November 15, 2015
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Editor’s Note: The fashionable stupidity that is slowly becoming an epidemic in the Seventh Day Adventist church is in itself the fulfillment of the very prophecies it seeks to undermine. Notice this quote from Ellen White, Selected Messages Vol 1, Page 204: The enemy of souls has sought to bring in the supposition that a great reformation was to take place among Seventh-day Adventists, and that this reformation would consist in giving up the doctrines which stand as the pillars of our faith, and engaging in a process of reorganization. Were this reformation to take place, what would result? The principles of truth that God in His wisdom has given to the remnant church, would be discarded. Our religion would be changed. The fundamental principles that have sustained the work for the last fifty years would be accounted as error. A new organization would be established. Books of a new order would be written. A system of intellectual philosophy would be introduced. The founders of this system would go into the cities, and do a wonderful work. The Sabbath of course, would be lightly regarded, as also the God who created it. Nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of the new movement. The leaders would teach that virtue is better than vice, but God being removed, they would place their dependence on human power, which, without God, is worthless. Their foundation would be built on the sand, and storm and tempest would sweep away the structure.{Selected Messages, Volume 1, page 204.2} See if the following article is not an exact fulfillment of the above prophecy: |
Viewpoint: Antichrist Fever - The Pope in the US
24 September 2015
André Reis
Adventists all over the world are watching with interest the events unfolding this week in Washington D.C. as Pope Francis is visiting the United States and speaking to Congress. In preparation for this event, independent ministries have mailed out thousands of unsolicited Great Controversy paperbacks to mailboxes in Philadelphia. The web and social media have exploded with links to Revelation seminars, videos and articles.
For conservative Adventists, the implications of the auspicious visit are unequivocal: This is a clear fulfillment of the prophecy Revelation 13. The beast of the earth (America) is finally paying homage to the beast of the sea (Papacy).
Or is it?
Our official reading of Revelation 13 pits the Adventist remnant against monstrous beasts of the end time. The beast that rises from the sea is Catholicism led by the Pope and the beast from the earth is the modern day America. As they unite to persecute the little flock of the faithful in the end time, they impose the mark of the beast (Sunday Law) and trigger the second coming of Christ.
Ellen White practically canonized these interpretations by Uriah Smith and John Andrews when she admittedly copied and pasted them in The Great Controversy as emblematic of the best Adventist thought at the time.
But the traditional Adventist interpretation of Revelation 13 as applied to modern day Papacy and America faces many challenges. I will briefly focus on two.
The first is the fact that a prophecy portending events 2,000 years in the future would be utterly irrelevant to the seven churches for which Revelation was originally intended. The book was supposed to be read out loud in the churches in the first century, probably enacted, but most importantly, understood.
Thus the likelihood that John intended to refer specifically to a nation in a then unknown part of the world (America) in the 21st century and modern day Papacy in Revelation 13 virtually ignoring 2000 years of church history is next to nil. Prophecy may be predictive, but it must be grounded in relevance to its original audience.
But the traditional Adventist interpretation of Revelation 13 as applied to modern day Papacy and America faces many challenges. I will briefly focus on two.
The first is the fact that a prophecy portending events 2,000 years in the future would be utterly irrelevant to the seven churches for which Revelation was originally intended. The book was supposed to be read out loud in the churches in the first century, probably enacted, but most importantly, understood.
Thus the likelihood that John intended to refer specifically to a nation in a then unknown part of the world (America) in the 21st century and modern day Papacy in Revelation 13 virtually ignoring 2000 years of church history is next to nil. Prophecy may be predictive, but it must be grounded in relevance to its original audience.
A second reason why Revelation 13 probably does not predict entities and powers in the distant future specifically is that, in general, the symbolic prophecies of the book of Revelation were not really meant to be decoded in terms of events, entities or future world powers. The language of the book is just too ambiguous and highly symbolic for narrowing down fulfillments. In case a specific entity seems to be referred to, then a source must be found in the immediate context of the original readers, such as Jezebel (Rev 2:20) an actual person in the church of Thyatira.
Click on Link:
http://spectrummagazine.org/article/2015/09/24/viewpoint-antichrist-fever-pope-us
