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THEY SEEM TO COME OUT OF THE WOODWORK…. Don’t they? Or is it my imagination? I mean since the two major splits in the church in 1995, it seems to me that we have had one “want to be” Pastor General after another. Every time I turn around there seems to be another self professed biblical scholar trying to sell me on another “new biblical truth” that he, and only he, is privy to. Naturally, everything that we have learned, have studied, or been taught in the past is not only wrong, but we are in danger of Hell’s fire if we don’t suddenly drop everything, adopt this new spiritual truth, and fall into lock step behind our new Moses who has promised to lead our poor, wretched, ignorant souls out of spiritual imprisonment (usually imposed on us by Herbert Armstrong, who we now are told was a dote at best, demonic at worst and who now, it seems knew nothing about anything). AH, but now, under the tutorage or our new guru we can bask in the sunlight of his radiance as he leads toward “true” understanding and enlightenment. By now you are either chuckling, because you know what I am talking about, or your mad enough to tear my head off, because I have touched a nerve. Sorry, I’m not done yet. Lets see now, over the past several years we have been told that God will destroy us because we are keeping the Passover on the wrong date. Don’t laugh, I have been told just that. I believe the year of our prophesied destruction was 1997. I could be wrong on that, it’s been quite awhile. It may have been 1996 but, as you can see, we are still here. We are all lost you know. Why? According to some, it is because we don’t pronounce the name of God properly. I find that one particularly distasteful and even blasphemous because it implies that God is petty and spiteful. Apparently Jesus didn’t have the name right either; after all He simply referred to God as His “ Father” and ours. Did you know that Christ has already returned to the earth and guess what? You are living in the Kingdom of God. Did you know that? I wonder if Saddam Hussein knows that. Did you know that God has a secret and mysterious method of counting known only to a few? It’s true. I once read a voluminous book on the subject. As always, the writer went to great lengths to warn me that if I didn’t accept this simple truth, I was “denying Christ” and headed straight for the bottomless pit. You see God would never do anything on a Sunday because we all know Sunday is a pagan day. Right? That’s why when God said, “and you shall count from the morrow after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven Sabbaths shall be complete, counting fifty days to the morrow after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall present a cereal offering of new grain to the Lord (Lev.23: l5-16).” He really meant fifty-one days, because that’s how God counts, you see. I know that’s true because I read it in a book by a man who told me over and over that he knew what he was talking about and that I was endanger of God’s judgment if I didn’t believe him. I guess I’m just not as smart as he is, because I still don’t get it. The Feast of Pentecost is either the 50th or the 51st day after the wave sheaf Sabbath. Of course you know that the word “Pentecost” means 50th don’t you? I wonder if Jesus meant four days and four nights in the grave when He said he would be there three days and three nights? Lately, we have all had the spiritual treat of being dragged over the proverbial coals by the biggest non-issue of our time, at least for those of us who do not accept the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. For those of you who do, you have my sympathies. You have enough to drive you crazy just tying to figure out how God the Father, His son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit of God could all be a very same person. Go your way, and scratch your head trying to figure that one out my son, and leave the question of polytheism and monotheism for us “enlightened” creatures to fight about. What are we arguing about? The word God is a title, not a name. The nations around Israel referred to the Hebrews as “ people of the God with no name.” The word translated God in the Hebrew is Eloi meaning God in the singular. Eloiem, is the plural form of the same word. In John 1:1 we read, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word (Logos) was with God (Eloi)( Ho Theos in the Greek) and the Word was God (Eloiem)(Theos in the Greek). Better translations have rendered Eloiem and Theos as, “ and the Word was divine.” Or “and the Word was a god.” Point is, we all know and believe in God the Father, the designer, planner and creator of the Universe. We all know and believe in His son the Logos, through whom all things were made and without Him was nothing made. This is the personage who became Jesus Christ. Who died for our sins, who is our elder brother, and king, and he is the personage to whom God (the Father) gave all power, authority and glory. They are not the same person and we all know and understand that. Unless of course, you are a stray Trinitarian who decided to hang in there and read this part of the article. If that’s the case, you’ve got to be REALLY confused by now. This is really a non-issue. All we are dealing with here is semantics pure and simple. Why is this going on? I’ll tell you. Some people are not happy unless they are stirring the pot. The more confusion and unrest they can cause, the better they like it. Pure and simple The latest gem to come down the pike (for me at least), is this idea that God’s days begin a dawn, and that “evening to evening” is an ungodly concept inherited from the Jews and perpetrated by Herbert W. Armstrong and all of us suckers who believed him. In the eight page article which I have just read, I was once again bombarded with “proof” text which were not proof text; although there were literally dozens of scriptures quoted that told be what a heretic I was, and how close I was to destruction if I didn’t accept what was being shoved down my throat. So, when does “God’s Day” begin and end? Here again we have a secret code that only the “enlightened” know. You see, the 24-hour concept of a day is MAN’S concept not God’s. Once we get around this bit of evilness, everything will be rosy. Of course, days could not possibly begin at evening because that is the beginning of darkness and we all know what darkness is, right? THAT’S SATAN’S TIME!!!!! So, right away the evening-to-evening concept is Satanic, being perpetuated by men and institutions that are either duped by Satan or are his willing lackeys. He doesn’t actually say that in his article, but that is his very strong reference. So, what are these irrefutable proof texts? Turn to Gen. 1:5 and read the complete text. Don’t see any earth shattering proof text there? Don’t feel alone, I didn’t either. It’s only after you spend the next half hour (that’s in my case, you may be quicker) laboriously reading and rereading the next several pages, that the light (no pun intended) struck. You see, God created light (that’s His definition of “day”), followed by darkness. God’s “light” precedes Satan’s “darkness”, therefore to have darkness precede light is unthinkable, and that by the Creator’s own definition (according to the author of the article) a day is light. So days begin at dawn not evening. Look! Lets get real here. The word “Day” has many applications. The term may apply to a 24 hr. period, the daylight portion of that period only, or to any number of extended periods of time ie; “the day of the Lord”, “in that day”, the day of the gentiles, some day, one day, etc. The notion that the hours of physical darkness upon the earth are somehow connected with Satan is just so ridiculous I’m not even going to go there, accept to point out the obvious. When the Bible refers to darkness in connection with Satan, it is METAPHORICAL, NOT PHYSICAL. Right? I mean, is leavening evil? Of course not. It is only used in connection with sin during the Passover season so that God can better instruct us and make His point. That’s just common sense. When we are talking about the physical boundaries of a physical day, we are talking pure astronomy. Science, not philosophy. The simple truth is, the earth rotates upon its axis once every 24 hours. 12 hours are daylight when we face the sun, and 12 hours are darkness, when we face away from the sun. That is called “a day”. It is physical, God arranged it that way. I happen to believe He did it that way on purpose, and I don’t believe there is any “secret” meaning in that or that it was intended to be anything but simple. Does a day begin at dawn or sunset? All I have to go on (without spending my whole life devoted to the subject) is the information that I have available to me. To me that means secular informational material ( i.e.: history books), and the Bible. I looked up the word “Day” in the various historical references I have available to me, and without exception, they all informed me that the Hebrew day for thousands of years has begun and ended with the setting of the sun. The Greeks and Romans adopted the mid-night to mid-night system we use today. Only Babylon incorporated the dawn-to-dawn concept (hummmm). What about the Bible? Well, despite the highlighted shouts coming at me off the pages that he had done so, the author had utterly failed to produce one good proof text to make his point. In fact, I had to first accept his premise that God has a mysterious day reckoning procedure, and that darkness is always bad before anything he said even made the slightest bit of sense. Sorry, I don’t do my research that way. I was a police detective for too many years to be suckered so easily. The Bible does say this… Lev. 23:32 “It shall be to you a Sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict yourselves; On the ninth day of the month beginning at evening, from evening to evening shall you keep your Sabbath.” What can I say? You begin the Sabbath on the 9th at even and end it on the 10th at even. I’m a simple man. Although the author of the article went to great lengths (and lots of paper) to convince me that this doesn’t say what it plainly says, and that even if it does, it only pertains to the Day of Atonement, I’m afraid (idiot that I am), I remain unconvinced. Especially, when I look at the sequence of events surrounding the death of our Lord. They are very numerous, so I am going to pick just a couple of them to make the case….if you have any question about this at all, please read the entire text . Was the Last Supper in actuality the “Last Breakfast”? Matthew 26: 20 “When it was evening, he sat at the table with his disciples…”. Read John 18 in its entirety. The Priests and Pharisees came after Jesus with torches and lanterns. When was the last time you heard a cock crow at sundown? Read Mark 15:33. Jesus died at about the 9th hour. That is 3:00PM by the reckoning of every historical piece of information I have available to me. John 19:31 (NKJ) “Therefore, because it was the Preparation Day, that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), …”. Now, either that Sabbath was beginning at Sundown, or the crucifixion took place in the middle of the night and they had to get the bodies down before dawn. Which do you think happened? When you put all of the scriptures together it appears obvious (at least to me) that Jesus lived during a time when His people, reckoned days from even to even. Now, if Jesus was living under a false tradition perpetrated by the Jews, he either didn’t know it (I guess He wasn’t have the inside track like the follow who wrote this article), or it didn’t seen to matter to Him, because He never make any mention of it, which is kind of funny when you consider how he raked them over the coals on about everything else. Actually, the even to even concept makes perfect sense. At evening you are awake and alert. It is the perfect time to make the transition from a normal day to a day of preparation for a Holy Sabbath, and then to that Sabbath. God is an extremely astute observer of human nature. If Sabbaths began and ended at dawn, most people would either sleep right through them or be groggy and therefore, inattentive. Soon the very important messages that these Sabbaths are meant to convey would get lost in ritual by rote, and eventually lost altogether. You study, you decide. Just make sure to study.
That’s the point of this entire article. Not that we should be so close-minded that we can’t accept anything, but that we have to use our brains. Study, use your common sense and don’t accept things as absolute proof just because they appear on the surface to be. Check them out and consider the source. Here are some tools that I have found useful over the years for raising red flags when you are presented with a thesis, article or book that purports a new or undiscovered truth. ANYONE attempting to teach something new should do so with GREAT humility. All of the examples that I have presented here have been put forth with an “in your face” attitude. Watch out, big Red Flag!
Now, of course none of the above applies to me. I am perfect and never make mistakes. Just ask me and I’ll be glad to tell you.
Carl R. Dillenback |
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