“Can you believe in Jesus and in astrology? The answer is a resounding yes, according to a study that shows Americans’ beliefs to be more complex than might be expected…
For example, 25 percent of about 4,000 U.S. adults surveyed believe in reincarnation, the rebirth of the soul in another body. Among Christians, the number drops only slightly, to 22 percent.” Survey finds complexity in U.S. religious beliefs, Washington Post, Thursday, December 10, 2009.
For over a hundred years Seventh-day Adventists have been preaching (from Revelation 13 & 16) that in the final days of earth’s history there will be more and more overlap between paganism (with its foundational teaching of the immortality of the soul), the Roman Church (with its fascination with miracles) and Compromising Protestantism. This latest research shows that this is happening in the thinking of followers of each religion, not just among the leaders. (Read entire Pew Research Study)
Why not preach a sermon on the Statutes and Judgements? What they are. Why God the Son gave them to Moses who hung them “in the sides (not outside) of the Ark.”
Do we keep them today, or just part of them; the ones that are easy and popular to keep?
If Mrs. White was a true prophet, and I believe she was, and her words are prophecy today, and she said, of the spiritual special times each year that were ordained by God Himself in passages like Exodus, chapter 34 and Leviticus 23, as the everlasting Covenant, and White described, on pages 100 and 101 of Prophets and Kings the “annual divinely appointed institutions,” and on page 678, speaking of these institutions, “In the time of the end, EVERY divine institution IS to be RESTORED,” is it not time to consider going back to the actual religion that Jesus set up for a year before His crucifiction in Capernaum?
This great prophet, Mrs. White, spoke of things that the Church had not yet even begun to deal with. She could not step out on a limb while the still new SDA Church was still in it’s infancy, and follow God’s only established religious calendar. It was established formally in the “everlasting Covenant. She could not in any publicly noticeable way. She likely would have been cast out. The 1888 General Conference session nearly did that over Jones and Waggoner’s new (revisited, really) light from the Scriptures.
She made clear that the “ceremonial law’ consisted only of the animal sacrifices and the priesthood which God had temporarily set up to admininster it in the now long defunct Temple at Jerusalem. The sacrifices had no direct connection to the specific themes of the plan of Salvation cpmtained in each of the feasts of the Lord.
The animal sacrifices were meant to cause the “Jewish Church” (Ellen White, see the words at the White Estate website in a search engine) to look forward to the future sacrifice of innocent blood of the coming Messiah. Both were meant to impart a contrite heart to those who would understand and have faith in His first coming.
The Apostles kept all of these annual holy convocations and sacred times, but with Jesus at the center of each, just as Jesus had commanded them. No need to keep them only in Jerusalem. Jesus, the Master, Himself, kept them a distance from Jerusalem (Capernaum).
Jesus, in Matthew 23, defended even the hypocritical pharisees when they sat in Moses’ bench in the Synagogues each Sabbath. They had to teach, from that bench only the Law that the pre-incarnate God the Son gave to Moses. He was defending His own Law and the Prophets He had chosen.
His Law, His Statutes and Judgements have never changed. Only the prophetic animal “types” would when their Anti-type was here, lived the Law perfectly and died, was raised on the third day of Passover, and ascended 10 days before Shavuot (Feast of Weeks, Pentecost).
Ellen White: “The Gospel is given in precept in Leviticus 23.” Also, “Jesus Christ was the originator of the religion of the Jews.”
To be a “true Jew” (John, Revelation 2, vs. 9) is the only way to get to Heaven when He returns. Then we can do as the prophets and Jesus, Himself, said, “keep the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles each year. No sacrifices then either.
Paul said, “Jesus Christ, our Passover Lamb is slain. Therefore LET US KEEP THE FEAST.” Most of the fourteen parts of the Seder are described in the four Gospels. Especially in the book of Luke.
No discussion was had, at the “Jerusalem Council” about the annual festivals and sabbaths, because both non-Christian, Torah observant Jews and Jewish Christians worshipped at all of these times together, including the seventh-day Shabbat (Sab bath)
May the Holy Spirit guide these words to those whose hearts yearn for what Mrs. White called “new light that shall shine forth from the Scriptures.”
PS. The Statutes and Judgements God gave to help the Jewish Christians keep the Ten Commandments as He wants them kept. Who are we to say otherwise?
Just a little post-script. In each of Jesus’s special times each week, and each year, the Holy Scriptures tell of the love of God. Each one, with it’s special Christian meaning, contains examples of how God wants His Community to behave and treat each other.
Jesus makes what some call “the old Law,” His Law that He died that sinners might keep by meeting Him at all of His appointed times, and learning the love that His Law contains and gives practice in how to show love to all mankind.
I see the Church now organizing to help meet human need for families. Without knowing the love that Jesus had Moses write, right into His Law of Love, will we not lose sight of the One Who gave it? In the soon coming time of trouble, when showing love to communities will be made almost impossible by those who refuse the Everlasing Covenant, knowing His Statutes and Judgements and the weekly day that represents the annual holy times, and the God who gave them to us, will point us in Christ’s direction as the One we can trust to deliver us from temptation.
Christ’s love and peace
In my above Response I intended to say that while Jesus was at Capernaum (see John 6), He observed the Passover at Capernaum rather than at Jerusalem. This occurred one year prior to His crucifixion at Jerusalem. I would also like to point out that in John 4:21, 23, Jesus taught that God’s true religion would no longer be centered at Jerusalem. In John 4, Jesus opened up His religion to be observed world-wide.
Obviously Jesus was not crucified at Capernaum.