Friday Morning Manna
January 24, 2020
Nathaniel Fajardo
email: [email protected]
The Spirit of Prophecy Explains What is Happening in the World Today and What to Expect and Prepare for:
One of the nine spiritual gifts [not the same as the nine fruits of the Spirit, Gal. 5: 22) to the church enumerated in 1 Corinthians 12 is the gift of prophecy. But in these last days of earth’s probation, reckoned from the year 1844, the end of the 2300-day prophecy of Daniel 8: 14, the Revelator specifies it in this order: First identified is the church that has it: “They that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14: 12. as “the Spirit of prophecy, which is the testimony of Jesus.” In Rev. 19: 10 John is told that he is a “fellow servant” of the One who gave him the message “and your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
Now, in these days of confusion where mankind is desperately seeking for answers to life’s questions for purpose, direction, peace, happiness, safety and stability that still remain unanswered, or, if answered are unsatisfactory and unfulfilling because such are fleeting, temporary, incomplete, wanting, conflicting, discordant, shallow, transitory, engendering even more striving for supremacy and strife rather ushering in lasting peace and harmony. Adding insult to this plethora of disappointment and disillusionment is the injury of finding out later that one has even been misinformed, misled, gamed, victimized and used as pawns in unholy agendas by honored individuals and venerated institutions that many were taught to have “absolute confidence upon.” But as has been said, “if a man fools me once, shame on him; twice, shame on me.”
In stark contrast to this depressing reality, there is nothing more important, precious, fulfilling and assuring than of finally taking hold of two things: knowing intellectually and spiritually, based on irrefutable, time-tested abundance of evidence on what the real future is and what it holds, and more importantly, Who holds the keys to it, right? Certainly! What or Who are they? (1) Prophecy, Bible prophecy that is, which reveals the beginning to the end of all things—from creation to the restoration of all that was lost through sin! (2) And infinitely more important that anyone and anything “that is in the heavens above or that is in the earth beneath or that in the waters under the earth” is JESUS CHRIST who, specific to this precise and singular need of the churches and mankind for these last days, is introduced to us again by John, describing the God in the flesh, who came to him in vision at Patmos:
“And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, ‘Do not be afraid, I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. I have the keys of hades [the grave] and death.” Rev. 1: 17, 18, N.K.J.V.
“And to the church in Philadelphia [brotherly love] write: These things says He who is holy, He who is true [not a liar]. He who has the key of David, He who opens and no man shuts, and shuts and no one opens. I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, and have kept My word, and have not denied My name.” Rev. 3: 7; 9: 1.
For those who believe in Him, thank God for “the spirit of prophecy, which is the testimony of Jesus!” For those haven’t yet but are thirsting to know the truth, diligently inquiring as did the pagan magi of the East the angels led to the new-born Baby Jesus, and the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well in Jesus’ time (John 4: 4-42), you will, in His time. For those still hesitating, do not procrastinate. “Now is the high time awake for now is our salvation nearer than we first believed.” Rom. 13: 11-13. But for those who persistently and resolutely refuse God’s loving invitation to come to Him and repent while Jesus Christ our merciful High Priest is still advocating, mediating, interceding and pleading before the Father the merits of His blood and sinless life as the substitute and surety for and in behalf of all penitent sinners in the most holy of the heavenly sanctuary, will have no more Mediator when probation ends.
As that one door to Noah’s ark closed forever at the end of the specified probation time God, through Noah gave that long-lived, wicked antediluvian race, so the door of divine mercy extended to earth’s inhabitants is still open. But the signs of the times, as God Himself specified, announce in trumpet tones that it will soon close!
Fret not nor wonder no more! What we are witnessing, experiencing, hearing and reading in screaming headlines today in both the traditional and digital media, and where they all these are leading to were revealed about 176 years ago. And much, much more. It unveils before our very eyes what is actually taking place, explains what others cannot or will not, and reveals all that we need to know and what actually to prepare for. All diligent students of true history and prophecy should now be wide awake, intellectually and spiritually, and catch on to the steady tread of events. Observe the following from the pen of Ellen G, White, Spirit of Prophecy, Vol. 4, 1844, pp. 405-408:
The two great errors underlying all deceptions
“Through the two great errors—the immortality of the soul and Sunday sacredness, Satan will bring the people under his deceptions. While the former [soul immortality] lays the foundation of Spiritualism, the latter [Sunday sacredness] creates a bond of sympathy with Rome. Protestantism will yet stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of Spiritualism; she will reach over the abyss to clasp the hands with the Roman power, and under the influence of this three-fold union, our country [America] will follow in the steps of Rome in trampling on the rights of conscience.
Ancient Spiritualism in disguise
‘Spiritualism is now changing its form, veiling some of its more objectionable and immoral features, and assuming a Christian guise. Formerly it denounced Christ and the Bible; now it professes to accept both. The Bible is interpreted in a manner that is attractive to the unrenewed heart, while its solemn and vital truths are made of no effect. A God of love is presented; but His justice, His denunciations of sin, the requirements of His holy law, are all kept out of sight. Pleasing, bewitching fables captivates the senses [not the conscience] of those who do not make God’s word the foundation of their faith. Christ is as verily rejected as before; but Satan has so blinded the eyes of the people, that the deception is not discerned.
“As Spiritualism assimilates more closely to the nominal Christianity of today, it has greater power to deceive and ensnare. Satan himself is converted, after the modern order of things. He will appear in the character of an angel of light. Through the agency of Spiritualism, miracles will be wrought, the sick will be healed, and many undeniable wonders will be performed. And as the spirits will profess faith in the Bible, and express regard for Sunday, their work will be accepted as a manifestation of divine power.
The Three-fold Union. – “The line of distinction between professing Christians and the ungodly is now hardly distinguishable. Church members love what the world loves, and are ready to join with them; and Satan determines to unite them in one body and thus strengthen his cause by sweeping all into the ranks of Spiritualism. Papists who boast of miracles as a certain mark of the true church, will be readily deceived by this wonder-working power; and Protestants, having cast away the shield of truth, will also be deluded. Papists, Protestants, and worldlings alike will alike accept ‘the form of godliness without the power’ and will see in this union a grand movement for the conversion of the world, and the ushering in of the long-expected millennium. NOTE: the Biblical millennium is not a time of peace and conversion!
The destroyer and how he works. –
“Through Spiritualism, Satan appears as a benefactor of the race, healing the diseases of the people, and professing to present a new and more exalted system of religious faith; but at the same time he works as a destroyer. His temptations are leading multitudes to ruin. Intemperance dethrones reason; sensual indulgence, strife and bloodshed follow.
“Satan delights in war; for it excites the worst passions of the soul, and sweeps into eternity its victims steeped in vice and blood. It is his object to incite nations to war against one another; for he can thus divert the minds of the people from the work of preparation to stand in the day of God.
“Satan works through the elements also to garnerhis harvest of unprepared souls. He has studied the secrets of the laboratories of nature, and he uses his power to control all the elements as far as God allows. When he was suffered [allowed] to afflict Job, how quickly flocks and herds, servants, houses, children, were swept away, one trouble succeeding another as in a moment. It is God that shields His creatures, and hedges them from the power of the destroyer. But the Christian world has shown contempt for the law of Jehovah and the Lord does just what He has declared He would do—He withdraws His blessings from the earth, and removes His protecting care from those who are rebelling against His law, and teaching and forcing others to do the same.
“Satan has control of all whom God does not especially guard. He will favor and prosper some in order to further his own designs, and he will bring trouble upon others, and lead men to believe that it is God who is afflicting them. NOTE: so-called ‘acts of God’ are actually the destructive works of Satan! So much of God blaming!]
“While appearing to the children of men as a great physician who can heal all their maladies, he will bring disease and disaster until populous cities are reduced to ruin and desolation. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes, and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and a thousand forms, is Satan exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. He imparts to the air a deadly taint, and thousand perish by the pestilence.
What lies ahead?
“These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon the inhabitants of the world. The beasts of the field will groan, and the earth will languish [Rom. 8: 22]. NOTE: Even the noblest intentions and the greatest science and technology of men to “save the planet” and “to save mankind” will only meet with disappointment for it is immortal God Creator, not man the mortal creature, Who “so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3: 16, A.V.
Then what happens next?
“And then the great deceiver will persuade men that those who serve God are causing the evils. The class that have provoked the displeasure of heaven will charge all their troubles upon the faithful few whom the Lord has sent to them messages of warning and reproof. It will be declared that the nation
, is offending God by the violation of the Sunday-sabbath, and this sin has brought calamities which will not cease until Sunday observance shall be strictly enforced, and that those who present the claims of the fourth commandment, thus destroying the reverence of Sunday, are the troublers of the nation, preventing its restoration to divine favor and temporal prosperity. Thus, the accusation urged of old against the servant of God will be repeated, and upon grounds equally well established. ‘And it came to pass when Ahab saw Elijah that Elijah said unto him, Art thou he that that troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandment of the Lord, and hast followed Baalim [ancient sun-god].’ 1 Kings 18: 17, 18, A.V. As the wrath of the people shall be excited by false charges, they will pursue a course toward God’s ambassadors very similar to that which apostate Israel pursued towards Elijah.” (end quote).
The spirit of prophecy has now revealed more than enough to prevent us from being deceived, entranced and ensnared by Satan’s unnumbered schemes, including politics! Master the real issues. Never get distracted, keep your eyes glued to the prophetic highway ahead of you!
(Continued next week)