Friday December 7, 2007: The U.S.: The Last Great Nation in Bible Prophecy.
This night’s session was not entirely about the good ol’ U.S. of A. No, there was some good ol’ Bible teachin’ too; about the Holy Spirit. If you remember way back at the beginning of this thing, I described the sessions being broken up into three parts: one being Bible teachin’, another song singin’, and the other being prophecy preachin’. So the U.S. came up in the prophecy preachin’ portion of this night’s session.
The speaker talked on who the Holy Spirit is and what role it plays in our lives; pretty entry level stuff. He mentioned the Holy Spirit is there to help us do what’s right; to follow God’s commandments. This led me to a question. If it were actually possible to see thoughts in one’s head and someone peered into mine, one would see a pretty consistent concentration of math problems, Seinfeld quotes, and questions about God. I guess also, since I am male and I’m suppose to think about sex every nine seconds, some thoughts on sex would be mixed in there as well, but we’ll stick with the main three. The question I was led to was concerning what the Holy Spirit can and cannot lead one to. For example, the church that is holding this seminar believes firmly that obeying God’s commandments means celebrated the Bible Sabbath; Saturday. However, there are churches just as Spirit filled that do not believe that. Can both be from the same Spirit? Is one group worshiping God incorrectly, or are both groups following the leading of the Holy Spirit?
I wish I had a definitive answer for you. I wish I had a definitive answer for myself. I feel if I try to formulate an answer, whatever I come up with will just be wishful thinking. I want the answer to be that both groups are of the same Spirit. God just has different dealing with different people, which is true. But, if you expand this idea too far you run into the issue of every idea contributed to God or the Holy Spirit being acceptable. Someone could say snake handling in church is a necessary part of worship since it says in Mark that it is a sign of the Holy Spirit. One could literally start justifying every religious or non-religious practice with contributing it to a conviction of the Holy Spirit. That’s dangerous since there are religious and non-religious practices that are contrary to God’s character.
Well, perhaps it’s on a case by case basis? If the practice does not contradict the character of God, then it’s possible it could be a prompting of the Holy Spirit. But, there are differing opinions on what constitutes attributes of the character of God. One could then say that the characteristics in the Bible about God are the exhaustive list. However, there are differing interpretations on what constitutes a characteristic of God in the Bible. (Does God only love sinners? Does God only hate sinners? Does God both love and hate sinners? Does God hate the sin, but love the sinner? Does God eat ham?) So, all this to say, I wish I could come up with a definitive answer for you, but I cannot. Maybe you can come up with a definitive answer for you and me?
This concludes the Bible teachin’ portion of our program. Now time for some special music brought to you by the Woodstock Music Festival. That’s right, Jimi Hendrix’s rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. This ought to get you in the mood for talking about the great ol’ U.S. of A. If you have it, play it now. If you’d like to listen to a more contemporary or traditional version, you may do that as well.
Everyone patrioticized? Good.
Now, don’t take my overly sarcastic and somewhat disrespectful tone the wrong way. I love the country in which I grew up and currently reside. I just happen to love other countries as well. I think this country has some very good things going for it; it also has some not so good things going for it as well. No country is perfect because countries are run by men (and women) and no man (nor woman) is perfect. Now, with that said, and please keep it in mind because I don’t want to be blacklisted for being a communist or something, let’s look at what was said about the U.S. being the last great nation in Bible prophecy.
The idea that the U.S. is the last great nation in Bible prophecy spurs from a passage in Revelation. I don’t remember which one because I didn’t write it down. Frankly, I found that point irrelevant. Whatever passage it was, in my mind, it was taken out of context or read into a bit too far. I would go as far to say that every line was read between and every word was dissected to fit the conclusion. The reason I propose this argument is that the SDA church was founded in the U.S. So, naturally, the founders would have a fondness to the country in which they reside as I have a fondness for the country in which I reside. In then seems natural that they would try and include themselves in their interpretations. Now, certainly this is complete speculation and this claim can never be proven without written confession from the SDA founders that this was the case. From a statistical standpoint, this is only one improvable theory among many, mainly infinitely many, and thus highly unlikely, if not impossible, to be true. However, hearing the passage being read and listening to the explanations of the interpretations, I was not convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt. (Some might say I’m a stubborn individual who couldn’t be convinced it was raining even if I was standing outside soaking wet. I would agree, but nevertheless.)
During the presentation I was reminded again of humanity’s, Christian’s ability to distort and pervert the truth of God’s truth to support our own ideas and pseudo truths. All I could do was sit and pray for forgiveness. It was like watching a film of every instance I’d ever wronged someone. How could you not be affected? It would be like a murder, who knows they’ve murdered, watching a film about a bunch of murders. They can help but feel sympathetic I would think. That is, if they felt resentful for what they did in the past. Here I was, feeling resentful for my distorting the truth, and I was sitting, watching people all around my do the exact same thing. It hurt. I couldn’t help but sympathize. I couldn’t help but plead to God for their forgiveness. I couldn’t help but plead to the Bridegroom to forgive His Bride of prostituting itself to the powers of the world rather than being faithful to His power.
Sunday December 9, 2007: How to Increase Your Happiness in Marriage (and Relationships).
If you think the answer is don’t eat pig and go to church on Saturday, then you’re wrong. Surprised? So was I. Guess what the answer is. Go on, guess. Love. That’s right, love. Love one another. Forgive one another. Be kind to one another. Respect one another. Treat others as you’d like to be treated. This is the key to happiness in marriage and relationships. How cool is that? No twisting of texts, no manipulations of manuscripts, just plain reading the Bible.
11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No
one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love
is made complete in us.
-1 John 4:11-12
If we love one another, God makes His love in us complete. We then have the complete love of God in our bellies, how can our relationships fail?
This topic also gave rise to the opportunity for the church to show its lighthearted side. The staples of all stand-up comedy are relationships and the differences between men and women. If you don’t have “men don’t put down the toilet seat” joke somewhere in your act, you aren’t going anywhere. It’s was good to see these people could have some fun.
Monday December 10, 2007: The Unpardonable Sin.
Fun time’s over now. It’s time to get serious. Time to talk about where God’s forgiveness cannot cover. Time to talk about the unpardonable sin.
Unfortunately, the idea of an unpardonable sin was used somewhat as a scare tactic. Like on the news when they say, “Disease is ravaging the area. Find out if it’s near you at 11.”
“A killer rapist is on the loose in the greater city area. Find out if he’s outside your house at 6:30.”
“People will die. Find out if it’s you tomorrow morning at 6am.”
But once arriving at the session, everyone was reassured that by attending that night’s session they were assuring themselves not to be committing the unpardonable sin. Good news I guess.
The sin the speaker was referring to was that of a continual rejection of the promptings of the Holy Spirit to fall in line with God’s will. That is, continually saying “no” to God. Essentially, if you keep rejecting God’s redemption, He cannot extend His redemption to you. Makes sense.
Something that also makes sense is that this would be the point in the seminar that the decision cards would be handed out. If anyone was feeling a prompting from the Holy Spirit, after hearing what happens if you ignore it, one would want to respond right away.
This gesture I really appreciated. Usually the decision card comes out on a daily or nightly basis. The preacher tries to get everyone’s emotions up. Soft, Nordstrom lounge style piano music is playing to stir up all the touchy-feely, warm fuzzies from the depths of the audience’s souls. Christ is proclaimed to be the savior of YOUR sin and you burst into tears. Cry out to God that you have failed Him (how could you fail someone who evokes such pretty piano music?) and immediately accept Christ as Lord. God be praised! (I apologize for the slightly over exaggerated rendition of a salvation service, but it’s for a point.) Contrast that with this seminar. Not once was I directly asked if I wanted Jesus as my savior. This particular night of the decision card I wasn’t directly asked, nor was anyone else. Rather, we were asked to reflect on all that we learned from the previous sessions about what it means to obey God and follow His commandments. Then, we were to consider a decision. Rather than appeal to our emotions, they appealed to our rationale. I appreciated it.
A Conclusion . . . of Sorts . . . Again.
Tonight’s session (Friday’s) is the last session for the seminar. However, on the back of my decision card I felt obligated to express to the church my appreciation for allowing me to explore this realm of God’s Kingdom. I wrote this letter:
Dear Church,
It’s been an honor to lean God’s truths with you these
past few weeks. It’s encouraging to see a body of believers so wholly
committed to following God’s calling for them. May God count your
obedience as righteousness as He did for Abraham. God has revealed to me
many new aspects of His Bride because of this seminar. Keep following
God’s call no matter how difficult the road.
Love in Christ,
Clayton Zylstra
I feel I have leaned something, if not a lot of things from attending this seminar. Certainly one thing that stands out is that like the Church, I share the same brokenness that keeps me separated for God’s will; to be with Him. What ever awful thing the Church has done in the name of Jesus, I’ve also done to some extent. I share in its brokenness and for that reason I should have a love for it. We’re struggling through the redemptive process together.
There’s more I’ve taken away from this and I’ll reflect on that in the next post. So stay tuned.
4 comments:
I enjoy your blogs and I admire your perseverance through these seminars.
I've been skimming over the last few posts here. I've read something about a prophesy seminar with a poster with Aslan on it. Also, it appears that you are down a hill from this SDA church. IS this the SDA church on 175th in Shoreline? I don't even know if you live in Shoreline but I have seen a poster like this outside the church and it looked interesting.
You had a lot of good things to say. One thing that really doesn't have to do with the intention of the post, but that I thought of was this: In my Church Music History class we were talking about how in church today there is never a moment of silence. There always has to be music in the background. Especially during the 'altar call.' I think we should have more times of silence so we can reflect on what God is trying to tell us.
Miriam: Thanks.
Dustin: Yes, that's the one. I live just south of 175th. It's about a 15 minute walk.
Kari: I think you're right. Think of all the awkwardness people feel when there's silence. Is that normal, or is that a result of constantly having noise in the background?
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