Jesus’ forecast of the end-times Storm.
And this is why I believe we can answer with a resounding “YES!” the question: “Are we there yet?”
An awful lot of Christians fail in their civic duties for the same reason. There’s no fight in them because God is in control. I mean, it’s all in God’s plan, right?
I’ve told quite a few of those people that they sound a whole lot like muslims with thinking like that; except the muslims still fight.
Excellent point.
By “faith,” they obeyed So, today God’s remnant church is a church which keeps the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
Unfortunately, and I say this sincerely, the remnant Church doesn’t include Catholics or any Evangelical/Protestant denomination that doesn’t observe God’s 4th commandment Seventh-day-Sabbath.
So you definitely aren't a church, leave alone part of a remnant one.
None of the early Christian writers observed Sabbath as the Christian day of worship.
They never once say that they observed Saturday. For example, Barnabas (100 AD), Ignatius (107 AD), Justin Martyr (145 AD), Tertullian (180 AD), Victorinus (280 AD), Bardaisan (154 AD), Cyprian (200 AD), Irenaeus (178 AD) all write that Christians met on Sunday.
They never refer to Christian’s day of worship being the Saturday sabbath. The Edict of Laodicea (320 AD) officially confirmed a long established practice.
This is significant because SDA’s say that the Catholic church after 320 AD changed Saturday worship to Sunday worship. This theory is nowhere found in Church Father’s writings, but instead Sunday as the Christian day of worship has always been the rule. The early church writers, many of whom were taught by the apostles, refer at least 14 times to Sunday as being the day of meeting together for worship.
The SDA Church has never successfully refuted these historical facts.
Church Fathers Observing SUNDAY, not SATURDAY, are:
1. Justin Martyr 100-165 AD (Volume 1, Page 186).
“And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read ... But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead.”
2. Ignatius (110 AD), Bishop of Antioch.
“If then those who walk in the ancient practices attain to newness of hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but fashioning their lives after the Lord’s Day on which our life also arose through Him, that we may be found disciples of Jesus Christ, our only teacher.”
3. The Epistle of Barnabas 120-150 AD.
“Your new moons and your sabbaths I cannot endure”. Isaiah 1:13.
“You perceive how He speaks: your present sabbaths are not acceptable to me, but that which I had made in giving rest to all things, I shall make a beginning of the eighth day, that is a beginning of another world. Wherefore also, we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, a day also in which Jesus rose from the dead.”
4. Bardaisan (born 154 AD).
“Wherever we be, all of us are called by the one name of the Messiah, namely Christians and upon one day which is the first day of the week, we assemble ourselves together and on the appointed days we abstain from food.”
5. The Teaching of the Apostles 160 AD (Volume 8, Page 668).
“The Apostles further appointed: On the first day of the week let there be service and the reading of the Holy Scriptures, and the oblation: because on the first day of the week our Lord rose from the place of the dead, and on the first day of the week He arose upon the world, and on the first day of the week He ascended up to heaven.”
6. Tertullian 150-240 AD (Volume 3, Page 70).
“The Holy Spirit upbraids the Jews with their holy-days. Your Sabbaths, and new moons, and ceremonies” says He, “My soul hateth.” By us, to whom Sabbaths are strange, and the new moons and festivals formerly beloved by God ...”
7. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, 200-258 AD.
“The Lord’s Day is both the first and the eighth day.”
8. Ad Nationes 217 AD (Volume 3, Page 123).
“Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be confessed, suppose that the sun is the God of the Christians, because it is a well known fact that we pray towards the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity.”
9. Victorinus 280 AD (Volume 7, Page 342).
“And let the parasceve become a rigorous fast, lest we should appear to observe any Sabbath with the Jews, which Christ Himself, the Lord of the Sabbath, says by His prophets that “His soul hateth;” which Sabbath He in His body abolished, although, nevertheless, He had formerly Himself commanded Moses that circumcision should not pass over the eighth day, which day very frequently happens on the Sabbath, as we read written in the Gospel.”
10. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, 155 AD (Volume 8, Page 773).
“The mystery of the Lord’s resurrection may not be celebrated any other day than on the Lord’s Day.”
SDA’s try to equate the Sabbath with the Lord’s Day by linking Mark 2:28 with Revelation 1:10.
They reason that since “the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27,28), when John says that he “was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day” (Revelation 1:10). Jesus was just saying in Mark 2:28 that as Lord of all, He could do as He pleased on the Sabbath Day.
Early Christian writers never once say that Saturday was their common day of worship.
On the contrary Early Christians Met on the First Day of the Week, Sunday, in:
i) “And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow.” Acts 20:7.
Early Christians met on Sunday for their agape love feast, followed by the Lord’s Supper.
ii) “Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him ...” 1 Corinthians 16:2. Early Christians, who met on Sunday, were to give money in the collection. They did not meet on Saturday. This order was also given to the churches of Galatia who met on Sunday.
iii) “Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled ... Jesus stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.” John 20:19.
“After eight days again his disciples were within, then came Jesus ...” John 20:26.
We are not under the Mosaic law, but under a different law in the Church Age, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”(Rom.8:2;Gal.6:2) which is an internal Holy Spirit motivated law.
Sabbath keeping is never mentioned as part of this law.
i) “Ye are not under law, but under grace ...” Romans 6:14,15 and Galatians 5:18.
ii) “Ye are dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another (ie. to Christ).” Romans 7:1-4.
Note: As a woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives, yet if the husband is dead, she is FREE FROM that LAW (v.2,3). So, Christians are become DEAD TO THE LAW, by the body of Christ, and we are MARRIED TO ANOTHER (Jesus Christ).
The Law is likened to the dead husband. This means that Christians’ relationship to the Law has been severed.
iii) “Now we are DELIVERED FROM THE LAW, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in NEWNESS OF SPIRIT, and not in the oldness of the letter.” Romans 7:6.
We are delivered from the Mosaic Law and now serve in the newness of the Law of the spirit.
15 times we are told that the Mosaic Law is finished for believers: Romans 6:14,15 “ye are not under law.”
Romans 7:1-4 “dead to the law .. married to another.” (Law is like a dead husband). Romans 7:6 “we are delivered from law.”
Romans 8:2 “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”
Romans 10:4 “Christ is the end of the law ... to every one that believeth.”
II Corinthians 3:7,9,11. “written and engraven in stones…………….was to be done away.”
Galatians 3:23 “we were kept under the law, shut up” (like in prison).
Galatians 3:24,25 “after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster” (law).
Galatians 5:18 “ye are not under the law.”
Ephesians 2:15 “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances;”
Colossians 2:14 “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us,took it out of the way”
Hebrews 9:1-4,10 “The first covenant had ordinances of divine service, the tables of the covenant;”
Hebrews 7:12 “priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law”
Hebrews 7:18 “there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before ..” Hebrews 10:9 “He taketh away the first (Mosaic law), that he may establish the
second.” (new covenant)
It’s Phil’s world.
We’re just living in it.
Quote
Regarding the rapture - there is no biblical evidence for a pre-tribulation rapture. None at all....
....
Cronos, there’s an example in the bible that’s quite compelling as evidence for a rapture of some sort..
The Mount on Transfiguration
A small remnant of His 12, went up the Mount and saw Him transfigured, while 9 of His 12 were on the ground fighting and losing,to a demon within a child.
Those 3 that went up the Mount did not taste death before they got to witness Him as He looks like in His Kingdom. Even got to hang out with Moses and Elijah on that Mount..
And note, Mathew and Mark’s versions mention that after He stated that some of them standing there would not taste before they saw Him come in His Kingdom, 6 days passed.
In Luke’s version, it is recorded that is was after about 8 days passed.
There’s a 2 day delay in Luke’s.
They didn’t repeat the event 2 days later about 2,000 years or 2 days ago..
——>The SDA Church has never successfully refuted these historical facts.
I follow the bible (facts), not your facts, which is tradition.
10 commandments spoken and written by God (preincarnate Jesus Christ)
A statement by God (Jesus Christ) CLEARLY saying that nothing changes from the law “till heaven and earth pass…till all be fulfilled”. That would certainly include God’s 10 commandment law. (Christ even gave examples from the 10 commandments)
Matthew 5:17Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 19Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
20For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Only God could change a commandment that He spoke and wrote, and kept. That would have to have been clearly stated in the bible BEFORE his death, BEFORE His blood sealed the New Covenant, as Paul states in Hebrews and Galatians.
https://www.biblelightinfo.com/covenant-seal.htm
The Last Will and Testament of Jesus Christ
When did the New Covenant go into effect and who is the mediator?
Heb 9:14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Heb 9:15 And for this cause he [Jesus] is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of [His] death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
Heb 9:16 For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.
Heb 9:17 For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.
The New Covenant came into effect with the sacrifice, shedding of blood, and death of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. As this Testament of Jesus Christ was put into effect by His death, the terms of the Testament cannot be changed by anyone after that.
Gal 3:15 Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man’s covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto.
A covenant, testament or will cannot be changed by anyone once the testator has died. Paul in Hebrews 9 is saying that the New Covenant is the last will and testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and as such it is not subject to alteration or annulment of its terms Gal 3:15. The terms of the New Covenant, in effect from the moment of the death of Jesus, and not subject to change by anyone, are the Ten Commandments of God. The Ark of the Covenant / Ark of the Testimony contained the substance or terms of both covenants, the Ten Commandments. It is impossible that the Sabbath commandment could be changed, that Sunday could replace the Sabbath in the New Covenant, after the death of Jesus on the cross! To attempt to change the terms of a last will or testament after the death of the testator is illegal and fraudulent in any court of law.
We are not under the Mosaic law, but under a different law in the Church Age, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”(Rom.8:2;Gal.6:2) which is an internal Holy Spirit motivated law.
Sabbath keeping is never mentioned as part of this law.
So, you’re saying Jesus Christ chiseled out the 4th commandment requirement before He died? Says His REMNANT only has to keep 9/10 of the commandments? Can you show me where He did that BEFORE His blood sealed the New Covenant?
Oh, and speaking of the New Covenant, you aren’t part of that, as all Christians should be? He puts His laws in our minds and hearts, so we consciously keep them out of love for what He did for us on the cross. But, not you? Is that what you’re telling me?
Hebrews 8:
10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
13In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
Sorry, that post should have gone to Cronos, not you. Again, my apologies.
Archbishop of Reggio's Sermon to the Council of Trent on the Power of the Church: By Our Authority The Sabbath Was Changed To Sunday!
https://www.biblelightinfo.com/bssb-1443-1444.htm
1444. Sabbath, Change of—Cited in Council of Trent as Proof that Tradition Is Above Scripture
Source: Heinrich Julius Holtzmann, Kanon und Tradition ("Canon and Tradition") (Ludwigsburg: Druck and Verlag von Ferd. Riehm, 1859), p. 263. German.
The Council [of Trent] agreed fully with Ambrosius Pelargus, that under no condition should the Protestants be allowed to triumph by saying that the council had condemned the doctrine of the ancient church. But this practice caused untold difficulty without being able to guarantee certainty. For this business, indeed, ‘well-nigh divine prudence’ was requisite—which the Spanish ambassador acknowledged as belonging to the council on the sixteenth of March, 1562. Indeed, thus far they had not been able to orient themselves to the interchanging, crisscrossing, labyrinthine, twisting passages of an older and newer concept of tradition. But even in this they were to succeed. Finally, at the last opening [see editors’ note] on the eighteenth of January, 1562, all hesitation was set aside: [Gaspar de Fosso] the Archbishop of Reggio made a speech [see No. 1443] in which he openly declared that tradition stood above Scripture. The authority of the church could therefore not be bound to the authority of the Scriptures, because the church had changed circumcision into baptism, Sabbath into Sunday, not by the command of Christ, but by its own authority. With this, to be sure, the last illusion was destroyed, and it was declared that tradition does not signify antiquity, but continual inspiration.
[Editors’ note: This "last opening" of the Council of Trent was not the last day, but the opening of the 17th session, the first meeting of the last series of sessions that was opened, after a lapse of time, under a new pope. The council was in session for longer or shorter periods over a series of years.]
Source for entries 1443, 1444: Neufeld, Don F., Seventh-day Adventist Bible Student’s Source Book, Don F. Neufeld and Julia Neuffer.—Washington, D.C., Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1962, pgs. 887-888.
https://www.romeschallenge.com/downloads/RomesChallenge.pdf
The Adventists are the only body of Christians with the Bible as their teacher, who can find no warrant in its pages for the change of day from the seventh to the first. Hence their appellation, “Seventh-day Adventists”. Their cardinal principle consists in setting apart Saturday for the exclusive worship of God, in conformity with the positive command of God Himself, repeatedly reiterated in the sacred books of the Old and New Testaments, literally obeyed by the children of Israel for thousands of years to this day and endorsed by the teaching and practice of the Son of God whilst on earth.
Per contra, the Protestants of the world, the Adventists excepted, with the same Bible as their cherished and sole infallible teacher, by their practice, since their appearance in the sixteenth century, with the time honored practice of the Jewish people before their eyes have rejected the day named for His worship by God and assumed in apparent contradiction of His command, a day for His worship never once referred to for that purpose, in the pages of that Sacred Volume.
All good
While we disagree on faith matters Phil, I’d welcome and cover your six on constitutional matters and even embrace you as my neighbor, because I’ve off what you’ve posted about our nation.
Respect
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