About Prophecy, the Book - Serialized - The Argument

About Prophecy

The Book

—serialized—

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The Argument

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The meaning of a sign is context-specific, and as Augustine argued in On Christian Doctrine, words are signs. And as endtime linguists and semioticians have shown, meaning must be assigned by the auditor or by a community of auditors (a reading community) to the sign or word, with an example of this found in Matthew chapter 16:

And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test Him they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. He answered them, "When it is evening, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.' And in the morning, 'It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.' You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah." So He left them and departed. (vv. 1–4)

One sign, that of a red sky, has two opposing meanings, with the meaning of the red sky color dependent on the context [dusk or dawn] in which the sign is seen.

Whether the sign conveys a valid message is of less importance than what the sign “means” to those who attach significance to the sign, with Matthew’s Jesus saying that an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign to which meaning can be assigned. In John’s Gospel, Jesus tells Jews seeking His life a similar thing: “‘You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life’” (5:39–40).

Let us use a 21^st-Century analogy: you [the generic you] watch the weather on the Weather Channel, watch stories about extreme weather, about storm survival, but you never go outside to experience weather; so what do you really know about the weather? You [same you] study Scripture, memorizing verse after verse, knowing the exact words of Moses as recorded, knowing the words of Jesus, but you don’t pay a tithe or trust God enough that you’ll put your health in His hands, so what do you really know about God …

In order for a sign to take on any meaning, there must be a suspension of disbelief. There must be a willingness to believe—but when there are no parameters for belief, a person will believe anything for the person has no deeply held principles of belief. And such is the status of endtime Christendom, wanting to believe that the Christian, him or herself, is personally saved, but doubtful that the Christian who believes differently is saved. Thus, Southern Baptists question whether Mormons are really Christians, and Mormons know that the Pope represents the Antichrist, and Seventh Day Adventists know that all three—Baptist, Mormon, and Catholic—as Sunday worshipers are of the devil … there’s not much love is such a schema.

What sign do Baptists, Mormons, Catholics, Adventists [any other denomination or named sect] use to show that they alone have the truth? Each has such a sign that is found in Scripture. Each has diligently searched Scripture and has found its sign, its verses, quotes, citations that it will insert into discussions between pauses in utterances. Each are unwilling to reconsider the meaning assigned to its pet verses, these verses well groomed, their toenails clipped, but inwardly, these pet verses are full of worms and feces, with the Apostle Paul condemning every named denomination:

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. (1 Cor 3:1–8 emphasis added)

Who is Peter; who is Paul? Are they not one who will receive wages for labor? Who is Martin Luther; who is John Calvin; who is Ellen G. White; who is Andrew Dugger; who is Herbert W. Armstrong? Are they not altogether one who will receive appropriate wages for their labors?

Paul also wrote,

I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge; indeed, in every way we have made this plain to you in all things. Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because I preached God's gospel to you free of charge? I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need. So I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way. … And what I do I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. (2 Cor 11:2–9, 12–15)

Every person who teaches is a workman either for God or against God, with there being a very narrow but very deep chasm between a servant of righteousness and servant of the Adversary disguised as a servant of righteousness. Both will use Paul’s epistles to support whatever meaning both have assigned to their pet scriptures that they drag along behind them on a leash. Both will use similar words to support similar constructs, but the servant of the Adversary will place importance on the surfaces of things such as ethnicity or skin color or biological gender or economic prosperity, dragging biblical prophecies about physical places and physical peoples into their teachings about the endtime mysteries of God.

To keep this “Argument” from becoming a full blown chapter, permit me to say, I too will use words as signs to support my understanding of biblical prophecy, but I will not ask that anyone believe my words. You are free to believe or not believe; for the sign that will establish my words will be the Second Passover liberation of Israel, the nation to be circumcised of heart, from indwelling Sin and Death on a near second Passover day that is modeled after the Passover of 31CE, which had the 15^th day of the first month occurring on Thursday, April 26^th (Julian). 2011 was such a year; 2014 is such a year; 2017 is such a year. A person can go from there.

At this Second Passover liberation of Israel, death angels will pass over all the earth, slaying uncovered firstborns, approximately two billion persons [2.4 billion]; a number that staggers imaginations. Men such as President Obama and Vice-president Biden will perish in a day, and there is nothing the Secret Service can do to prevent their untimely deaths. The television personality Glenn Beck will lose his adopted son, a daughter, a sister, a grandson—all in a day. For neither the President nor Beck, his political adversary, will cover themselves or their households by taking the Passover sacraments on the night when Jesus was betrayed, the dark portion of the 14^th day of the first month, which in 2014, will be the night between the 13^th and 14^th of April in the Northern Hemisphere. Neither assigns importance to taking the Passover sacraments on the Passover as kept by Moses in Egypt, or by Christ before being taken. Neither assigns importance to the Passover as a sign.

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