More thoughts on Revelation

I have thoroughly been enjoying my studies on Revelation as I have been preparing for Bible class. Let me just share some more of the amazing things I am learning. We are in chapter 7 right now on the 144000. Vs. 3 says that it is the "servants" of God who are sealed. I had my students look up four passages that give insights into a qualification of a servant. Romans 6:22 says that a servant is "free from sin." But how are we free from sin? Romans 6:7 says that those who are dead are free from sin. So then, what needs to die? Romans 6:6 says that our old man needs to die. How does he die? Do we drown him? shoot him? strangle him? chop him? beat him? Galatians 2:20 says that we must crucify him. It is only through the power of the cross that the old man will be forever laid to rest. I then had the students string all the verses together to create one thought. Here was an example: "We must start at the foot of the cross. Seeing Christ on the cross helps us realize what our sins did to him. his love helps us crucify that old man of sin. Once the old man is crucified and is dead, then we are free from sin. When you are free from sin, we are a servant of God. When we are a servant of God, we can receive the seal of the living God. Then we will be able to stand when Jesus comes back the second time."

This thought that God will only seal his servants who are free from sin has really made me think. Right after the servants are sealed, we know probation closes. This means that Christ steps down from his meditorial work. There is no longer any forgiveness of sin because our intercessor has set aside his robes and stepped out of the sanctuary. The case of every person has been decided. God's sealed servants must go through this time of probation with no intercessor. Yesterday in class, we had an incredible discussion of what this really means. I asked the class that if Christ is no longer mediating for his people, then what does this mean about the lives of the 144000 after the close of probation? It means that their lives must be perfect before God during that time otherwise there is no forgiveness of sin after Jesus steps down. But then I asked the class if it is that they "cannot" sin or they "will not" sin. We talked about how God never takes away free choice, so it must not be that they cannot sin. But how is it then that they will not sin. One student asked how God can guarantee that after he seals them, they will not sin. It is not like God can deduct numbers from the 144000 if someone slips after they were sealed. In response, I asked how they were even sealed in the beginning. The only way they were sealed is that they had already shown in their lives prior to the sealing that they were living a life free from sin. They had already purposed in their hearts long before the sealing time that they would not sin against the God they loved. It was only because of this that God knew he could seal them and this is the guarantee he has that they will not sin after he has sealed them. (It is interesting that although God views them as sinless, they have such a distrust of themselves that they go through the time of Jacob's trouble pleading with God that their hearts are right before him.)

Then we talked about Satan's accusation that nobody can obey God's law and be sinless before God. He tried to prove his point when he tempted Adam and Eve and they fell into sin. God sought to disprove this by sending his Son with fallen nature. Satan hit hard on Christ to try to make him sin, but Jesus didn’t. So God said that it was possible for someone to obey the law even in human flesh if they trust in God.

But Satan tried to argue that this was because Jesus was God. He tried to argue that God didn’t really have a people that would stand. So God reminded him of Job, Enoch, Daniel, etc. But Satan said this was just isolated people. He tried to argue that there is not a whole group of people that can really obey God’s commandments. But God counters that by saying he will have a group of people called the 144000 that will be without fault, who will not have guile in their mouths, they will follow the Lamb wherever he goes, they are pure as virgins. But Satan says, that is not good enough. He asks God how he can be sure that these people will live as Jesus lived—without sin. He tries to argue that if they truly live like Jesus lived, then they would have to live without an intercessor pleading for them every time they sinned because, after all, Jesus never had an intercessor. He argues that the 144000 always have an intercessor so they always have a chance to come back to God if they sin.

God responds to Satan by saying, “Well, Satan, I am going to show you a time when the 144000 will live without an intercessor and you will see how they will still obey God and trust in me even though there is no intercessor. They have so determined in their minds to live just like Me in terms of character and obedience that they will not transgress My law. There is a people--a whole group of them--who will prove you wrong."

This thought has completely blown me away. It has made me do some serious soul searching as to whether God can look at me and say, "Autumn loves Me so much that she has determined that she will daily crucify the old man and will live a life free from sin. I will place my seal upon her and she will stand in that group of 144000 in the last days who will prove to the world that a soul that is washed in the blood of the Lamb is perfect before me and can keep my law." My friends, today God is looking for a group of people that can live through the time of trouble when there is no mediator and not sin. He is looking to see if in word, action, and character they are now reflecting him so that he can trust them to seal them with his seal and then step down from his meditorial work. Will he find you and me? That is a solemn thought.

Four Horses...

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately...thinking about how to make Revelation more practical to my students and helping them see the significance of what the prophecies mean to us as SDAs. We just finished covering the seven seals of Revelation and the first four seals are the horses of Revelation. We spoke of the rapid decline of God's church from his pure church (the white horse) to a church in persecution (red horse) to a church in apostasy (black horse) to a church that was dead (pale horse). We spoke about God's viewpoint of his church and how he had to do some drastic measures to raise the church out of apostasy and restore it to the condition of his first church. He did this through each of the Reformers that presented a message that got the church back on track. Just as someone being in pitch darkness has to slowly be brought back into the light, God slowly brought his church out of error by introducing new messages through various people. Each message that the reformers preached was significant in both the message that was given and the order in which it was given. This is the sequence.

Waldenses -- The Bible and Bible Alone
Huss -- Obedience
Luther -- Righteousness by Faith/Grace
Calvin -- Spiritual Growth
Anabaptists -- Baptism
Wesley -- Holiness
Miller -- 2nd coming
God's Last Day church -- Sabbath, Sanctuary, Health, 2nd coming (deeper knowledge)

On a Bible test this week, I asked my students to string these messages together and show why the order in which they came was significant for God's church. Here is one student's response.

"The 1st message was the Bible and the Bible only. The Bible had to be the foundation of the church otherwise it could not grow. The 2nd message was obedience. You must obey what God says in His word. The 3rd message was salvation through faith. By having God's word you can see the sacrifice of Christ and that you do not have to earn your salvation but Christ paid for it. The 4th message is Christian growth. Once we have faith in Christ, we must continually walk with Him and we will grow close to Him. The 5th message was baptism. As we grow closer to Christ, we must make a public stand to show your allegiance to God. The 6th message is holiness. Once we make a stand for Christ and we continually grow, we will become like Christ. The 7th message is the second coming. Once God's people have become like Him, then He will come and take us home to live with Him forever. The 8th message is health, sanctuary, Sabbath, second coming, etc. This is the last truth. Now Christ can come as soon as His people are ready."

Another student concluded the last part by saying "...As it gets closer to the time when He will come, times will become harder and we need to have clear minds. Having a good diet will help with this. We have also been given a time of rest every week to focus on Jesus. We also have light as to how things will work and how things are going in the sanctuary. This progression helps paint a picture of a Christian walk. And shows how their messages, working together, help us to become the true church."

I love her last statement. All these work together to create God's last day church. God is so good to have used each of these Reformers and movements to bring His church around to the true message. One other question I asked on the test was why we see so many different denominations rising out of the Reformation period and what challenge this is to the SDA church. This was another student's response.

"What happened during the Reformation was that only so much light was given at a particular time to God's people. And what happened to many is that they would follow a new truth and go no farther. If later more truth was presented, they chose not to follow it. As was and is the case with the Lutherans. To Luther was revealed the truth of righteousness by faith and grace, not by works. This was revealed to Luther for him and for that time to reform the church as God saw fit in that period of time. Luther still kept to Sunday and many other Catholic beliefs only because at the time, light was not given to show those things were wrong. But when new light did come, the Lutherans decided it unnecessary I suppose to hold to that new light. This same type of thing happened with the sects that came out of John Calvin, Menno Simmons, and John & Charles Wesley's movements, which is how we ended up with so many different denominations. It's like the sun, if you stop moving with the light, you'll find yourself in darkness."

Another student concluded, "This can be a challenge for us today. God is still giving light to this world. His knowledge is unending. If we are not searching for his truths, the light will pass us by and we will only be pew warmers, not part of the remnant."

So my friends, are we as guilty as each of these different denominations that formed in the past? They became satisfied with the light they had and stopped progressing. But the light moved on and they were left in darkness. Jesus challenged his disciples in John 12:35, 36 "Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light."

I ran across a startling statement by Mrs. White while I was going over this topic with the seniors in the Philippines. She says:

"We shall not be held accountable for the light that has not reached our perception, but for that which we have resisted and refused. A man could not apprehend the truth which had never been presented to him, and therefore could not be condemned for light he had never had. But if he had opportunity to hear the message, and to become acquainted with the truth, and yet refused to improve his opportunity, he will be among the number of whom Christ said, "Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life." Those who deliberately place themselves where they will not have an opportunity of hearing the truth, will be reckoned among those who have heard the truth, and persistently resisted its evidences" (RH April 25, 1893). (emphasis supplied)

This is a solemn thought. Many choose not to place themselves where they will hear the truth because then that will require them to change. They say that ignorance is bliss--as long as they didn't know, God couldn't hold them accountable. But this statement says that if we had the opportunity to know the truth and chose not to, then it will be as if we persistently refused the truth. So my friends, my challenge to you is twofold: 1) are you walking in the light and 2) have you placed yourself where you will have the opportunity to be acquainted with truth? My prayer is that you will.

I want spring!!

This winter seems like it has dragged on long enough! When I first came here to Canada, everyone assured me it does not snow in this valley or if it did, it would only be an inch or two and then it would melt right away. Ha! I am still trying to figure out if that was supposed to be a joke or not. Right from the start when I got stranded in the lower mainland for a week (read my archived post), I knew I was in for a long winter. From what I understand, they say this is one of the worst winters they have had in 30 years. We literally got dumped on this year and the snow stayed almost the entire winter.

It was such a welcomed relief to finally get away from it all and go to the Philippines for 3 1/2 weeks. When we returned, much of the snow was melted, but having tasted warmer weather, I was even more ready for spring. I wondered it it would ever come... Finally, last week, the weather spiked a warm streak and on Sabbath it was 77 degrees. It was amazing. I laid out in the sun with some friends, took a nice long walk, and enjoyed the taste of spring. All the fruit trees on campus began to bloom blanketing everything in white and pink blossoms. It was beautiful. Then on Thursday night, the wind started howling around my place. (It is so fitting that the place where I stay is called "Whistling Winds." Well, I guess it is not so fitting. It should be more like "Howling Winds." Anyway, I couldn't sleep much that night and wondered what was going on outside. When I woke up in the morning, there were nearly two inches of snow on the ground and it was coming down hard. Within an hour, there was another inch or so of snow on my car. Ugh... I only thought spring had come. It has been freezing the past two days and I don't foresee warmer weather any time soon...

I am starting to have an issue with this "global warming" business. Come to Canada and you will get "global freezing." Welcome to Canada everyone!! Doesn't it just make you want to come visit me in April? (Be sure to bring your ski pants... you may just need them!)

word confirmation...

hey everyone, I have been getting quite a number of spam comments on my blogsite, so for a while I am just having everyone enter in a confirmation password that will appear when you leave a comment. I am sorry I have to do this (please don't let this hinder you from leaving comments!), but I just want to see if it helps...

A final update....

Here is one final update of the Philippines trip...

God blessed so much in the final events of our meetings. Saying goodbye to all the people was hard. On the last night, most of the groups had a going away party. One site begged me to come back for their final night. We had a wonderful time with a sermon and then a social night with crazy Filipino games (some are rather unusual!). I had only been at this site one other time, but the people made me feel as though I had been there the whole time. They even gave me a going away present.

That night I met one little boy named Kenneth who was ten years old. He hung out with me the entire evening and always wanted to sit right next to me. When I said goodbye, he cried and cried. I felt terrible! The people have a way to just work themselves right into your heart. (Kenneth is the boy right next to me.)

The last Sabbath, there were over 1500-2000 baptisms (I didn't get the exact final count). It was amazing to stand by the edge of the pool and see so many commit their lives to Christ. It was so neat!!



After we were done in Manilla, we went down to the lower part of Luzon Island to a beach resort called Matabungkay. On the way down, we stopped to see Taal volcano, the world's smallest active volcano at only 406 meters high. It is described as a "crater within an island within a lake" because it stands as an island in Taal Lake. The lake was formed after the volcano, which used to be much larger, collapsed. It was really cool. The volcano is the tiny island in the forefront.

The final day in the Philippines, we took a boat to an absolutely beautiful island. It was a very tiny island, but it had cool things to see including an old ship and a type of Greek acropolis on the top that we climbed up to. The water around the island was absolutely amazing. It was emerald green in places and deep blue in others and it was so clear that you could see way below the surface. I went snorkeling for the first time and it was incredible. I saw so many different types of fish, star fish, coral, anenome, etc. I felt like I was looking down on an aquarium from the top. On the way back, we were blessed with a wonderful sunset.



























The trip back was uneventful--unlike the trip there. It has been good to be back, but jet lag hit me once again. I came back to a full stack of grading, which was rather unpleasant, but I am slowly making my way along. This weekend we are at Puget Sound, so I will have to post about my time here in another post.

p.s. I meant to post a picture of the "demise of the star apple" since Paeter requested it (see comment on previous post), but I forgot that it is on a friends computer, so I may just have to post that one later...

Another update...

It has been really hard for me to find time to post about all the things that are happening here. So once again, I'll include a lot of pictures to catch everyone up on the events of the past week. It is hard to believe that we have been here for a week and a half already. It seems like it has flown by already and at the same time, it seems that a lot has been packed into it as well.

On Tuesday, we went to the village of the staff member that is with us who is from the Philippines. It was so much fun to tour around his little village. We rode on motorbike tricycles from the main highway to his village because the road was too narrow for the bus. I think we were the amusement of the entire village seeing a bunch of white people riding around on the trikes. But it was fun! We took a long walk into the country side which is really pretty. They used to grow a lot of rice in the area but after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, the soil was too acidic from the volcanic ash. Now there are fish hatcheries all around. Notice the volcano in the background.


When the volcano erupted, it left so much volcanic ash in the area that some of the houses were completely buried. Others have only the roofs sticking out above the ground. This church used to be a lot taller than it is now. It was buried in 12 meters of ash. They have since just raised the floor in the inside of the church so the ceiling inside feels very low for it being a cathedral. The side windows are halfway sunk into the floor with only about 3-4 feet of the top of the window still exposed. It is really strange.


Out in the country, the fruit grows all over the trees there. We tried a new fruit there called a star apple (I can't remember what it is called in Tagalog) but it is so incredibly good. The fruit puts out a very sticky milky substance that makes your mouth feel really funny, but the inside of the fruit is almost like a jelly substance and is super sweet. I wish I could bring some back to the states.
This is one of my students and I eating a star apple. They are super messy to eat!


This is another fruit called a jack fruit. They are huge. I saw one cluster of jack fruit that had about 6 to 8 of these large fruits all growing together. I don't know how the branch can hold them up.


I haven't tried the star fruit when it is ripe, but I had it when it was green. They use it like a vegetable when it was green and cook it. It was really really good. The dish was called "come-and-see"... no, not really...:) I don't know how it is spelled in Tagalog, but that is how it is pronounced.

I don't think I have ever eaten as many different varieties of fruits as I have here in such a short amount of time. Most of them have been so good! We are in mango season right now so every day we eat tons of mangoes and since they are right of the tree, they are so good! Every day our meals consist of a large variety of mangoes, pineapples, papaya, bananas (they are wonderful here!), and a mixture of other fruits that I can't spell. I am getting spoiled!

While we were out in the country, I pet my first caribou and made friends with this cow. When I walked away, it tried to follow me.

We walked to this park in the village that had a lot of animal statues in it. Now I can say I have ridden a gorilla. He was a little harder than I expected and he didn't move... oh, well, maybe it is just a defective Filipino gorilla...


The other day, one of my students and I caught a gecko. I have been wanting to see one since I got here, so I was pretty excited to catch this one. His feet are super sticky so they can crawl across the ceiling.


In addition to all the fun things I have been doing here, I have been keeping busy with the evangelistic meetings. Every night, I go to a different site to watch each of my students preach. I am so proud of all of them. They are doing a wonderful job. One day last week, I reorganized their entire presentation for the 2300 days. The Share Him program was really confusing and the poor students were so frustrated that they couldn't understand it let alone preach it. I reorganized the entire presentation and then explained the entire 2300 days to the students who were going to preach. After that I worked individually with almost every speaker helping them tailor the sermon. At the conclusion of the day, I felt like I had prepared about 6 different sermons and was exhausted. But I am glad I was here to help them out of their pickle.

Some amazing things have been coming out of some of the sights. At one site, a woman came to the meeting one night after she had been randomly invited by one of the elders. She is not a religious person, but decided to accept his invitation to come. The night she came, they show the part of the Jesus video about Christ's baptism. She said she started to get goose bumps up here arms. Then one my students got up to preach. This lady was in absolute shock. She later explained to me what had happened. In December of 2001, she was sitting on her couch, when this being appeared in the room. This being told here that he would lead her to the true church. Being from a Catholic background, she asked the being if the Catholic church was the true church. He told her no... that it was corrupt and didn't teach the Bible. He then went on to explain that she would know the true church when she saw a video of Jesus baptism and then a American girl with long hair would begin to speak (a perfect description of the girl who spoke that night). In fact, (from what I understood) she was told there would be two or three American girls who would be preaching about the Bible (this is our only site with three girls). They being told here that when she saw this, this would be the true church. She told me that just three months ago, she moved to this province and when she moved, the being told her that it would be in this new location that the fulfillment of her dream would come. That night, she said she was overjoyed because she realized that what the being had told here 7 years ago actually happened. I wish you could have heard her express her story. She was so excited. Two days after this experience is when I met her and spoke with her. She told me that she felt this church was God's gift to her. I agree!


Today, I went with one of my students to a local radio station here in town. Every Sunday afternoon, Adventist laymen have a two hour radio timeslot. They asked my student to give a presentation on prophecy, so she preached about the 2300 days and the investigative judgment. for the first 35-40 minutes of the broadcast and then for the remaining 1 1/2 hours, we discussed the assurance we have in the judgment, the purpose of the investigative judgment, etc. Then callers called into the station and we answered live questions on the air. It was so much fun and a challenge to be able to answer questions like how we can prove there is a sanctuary in heaven, how we know the cleansing began in 1844, how to explain what the sanctuary is being cleansed from , how it got defiled in the first place, and how symbolically Christ can cleanse a sanctary in heaven. Thankfully we had two other laymen there that were helping us with the answers just in case we got stuck. It was a first time experience for me to be on a radio station, but it was such a blessing to share God with the people of the Philippines. They say that most of the their 3 millions listeners are non-Adventists. So I pray that God spoke through us today to teach people of the investigative judgment that is now happening on this earth.
It is late here...almost midnight. So I am headed to bed. Please continue to pray for our work here. We have 6 meetings left. God is still working on people's hearts.

a view of the Philippines...

This is the flight from Seattle to Toyko Japan. It was a great flight. All the seats have monitors in front that have games, flight info (maps of where the plane is, how fast it is traveling), etc. The best part was that we could play games with multiple partners so we would play with various people in our group. It kept us well entertained on the 11 hour flight.

I hadn't realized it until we got to the Philippines that they are celebrating their 100th year of Adventism in the Philippines. Their first converts were in 1908. It is really neat to be here 100 years later and be preaching the gospel message so more people can hear. All throughout this year there are major events, rallies, conferences, etc. This past Sabbath, we went to a huge event in a auditorium that seats thousands of people. There were so many Adventists there celebrating the events. Don Schneider gave the sermon. It was neat to be surrounded by so many Filipino Adventists.

The people here are absolutely amazing. They are so incredibly friendly. They open heart and home to you and welcome you right into their lives. We almost feel like celebrities in the way they treat us. It is humbling. They have a wonderful sense of humor too and make us laugh all the time!

I have been traveling around to all the different sites to hear each of my students preach. One site I went to last night was so nice with all the children and young people. Here are just a few pictures of the group.










Two of my students are co-preaching at this site. They are doing a wonderful job! The man on the far right is Benny Moore, the Share Him coordinator.



This morning, one of the pastors picked up my two students that are speaking at his church and myself and took us with his family to the park. It was wonderful to get "out of the city" (it is still in the city but at least it is away from the houses, markets, etc. and the air is cleaner to breathe). I had my first green coconut. (It is call buko here.) It is so amazing to watch them cut the thing! They are so skilled with the machete. The buko is really interesting to eat. It has a layer of thin meat on the top that you poke through, then you drink all the liquid out of the shell. Then you eat the meat that is really soft. It tastes good. Here are just a few pictures of our time out this morning. (Oh, ya, they do things early around here. We got ready to leave for the park at 6:30 am!)

This is the pastor, his wife, son and daughter, and grand daughter as well as my two students.






This is his grand daughter Keesha. She is only two. But she was so cute!










This is the little shop where we got the buko.








I wish I could post the video of this guy chopping the buko.










This is the inside of the buko...








Then we ate it on the hood of the car. It was fun...









This was a memorial at the park to Manuel Louis Quezon, a previous president of the Republic of the Philippines.









Here are just two other random photos of a jeepney ride we took It was fun, but the jeepney's here put out such pollution that it is hard to ride near the back. You about suffocate from exhaust fumes. It was funny watching all the locals being so amused with a bunch of Americans riding in a jeepney. They probably thought that was a funny sight. They kept waving and laughing. So we would wave and laugh back. It was rather entertaining.



















Please continue to pray for the work here. God is doing amazing things I know. I will keep you posted.