Pentecost

This Sunday is Pentecost.  The time traditional Christianity marks the birthday of the Church and also as a celebration the coming of the Holy Spirit.

We have heard the myriad of reasons Armstrongism had difficulty with the Holy Spirit.. Is it God's power sent to us, is it a 'real' person, or what is it?

Judaism has always talked about the Shekinah as the dwelling or settling presence of God in people.  It is is used as the feminine attributes of God in the Talmud. The Hebrew ruach means “wind,” “breath,” or “spirit.” 

“The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD” (Isaiah 11:2; see also Isaiah 42:1). This prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus; at His baptism in the Jordan River, John saw “the Spirit of God descending like a doveand alighting on him” (Matthew 3:16).

For many Christians, the Holy Spirit is an active force in their lives.  Here is one such story.

After the service, I sat with one of my favorite parishioners, Miz Eula Jefferson. As we ate our marvelous feast, we shared some small talk about the kids playing jump rope and baseball - and, my, hasn't he gotten tall, and isn't she so pretty - when Ms. Jefferson zeroed in on me.

"Lemme ax you a question, Rev," she said in her South Carolinian drawl.

"Sure," I said.

"So, do you believe all that stuff we just sang in there?"

"I'm not sure what you mean," I said.

"Oh, you know, 'bout the Holy Spirit?"

"Well, yes, m'am. I mean... I'm not sure what you're asking, Ms. Jefferson."

She smiled and shifted her weight in the folding chair that was shifting in the soft grass of the church lawn.

I should have known by her smile that I was in trouble.

"Well," she said, "I don't mean no offense, and mebe it's just me, but in my experience - and you'll 'scuse my french - White People don't know shit about the Holy Spirit."

I laughed. Right out loud. I mean, what else was I supposed to do?

"I can say that to you, Rev, because you ain't like most White people," she said as she took my hand.

"Really?" I said, "How so?"

"Oh, you crazy, girl."

I laughed again. "Coming from you, I'll take that as a compliment."

"Huh!" she said, not smiling. "If I was to believe what was in them songs about the Holy Spirit, then I gotsta believe that you White people don't know shit about the Holy Spirit. 'Scuse my french."

"Tell me about that," I said, softly. I really wanted to know.

"Well, where I growd up, we had a name for the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, we call her "Holy Ghost," but mostly the women call her name 'Shekinah'". She pronounced it "Shek-e-NAH". It sounded distinctly Hebraic.

"Lemme tell you about Shekinah," she said, tilting her head back and looking out somewhere beyond the chain link fence that surrounded the church - the one with the barbed wire curled all around the top that had been put up after the 1967 riots that I was trying to get the diocese to take down. Well, at least the barbed wire.

"Oh, she come to you. Sometime when you call her and sometime when you don't. Sometime, she talk all sweet and nice and sometime she knock you upside the head and knock you on your behind so's you can't talk no sense no how. It all depend on how long she been tryin' to get your attention and if you've been mindin' her."

"First thing she do, though, if you haven't already met Jesus, is to introduce you to Him. So, you start listenin' and readin' an learnin', and pretty soon, your life gonna be completely turned upside down."

"That's if you payin' attention," she said. "If you not, then Jesus calls Shekinah back in to start working over your soul."

"Lemme tell you somethin'," she said, "That girl is crazy. CRAZY. You know what I'm sayin'? C.R.A.Z.Y.," she laughed.

"Shekinah will stop at nothin' - absolutely nothin' - to get you right with God.

Jesus will talk and teach, but if you don't be gettin' it, Shekinah will come into your life and slap you silly until you do."

"Now, lemme give you a for instance. Remember Rosa Parks? Yes, chile, I know you do, cuzin' you preached on her jus the other Sunday. And, you preached it, girl. That was good preachin'. I about had a 'glory attack', flat out, jus hearin' a white girl preach so well about one of us."

"So, Rosa Parks is tire. She tire to the bone. Weary in her soul kinda tire. Bus driver say, 'Back a the bus', and she don't wanna. She know it ain't right. She know it cuzin' Jesus tole her so."

"She knowd the teaching of Jesus, but what she gonna do? The White man say, 'Back a the bus' and you know you gotsta do what the White man say do."

"Well, chile, I knowd women like Miz. Parks. She jus roll her eyes and prayed, 'Lawd, gimme strength'. Now, here's the thing," Miz Jefferson said, leaning into me so I would hear her clearly.

"You gotsta be real careful what you pray for wid the Lawd," she chuckled, "because sometimes, you gets jus what you prayed for, and then, your whole life be turned upside down until you got it right with the Lawd."

"Well," she laughed again, "the Lawd done answered her prayer cuz fore you know it, here come Shekinah, big and bad as life. She done took one look at the situation, looked right at that sign that said, 'Whites only' and it caused her to get so mad  cuzin she knew that the Lawd didn't write that sign. White men wrote that sign."

"So Shekinah, she start to breathin' fire and she done blowd that poor woman, Miz Parks, right into that seat that was supposed to be for White peoples only."

"And the rest," she said, as she sat back in her folding chair, "is Civil Right's history."

"Yes, chile," she sighed, "that's the power of Shekinah. That's Holy Ghost power. Jesus will teach you what God wants, but Shekinah shows you the glory of God. And, that glory look like justice."

We were quite for a while as we both let that story swirl around us before the power of it sunk into a deeper place in our souls.

What No One Would Have Believed in 1960 - But THIS is the Plain Truth

• Ambassador College would not make it past the 20th Century
• Ambassador College would be sold off into many small pieces
• Ambassador Auditorium would be sold to a Pentecostal, Charismatic church
• Ambassador Big Sandy would be sold off
• Ambassador Bricket Wood would be sold off
• The Hall of Administration in Pasadena would be demolished
• The Fine Arts Hall and the Science Hall would be demolished
• Condominiums would sit on the same spots Ambassador College once sat on
• The Worldwide Church of God would become Grace Communion International 
• The Worldwide Church of God would shrink to insignificance by the early 21st Century
• Herbert Armstrong would die in 1986
• The World Tomorrow would NOT arrive in the 20th Century
• The Millennium would NOT start in the 20th Century
• There would be no World War III in the 20th Century
• The End would not happen in 3 to 5 years, 10 years, 20, 30, 40, or even 50 years. 
• Petra is not the Place of Safety.
• Non-ordained ministers would try to start their own churches
• Ordained pastors would try to become apostles and evangelists
• None of Herbert Armstrong's Prophecies would come true
• Rod Meredith would not take over the Church
• Rod Meredith would start his own Church Group. (Well, maybe they'd believe this.)
• There would be competing Churches of God in 50 years

What would have happened to anyone if they traveled back in time and told anyone back in those days the real truth? 

What would they have thought of the actual truth? Would they have believed it? 

Or would they have kicked that person to the curb, saying he was a liar, a deceiver, possessed, and of the devil? 

What does this say for the current state of affairs for those claiming to be God's Servants and the keeper of all truth today?

submitted by SHT

Adult Sabbath School: Never Before Understood and Unveiled At Last!: Preterism Matters

The entire experience of the Worldwide Church of God and all it's Shisms, Splits, Splinters and Slivers is based on the BOOK OF REVELATION UNVEILED AT LAST!.  Without the Book of Revelation and assorted sordid prophecies linked to our times by magical thinking, the Churches of God and many Fundamentalist Churches would not have much to motivate the faithful to join them.

 Fear does motivate. Fear causes one to join. Fear keeps one in place.  But, perfect love is said to cast out fear, so let's take a stab at putting the Book of Revelation in its proper place in history and reality and let the chips fall where they may.

"The Truth never changes; but we are not always as well informed as we would like to believe. We Christians must be flexible enough to change our positions when we discover we have made mistakes. We may not be comfortable with Truth which is different from what we were taught as children; but then we have no promise that the Truth is something which we will always be comfortable with. In any case, when differences come to light, we, not the Truth, must change."

 Don Stoner

 Consider Preterism

 Preterism is the belief that all Bible prophecies, including those concerned with the return of Christ, resurrection of the dead, rapture, judgment, and arrival of the kingdom of God, came to complete fulfillment in A.D. 70 upon the destruction of Herod’s temple in Jerusalem as predicted by Jesus.

 "The problem is not in what the Bible teaches. The problem is the assumptions and expectations modern Christians bring to the Bible. Everyone has opinions about what biblical prophecy should be about, and those opinions have a lot to do with what Christians “see” in prophecy. We recognize the critical role these assumptions play in our understanding of various portions of the Bible. But prophecy, understood on its own terms, is often surprisingly direct and simple." - Tim Martin

 When will Jesus return?

This question is often asked today. It was also asked by the disciples. Jesus answered His disciples and His words are straight and true:

When they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For assuredly, I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes. (Matthew 10:23)

For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” (Matthew 16:27-28)

 Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.....Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.(Matthew 24:30-34)

https://preterismmatters.webs.com/

Revelation

 1. The Date of Revelation                                                                                                      

 2. Timing and Theme                                                                                                            

 3. The Beast                                                                                                                          

 4. The Millennium 

When was Revelation written?

AVOID THE QUICK FIX OF 96

 When confronted with the Preterist view of Eschatology people often say, "Wasn't the Book of Revelation written after 70 A.D.?" They point out (incorrectly) that Revelation was written in 95 or 96 A.D. This is known as the "quick fix of 96" for if Revelation was written under Domitian's reign then the Preterist view has a problem. The fact is the Book of Revelation was written before Before Jerusalem Fell as hyper creedalist Ken Gentry shows in his book. There are two kinds of evidence regarding the composition of the Apocopypse, internal evidence and external evidence. Internal comes from within Revelation itself and is therefore the most important kind of evidence. External evidence is evidence from outside Revelation such as writings of the early church fathers. External evidence does not hold as much weight as internal evidence. Below is the tip of the ice berg for internal evidence to prove Revelation was written under the reign of Nero Caesar before 70 A.D. For more in-depth study read the book Before Jerusalem Fell.

 1. Revelation was written at a time when Christianity and Judism were operating in the same circles. This was not the case after the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D.

 2. Revelation chapter 11 tells us that the temple was still standing. We know the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D.

 3. Nero Caesar was the reigning emperor at the composition of Revelation as chapter 17 indicates. Nero was the sixth emperor.

 4. If Revelation was written in 95 or 96 A.D. there surely would have been mention of Herod's Temple having been destroyed 25 years earlier, but there is silence on this issue.

 See the article Date of Revelation by Timothy King.

The Time and Theme of Revelation

At the very beginning of the Book of Revelation we are told explicitly when the prophesies contained in the book were to be fulfilled! The timing of the prophecies is the key to understanding Revelation.

 ¹ The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John, ² who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw. ³ Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near. (Revelation 1:1-3)

 John was not writing to Christians living in America in the 21^st century. He was writing to seven churches in Asia which have long since disappeared. Revelation cannot be understood apart from this fact.

(The Seven Letters to the Seven Churches in Asia Minor are NOT types of Church Eras. That is just made up to give Revelation modern a significance it does not deserve in actual history.

Dennis Diehl)

 ⁴ John, to the seven churches which are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, (Revelation 1:4)

 The theme to the Book of Revelation was the Second Coming of Jesus against the apostate Jews in A.D. 70. This was prophesied by Jesus in Matt. 10:23, 16:27-28, Ch 24, etc. The phrases “they who pierced Him” and “all the tribes of the land” are two familiar designations for Old Covenant Israel.

⁷Lo, he doth come with the clouds, and see him shall every eye, even those who did pierce him, and wail because of him shall all the tribes of the land. Yes! Amen! (Revelation 1:7 YLT)

 John clearly identified himself and the seven churches in Asia Minor as living in the tribulation!!!

 ⁹ I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. ( Rev 1:9 NKJV)

Jesus said to the church in Thyatira:

²⁵ But hold fast what you have till I come. (Revelation 2:25)

 Question: Is the church at Thyatira still holding on to what they have? Are they still waiting for Jesus to return? Obviously not. The church at Thyatira is long gone now. So did Jesus fail? Did He deceive that church? Or did He come back in their lifetime as He promised?

 Jesus said to the church in Sardis:
"Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown." (Revelation 3:11)

Question: Is the church at Sardis still holding on to what they have? Are they still waiting for Jesus to return? Obviously not. The church at Sardis is long gone now. So did Jesus fail? Did He deceive that church? Or did He come back in their lifetime as He promised?

 The Lord told the seven churches in Asia in the first century He was coming quickly in their time.

 “Behold, I am coming quickly! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.” (Revelation 22:7)

¹⁰ And he said to me, “Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand. (Revelation 22:10)

 Contrast with Daniel 8:26 which reads:

²⁶ “ And the vision of the evenings and mornings  Which was told is true;  Therefore seal up the vision,  For it refers to many days in the future.”

There was only about 500 years between Daniel and Revelation.

 “And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work.
(Revelation 22:12)

He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming quickly.” Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:20)

The Beast of Revelation was Nero Caesar......

Revelation 17:9-10

9 Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. 10 There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time.

 FULFILLED IN NERO

The first seven Kings of the Roman Empire were:

1. Julius Caesar

2. Augustus Caesar

3. Tiberious Caesar     

4. Gaius Caesar

5. Claudius Caesar    "Five have fallen"

6. Nero Caesar          "one is"

7. Galba             "must remain for a little while"

 Galba was the King for only seven months.

......con't

https://preterismmatters.webs.com/thebookofrevelation.htm