From an RCG source:
Prophetic Update April 1YESTERDAY
The Last Day of Unleavened Bread is fast approaching. As explained earlier this week, this Holy Day is the one we are all waiting for—the “season (time)”—“last season”—“last day”—also the “evil day”—the “day of Christ”—and “that day”!
Many may be wondering, how can so much be compressed into a single day? Could everything we know about really fit within a single 24-hour period? Mr. Pack has long battled this problem. The answer came to be no—this must be a long day! First, recall what we have termed “Joshua’s long day,” when “the sun stood still, and the moon stayed [in its place]” (Joshua 10:13), stretching a normal 24-hours.
Enough knowledge developed that Habakkuk 3, centering on verse 11, in fact teaches that God intends to do this again on the day He arrives to set up His Kingdom. Carefully reading all of chapter 3 in the context of chapter 2 about the Man of Sin actually reveals 3:11 cannot be the Day of the Lord. (But of course the Day of the Lord is also long—Zechariah 14:6-7.) The language and events described now make this impossible to believe! A couple of examples are that the chapter describes resurfacing this earth, not burning it up and replacing it. It is also when salvation comes and when Habakkuk receives his own. While a bit of the language can be tricky to the less-trained eye, the chapter is in fact loaded with evidence that the day it describes starts the acceptable year, not ends it!
This makes the timing of God’s arrival almost of no concern. It also settles why we cannot know or think up the hour that Christ arrives (on what is the same day the Father comes later). Consider. There are 24 time zones in play, including Headquarters, but also Jerusalem’s time zone possibly at the center of God’s thinking or not. Now couple this with the fact that God intends to stretch this day, making the time He chooses to send Christ less critical. Then remember that almost all verses describing the time of Christ’s arrival use parables! The result is that Mr. Pack has stressed there is now very little guidance we can give on any particular “timing scenario.” We are all left to watch with our spiritual “lights burning.”
Time fails to tell of other powerful indicators/proofs we have learned about the apparent certainty of this year versus one or more years to follow. The broad metrics of timing leave little or no room to doubt 2021! May knowing this much encourage you.
Finally, how exactly God’s Kingdom begins—the complexity of things that come first in His Plan—became plain at last! The long struggle to pin down the difficult matters of what happens “out of the gate” suddenly vanished for all those who were patient to the end. (The long struggle ended with correctly locating the first long day.) Mr. Pack wanted it stressed that those who have left us are almost certainly still in play within God’s Plan, although the fire is now their path to eternal life! In the meantime we are left to “judge nothing before the time, until the Lord [God] come” (I Cor. 4:5).
Hey Dave: at this writing about 6:00 PM PDT on Friday April 2, 2021 the last, 7th, day of unleavened bread is about over. The COGS interpret "the 14th......at even(ing)" as the beginning of the 14th, in Ex 12:6; Lev 23:5; Num 9:3,5,11; Josh 5:10........but in Ex 12:18 it's the end. No, it's the beginning, of seven, not eight, days.
ReplyDeleteOh, my goodness, what does this mean? What should I do? Where should I go? Have I been misled? Is there something I didn't understand? Can I stay awake during the long day? Will there be a long night, too, so I can catch up on my sleep? How long will the long day be? Will it be long enough for me to do everything I need to do? I'm really worried about how this is going to play out. We don't get a long day every day, and I'm afraid I'll blow it. Should I tell my neighbors about the long day? They might want to get ready too. I think I'll just call everyone I know and tell them there's going to be a long day. Some of them may not understand, but if even one person gets on the long day train it will be worth it. Maybe I should call my local government to see if anything is going to be done on the long day. Like maybe a siren going off, maybe all day, to let citizens know it's a long day. I just don't know what to do. Can anyone help me?
ReplyDeleteBlah, blah, blah, fire. Blah, blah, blah, everything is on track. Blah, blah, blah, all the ministers agree. Blah, blah, blah.
ReplyDeleteRemember, Christians cannot, with evidence, even give us the year - let alone the date - for 'historic' 'incarnation' of this 'messiah'!
ReplyDeleteSo why doesn't the 'brainiest man on earth', David Pack, who can 'pinpoint the date of the messiah's return', calculate the real dates for Jesus' earthly birth and death? It would settle a lot of debate and speculation and help bolster the ailing fortunes of what was once the world's fastest growing religion...Didn't his parent sect, the WCG, claim, with its know-it-all arrogance, to do just that? What became of that? Did bullshit Ambassador 'College' submit papers to enlighten the relevant historical authorities? No? Oh fudge!
ReplyDeleteDave is losing his mind and running out of time
ReplyDeleteYep, what I think is his bi-polar is really getting to him!
DeleteNo I think he enjoys dabbling his foot in and then doing a complete U turn. Two steps forward and then three in retreat. These types of fake preachers are cowards.
Delete"No, it's the beginning, of seven, not eight, days."
ReplyDeleteDave has another chance. In the Diaspora, observant Jews will add an extra day to some High Holy Days. This "just in case" addition was from times when the first day of the month in the Diaspora may not be correct (not the day observed in Jerusalem). So Dave does have an Eighth Day of Unleavened Bread? One more day for Dave to be right!!
There is a interesting contrast here:
ReplyDeleteIn Christianity Habbakuk is well known for the following statement:
"Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith."
This is an early endorsement of the Christian understanding of the role of faith surprisingly embedded within the law oriented culture of ancient Israel. In other words, Habakkuk contains a prophecy of a foundational principle of the future gospel.
Among the Splinterists, I doubt that Hab 2:4 is much considered. Splinterism is not big on ideas like faith and grace. They are instead great fans of the law and the prophets. So they see Habakkuk as a prophecy concerning the end time. And they have taken the language of a theophany that entails the dread fate of the ancient Chaldeans as a prophecy for today. This is in Habakkuk 3. This chapter also contains the statement about the sun and moon standing still. OT scholars in both the Jewish and Christian communities believe this entire passage is lyrics to a song and was set to music. This is poetry. It contains many metaphors and a reference to two mythological sea monsters. Are we really to accept the statement about the sun and moon standing still as a real world event when it is considered in its literary context?
Actually, the issue of the sun and moon standing still is downstream from a much more important issue. How can Splinterists transform an already fulfilled prophecy having to do with ancient Babylon to a prophecy having to do with the future of the United States? The issue of British-Israelism aside, they must use the dubious hermeneutic of type-antitype to accomplish this. So we have florid poetic language being interpreted using a hermeneutic of questionable value to arrive at a prophecy "for today." Unless they can clarify this major issue of hermeneutics, the sun-moon verse is small potatoes.
Personally, I think they painted themselves into a corner with their cryptic prophetic timelines and events and suddenly needed an override. So they found a way to knock a hole in the wall.
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ReplyDeleteCan anyone help me?
April 2, 2021 at 7:17 PM
Yes I can. I informed my good Baptist wife about the longest day and she paused for a second and said, that would be a good day to go shopping. So while Dave probably won't show his face again today while blowing off the second Holy Day services like he did the first Holy Day services and probably right now is sitting in his office looking out the window waiting for the sun to go backwards or looking into his bible shopping for more never before understood "truth", you shopping for consumables would be a worthwhile endeavor and a great long day to fill the pantry.
A mind is a terrible thing to have lost.
ReplyDeleteLosing God is far worse.
DeleteI'm pretty sure there is not going to be a long day like the one that allowed Joshua to commit the war crime of hunting down and slaughtering soldiers who had given up the fight and were simply trying to return home and rejoin their families.
ReplyDeleteThat incident took place in the days before the universe had been updated. The earth was still an immovable flat disk at the center of everything, and the heavenly bodies were ensconced in a firmament that wheeled overhead. It was this rotation that made the difference between night and day.
As miracles go, this one was simple. All Joshua's god had to do was stop the firmament and hold it in position long enough for the rest of the defeated soldiers straggling home to their families to be hunted down by trained trackers and have their throats cut. And so his chosen tribe scored a noble victory.
In the current universe, Dave Pack's god cannot afford to perform a similar miracle. This god maintains the illusion that the universe runs on regular laws. He hides all his miracles by making them fit within the law of averages. No miraculous adjustment in the length of the day in modern times has amounted to more than a leap second of change in the length of the year, and only the most attentive chronologists pay attention to them. But delaying nightfall on the scale Dave Pack proposes would require stopping the rotation of the earth and trigger a global cataclysm of landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, violent winds, and other inertia-related catastrophes here below. People would notice.
ReplyDeleteThe 3 hemera(s) and 3 nux(s), Greek for “days” and “nights” of Mat 12:40?: part Nisan 14, all of Nisan 15, part Nisan 16; a few minutes of darkness Friday afternoon about 3 PM, Friday night, part or all of Saturday night. In 33 AD. Here is what to consider: “hemera” has more than one meaning; a calendar day and night co-exist, see Mark 14:30; Luke 23:54 is mistranslated, should be ….and the sabbath (Nisan 14, really is the first day of unleavened bread – Eze 45:21) began to grow light, meaning darkness was leaving the land, after Jesus was buried – Luke 23:44-54; scripture never says days and nights including Jonah’s are full, i.e. 12 hours each; the high day of John 19:31 was the day-late Jewish passover on the weekly sabbath when they ate the lambs – John 18:28.
But HWA, Herman Hoeh, and company did not or would not understand this. H. Hoeh (hopefully your works are not built on Hoeh) had to change the calendar by changing the sequence of leap years so that Nisan 14 was on Wednesday in 31 AD so that the 3 days and nights were Thursday-Saturday. But Nisan 14 was on Monday in 31 AD. Hoeh’s reference to a change of leap years was Heinrich Graetz’ History of the Jews – Vol 2, pp 443-444 (it’s on line) but if you check it out you’ll find a maverick Jew attempted to change the sequence of leap years and failed!!
Retired Prof
ReplyDeleteSo part of your mental defences for rejecting God and His inspired word is that Joshua and friends were war criminals who slit the throats of enemy soldiers who were just trying to rejoin their families.
Hmm, interesting.
https://www.arcamax.com/thefunnies/agnes/
ReplyDeleteHab 1:17 Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?
ReplyDelete“Yahweh gave Habakkuk one more word of caution before he told him the answer to his question of theodicy. He said that Habakkuk needed to learn to wait. God’s time in not necessarily man’s time. Habakkuk wanted his answer immediately. He wanted God to punish the Babylonians and put an end to evil and oppression right then. God said he had appointed a time for all that to happen but it might not happen immediately.
Hab 2:14 For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
“Habakkuk like all of us, was living “between the times,” between the promise and fulfillment. Habakkuk was to wait in faith for God to act. He was assured that judgment on evil would surely come. It will not be late (v3). But Habakkuk was not to wait with folded hands and bated breath for all this to happen. He was to lead a life of faithfulness (v 4). The evil one is puffed up with pride and he will fail (vv 4,5), but the righteous will live by being faithful to his covenant God. Raymond Calkins said, “The summons is from speculation to action, from questioning to conduct, from brooding to duty. God is attending to His business, and Habakkuk must attend to his. Running the universe is not his task. That burden belongs to God. But Habakkuk has his task, and let him faithfully perform it. Thus he will live in moral sincerity and in moral security that righteous living brings in the midst of external calamities. That is the way for a righteous man to live in an evil world” (The Modern Message of the Minor Prophets... 97).
Heb 10:38 Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
Gal 3:11 But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.
“If Habakkuk was to live by his faithfulness, steadfastness, or trustworthiness, how do the NT writers get a doctrine of salvation by faith in Christ out of these words?
Hab 2:4 If he should draw back, my soul has no pleasure in him: but the just shall live by my [ego] faith (Brenton, LXX).
Hab 2:4 but the righteous shall live based on my faithfulness (Iver Larsen, from “Faith or faithfulness Habakkuk 2:4 and the LXX”).
“The answer is to be found in the way the LXX translated these verses. 2:3b-4 are quoted from the LXX in Heb 10:37-38 and by Paul in Rom 1:17 and Gal 3:11. The longer quote in Heb 10:37-38 reads .... “The coming one will come and he will not tarry. But my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back my soul has no pleasure in him.” The writer of Hebrews was interested in this passage because of the LXX’s use of “shrinking back.” He was trying to get his readers not to “shrink back.” He put no emphasis on living by faith. But Paul quoted only a portion of this passage, ho de dikaios ek pisits zao [transliteration supplied instead of the Greek] left out the pronoun ego and read “but the righteous will live by faith” (Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11). NT writers adapted OT scriptures to fit their purposes” (Ralph L. Smith, Micah-Malachi, WBC, p.107).
(It is suggested by Larsen that Paul may have been quoting from the Hebrew text; but what is known of Second Temple exegesis the former maybe the preferred view).
“While potential ambiguous in Habakkuk, the concept of the necessity of faith, a heart attitude rather than outward actions, is not foreign to the Old Testament (cf. Gen 15:6; Amos 5:23-24). Therefore the gospel so diligently preached by Paul is as much part of the old covenant as it is of the new. The false dichotomy of ‘Old Testament = Law; New Testament = Grace’ is seen in reality to be illusory” (David W. Baker, Nahum, Habakkuk and Zephaniah, TOTC, p.60).
Hab 2:14 For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
2:14 will begin to be fulfilled after the fall of Babylon the Great.
Anonymous (5:15)
ReplyDeleteSorry, bud, your writing is very confusing. Could you start off by giving a hint as to what point you are trying to make. I don't know what I am supposed to get out of what you wrote. Remember Spokesmkan Club: SPS - Intro - Body - Conclusion? That would be real nice. And when you enclose something in quotation marks, I get the impression that you are citing something that you read. But the fact that the source is sometimes lacking gives me the impression this is you opining. It's a mixed bag.
I never read what you write. What you write is easily recognizable by format. So I see it and skip over it. I did try to read your comment here and quickly gave up. I don't think that is fair to you but your going to have to help us out.
Just saying . . .
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Thought 5:15 was NEO. Lol.
DeleteSome thoughts on the validity of the Law
ReplyDeleteMt 5:19 Whosoever 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.
"The word ‘therefore' introduces the deduction which Jesus now draws for his disciples from the enduring validity of the law and his own attitude with respect to it. It reveals a vital connection between the law of God and the kingdom of God. Because he has come not to abolish but to fulfil, and because not an iota or dot will pass from the law until all has been fulfilled, therefore greatness in the kingdom of God will be measured by conformity to it. Nor is personal obedience enough; Christian disciples must also teach to others the permanently binding nature of the law's commandments...” (John R.W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, BST, p.74).
Mt 5:20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness [dikaioma] shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
“... the commands contained in the Law, they are all to be specially honoured by you; for your righteousness (i.e. the righteousness you show in observing them; there is no thought here of the imputed righteousness of Christ) must far exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees; otherwise there is no entrance for you into the kingdom of heaven” (Pulpit).
Ro 3:31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.
“... the question and answer of Rom 3:31 remains valid: “Do we overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” The righteousness required by the law of God is realized more fully by the inward enabling of the Spirit - in Jew and Gentile alike - than was possible under the old covenant...” (F.F. Bruce, The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians, NICNT, pp.298).
Jer 31:33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts;...
Eze 36:27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
“It was a new heart-righteousness which the prophets foresaw as one of the blessings of the Messianic age, ‘I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts,’ God promised Jeremiah (31:33). How would he do it? He told Ezekiel: ‘I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes’ (36:27). Thus God’s two promises to put his law within us and to put his Spirit within us coincide. We must not image (as some do today) that when we have the Spirit we can dispense with the law, for what the Spirit does in our hearts, is precisely, to write God’s law there. So ‘Spirit’, ‘law’, ‘righteousness’ and ‘heart’ all belong together... Now it is this deep obedience which is a righteousness of the heart and its is possible only in those whom the Holy Spirit has regenerated and now indwells. This is why entry into God’s kingdom is impossible without a righteousness greater (i,e., deeper) than that the of the Pharisees...” (Stott, ibid., p.75)
Ro 8:4 in order that the righteous requirements [dikaioma] of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. (NIV).
“righteousness: Better, legal claim; that which the Law laid down as the requisite for man, as his only possible right state. (The form of the Gr. word is different from that usually rendered “righteousness.”)
“The saints “fulfil” the law’s “claim” not in the sense of sinless perfection ... but in that of a true, living, and working consent to its principles; the consent of full conviction, and of a heart whose affections are won to God...” (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges).
“... and who has not felt the frustration of completing the reading of Isaiah or Jeremiah and then wondering what the “plot” was?
ReplyDelete“For the most part these longer books are collections of spoken oracles not always presented in their original chronological sequence, often without hints as to where the oracles ends and another begins, and often without hints to their historical setting...” (Gordon D. Fee & Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for all its Worth, 4th ed, pp.17, 189).
NEO, I am trying to follow a Biblical precedent, :)
5.15 AM
ReplyDeleteUnlike NEO, I like your quotes from various sources. They are very informative. Thank you.
Yes 5:15 I appreciate the comments too. Ignore NEO I do.
ReplyDeleteThanks 8:49 and 11:52 for your comments.
ReplyDeleteThe reality, as the different responses illustrate, is that in life you can’t appeal to every one - some people like Coke, some like Pepsi.