Month: August 2025

MID-WEEK MANNA FROM PASTOR NAT’S DESK:

August 27, 2025

God’s Purposes Revealed by Inspiration

THE BROADER AND DEEPER PURPOSE OF THE PLAN OF REDEMPTION

    “God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers [patriarchs] by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things by whom also He made the WORLDS.” Heb. 1: 1, 2, KJV. 

Take note of that last word, “worlds.” If you are, like me, a follower of Christ in these last days of earth’s history who “cherishes the old rugged cross,” here’s an invitation: closely re-examine the hopes you have been cherishing of the expected eternal “rewards” in the after life, if it includes the prior realization of God’s “greater” purpose in the plan of redemption as highlighted by His death—other than “saving” us.

Contemplate on fhe following (all emphasis and bracketed words provided):

     “But the plan of redemption had yet a broader and deeper purpose THAN THE SALVATION OF MAN. It was NOT for this alone that Christ came to the earth; it was not merely that the inhabitants of this little world [called Earth] might regard the LAW OF GOD as it should be regarded; but it was to ViNDICATE THE CHARACTER OF GOD BEFORE THE UNIVERSE. 

     “To this result of His great sacrifice—ITS INFLUENCE UPON THE INTELLIGENCES OF OTHER [unfallen] WORLDS, as well as upon man—the Savior looked forward when JUST BEFORE His crucifixion He said: [John 12: 31, 32 quoted].”

Here’s what the Death of Christ on Earth means to Heaven and the Unfallen Worlds of God’s Universe:

     “The act of Christ dying for the salvation of man would not only make HEAVEN ACCESSIBLE to men, BUT BEFORE THE WHOLE UNIVERSE if would justify God and His Son in their dealing with the rebellion of Satan. It would establish the PERPETUITY of the law of God, and would reveal the NATURE and the RESULTS of sin.” (End quote E. G. White, Patriarchs & Prophets, Pacific Press, 1913, p. 69). 

Dear fellow Christian, I can only hope and pray that you will rejoice, as I continually do, having found out these exceedingly profound and precious truths, revealing so very much more of who Jesus really is, the imponderable enormity of His atoning sacrifice, mission, and work on earth and in His intercessory atonement in heaven as our merciful High Priest and Mediator, what it comprehended and what it has accomplished for eternity future for the eternally redeemed! 

Indeed there is no other God like God the Father, no other Friend and Savior like Jesus Christ, no other Comforter like the Holy Spirit, and no other security like the protection of our ministering spirit, private guardian angel.

To be continued next MWM, God willing.  Bless all, NMF.

MID-WEEK MANNA FROM PASTOR NAT’S DESK:

August 20, 2023

God’s Purposes Revealed by Inspiration

SACRIFICE: FIRST PART OF PLAN OF REDEMPTION

     “It (the promised ‘Seed of the woman) shall bruise thy head (the serpent, Satan), and thou shalt bruise His heel (not head).” See Gen. 3:15, the first and foundational verse of all the promises and prophecies from Genesis to Revelation. 

By omniscient foresight and omnipotent power, the grand plan of redemption, the divine solution to tackle, defeat, and forever eradicate the “mystery of iniquity” of and in the great controversy, was “prepared before the foundations of the earth were laid.” It instantly activated at the same moment of earth time, the same place of the still-pure earth and living space of the first couple’s garden of Eden home. Thus, in Biblical fact, truth, precept and principle, there was a Savior the same instant there was a sinner! Keeping this grand, amazingly wonderful truth close to our hearts, our minds can better appreciate the two-part steps of the plan of redemption, namely, sacrifice, followed by intercession. 

In its further expansion, we see the glory of Calvary on fallen earth in the death of the sacrificial “Lamb of God”, who, after His resurrection and ascension becomes the “all-powerful and merciful High Priest (Advocate, Intercessor, Mediator; righteous Judge of all the earth in the holy places of the sanctuary in heaven; we see the essential nature of the two parts and successive stages of the work of atonement (at-one ment) in: the sacrificial atonement by and in the substitutionary death of the innocent sacrificial victim as the only acceptable “ransom” price for the sinner and its blood for the cleansing of sin (“life is in the blood”), followed by the intercessory atonement of the High Priest, pleading His own blood for and in behalf of the penitent sinners. 

All these and much more, 

in and for the redemption, preservation and restoration of the immutable and everlasting principles of God’s eternal law of love and righteousness, the foundation of His everlasting kingdom of eternity past and eternity future, the very transcript of His unchanging character and nature, as well and for man, the only creature He “made in His image and after His own likeness.” 

Bearing in mind that “without the shedding of blood there can be no remission (forgiveness, pardon) of sins,” we resume quoting from the SOP regarding the first part of sacrificial atonement as first taught and symbolized in its typical, clean animal sacrifices as well as in the others specified in the comprehensive system of sacrifices:

     “The sacrificial offerings were ordained by God to man a PERPETUAL REMINDER and a PENITENTIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of his sin, and a CONFESSION OF HIS FAITH in the promised [future] Redeemer. They [the sacrificed innocent victims] were designed to IMPRESS upon the fallen race the SOLEMN TRUTH that it was SIN THAT CAUSED DEATH.” 

NOTE: All who claim to be disciples or followers of Christ, “Christians,” particularly those professing to be anticipating, watching or waiting (not automatically preparing and prepared for) for the second advent of the Bridegroom should constantly remember this: death is not simply the “wages” of sin, which is ‘transgression of the law,” it is the CAUSE of death! Thus, sin, which is disobedience to any and all of the “letter and spirit”, precepts and principles of God’s law, moral and natural, is death already. “Twice dead” means “dead in their sins” though alive physically, and unless speedily repented of and totally forsaken, are merely awaiting the reward of “the second death”, the eternal death of the incorrigibly disobedient sinners who persistently refuse to “overcome even as Christ overcame.” 

     “To Adam, the offering of the FIRST sacrifice, was a MOST PAINFUL ceremony. His HAND [not of the officiating priest| must be RAISED TO TAKE LIFE, which ONLY GOD could give. It was the first time he hade ever WITNESSED death, and he kea that HAD he been OBEDIENT to God, there would have been NO DEATH OF MAN OR BEAST. 

    “As he slew the INNOCENT victim, he TREMBLED at the thought that his sin must shed the blood of the SPOTLESS LAMB OF GOD. This scene gave him a DEEPER AND MORE VIViD  sense of the GREATNESS of his transgression, which nothing but the death of God’s dear Son could expiate [atone for]. And he MARVELED at the INFINITE GOODNESS that would give such a RANSOM to save the guilty. A star of HOPE illumined the dark and terrible future, and he RELIEVED it of its UTTER desolation.” (End quote PP 68). 

If we had any of the original feelings and senses of the first Adam, even if already fallen and sinful, we would somehow realize what Paul meant and applied to the supposed “sons and daughters” of the “second Adam,” Christ Himself! Note: Read Heb. 5: 4, 5 first. Verse 6  continues: “If they shall fall away, to renew them again to repentance; seeing they CRUCIFY to themselves the Son of God AFRESH, and put Him to an OPEN SHAME [as in the horrific and revolting spectacle of public crucifixion].

Do we still “tremble” when we commit sin, which is death, or do we counter the conviction by asserting confidently, “I am already safe and sound;” that is, “rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing?”

To be continued next MWM, God willing. Bless all, NMF.

MID-WEEK MANNA FROM PASTOR NAT’S DESK:

August 13, 2025

God’s Purposes Revealed by Inspiration

MAN AND EARTH’S TRUE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF HIS FALL EXPOSES FALLACY OF GODLESS EVOLUTION 

     “In the beginning God created the heaven and earth.”  “And God said, let us make man IN our image, AFTER our likeness…..So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him, MALE AND FEMALE created He THEM.”  Gen. 1:1, 26, 27, KJV.  (Read chapter 3:1-24 for the origin of the fall of man in Eden).

Resuming from last week’s quote from E.G. White’s Patriarch & Prophets, 67-8 (all emphases and bracketed words provided):

     “Adam, in his [yet-sinless] innocence, had enjoyed OPEN communion with his Maker; but sin brought SEPARATION between God and man, and the ATONEMENT of Christ alone could SPAN the abyss, and make possible the communication of BLESSING OR SALVATION from [the third] heaven to earth. 

     “Man [post fall] was still cut off from DIRECT APPROACH to his Creator, but God would communicate with him THROUGH CHRIST AND ANGELS. 

     “Thus was revealed to Adam important events in the [real] HISTORY OF MANKIND, from the time the divine sentence [of separation and death] was pronounced IN EDEN, to the FLOOD, and onward to the FIRST ADVENT of the Son of God [four thousand years after the fall in Eden]. 

    “He was shown that while the sacrifice of Christ would be of sufficient value to SAVE the whole world, MANY would choose A LIFE OF SIN rather than of REPENTANCE AND OBEDIENCE. 

     “Crime would INCREASE through successive generations, and the CURSE OF SIN would rest and more heavily upon the HUMAN RACE, upon the BEASTS, and upon the EARTH. 

    “The days of man [lifespan] would be SHORTENED by his OWN course of sin; he would DETERIORATE in physical stature and endurance, and in MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL POWER, until the world would be FILLED with misery of every type. 

    “Through the INDULGENCE of appetite and passion, men would become INCAPABLE of appreciating the GREAT TRUTHS OF THE PLAN OF REDEMPTION. 

    “Yet Christ, TRUE TO THE PURPOSE FOR WHICH HE LEFT HEAVEN, would continue His interest in [now fallen, sinful] men, and still INVITE them to HIDE their weakness and deficiencies IN Him. He would SUPPLY the needs of all would COME TO HIM IN FAITH. 

   “And there would EVER BE A FEW who would preserve the knowledge of [the true] God, and would REMAIN UNSULLIED [morally and spiritually guiltless; without guile; undefiled; uncompromising; uncorrupted by sin] amid the  prevailing iniquity.” (E. G. White, Patriarchs & Prophets, pp. 67-8).

To be continued next MWM, God willing.  Bless all, NMF.

MID-WEEK MANNA FROM PASTOR NAT’S DESK:

August 6, 2025

God’s Purposes Revealed by Inspiration

RESTORED AS PURCHASED POSSESSION BY PLAN OF REDEMPTION THE ORIGINAL DOMINION BECOMES ETERNAL HOME OF THE REDEEMED 

What do you think? 

On their own, how many professed followers of Jesus Christ, “the way, the truth, and the life,” would have discovered and recognized the glorious truth “bridges” that connect the Bible’s grand “twin peak” truths of Creation and Redemption—all centered on and emanating from Christ,” the Word from the beginning,” God Creator, and then “the Word was made and manifest in the flesh and dwelt among us,” Christ the Son of man, the world’s Redeemer? 

Like all other “Scriptures we are to search that testify of of Him”, these are “spread abroad” in and throughout the Bible, both in “minor” and “major” prophetic books of the Old Testament and in the epistles and prophecies of the New Testament. 

In addition to intellectually and spiritually following its to own prescribed rules of Bible study given in Isa. 8:20; 28: 9-13; 1 Cor. 2: 9-14; 1 Tim. 2:15, etc., the gift of “the Spirit of prophecy, which is the testimony of Jesus” (Rev. 12:17; 19:10) has been entrusted to the commandment-keeping remnant saints clearly identified in Rev. 14:12. 

I must reiterate that it is from the  pen of God’s last-day messenger that we continue quoting from in this series, as in all others, past, present, and future. Continuing from last week:

    “When man [tAdam in Eden] became Satan’s captive [by yielding to temptation and disobeying God Creator’s command and word], the DOMINION [original earth] which he held, PASSED to his conqueror. Thus Satan BECAME ‘the god of this world’ (2 Cor. 4:4). He had USURPED that dominion over the earth which had been ORIGINALLY given to Adam.

    “But Christ, by His sacrifice, PAYING THE PENALTY OF SIN, would not only REDEEM MAN, but RECOVER THE DOMINION which he had forfeited [by his transgression]. All that was LOST by the first Adam will be RESTORED by the second. [God incarnate in human nature].”

Now notice what the “sixth of the so-called Minor Prophets” wrote during the times of the southern kingdom:

     “Says the PROPHET, O Tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee it shall come, EVEN THE FIRST DOMINION.’ (Micah 4:8). 

    “And the APOSTLE Paul POINTS FORWARD [where?] to the ‘REDEMPTION OF THE PURCHASED POSSESSION’ (Eph. 1:14). 

    “God created the earth to be THE ABODE of holy, happy beings. ‘The Lord formed the EARTH, and made it; He hath established it, He created it NOT IN VAIN, He formed it to BE INHABITED.’ (Isa. 45: 18). 

     “That PURPOSE will be fulfilled, when, RENEWED by the power of God, and FREED from sin and sorrow, it shall become the ETERNAL ABODE OF THE REDEEMED. ‘The righteous shall INHERIT THE LAND, and dwell therein FOREVER.’ ‘And there shall be no more curse [of sin]; but the THRONE OF GOD AND THE LAMB SHALL BE IN IT [earth renewed!]; and His servants [the redeemed saints] shall serve Him.’ (Ps. 37; 29; Rev. 22: 3).” – E. G. White, Patriarchs & Prophets, Pacific Press Publishing Asso., 1913, p. 67. 

It’s more than “high time to awake out of sleep” and quickly, humbly, and thoroughly “examine and prove ourselves whether” all the things we believed and taught as “Bible and Gospel truth” can truly stand the closest scrutiny of God’s Word which is “sharper than a two-edged sword.” 

To be continued, God willing. Bless all, NMF.