Learning from the SDAs

The Seventh Day Adventists have been keen students of Bible prophecy for more than 100 years now. As such, they have shared a lot of very useful information for anyone who wants to better understand Bible prophecy.

However, with virtually all prophecy, each prophecy does not become really clear until just before (or even after) it has been fulfilled. Prior to that, about the best that people can do is to formulate theories.

Something that the Internet and conspiracy theories should show any intelligent person these days, is that when a person sets themselves in a certain direction, they will go to great lengths to readjust their view of reality in such a way as to support that approach. All the fuss about Obama being the Antichrist and bringing in martial law is a good example of that over the past couple of years. These people became gradually more and more committed to believing their own predictions, even when the evidence indicated otherwise. And the fruit of their blindness turns the whole world off any such theory.

As Christians, the way to avoid this is to constantly remind ourselves that most of what we believe are theories, and those theories are almost certainly imperfect. It is so easy to become carried away with our own supposed infallibility about interpreting stuff that we end up deceiving ourselves and others as well, with a lot of jargon and conjecture built on conjecture built on conjecture.

What is happening amongst Seventh Day Adventists at the moment is, in my opinion, an error of eternal and demonic proportions. The very people who should be warning the world to take what the Bible says about the future more seriously, are becoming world leaders in the campaign to virtually promote the Mark of the Beast, by telling everyone that what the Bible says about the Mark cannot be taken seriously. Instead, we are told by Seventh Day Adventists all over the world, to close the Bible and listen only to them and their theories.

The Bible says that the Mark of the Beast will be used for buying and selling. (What do we use for buying and selling, if not money?) It also says that the Mark will be placed in our right hand or in our forehead. And that is where the microchip implant seems to be headed. It is so close to becoming reality that it really does sound quite irresponsible for any student of Bible prophecy to tell the world that this is not the Mark, that they have some other convoluted interpretation which says nothing about a Mark in the hand or forehead, and which says nothing about buying or selling.

A similar situation arises with regard to identifying the Antichrist. The Bible gives us a very precise way to identify him, i.e. by adding up the numeric value of the letters in his name. So far, the only world leader throughout history with such a name was Caesar Nero, who was in power at the time when The Revelation was being written (and even then, one needed to put an extra ’N’ at the end of Nero… something which he apparently did himself at times). Of course, The Revelation was clearly talking about a similar person arising in the future, so it seems like Nero was just being used as a hint as to what the ultimate Antichrist will be like.

Someone has gone through all the names in the Bible, looking for one that adds up to 666 (assuming that the Antichrist would have been named in the Bible, which, in itself, is almost certainly an erroneous assumption), and the only name they came up with was an obscure one in a list of genealogies (Sethur, or something like that, as I recall).

People have invented scores of variations on the Hebrew system of Gematria to make virtually any name add up to 666, but the original Hebrew system has so far not yielded clear identification of the Antichrist. Of course this makes good sense, given that the Antichrist has not yet appeared on the world stage.

Nevertheless, all of these other theories (including the SDA theories) tend to take people away from the objective system for recognising the Antichrist that the Bible gives (Gematria with his name). Note: SDAs have said that the official title for the Pope adds up to 666 in Roman numerals, but, in fact, that took some “adjusting” as well, given that the official title for the Pope is “Vicar of Christ” and not “Vicar of the Son of God” the phrase which the SDAs use to get 666, and not in Hebrew either… in Roman numerals.)

There is no great need to locate the Antichrist at the moment. What we need to be focusing on is the original (Christ) and not the counterfeit. The more you get to know Jesus, the more prepared you will be for recognising the Antichrist when the time comes.

And, getting back to the Mark of the Antichrist, the more one gets to know Jesus and all that he taught about the love of money and about buying and selling, the more one will be able to appreciate the exact meaning of Bible warnings against the microchip implant. The full title of the last book of the Bible is “The Revelation of Jesus Christ”. Keep following Jesus, and you’ll be ready when the Mark comes in and when the Antichrist appears as well.

Learning from the SDAs.

The Seventh Day Adventists have been keen students of Bible prophecy for more than 100 years now. As such, they have shared a lot of very useful information for anyone who wants to better understand Bible prophecy.

However, with virtually all prophecy, each prophecy does not become really clear until just before (or even after) it has been fulfilled. Prior to that, about the best that people can do is to formulate theories.

Something that the Internet and conspiracy theories should show any intelligent person these days, is that when a person sets themselves in a certain direction, they will go to great lengths to readjust their view of reality in such a way as to support that approach. All the fuss about Obama being the Antichrist and bringing in martial law is a good example of that over the past couple of years. These people became gradually more and more committed to believing their own predictions, even when the evidence indicated otherwise. And the fruit of their blindness turns the whole world off any such theory.

As Christians, the way to avoid this is to constantly remind ourselves that most of what we believe are theories, and those theories are almost certainly imperfect. It is so easy to become carried away with our own supposed infallibility about interpreting stuff that we end up deceiving ourselves and others as well, with a lot of jargon and conjecture built on conjecture built on conjecture.

What is happening amongst Seventh Day Adventists at the moment is, in my opinion, an error of eternal and demonic proportions. The very people who should be warning the world to take what the Bible says about the future more seriously, are becoming world leaders in the campaign to virtually promote the Mark of the Beast, by telling everyone that what the Bible says about the Mark cannot be taken seriously. Instead, we are told by Seventh Day Adventists all over the world, to close the Bible and listen only to them and their theories.

The Bible says that the Mark of the Beast will be used for buying and selling. (What do we use for buying and selling, if not money?) It also says that the Mark will be placed in our right hand or in our forehead. And that is where the microchip implant seems to be headed. It is so close to becoming reality that it really does sound quite irresponsible for any student of Bible prophecy to tell the world that this is not the Mark, that they have some other convoluted interpretation which says nothing about a Mark in the hand or forehead, and which says nothing about buying or selling.

A similar situation arises with regard to identifying the Antichrist. The Bible gives us a very precise way to identify him, i.e. by adding up the numeric value of the letters in his name. So far, the only world leader throughout history with such a name was Caesar Nero, who was in power at the time when The Revelation was being written (and even then, one needed to put an extra ’N’ at the end of Nero… something which he apparently did himself at times). Of course, The Revelation was clearly talking about a similar person arising in the future, so it seems like Nero was just being used as a hint as to what the ultimate Antichrist will be like.

Someone has gone through all the names in the Bible, looking for one that adds up to 666 (assuming that the Antichrist would have been named in the Bible, which, in itself, is almost certainly an erroneous assumption), and the only name they came up with was an obscure one in a list of genealogies (Sethur, or something like that, as I recall).

People have invented scores of variations on the Hebrew system of Gematria to make virtually any name add up to 666, but the original Hebrew system has so far not yielded clear identification of the Antichrist. Of course this makes good sense, given that the Antichrist has not yet appeared on the world stage.

Nevertheless, all of these other theories (including the SDA theories) tend to take people away from the objective system for recognising the Antichrist that the Bible gives (Gematria with his name). Note: SDAs have said that the official title for the Pope adds up to 666 in Roman numerals, but, in fact, that took some “adjusting” as well, given that the official title for the Pope is “Vicar of Christ” and not “Vicar of the Son of God” the phrase which the SDAs use to get 666, and not in Hebrew either… in Roman numerals.)

There is no great need to locate the Antichrist at the moment. What we need to be focusing on is the original (Christ) and not the counterfeit. The more you get to know Jesus, the more prepared you will be for recognising the Antichrist when the time comes.

And, getting back to the Mark of the Antichrist, the more one gets to know Jesus and all that he taught about the love of money and about buying and selling, the more one will be able to appreciate the exact meaning of Bible warnings against the microchip implant. The full title of the last book of the Bible is “The Revelation of Jesus Christ”. Keep following Jesus, and you’ll be ready when the Mark comes in and when the Antichrist appears as well.