Tag: Revelation

McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 12

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 12 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Unveiling, Part 7

The Two Witnesses

And round about the throne were four and twenty elders upon the seats and I saw four and twenty elders sitting clothed in white raiment; and they had upon their heads crowns of gold.

He saw others that have gone on before him. It is also stimulating symbolic of the energy centers within us, We have the heart center with 12 petals of energy and this is also duplicated in the head. You have a heart center in the head and a heart center of course in the heart. All together there are 24 petals, half simulating female energy and the other male energy. This is one of the correspondences to the twenty-four elders but we are not constricted to just one meaning. If you see a meaning that correlates and corresponds then it is quite possible you can receive quite a bit of light from it – because in any inspired word or scripture there is more than one meaning that can be used.

We will move ahead here and we do not have a lot of time to go into detail on the Book of Revelation but there are several details that are quite interesting and one is the scripture that deals with the two witnesses. Has everybody heard about the prophecy of these two individuals? If you have talked to any of the religious people they are really big on these two witnesses. They believe, as I told you earlier, that two witnesses are going to show up soon. Some believe it will be just two regular mortals that are very spiritual men. Then a lot of Christians believe it is going to be Elijah and Moses showing up in a mortal state and they are going to wander into Jerusalem and start preaching.

I have come across quite a few people that think they are one of the two witnesses and maybe reincarnated from Moses or someone great. There are all kinds of them floating around. The two witnesses as it applies to the disciple, are totally different than we have heard before. “And I will give power unto my two witnesses and they shall prophecy a thousand two hundred and three score days clothed in sack cloth. These are the two olive trees, the two candle sticks standing before the God of the earth.”

Okay, so what are the two witnesses?

The two witnesses are two principles that bear witness to the truth of the teachings of the disciple who is the follower of Christ and has now undergone the transfiguration. He is qualified to be a teacher of righteousness and has internally two witnesses. The Bible says that all things shall be established in the mouth of two or three witnesses. As a matter of fact the Jews came to Jesus and said to Him, “the scriptures say that everything shall be done in the mouth of two witnesses and you are only one witness, where is your other witness? “And Jesus said there is me and then there is the Father that dwells in me.” (See John 8:13-19)

That was an interesting interpretation of the two witnesses by Jesus. There was Himself and then there was another entity higher than Him that was inside of Him. It says right there, in the scripture that there was the witness of two men, but where were the two men? Jesus was one and He who was within Him was the other.

For the disciple, as it pertains to the Book of Revelations, the two witnesses has another dimension to it. There were the two witnesses that followed Jesus wherever he went that testified that He was a true teacher. The first witness was what?

Audience: The Gospel, the soul, Himself and the Father that dwell in Him.

JJ: What was the first thing Jesus did that bore witness to who He was?

Audience: He was baptized.

JJ: No that bore witness to himself and John but what was it that got the people’s attention?

Audience: The miracles.

JJ: Okay and the miracles was a what?

Audience: A sign.

JJ: No what kind of witness was all these miracles?

Audience: Inaudible

JJ: All these miracles were the works of Jesus; they were His works.

Audience: So His first witness was His works.

JJ: Yes, that is his first witness, the works of the disciple bear witness to him as a true teacher. The second thing that got everybody really wondering who He was and got everybody all stirred up was something else besides His works and what was it?

Audience: His words.

JJ: Yes, His words. The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Him and said where did you get this doctrine? Who gave you the authority to teach these things? Where did you learn this? His words caused a tremendous impression on everybody; He said things totally different than they had been said before. If a man comes to you and wants you to go one mile, go two miles. Nobody had said anything like that before. Everybody thought that if somebody wants me to go one mile then I am going to get out of even going that one-mile if at all possible.

In those days if a Roman soldier came to you and said carry my pack for one mile then by law in the Roman Empire you had to do this or you could get thrown in jail. So everybody carried it for one mile but when they were done with the one mile they stopped at exactly that mark and then they were able to escape the legal repercussions. They could not punish them if they carried it one mile so whenever a Roman soldier selected somebody they only went exactly one mile because they did not like these Roman soldiers. But Jesus said if someone compels you to go one mile, go two. How do you think that affected a Roman soldier? Everybody only goes one mile and then they say “you S.O.B., carry it yourself.” And here comes the follower of Christ and he says I will carry it two miles for you. The soldier thinks, wow that is weird, I am impressed.

He says if somebody smites you on one cheek then turn, the other cheek. These words really made an impression on people. He said love your neighbor as yourself; love God first, this is the first great commandment and the second is love your neighbor as yourself and on this commandment hangs every law and every prophet and every commandment that has ever been given. All the scriptures hangs on this one principle.

Wow, nobody had ever heard that before. Just this one thing? It is not Ten Commandments and the thousands of little things that the Jews had to do. For instance, if they really wanted to obey the Sabbath correctly there were a couple of thousand things they had to memorize. For example, on the Sabbath you could not wear sandals with any metal in them because that caused more effort to lift the sandals up and down. They had hundreds of little rules. You were allowed a couple thousand steps and if you took one too many then you broke the Sabbath and you just had to quit walking and wait until the next day to take more steps!

Audience: Laughter. They had to make their meals the day before so they were not working on the Sabbath.

JJ: Right they had all these rules and regulations because we are going to perfect obeying the Sabbath so that we can really please God. Jesus said to His disciples when they were walking through a wheat field. The disciples picked a handful of wheat to eat it and the Pharisees saw them and said, Ah ha, you guys are working on the Sabbath; you are harvesting wheat! That is how fussy they were, but Jesus hit them with something entirely different. On this law of love hangs every commandment that you have ever been given and you can obey it properly if you can understand it.

Do you think the authorities liked that? Because if you understood that one law of love then all these rules and all these regulations that the authorities advised on became useless. The authorities got all this recognition for advising how to obey all the commandments but if you listened to Jesus then none of the authorities now were needed. And so His words burned like a fire through the hearts of His enemies and it caused them to hate Him. It also burned like a fire in the hearts of the pure of heart because it gave them hope that this would get them out of this mess they were in where they had to memorize thousands of little rules if they wanted to please God. And so the two witnesses to the disciple whether it is Jesus or a follower of Jesus are his words and his works. Now lets read on.

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 11

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 11 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Unveiling, Part 6

Shortcuts

How do the born again Christians do this, what shortcut do they take?

Audience: Saved by Grace!

JJ: Saved by grace and all you have to do is say Jesus is Lord Hallelujah!

Audience: In the Catholic church the priest will do for you.

JJ: Really easy right? Unless you are part of another group like the Mormons then you do not have the right Jesus. So it is interesting how they believe this. Now every religion has their shortcuts to heaven. Some have a little less of a shortcut than others but they all have this shortcut.

And the new agers are the same, Eckankar has this shortcut – they believe there is about seven or nine levels to the highest god and we can bypass all of our incarnations if we follow the Eck master and he will guide us through soul travel out of the circle of incarnation. If we have 500 lives to go we just skip them all. All we have to do is subscribe to their belief system.

So a lot of new agers have the same problem. I was reading on the Internet a while back another group wanted us to believe the way they do and if we believe this way then people are going to come down in flying saucers we are all going to escape to the fifth dimension and leave behind this turmoil that we have all around us. It will be a shortcut to bliss and we are never going to have to incarnate again and we will live in this higher dimension forever.

Audience: I am sure there are a thousand and one illusionary shortcuts but didn’t Christ Himself teach a shortcut?

JJ: And that would be?

Audience: That would be how to balance out the karma through good works.

JJ: Not really, He said that every jot and tittle has to be paid, even to the last farthing. But He taught certain ways to pay it off, we can pay off our karma through service but it is like paying off a loan at the bank. If you owed $1000, there is no way you are going to get out of paying that $1000 plus interest. But if you have a job that makes $10 an hour and have an opportunity to get a job that pays $50 an hour then you are going to pay off that $1000 a lot quicker than you would with the $10 an hour job. Yes that is a shortcut but most of the shortcuts teach bypassing the karma where it just drops by osmosis or something. There are shorter and quicker ways to do it but many of them teach that if you follow this particular leader then all your karma is going to dissolve or something like that.

That is the type of shortcut that is an illusion, but like you say there are legitimate shortcuts like I just explained with the bank loan comparison. It is the same way if you are doing a service that serves a thousand people and stimulates them, you can pay off karma a lot faster than the guy who is only serving ten people in some way for we pay off our karma with service.

Audience: Can you define karma?

JJ: Karma is cause and effect, meaning that if you create hurtful deeds and that accumulates and it comes back to haunt you and you will have to pay recompense somehow. So theoretically it is like Jesus said, He who kills with the sword, shall be killed by the sword.

Now let’s take someone who has killed ten people. Does that mean that he has to come back and be killed ten different times? Not necessarily he may be in a situation where he can save ten people with one heroic act and in that case it would be possible for him to pay off those ten lives, if his soul feels he has learned his lesson. There are Lords, who the Tibetan calls, the Lords of Karma, who keep a tabulation on this to make sure the balance is maintained and to provide avenues for people who are willing to pay off their karma in the quickest possible way.

Audience: Does doing good works without the necessary payment of karma does that store up for you?

JJ: Right there is good karma and bad karma and just like a bank sometimes you borrow money and sometimes you save money. So if you do good works that are not related to paying karma – like say generosity, you are being generous and helping people. But maybe you hurt somebody in another way. Generosity is unrelated to the hurting so you may still have to learn the lesson in that area but by being generous you may be accumulating good karma in the bank so that sometime when you are in need in the future somebody appears out of the blue and helps you out.

Now I am not going to go through all the seven stages, the disciple goes through in The Unveiling until he reaches the third initiation. When he reaches the third initiation he becomes enlightened and his consciousness is lifted up. Paul reached this point when he was on the road to Damascus and he saw a great light. Jesus reached it on the mount of transfiguration; Moses reached it when he went up on Mount Sinai and his face glowed like the sun.

When the disciple reaches this point after the lesson of the seven churches are over, all of a sudden John sees this great vision. This is where all the vision of the great end time comes from and it starts in chapter 4,

After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.

And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. Rev 4:1-2

JJ: Let’s interpret this, “behold I looked and a door was opened in heaven.” What do you suppose heaven symbolizes here in the life of the disciple?
Joshua: Higher consciousness.

JJ: Right heaven symbolizes higher consciousness. In other words, he was raised up in consciousness through a transfiguration. Whether he glowed like the sun we do not know, but definitely his consciousness was raised up to heaven where he was able to see things he had never seen before. And what did he see? A door was opened in heaven and he rose up in consciousness and in that consciousness was a door, what does the door symbolize?

Audience: The soul.

JJ: Right, the soul is the door between heaven and earth. When we have soul contact we have a door that is opened that can lead us into all the higher worlds. These are higher worlds are available through the door of the soul. “And the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither,” what is the symbolism of a trumpet? What is the purpose of a trumpet?

Audience: To wake us up.

JJ: Right to wake us up. In the army a trumpet wakes you up in the morning. Okay, there was a voice that woke him up to a higher level of thinking, and this voice that woke him up to a higher level of thinking said what? “Come up.” You saw a door open in heaven, your consciousness is raising up, you see the door and you go through the door and you are still not up high enough and the voice says come up even higher. “Come up hither and I will show thee things that must be hereafter” things that you are going to experience. These are not things that will cause hell upon the earth but things hereafter that is going to apply to you the disciple that is on the path. “And immediately I was in the spirit.” So when this transfiguration comes immediately. He is in a different state of being and instead of being in carnal consciousness he is in spiritual consciousness, “and behold a throne was set in heaven and one sat on the throne.” A throne was sat in the state of higher consciousness and where is this throne at? In which chakra is the higher consciousness?

Audience: Crown chakra.

JJ: It’s the ajna center, commonly called the third eye, between the eyebrows. The center between the eyebrows is normally called the throne of God esoterically. The head center overall is all stimulated at the third initiation or the transfiguration and the disciple senses the God within the head. And what does it say later in the Book of Revelation? You escape the beast by having the name of God in your forehead. You escape the beast by understanding that the name of God sitting upon the throne is in the forehead.

Even DK talks about the possibility of seeing an actual door in a vision if you concentrate on this spot and he says there will come times when you will actually see this door, DK does not describe it as a door but like a circle of blue that you will see if you concentrate.

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 10

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 10 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Unveiling, Part 5

The Nicolatians

JJ: Okay we will continue on the Book of Revelation with the new book called “The Unveiling” and the last thing we covered was, “Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, thou hast left thy first love”, and as we said the guy got permission from his inner self to rebel from his group, his teachers that were teaching him false things that he found out were not really true and did not really work in his life. He probably held on for a little while but then it just got too much for him to handle so he broke off and set himself free, but then he goes overboard and he gives himself permission to anything he wants to do and when he wants to do it.

He does this for period of time until in a quiet moment his soul speaks to him and says, “You have left your first love.” Everything that you were taught was not bad. Sure you have had false teachers but everything that they taught was not bad. They said do not steal; do not kill; do not hurt people and so on. They taught you some things that were okay; they taught you some things that required discipline and all this worked together for your good so do not throw everything away. Do not throw out the baby with the bath water.

In other words, keep the things that are good. Return to your first love where you approached learning with a discipline, where you honored your teachers that were good. There are certain things that you have learned in your struggles with your many lifetimes, so you want to return to your first love. Recognize what is false in the things you have been taught and drop those things but keep the good and the true and return and honor in those that brought to you a good discipline over the years.

My first love was the discipline I had in the Mormon Church and it was a strong discipline. We had to pay 10% tithing and with other donations it amounted to almost 15% of our income all-together. It took tremendous discipline to do that. We could not smoke or drink coffee, a lot of sexual restrictions also and so this discipline stimulated in me a desire to learn and go beyond when I might not have otherwise.

So that was probably my first love. When you break free from something like that with all that restrictions the inclination is to just go to the extreme in the other direction and this is what the disciple does. He leaves his first love where he exercised discipline and lives like the prodigal son with little or no discipline.

As we study the Labors of Hercules on Tuesday you will see that Hercules made quite a few mistakes also. He disregarded a lot of things that he knew better and so we also have to create that balance in the middle.

Next the scripture gives him some more advice, “But this thou hast, thou hates the Nicolatians, which I also hate.” That is interesting that the voice of God says that He hates something. Everybody says God doesn’t hate anything and just loves everything. Chuckle.

Audience: Chuckling

JJ: But He says He hates these Nicolaitans. The Nicolaitans were a group patterned after the disciple Nicolas and he was really a decent guy and quite pure and very disciplined and he had only one wife. But somehow because of certain things that he taught followers got the impression that anything goes with saint Nicolas so to speak. So after Nicolas was no longer on the scene his followers began to distort his teachings and they became very promiscuous.

What I think that God hated about the Nicolaitans was that they took the teachings of a good man and distorted them to be exactly the opposite of what he really stood for and what he really taught. He was for sexual purity and they turned into sexual promiscuity. Larry and I were talking about Joseph Smith and the same thing may have happened to him, there a lot of speculation that there is a possibility that he may not have all the physical relations with his wives that he was accused of and yet everyone who followed him said that we are going to practice polygamy and have all these wives because that is what Joseph Smith wanted to do.

This is what happened the Nicolations, they took a man who believed in sexual purity and only had one wife and distorted his teachings to have many wives and concubines with lots of sexual relations and everything goes. It doesn’t say what God hated about them but I think what God hated about them was that they took a good man’s teachings and they turned them upside down.

Has that happened before in history that we know about? Has it happened with Jesus teachings on love for example? How about the Christian church that burned everybody with fire that asked the wrong questions. They did this in the name of Christ and said that this was an act of love and it purified the church. Was that turning the teachings of Jesus upside down? That is like the Nicolations and followers will often do things like this.

Just because they are on the path does not mean they are perfect, but there is one thing that a person learns on the path. He saw two things that were really wrong and that he had been lied to and the second thing is he saw that the authorities of the day turn a lot of the teachings from the past upside down. God says I do not like this and you do not like this as well and we are on the same page here.

So this is one thing that the early disciple learns is to recognize is false teachers. He also learns about those teachers that take those teachings from the good men of the past and turn them completely upside down.

The scripture ends with this,

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

Now he uses an interesting wording that in some circles is controversial, “to him that overcometh.” This is one area where a lot of new agers are in illusion. They think that we do not have to overcome anything and everything should be effortless. Those who think this need to read the title of the extract from a statement by the Tibetan, He points out that He has struggled and fought His way to the place on the path where He is and we must do the same. In other words, where He is, He had to get there through great struggle and effort. Nothing that is worthwhile comes without struggle and effort. Everybody in every belief system creates a short cut so the path is easy. How do the born again Christians do this, what shortcut do they take.

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 9

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 9 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Unveiling, Part 4

The First Love

So the disciple has given himself permission to enter upon the path. The inner voice, the voice of God says to him, “I know your works and your labor and your patience, how you cannot bear them, which are evil and you have tried them that say they are apostles and you have found them liars.” Who are the apostles? The apostle means “one who is sent” or, in other words, someone that claims to be sent from God to teach you is an apostle in this context.

So who are the apostles that he is supposed to test? These would be any ministers, prophets or teachers. The inner voice is telling the seeker that he has done two things right. He has fulfilled the meaning of Ephesus, giving himself permission and he has done something else that the Spirit really likes. He has tested those that claim to be apostles representing the voice of God and have found them to be liars. They have lied and the disciple realizes this.

This is the first step he has taken on the road to becoming like the Master and he has done this part right and have tested them and found out that they are not telling the truth. Congratulations are in order and he gets a little pat on the back there from the voice of God within. “And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.”

After he found out these things, he has given him self permission. He is exploring, He has found out certain truths that have conflicted with everything he has been told and he has found out that everything everybody has been telling him has not been true and he is finding out new truths and he is congratulated or praised for not fainting and continuing even though he has probably gotten a lot of flack. He has had patience and he has prodded forward.

Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee because thou have left thy first love.” This is interesting, you “remember therefore, from whence thou art fallen” so the praise ends there and he says the disciple has done a couple things that are really good but is really screwing up in this one area, and this is what happens: The disciple begins along the path and he does some things right and some things he really messes up. That is going to continue to happen to all of us as we go into new territory. He says this is where you really screwed up. You left your first love. Remember from whence you have fallen or else I will come in quickly and remove thy candlestick from out of its place.

His candlestick and its place signifies he is at the first step. He has taken the first and given himself permission. The Spirit says if he doesn’t take this advice then this first step that he is on is going to be like he never took it and he is going to go back and be under some one else’s permission again. So if the seeker is going to continue on the path then he needs to listen to what the Voice is saying. The disciple must remember his first love.

The regular interpretation of first love is that it must mean the church of Ephesus itself. Their first love was the gospel and they kind of deviated from the gospel and so they needed to go back to the first love and start living the teachings of Christ again. That is the normal interpretation that almost everyone gives of this. But his first love, what was his first love as far as attempting to tread the path before he actually found the path.

In his first love, he was under the authority of the system that had teachers in it and they told him what to do. He listened to them and diligently obeyed and did everything he could to live the righteous life. He did not deviate but he focused and he lived to he highest he knew.

Some of us were in the churches before we entered the path. We were good members. Some of you were good and did what you were told and you obeyed the Sabbath and you did not steal, murder, beat your spouse etc. You did the basic stuff. This was his first love, and you entered the Path.

His first love was when he was in an organization that falsely led him to believe he was on the path and he did everything very diligently that he was supposed to do. But he left his first love.

What happens to the disciple when he gives himself permission? He enters the path and goes from one extremely constricted situation where he can’t do anything and then he enters the path and he says I can give myself permission to other stuff as well and I am going to eat drink and be merry and really have a good time. And so he goes overboard and gives him self permission to party it up and go to sex orgies and all kinds of weird stuff.

They give themselves permission to do whatever they feel like and they go to the other extreme and give up all that discipline they have learned. So here the voice of the Spirit comes to the seeker. He is like the prodigal son and goes and parties and squanders all that good press that had with the inner voice and sooner or later with a moment of silence he listens again and the voice says, “return to your first love,” go back to the discipline. Sure you have permission to do this and that but it has to be balanced and the discipline you learned before you entered the path must be brought back into balance. Not everything you learned before you entered the path is bad. The discipline that you had, you will need to take this with you and apply it with common sense in your life. Return to your first love. He says you mean I just can’t do everything I want to and I still have to control myself? Yes you still have to control yourself. The disciple needs to stay disciplined and balanced even more so than before he entered the path.

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McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 8

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 8 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Unveiling, Part 3
Letters to the Churches

I don’t remember the first time I took a look at the Book of Revelations but I think I was a teenager, I do know that when I went on a mission for the Mormon church I started studying the scriptures more intently and I realized that the Book of Revelations is the most profound book in the entire Bible. There are two books in the Bible that are very profound – the Book of Revelations and Isaiah, and even DK says that these are the two most inspired books of the Bible. I have always realized that is correct and out of the two I think that the Book of Revelations is closest to the heart of God so to speak. Remember Lyndon Johnson used to quote Isaiah all the time, “come let us reason together.”

Anyway, I concluded that I was going to give an intense study of this book so I got a commentary on it. There was not any good Mormon commentary because the Mormons actually discourage you from studying this. The phraseology in the church is the general authorities frown on you studying the mysteries because you might get some warped ideas in your head and if God wants you to understand the mysteries then he will speak through he prophet and he will tell you what to think about it.

That did not really keep me happy and there are no good Mormon commentaries on the Book of Revelations so I went and bought a non-Mormon commentary on it and I found that very fascinating. This gave me a bit of additional light but not enough to unravel it.

I thought to really discern the book I would have to study it more closely. So I made a determination that I was going to unravel it and memorize the entire book. I figured the most important part started with chapter 4 and this is where the vision began so I created a memorization system and I memorized chapters 4 to 22. I did this over the next couple of years.

I had it down pretty good where I could rattle off all the chapters of the book but still I did not understand it. I studied additional commentary as well and received a little light but still did not understand the book and I thought, what in the world does it mean? Every once in a while I would come with an interesting interpretation of some of it but it was looking at it from the view point of things happening in physical reality on the earth rather than the inner life of the disciple.

Then it dawned on me that this was teaching about the inner life of the disciple and the whole vision of the book opened up and then it became fairly easy to interpret. So I wrote the interpretation of it and perhaps I should not say “easy” because it probably took more mental energy than anything I have ever written. But it was easier than trying to interpret it from the traditional angle that the Christian church does.

I found it very fascinating that everything began to make sense for the first time because the book as a whole had never made sense. But it makes sense when we realize that it is not talking about physical reality on the outside but it is talking about the inside and what happens to the disciple when he decides that he wants to be like his Master the Christ – what the disciple has to do to become like Christ is, and then beyond.

What does he have to do? The first stages are given him in the seven letters to he churches. The seven letters tell seven steps that is also governed by seven rays. The disciple works with different ray energies and the first one is Ephesus. Let’s read that:

Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.

Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. Rev 2:1-5

Now these are instructions to the disciple as he begins the Path. He experiences the birth of Christ in his heart and he decides to tread on what we call the Path. The path begins with the birth of Christ in his heart and ends with him being a Master but progression does not really end there for it continues. Becoming a Maser is merely one end point that we are looking for as mortal human beings. We want to become masters and we want to get upon the Path.

We just go over this one because we do not have time to go over everything but we will go over the one letter to one of the churches, the first of the seven stages of progression. The word Ephesus means permission. The first thing the disciple must do in order to tread the Path is to give himself permission to take that first step?

Why does he have to give himself permission? Because everybody is saying to him you can’t do that! Who do you think you are? It is like when I started studying the Book of Revelations they said to me that I should not study those mysteries. You are not supposed to know these mysteries and if the prophet wants you to know that then he will tell you.

So I give myself the Ephesus step, I give myself permission to defy that authority! I defied that authority and I took that step anyway. Everything the disciple tries to do when he is around an organization controlled by the Beast is resisted for they will tell him, no you cannot do that. You can’t speak that way, you cannot talk about this, you can’t study that, and you cannot go there.

And so the first step the disciple needs to learn is to not listen to these voices He must give himself permission to follow the inner inclinations that he has. He may not have full soul contact at this point. He is just dabbling in contacting the inner voice and he is not 100% sure of him self and does not have 100% soul contact yet but in order to go anywhere he still has to give him self permission to take the first step and he has to give him self permission.

Nobody else is going to give him permission. Have you ever noticed that people seek for permission for everything they do? I like the story that Curtis told me one time. He was talking to this Mormon guy and trying to convince him of the error of his ways and he was explaining to him something he read out of the scriptures and he said well what do you think of this? And the guy said, “let me go and talk to my bishop to find out what I think about it.”

Audience: Laughter

Yes, I will go talk to my bishop to find out what I think. In other words, the guy would not even give himself permission to even think on that small of a scale. He could not look at the sentence that Curtis was showing him and say to himself I will just look at this and see what it says. He could not even give himself permission to even go that far. He had to go to his bishop to find out what he thinks! “My bishop will tell me what to think and that will be what I think on it.”

That is just really simple and also very lazy because if you do not have to think and every one else does your thinking for you then it does not require any effort. Orthodox religion is the lazy man’s religion and normal thinking is the lazy man’s thinking. Everybody wants permission because they do not want to figure out for themselves what they are going to give themselves permission to do because this would take a little bit of thought.

So Ephesus is permission and he has to give himself permission to explore and maybe to explore unknown territory to read books that everyone else is telling him he should not be reading – to go to meetings that everybody says you should not be going to, to associate with people that everybody says no you should not be associating with. Maybe you are told that you should not be going to listen to that guy at the Keys gathering for he is too weird for you or whatever. The disciple has to learn to give himself permission.

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McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 7

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 7 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Unveiling, Part 2

The book is not about predicting the future. The book has nothing to do with predicting the future of the planet. There are several correspondences in there that predict certain cycles and events that repeat themselves from time to time but that is not the main purpose of the book. The main purpose of the book is what is given in the first verse, is the unveiling of Jesus Christ to show His disciples things, which must shortly come to pass.

And blessed he that readeth and keepeth the words of this prophesy and keep those things which are written there in within their hearts.

So who was he talking to? He was talking to disciples who read and study this and the things that will shortly come to pass is the unveiling of Jesus Christ which will shortly come to pass in the life of the disciples. That is what the whole book is about. The unveiling of Jesus Christ in the life of the disciple that reads this and keeps these things in his heart. So why didn’t John speak clearly about this? Why didn’t he just say that this was all symbolism about the path the disciple leads that unveils the life of Jesus Christ within him? Why didn’t he just say that?

Audience: He knew they would destroy it. Blasphemy.

JJ: Right because the church would destroy it because even in the early times the church had a hard time accepting the statement of Jesus when He told the Jews, “Ye are gods.” That is what He told them, ye are gods, He says you criticize me because people say that I am a Son of God, and it says “a” Son of God not “the” Son of God. What is interesting about that is that your own scriptures say, “Ye are gods.” That is a lot bigger deal to say ye are gods than for anyone to say that I am a Son of God. It is a lot bigger deal to say ye are gods so what is the big deal if I say that I am one of the sons of god? And what did they do to him after He said that to them? They picked up stones to throw at Him and he had to get out of there. He made them so mad that they immediately picked up stones to throw at Him.

So what the book is really about is the unveiling, the unfolding Jesus Christ in the life of the disciple. In other words, it starts out telling the person of the unfolding of the Christ consciousness as he goes through the first initiation and unfolds the life of Christ within his heart. He then goes through a second initiation and the third where he undergoes the principle of baptism and then on until he becomes like the Christ Himself. Then it goes into what the disciple can do after he becomes like the Christ. So it really talks about three stages, the first stage is a letter to the churches and the letters to the churches unfolds the disciple as to the steps he takes to become a higher initiate. These are the seven stages of progression represented by the seven churches.

The second part is where the heavens are open and this signifies a higher consciousness. He has a higher consciousness and begins to undergo the third initiation where has the heavens open to him and he is able to see what he has never been able to see before. Then it unfolds how he treads the path to become like his master The Christ. The third part tells about the work of a Messiah, of a Christed One and what type of work he will do and the things that will happen as he proceeds on his work and it ends with the consummation of the building of the New Jerusalem.

So why did John write it this way, like it was going to be the end of the world? Because he knew that the people who were going to be putting together the scriptures loved the end of the world stuff. Do people still love the end of the world stuff?

Audience: Yes

JJ: Every year or so there is a new prophesy that the world is going to end. Because we had seven planets in alignment this was going to cause the end of world. That happened 1995 or something like that. The world was going to end in the year 2000 because that is the seven thousand years prophesied in scripture and a day with God is like a thousand years and the seventh thousandth year is a rest. So we were going to have the day of the millennium and Y2K was going to be it. Many thought it was going to be the end of the world. Then it came and went and nothing happened.

Right after that they said that planet X was going to hit us anytime. As a matter of fact several people wrote me personal letters asking, “how come you are not preaching about planet X? Aren’t you worried about planet X?” I said, well no planet X is going to show up and they were very offended that I said that. Now no planet X has showed up on time and I think it was supposed to show up in 2004, and in 2005 it still was not here. Planet X was supposed to be a red dwarf.

I remember everyone saying back then when this was being talked about that it was supposed to be here within six months and was going to destroy most of the earth.

I did a little figuring abut how big a red dwarf would have to be and it would have to be bigger than the planet Jupiter and it would have to be within the solar system if it was going to arrived within six months. I said you know it would have to be big enough to be as bright as the planet Venus. If we were to look into the sky right now that’s how bright it would have to be.

I said I do not see any orb up there that is as bright as the planet Venus so it cannot physically get here in time to full fill the prophesy that everybody is making! This is just pure science, and sure enough not only did it not get here but also, it has not shown up at all! I have been a pretty accurate prophet on the Internet because every prophet that makes a prediction, I say it is not going to happen, and it does not happen so I guess I am the one that is the true prophet! (Laughter)

The thing is, is that it is like shooting fish in a barrel. It is real easy to do! Every day a stopped clock is right twice so once in a while somebody makes a prediction that comes true and hopefully I can catch that one so I do not look like a fool. (Laughter)

A lot of people are always predicting a stock market crash within six months and there is an ongoing prediction about that.

There has been an ongoing prediction about an economic collapse since I can remember. It is always floating out there, someone is always making a prediction, but someday there probably will be a collapse, so someday somebody is going to be right and it probably will not be because they are physic but by accident. Somebody is just going to be right and periodically there are small collapses but let us hope there is not a complete collapse.

The most recent prophesy is 2012 the end of the Mayan calendar and many people are predicting the end of the world here. People are getting wiser and I noticed that when they first started talking about it there was a lot of end of world talk. Now the opinion is shifting, they are seeing all these other predictions that predicted the end of the world have not happened. Many people are changing the prediction around 2012 and saying that it just means the end of the cycle, or the end of something else and it will not be the end of the world.

I think people are waking up to the fact that there have been so many end of the world predictions out there that people are beginning to be a little more cautious about them. The end of the world will not actually come for millions of years but when you think about it we could have a lot of problems in between. We have the threat of a nuclear war and all kinds of things that could create tremendous problems but it is very unlikely that it would be the end of mankind.

So just like today where everybody is interested in the end world so it was in John’s day as well. The Essenes wrote a lot about the end of the world. They were expecting it and they hid out in caves thinking that the end of the world would come and then the Roman Empire would be destroyed and they would come out of their caves and create a new civilization but that of course did not happen.

It took the Roman Empire hundreds of years before it fell. So John wrote about the end of the world and when they put the Bible together they looked at it and they were attracted by the revelation of the end but many of them, because it was so esoteric, thought it was too complicated and a little too scary and there was a big debate on whether or not to include this in the Bible. It just about did not get in but it squeaked by and we are lucky we have it.

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McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 6

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 6 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Unveiling, Part 1

JJ: We are going to talk about my new book called “The Unveiling” and this is the first copy and as you can tell we put a lot of work and expense into the cover. (Shows cover with title written by a Sharpie)

Audience: I like the font! (Laughter)

JJ: It has a little bit more reading than the Immortal 1 & 2 put together and this book “The Unveiling” is about the Book of Revelations. The Book of Revelations starts off with an interesting verse, “The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto Him to show unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass and he sent and signified it by His angel unto his servant John.”

There are several interesting things in this statement and first of all it calls it the revelation of Jesus Christ. The word “revelation” comes from Apokalypsis which is interpreted a number of different ways but it derives from another Greek word, Apokalypto which means to take the cover off of something, to unveil it. A handful of translators have come up with the idea that it really should be translated as “the unveiling.” From my study of the word that is actually the closest to the translation into English from the Greek Apokalypsis. What we are told in the very first verse, the unveiling of Jesus Christ to show unto his servants things, which must shortly come to pass. Must shortly come to pass, when was this written?

Audience: 2000 years ago.

JJ: 2000 years ago, that would be like me saying, I am going to write this prophecy about things that will shortly come to pass and here it is 2007 and we are clear up to 4000 and nothing has happened yet. Do you think the people in the year 4000 are going to get an accurate interpretation of a prophecy we make in 2007?

Audience Sharón: If you look at the time cycles for each 2,160 years and then you go through each time cycle that change within each sign, shortly does not necessarily mean tomorrow, a hundred or two hundred years shortly means after about 2,160 years.

JJ: Sharón, I am disappointed in you to hear a fundamentalist interpretation coming out of your mouth. (Laughter) Because she is about as far away from a fundamentalist as there is. But if you say this to fundamentalist like a Christian, they will say well a day with God is like a thousand years and that is kind of short. But yes by the normal way of looking at this if this is a prophecy of events and it is inspired then we have to come with something to explain what it is that “this will shortly come to pass.” Also at the end of the book Jesus is speaking and He says, “Behold I come quickly.” I am going to come quickly on this white horse that is going to come down out of the sky; I come quickly.

Well it is 2000 years I guess if a day to God is a thousand years and if age if the universe is billions of years old than a couple thousand years is not that much. But by normal standards 2000 years is not really quick.

Suppose some prophet says California is going to sink into the sea. Somebody said that in 1978 and a lot people moved to Idaho around that time, remember the song that said, “Tie up your boat in Idaho?” It was a popular song because this physic had made a prediction that California was going to sink into the sea and the shoreline was going to be up here in Idaho.

After about 5 years passed, California did not sink and then people said it has been too long now so it must have been a false prophecy. And it only took about 3-5 years before everybody forgot about the prediction but could you imagine California sinking into the sea in the year 4000 and they said, ah, it shortly came to pass and it didn’t take too long, it only took 2000 years!

So is it possible there is a different meaning for “shortly” here, what does it mean, that things will shortly come to pass? First of all what are some of the things that are supposed happen in here?

We are told there is going to a great fiery star descend from the skies land in the oceans and kill 1/3 of the life in the oceans. Has that happened yet? No I have not seen that happen yet. There is going to be an army of 2 hundred million men descend on Jerusalem and have the battle of Armageddon there. That has not happened. Two witnesses are supposed go prophesy in Jerusalem and a beastly character is going to rise up like Hitler and he will come against them and kill them and their dead bodies will lay in the streets for three and half days. After the three and half days they will rise up and there will be a great earthquake and everyone will be terrified and every people nation and tongue shall see these two witnesses rise up and great fear will fall upon those who have beheld them. That has not happened. It would certainly make the news if two guys got killed and lay in the streets for three days and everybody was happy and sent gifts to each other because their dead bodies were laying in the street because it says that two witnesses plagued the people of the earth and they were so happy to see them dead.

When Christians read this they say this has got to happen in our time because it says all the people of the nations were able to see their dead bodies laying in the streets and that could not happen in the days of John but with TV and the internet we could see this today. But then that presents a bit of a problem. We have this clearly detailed prophecy. So if some Hitler type killed these two and they were laying in the streets and everybody was celebrating and sending gifts to each other that these guys were finally out of the way and dead and they did not even suffer their dead bodies to be buried it said because they were televising them for all the world for all to see and everyone was rejoicing that they were dead wouldn’t somebody say, “hey this sounds like it could be the witnesses in revelation and that means they are going to rise up after three and half days.” People would start to wait and see boy that would convert everybody when they rose from the dead, would it not?

And how about this beast? It is supposed to be a terrible beast and antichrist rise up and he is going to put like a computer chip in everyone’s hand, some type of mark in everyone’s right hand or their forehead and they will have to do exactly what this dictator says and this dictator is going to be so bad he is going to make Hitler look like Cinderella. This guy is going to be a real bad guy, and he is going to control the whole world and we are all going to get his mark and we all are going to do what he says and he is even going to be so bad he is going to challenge Jesus when he sees him come down on that white horse.

He is not going to put up much of a fight because Jesus is going to zap him and he is going to evaporate along with all the armies and Jesus is going to call the fouls of the air to come and feast on the flesh of all the captains and the horses. As a matter of fact it says they, 200 million men, will all be on horses. That is kind of weird is it not? Well maybe he was talking about tanks and stuff but John just called them horses and all this is supposed to shortly come to pass.

How do we explain that word shortly getting in there? The Christian world looks at this and says that word shortly cannot interfere with out interpretation so there is lots of ways to interpret shortly. In other words, when these events start to happen it is all going to happen in a short time is one way to look at it or a day with God is like a thousand years and what’s a couple thousand years that is short in God’s mind and Jesus says I come quickly, and that could be that when he comes, he is just going to come really fast.

So there are ways around this but let’s look at it just the way it reads, these things will shortly come to pass. Actually it means exactly what it says, what things and who, who is the book of revelations written to? I read it to you and does anybody remember?

Audience Joshua: The Disciples.

JJ: Joshua you did great! It was written to the servants of God. And whom will it come shortly to pass for?

Audience: The servants of God.

JJ: Everything in here is going to come shortly to pass to the disciples. Not to everybody else but to the disciples. Then it says something interesting here, it says, “Blessed is he that reads and hears the words of this prophecy, and keeps those things which are written therein, for the time is at hand.” What time is at hand? The time for everything in this book to come to pass shortly! In other words, the time, is at hand, but for whom? The disciples who read and keep within their heart and their minds the words of this prophesy. They are the ones who will be blessed.

Well that is really weird because when you read it in the normal sense there is no blessing in the book. I mean a mountain coming out of heaven killing all the fish, fires coming down, hail storms, all kinds of destruction and at one point one third of the men on the earth are killed with this great army, and the beast rising up. Where is the stuff that blesses everybody? There is nothing in there to bless anybody. All it is, is stuff that it scares the daylights out of you – if you believe it. You read the whole thing and you think this is probably going to happen soon because it has been 2000 years and it cannot go on much longer before soon is not soon anymore.

Audience: We are in the latter days.

JJ: It seems so. Let’s pick a random verse from the book of revelation and see how it applies. (JJ Opens to a random selection and reads:)

All they that dwell upon the earth shall worship him the beast whose names are not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world. This beast exercised all the power of the first beast before him and causes the earth and them which dwell in to worship the beast whose deadly wound is healed and he does great wonders and then it says he causes all rich and poor to receive his mark on the right hand or forehead and if they don’t receive it the they will be killed.

Is that anything to be happy about? No, let’s just pick something else at random here.

“And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.

“And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

“And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:

“For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” Rev 6:12-17

Would I be able to stand if every mountain and island are moving out of their place? Then there will be a great earthquake, the stars will shake and move the moon will turn blood and the sun will not give it’s light! What is there to look forward to? How can I be blessed by reading this book? How is that possible?

Let me tell you how it is possible, the book is not about what everybody thinks it is about.

The Mayans talked about 25,000 year cycles.

JJ: My feeling about 2012 is that it is a point taking us into the Age of Aquarius. I don’t think there is anything magical with 2012 over 2011.  From what I understand it was the end of their calendar and they saw this as the end of an age rather than the end of the world.  It could be an intense time period.  Let me see.  It is now 2007… we could have some interesting things happen by that time.  I see a larger turning point occurring around 2025-2030, which I see as an intense period of change.

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Fundamental Doctrines

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 25 of 34 in the series 2011C

INTRODUCTION

 TEACHER: Today’s lesson reviews some fundamentals of The New Age. First we are going to show you from the scriptures why the churches are lacking in knowledge and stimulation. Next we are going to talk about Jesus Christ and the mystery of his name. Then we will go into the real purpose of baptism and the Holy Spirit. Finally we will show that the Bible itself teaches that it does not contain a fullness of His word and prophets and revelation exist today as much or more than it did in ancient times. We think you will find this and other lessons we have quite stimulating and interesting. But first why don’t you tell us a little about your background. Are you familiar with any church?

STUDENT: Yes. (Discuss his or her background a few minutes).

 

TEACHER: There are certainly a large number of churches in the world today. There are over a thousand Christian as well hundreds of non Christian faiths. Why do you think there are so many?

STUDENT: I guess people have different ideas and interpretations.

 

TEACHER: Do you think they could all be right?

STUDENT: Not really. (Only use the next paragraph if he thinks one is as right as another).

 

TEACHER: There are many opposing doctrines taught in the churches where both sides cannot be correct. For instance some teach that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, a perfect man. Others teach that he was a fraud and imposter. Both teachings could not be correct now could they?

STUDENT: I guess not.

 

TEACHER: On the other hand, none of the churches are entirely wrong either. They all teach us to submit to God and love our brother and sister don’t they?

STUDENT: Yes.

 

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE CHURCHES?

 TEACHER: A person with pure intent will get some good out of any church. The problem is that they all have some good things about them, but they do not take the people far enough. The Bible talks about these problems connected with our day. Let us read here in Isaiah: [Scripture #1] (Read Isaiah 29:9-10) Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink. For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered. It tells us here that the people of our day will not be drunk with regular wine, but with what?

STUDENT: A deep sleep.

 

TEACHER: Yes. The scripture tells us that this condition of sleep has caused the prophets and rulers to be “covered” and the people’s eyes will be closed. Have you noticed that many of the religious people of today seem to have their eyes closed to new knowledge and new and better ways of doing things?

STUDENT: It seems so. (The problems in the Middle East are a good example.)

 

TEACHER: Let us read more about this subject. Here in Chapter 28 the Lord is talking to people of our day that he calls the “drunkards of Ephraim”. [Scripture #2](Read Isaiah 28:7) But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgement. We have seen from the last quote that drunkenness is not always caused by a literal wine. The wine the ministers of today are drunk with is the scriptures. That may seem funny that the religious leaders and followers are drunk on the scriptures but when you think of all the things that people do in the name of God, it makes sense. Have you heard of people going to war because of some literal interpretation of the Bible or some other religious book?

STUDENT: Yes I have.

 

TEACHER: And have you heard of people abusing children because of something written in the scriptures?

STUDENT: Yes.

 

TEACHER: There are many other strange things people do who are drunk with scripture. They handle poisonous snakes, many men are tyrants over their wives in God’s name. Others believe babies are in a state of sin. Some hate other races because of the Bible. Some will die rather than take a blood transfusion. Many believe their priest or prophet cannot make a mistake when talking about religion because they have a special place with God. Others sell everything they have and go to a mountain top to await the return of Jesus believing he will destroy everyone but themselves. Others will not let their children go to school because they think it is controlled by Satan. Others think the Bible contains all the truth in the world. One of the most common signs of drunkenness is that most religious people think that God is going to send everyone to hell that does not have the same belief system as they do even if they are good and loving people. Now when you think about it, doesn’t it seem like people would have to be drunk to believe and do these things?

STUDENT: It would seem so.

 

TEACHER: Would you say that Isaiah is right when he says they err in vision, they stumble in judgement.

STUDENT: Yes.

 

TEACHER: Now read verse eight. [Scripture #3] For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean. Do you think that some religious leaders, like the child abusers we read of, helped to fulfill this prophecy?

STUDENT: Yes.

 

TEACHER: There are many other things besides infidelity that cause uncleanliness. The only real sin condemned by Jesus was hypocrisy. Do you think that this is a problem with the teachers today?

STUDENT: Definitely.

 

TEACHER: One of the biggest problems in this area is that many people teach love, but do not demonstrate it. Have you noticed this before?

STUDENT: Yes.

 

TEACHER: Now read verse nine: [Scripture #4] Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. The apostle Peter tells us that milk is the scriptures. (See I Peter 2:2) and breasts are linked with organizations that claim to be God’s people (see Isa 66:11). Isn’t it interesting that God says that people will have to look beyond the scriptures and churches to find knowledge and understanding?

STUDENT: Yes.

 

TEACHER: Next read verse 10: [Scripture #5] For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little. What does the scripture say “must” be added?

STUDENT: Precepts must be added.

 

TEACHER: Wouldn’t it be difficult to continue to add precepts, knowledge and understanding if we used nothing else but the Bible?

STUDENT: I suppose so.

 

TEACHER: All of our schools and universities add much knowledge that is not in the Bible. On the other hand, there is much spiritual knowledge that the Bible does not clearly explain. For instance, it does not plainly tell us what happens after we die or how the universe was created. Have you ever had questions that have not been answered from the Bible?

STUDENT: Yes.

 

TEACHER: Verse eleven tells us why he repeated himself in verse ten: [Scripture #6] For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. We are taught in English today which is a different language than Isaiah used but the word “stammering” is particularly interesting. It comes from the Hebrew LAEG (Law-ayg) which indicates a silly or imperfect repetition of a foreign speech or a foreign person. Therefore he is prophesying that the people of today will be taught out of the Bible (which was written by a foreign people in another tongue) with silly repetition. Does this prophecy seem to be fulfilled?

STUDENT: Yes.

 

TEACHER: Now read verse 12: [Scripture #7] To whom he said, this is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear. God has always promised his people a rest and refreshing. He did through Moses (Exodus 33:14) and also through Jesus. You may remember the words of Jesus when he said: [Scripture #8] Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matt 11:28-30) Would you say that the ministers of the world have made the burden of the people easier or heavier?

STUDENT: It would seem to be heavier.

 

TEACHER: The burdens they have heaped upon the people have been great. They expect them to give large sums of money and the people get nothing in return but a large stone building and a sermon once a week. Followers give ministers their dedication, but they receive no new precepts, they give of their spirit yet they get no healing. Lastly they give them custody of their souls yet they have much more guilt and a heavier yoke than the so-called heathen. All the teaching of the scriptures is directed toward lifting our burdens and entering into the rest of God, but how does it say that people will react toward the invitation of rest?

STUDENT: That they would not hear it.

 

TEACHER: It is amazing that people almost seem to want to have guilt, worries and heavy burdens. Now read Isaiah 28 verse thirteen: [Scripture #9] But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept: line upon line, line upon line; here a little and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken. Here he repeats or stammers on the words, “precepts” and “lines” again. Why do you suppose he does that?

STUDENT: To emphasize that the people will be taught with great repetition.

 

TEACHER: The little light they are given with great repetition will cause the people to do what?

STUDENT: To fall backward, and be broken, and snared and taken.

 

TEACHER: How do the scriptures, even if they are true, make the people fall backward?

STUDENT: The teachers and the people are asleep and do not understand them.

 

TEACHER: The word “taken” comes from the Hebrew Lâkad (Law-kad) which means “caught in a trap.” The great repetition and misunderstanding of simple scriptures will actually lead the people backward, instead of forward, into a trap that God has set for the Bible teachers of today. Isaiah tells us in this same chapter that a “report” (verse 19) or message of light will be given and certain calamities will follow it to get the people’s attention. But the trap will be seen when regular church teachings are compared to this message. Is a light more visible in daylight or darkness?

STUDENT: In darkness

 

TEACHER: The people will see the trap set for the Bible teachers when their darkness is compared with the light of the New Age. The Bible tells us that people will not only stumble with the scriptures, but with Christ himself. Peter here talks about this. (Read I Peter 2:8) [Scripture #10] And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. Here Peter tells us that those who stumble at the word, or the scriptures, and do not fulfill their appointments will have Jesus as “a stone of stumbling.” We talked about how teachers are often blind to the scriptures. Do you think that many of them are also blind to the Living Christ and who he really is?

STUDENT: Yes.

 

TEACHER:In the days of the early Christians Paul wrote concerning those who thought they had a corner on the scriptures in that day; (Read Romans 11:8-10) [Scripture #11] (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap. and a stumblingblock, and a recompense to them: Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway. Do you think that history is repeating itself and that this scripture applies to the religions today?

STUDENT: Yes.

 

JESUS CHRIST AND THE MYSTERY OF HIS NAME

 TEACHER: It is important here that we clear up some of the darkness surrounding Jesus. The various sects today are purporting the idea that Jesus is the one and only Son of God. The Bible, on the other hand, shows Jesus as our wiser brother who came to show us an example and to teach us. A lot of the problem is caused through mistranslation. Let us read John 10:36: [Scripture #12] Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said I am the Son of God? Notice Jesus is quoted as saying he is “the” Son of God but in the Greek that it is translated from there is no ‘the’ and it is correctly translated as “a Son of God.” Why do you suppose the translators mistranslate it even though they know better?

STUDENT: Because it goes along with what they believe.

 

TEACHER: It is surprising that they did not repeat the error with the word Saviour because most sects call him “the Saviour.” Let us read Luke 2:11: [Scripture #13] For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. When someone is called “the” something it generally means he is the only one, but when he is called “a” something it means he is one of many. Since Jesus was called a Son of God and a Saviour would this mean that there are other Sons of God and other Saviours besides him?

STUDENT: I suppose so.

 

TEACHER: We will prove it. Read Obediah verse 21: [Scripture #14] And Saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s. How do we know there will be more than one saviour here?

STUDENT: Because Saviours is plural.

 

TEACHER: There are numerous instances in the scriptures where we are called brethren to Jesus. (See: Matt 25:40; Heb 2:11 & Rom 8:29) If Jesus is our brother would we also not be sons of God?

STUDENT: I would think so.

 

TEACHER: There are many scriptures that teach this. We’ll just read one (Read Romans 8:14-17): [Scripture #15] For as many as are lead by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. How many of us are sons of God according to verse 14?

STUDENT: As many as are lead by the Spirit.

 

TEACHER: It says we will be joint-heirs with Christ. What does this mean?

STUDENT: It would mean that we will inherit the same benefits that he will.

 

TEACHER: Another false teaching is that the man Jesus created the heaven and earth. This is because Jesus is identified with the word of God in John (Read John 1:1-3): [Scripture #16] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. If Jesus was the Word it certainly sounds like he created everything, doesn’t it?

STUDENT: Yes.

 

TEACHER: There is an important word here that is mistranslated. In verse three instead of “him” it should read “it.” Now read it over and tell me how that changes the meaning.

STUDENT: “It” would not refer to a person.

 

TEACHER: “It” here is the creative Spirit of God that not only flows through Jesus, but through all of us. Just as Jesus is not the only Word he is also not the only Christ. To understand what Christ is it would be helpful to read all of First Corinthians Chapter Twelve. We will just take time for verse 12 however: [Scripture #17] For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. Here Christ is not referred to as a person but what?

STUDENT: A body.

 

TEACHER: Does it say that the body has one member, or many members?

STUDENT: Many members.

 

TEACHER: Now read verse 27. It tells who the members of the body were: [Scripture #18] Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. Who are the members that made up Christ?

STUDENT: The people Paul was writing to and probably us today also.

 

TEACHER: The man Jesus is not all of Christ there is but is merely the head (Colossians 1:18) of the body of Christ. Now another startling fact is that the Master from Galilee is only one of many that bears the name of Jesus Christ. The name actually signifies a calling and means “anointed to deliver, or save.” Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world, but there are many who cooperate in that calling. The man Jesus is our head or leader, but the name is shared with infinite beings throughout the universe. Others who were called Christ or Messiah (which has the same meaning) are Saul (I Sam 24:10), David (Psalms 89:38), King Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1, Israel Psalms 105:14-15) and the High Priest (Leviticus 4:5). The root of the word is used in connection with the early saints: (Read II Corinthians 1:21) [Scripture #19] Now he which stablishesth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God. The word “anointed” here comes from the same root as Christ does and could be translated as “Christed”. Now read it again translated this way.

STUDENT: Now he which stablishesth us with you in Christ, and hath Christed us, is God.

 

TEACHER: Were other people besides Jesus Christed then?

STUDENT: It appears so.

 

TEACHER: This name that we can share is a great mystery and a stumbling block to the religions throughout history. Let us read here where Paul is talking about Jesus Christ. (Read Ephesians 1:21): [Scripture #20] {He is} Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in the world to come. The name of Jesus Christ is higher than any name not only in this world, but where else?

STUDENT: Also the world to come.

 

TEACHER: Now read Philippians 2:9: [Scripture #21] Wherefore God hath highly exalted him (Jesus), and given him a name which is above every name. The name of Jesus Christ is higher than how many names?

STUDENT: “Every name.”

 

TEACHER: Jesus often talked about his Father’s name. Let us read an interesting scripture about it. Read the first two lines of verses 6 & 26 in John Chapter 17. [Scripture #22] I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me… And I have declared unto them (the disciples) thy name, and will declare it… Here we are told that Jesus revealed to men the name of the Father. Do you remember any scripture where Jesus identified the name of the Father?

STUDENT: No.

TEACHER: The name of the Father was revealed many times. We have just missed it. We can read a hint in the last sentence of John 14:28: [Scripture #23] My Father is greater than I. Who was the greatest? Jesus or his Father?

STUDENT: The Father.

 

TEACHER: Therefore who should have the greatest name?

STUDENT: The Father

 

TEACHER: But who does the scriptures say has the highest name in this world or the world to come? (Refer back to Eph. 1:21 and Phil 2:9 [Scriptures 20&21] if necessary)

STUDENT: Jesus Christ

 

TEACHER: How could Jesus Christ have the highest name when the Father is greater?

STUDENT: I’m not sure.

 

TEACHER: We’ll read one more scripture to clarify this. Let us turn to John 10:25: [Scripture #24] Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed me not: the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me. Whose name did Jesus do his works in?

STUDENT: The Father’s.

 

TEACHER: And what name was that?

STUDENT: The name of Jesus Christ.

 

TEACHER: This makes everything logical. If the name of Jesus Christ is the highest then and the Father is greater than the man Jesus, then the name of the Father would also have to be the highest name, wouldn’t it?

STUDENT: Yes.

 

TEACHER: Obviously, the Father would not have a lower name than the Son. On the other hand do not sons carry the same name as their fathers?

STUDENT: Yes they do?

 

TEACHER: This is verified in Ephesians 3:14-15: [Scripture #25] For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. Earlier we read that God’s sons are those who have his Spirit. Would you agree that the Father’s family are the Sons and Daughters of God, or those who are in tune with His Spirit?

STUDENT: Yes.

 

TEACHER: This scripture says that God’s family in heaven and on earth is named after who?

STUDENT: The Father.

 

TEACHER: And what name does he have?

STUDENT: Jesus Christ.

 

TEACHER: Do you remember what this name means?

STUDENT: Anointed to deliver or save.

 

TEACHER: The reason it is the highest name is because there is no greater calling in the universe than to be anointed to deliver or save others from a lower estate or plane of consciousness and bring them up higher. Can you think of a greater work than helping someone else in their progression?

STUDENT: No.

 

TEACHER: As final evidence of this let us read the final words of Jesus to his disciples: (Read Matthew 28:19) [Scripture #26] Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Look at the word “name” here and tell me if it is singular or plural.

STUDENT: It is singular.

 

TEACHER: Now if the Father, Son and Holy Ghost had three names it would read “the names of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost,” but because it is singular, how many names would he be referring to?

STUDENT: One name.

 

TEACHER: Peter clearly tells us what name that was (Read Acts 2:38): [Scripture #27] Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. So what was the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost that they were commanded by Jesus to be baptized in?

STUDENT: The name of Jesus Christ.

 

TEACHER: The next thing we need to learn is how to take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ. An ordinance was instituted to help us accomplish this. Do you know what it was?

STUDENT: Was it baptism?

 

TEACHER: Let us read the effect of baptism: (Read Galatians 3:27): [Scripture #28] For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. What is supposed to happen through baptism?

STUDENT: We put on Christ.

 

TEACHER: Do you suppose that means that we take his name upon us as well as his nature?

STUDENT: It could.

 

TEACHER: Not only do we take his name upon us but we also are to bear his image. (Read Romans 8:29): [Scripture #29] For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son [Christ], that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Whose image are we supposed to bear?

STUDENT: The Christ or the Son of God.

 

TEACHER: How do we know from this scripture that Jesus will not be the only Christ, or the last one born?

STUDENT: Because it calls him the firstborn among many brethren. Therefore there are going to be many more like him.

 

TEACHER: In addition we are supposed to have another part of Christ in us. Read here in Philippians: (Phil 2:5-6) [Scripture #30] Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. What is supposed to be in us?

STUDENT: The same mind that was in Jesus.

 

TEACHER: Now let us read about what we are supposed to be like when the Master appears: (Read I John 3:2) [Scripture #31] Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. What are we to be like when he appears?

STUDENT: Like him.

 

TEACHER: And why is that?

STUDENT: Because we shall see him as he is.

 

TEACHER: And what is he?

STUDENT: Our brother. (Remember he was the firstborn of many brethren?)

 

 

BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

 TEACHER: The mode of baptism as well as the reason is clearly given by Paul: (Read Romans 6:3-5) [Scripture #32] Know ye not, that so many of us were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. When we are buried in the water through baptism it is a symbol of what?

STUDENT: The burial of Christ in the tomb.

 

TEACHER: And what is being raised up out of the water a symbol of?

STUDENT: Christ being raised from the dead

 

TEACHER: It is also a symbol of being born again. Before we are born for the first time we are completely submerged in water. By submerging ourselves completely in water through baptism we are symbolizing a new birth. Let us read about this newness. (Read II Cor 5:17) [Scripture #33] Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new. This new birth is a symbol of starting over in the life of the Spirit with a clean slate, as if all past mistakes have never been, and all guilt is instantly washed away. Why do you suppose Jesus, the greatest of us all, was baptized?

STUDENT: To set the example for us.

 

TEACHER: Do you remember what descended and rested upon Jesus when he was baptized?

STUDENT: The Spirit of God

 

TEACHER: There is an ordinance to assist us in receiving the spirit which is mentioned in Acts Chapter Eight verses fourteen through seventeen: [Scripture #34] Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: Who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost. (For as yet he was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.) Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost. What did the apostles do to help the church members receive the Holy Ghost?

STUDENT: They laid their hands on them.

 

TEACHER: Again this follows a correspondence. Right after we are born we come out of water and have the spirit of life enter us. After we are born spiritually through baptism what is to enter us?

STUDENT: The spirit of God.

 

 

CONTINUAL REVELATION

 TEACHER: Many of the churches today teach that all that God has to say to man is contained in the Bible. Does it make any sense that God would speak to people in one age, but not another?

STUDENT: Not really

 

TEACHER: The Bible indicates that this is true. (Read Acts 10:34) [Scripture #35] Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respector of persons. If this is true would God respect the people in one age and give them revelation, but close the windows of heaven to their requests in another?

STUDENT: I would not think so.

 

TEACHER: Many churches teach that there will be no more prophets after Jesus, but this is not in harmony with the Bible. Let us read here in Ephesians (Eph 2:19-20): [Scripture #36] Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God. And are built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. What is the foundation of the church of Christ?

STUDENT: Apostles and prophets.

 

TEACHER: The Bible even names prophets that were in the church after Jesus left. (Read Acts 13:1) [Scripture #37] Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. How many prophets were named in the one city of Antioch alone?

STUDENT: Four: Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius, and Manaen.

 

TEACHER: Now a prophet is one who has power to prophesy or reveal spiritual truths. An important ingredient in becoming a prophet is mentioned in the Book of Revelations: (Rev 19:10) [Scripture #38] And I fell at his (the angel’s) feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophesy. This scripture tells us that we will have the spirit of prophecy if what happens?

STUDENT: If we have a testimony of Jesus.

 

TEACHER: If you had the spirit of prophecy then you’d be a prophet, wouldn’t you?

STUDENT: I suppose so.

 

TEACHER: This spirit is supposed to rest upon many people in the time we are approaching. We can read about this in Joel (Read Joel 2:28-29) [Scripture #39] And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. It sounds like there will be many prophets doesn’t it?

STUDENT: Yes.

 

TEACHER: Will the prophets be just men, or men and women?

STUDENT: The scripture mentions daughters and handmaids so it must be men and women.

 

TEACHER: Did you ever think that you may become a prophet yourself?

STUDENT: I never thought about it that way.

 

TEACHER: We must always remember that the gifts of the Spirit are for all men and women, not just a select few. One of the reasons many churches do not believe in revelation today is because of one of the last verses in the Bible. (Read Revelations 22:18): [Scripture #40] For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. Many people think that the book talked about here is the Bible and that whoever adds new revelation to it will be damned, but did the Bible even exist as a book at the time John was writing the Book of Revelations?

STUDENT: No.

 

TEACHER: The Bible was not compiled as we have it today until hundreds of years later; therefore what book could John have been referring to?

STUDENT: The Book of Revelations.

 

TEACHER: John was merely telling readers not to alter his book. If you wrote an inspired book you wouldn’t want people to change it either, would you?

STUDENT: I guess not.

 

TEACHER: Furthermore John himself added to the Bible after the Book of Revelations was written. Scholars say that he wrote the Gospel of John after the Book of Revelations and that it is the last book written for the Bible. Therefore, if the books of the Bible were placed in chronological order the Book of John would be last. Now let us read the true last verse of the Bible. (Read John 21:25) [Scripture #41] And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen. Does this sound like that there could be more spiritual books than just the Bible?

STUDENT: It certainly does.

 

TEACHER: In fact the Bible clearly tells us that all things hidden shall be revealed. (Read Luke 12:2): [Scripture #42] For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Do you think it will take more than the Bible to reveal all hidden things to mankind?

STUDENT: Definitely.

 

TEACHER: In the past God has revealed his word through scriptures. You are probably aware that there are many other scriptures in the world. Almost every religion has some type of holy book. We read earlier that God is no respector of persons. Therefore do you think he may have given inspiration and revelation to other people besides the Jews?

STUDENT: It is possible.

 

TEACHER: Therefore do you think that these other world scriptures may also have many worthwhile things in them just as the Bible does?

STUDENT: Probably.

 

TEACHER: A church teaching the truth does not recognize any book or an interpretation of any book as infallible because all truths have to be filtered through human consciousness. But we can get infallible truth from any scripture if we read it in connection with what?

STUDENT: The Spirit of God within us.

 

TEACHER: Therefore we encourage people to read and teach from any of the world scriptures that teach truths that are verified by our Higher Selves. Does that sound fair enough?

STUDENT: Yes.

 

TEACHER: There are many other good books in the world too numerous to mention that teaches many great and important principles. We encourage people to read and study several books which we believe are revelations given out either through Jesus Christ or under His direction. They are as follows: (1) Many of the world scriptures. (2) The Secret Doctrine through Madame H. P. Blavatski. This was published in 1888 and revealed by a Master working under the Christ. It contains introductory teachings for the New Age. (3) The writings of Alice A. Bailey. She published twenty-four books with revelations from the same Master. These contain the intermediate teachings for the New Age. The advanced teachings will be given out around 2025. (4) The Course In Miracles. This is a three-volume set designed to lead us away from the illusion to the true reality. (5) The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ. This is a revelation given out around the turn of the century giving a history of the entire life of Jesus. (6) Inspired writings that will be given out from time to time. This ought to give us plenty of study materials for a while, shouldn’t it?

STUDENT: You’d think so.

 

Copyright 2011 by J J Dewey

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Boise Gathering 2008, Part 3

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 3 of 15 in the series Boise Gathering 2008

Soulful Songs

JJ: Songs can do a lot to influence mood and there are some songs where people can tap into the soul of things. A lot of songs just tap into kind of a fun energy within us. I would not say that these tap into the soul but they tap into the creative part of our selves – and they are just fun to listen to. But every once in while a song comes along that really stirs the inward parts of our selves and the song itself elevates the feelings and the passion to the level of our soul. I will play you just a couple of my favorites that do this and I think you’ll sense this also.
(JJ plays the Titanic theme song instrumental.)

Now why was Titanic the number one movie of all time in revenue? Was it because the story was good? The story had been told before but it was told in a new way and the writing was good but that was not enough. What drew people back was the basic sound of the whole thing and they came back again and again, especially young teenage girls that are very much into the heart. They were very much affected and some of them saw it like twelve times or so.

Audience: My daughter saw it eight times and she even dyed her hair red. Chuckling!

Audience: This is very Irish and a lot of the Irish songs can do that to you.

(The song continues to play.)

JJ: What this does is tap into the soul although every once in a while I meet somebody that says they do not like it. No matter how good you think something is there is going to be a certain percentage of people that do not like it. But I find people who are sensitive to the soul energies usually have a similar feeling about music as I do. Then people who like superficial stuff like a different type of music that does not really take you to the soul. The only thing I did not like about the movie was at the end when she threw that jewel into the ocean. I was thinking just before she threw it overboard, “No don’t do it! Sell it and give the money to the poor – do something with it, but don’t throw it in the ocean.” But even though I did not like that part it still stirred a lot of emotional energy.

( The Titanic theme song “My heart will go on” sung by Celine Dion is now playing.

My heart will go on is the other melody in there that I thought really stirred the soul energies. Is it my imagination or do you guys feel the same way about the soul energies connected with it?

Audience confirms they all feel the soul energy connected with the music from Titanic.

JJ: I would guess that about a third of the people that saw the movie did not feel the soul connection to the music and the people that didn’t sense it were not interested in higher spiritual things.

Audience: Maybe they do not listen to music.

JJ: That is perhaps part of it.

The song continues to play.

JJ: And I am not really excited about Celine Dion but this song is beautiful. I would say that without this music it would have done half the revenue. I think the music just permeated the consciousness of people.

Okay we will move on to another one from the Beatles, “Here Comes the Sun.” I did not usually like anything from George Harrison like I did Lennon and McCartney, but when he wrote this I think it touched the soul just as much as any of the other Beatles songs did. He must have been particularly inspired the day that he wrote this for some reason.

The song continues to play and then JJ switches to Richard Marx.

JJ: Here is the only song from Richard Marx that he wrote that I thought really touched the soul.

The song “Right here waiting” is playing.

JJ: You guys remember this one?

The thing I find interesting is a lot of artists like Richard Marx write one song that touches the soul and the rest of the songs do not seem to do it and it is interesting that they just have one moment where they are really inspired.

Audience: Christopher Cross and the song “Sailing” is another example of this.

The song continues to play.

JJ: Here is another song that touches the soul for me.

Cat Stevens’ song “Moon Shadow” is now playing.

JJ: It is hard to believe that this guy just gave up his life and his music and became a Muslim and very religious. He started playing again but the gap has been so long he has not really produced anything worthwhile. If he would have stayed focused who knows where he would have went.

The song continues to play.

JJ: The Rolling Stones were kind of a carnal bunch but they did write one song that kind of came close to the soul. They wrote some really good music that centered listeners a lot on the earth and personality though.

Rolling Stones song “Lady Jane” is playing.

JJ: Depends on the mood but I thought this was kind of a different song for them to write. A little bit out of character for them but it was a good one.

The song is now stopped.

JJ: And we cannot forget “Enya” her music is very soulful and it was like she was trying to stretch herself to go higher.

(Transcriber: Her beautiful music is playing. On a side note Enya sings a beautiful song for “The Lord of the Rings” “The Fellowship of the Ring” called “May it be” that truly touches the soul.)

JJ: Okay I will play just a couple more songs that touch the soul and this one here is sung by my son Ramsey, he is really talented and does a lot of different things. He has had a band, he makes videos, he speaks a number of different languages, he is really a smart kid and he plays about every musical instrument there is.

(Next playing is Blondie performing the song “Call Me.”)

JJ: This song is a good one and kind of creates an interesting mood.

Okay now I am going to play you guys a song that really touches the soul, are you guys ready? This is the one, the soul toucher! Here it is!

(He plays “Born to be Wild” performed by Steppenwolf.)

JJ: This needs to be louder! Laughing!

Here is another one I liked and if you are old enough and remember the Vietnam War then you will remember this one.

(He plays The Times are a Changing by Bob Dylan.)

JJ: I think he touched the soul somewhat in his early stuff.

Here is another one that really kind of moves you!

(Now playing is “Gloria” performed by Laura Branigan)

JJ: I will end with a song I wrote when I was about 22 that I think really touches the soul and I hired a guy to sing it for me because I am not that great of a singer. It is called “A Year and a Day” (Click on the link to play.)

A Year in a Day

Copyright 2011 by J J Dewey

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Eternal Lives, Chapter 10

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 10 of 17 in the series Eternal Lives

Promises Unfulfilled

When the first quorum of twelve Apostles were set apart many promises were made which were not fulfilled in their lifetime.  I would venture to say that less than half of them came to pass during their lives. Here’s some examples:

Lyman E. Johnson was promised that “He shall see the Savior come and stand upon the earth with power and great glory.”  DHC Vol 2; pg 188

Heber C. Kimball was promised that “He may stand unto the coming of our Lord, and receive a crown in the Kingdom of our God; that he be made acquainted with the day when Christ  shall come; that he shall be made perfect in faith; and that the deaf shall hear, the lame shall walk, the blind shall see, and greater things than these shall he do.” DHC Vol. 2; pg. 189.

Orson Hyde was promised “That he may stand upon the earth and bring souls till Christ comes.  We know that he loves thee O, Lord and may this Thy servant be able to walk through pestilence and not be harmed; and the powers  of darkness have no ascendancy over him; may he have the power to smite the  earth with pestilence, to divide the waters, and lead through the  Saints; may he go from land to land and from sea to sea, and may he be like one of the three Nephites.” DHC Vol. 2 pg. 190.

David W. Patten was blessed “That he may go to the Nations and isles afar off.”  DHC Vol. 2; Pg. 190.  Actually, he was shot in Missouri before he could fulfill that blessing.  Also None of the above lived to see the Savior come in his glory for that day has not yet arrived and all the original twelve are now in their graves.  Orson Hyde was never like one of the three Nephites and he never divided the waters.

William Smith was also blessed that “He shall be preserved and REMAIN on the earth until Christ shall come to take vengeance on the wicked.”  DHC Vol. 2; pg. 191.

John F. Boynton was blessed thusly:  “Thou shalt stand in that day of calamity when the wicked shall be consumed, and present unto thy father, spotless, the fruits of thy labor.  Thou shalt overcome all the evils that are in the world.”  DHC Vol. 2; pg. 191.

Parley P. Pratt was promised: “You shall see a NATION born in a day.”  DHC Vol. 2; pg. 193.  Parley, of course died without seeing any such nation,  Was this promise in vain?  Were all the above promises the babblings of a false prophet?  While it is true that human error has to always be considered, it is also true that all of these promises can yet be fulfilled, for many of the early saints are upon the earth once more and their inner souls hunger for the day when these promises can truly be fulfilled.

I have met a number of people in our own day who have received beautiful promises in their patriarchal blessings, yet died seeing them unfulfilled.  I remember an elderly neighbor lady who received a promise that she would live to see Jesus come again.  The poor lady had faith in that blessing until the day she died.  Was her faith in vain?  No.  If she is judged faithful she may yet be born again and be here in the time period of the second coming.

I had some good friends who were blessed that they would have sons and daughters, yet they died in a car accident and only had one child.  Will they be able to see the fulfillment of that blessing? Yes.  They may yet have sons and daughters many times over.   If they are judged faithful they will “receive an hundred fold…children and lands.” Mark 10:30.

As I said we must recognize the possibility of human error any blessing given, even if stated by the greatest prophet in history.  We must also realize that human language is a very weak way of communicating, but even in taking this into consideration, there is no reason why we cannot assume that the above utterances are inspired and will someday be fulfilled.

Some people just tend to ignore promises like the above which have not been fulfilled, and like to pretend they don’t exist.  They lean entirely toward the heart and seem to think that using common sense is of the devil.  Others rationalize by stating that God will straighten things out in some nebulous way in the spirit world or resurrection.  Of course, they do not even bother to speculate on how God may do that, for speculation is of the devil, they believe.

All I can say is that I’m glad that Jesus speculated and stretched his mind beyond the law of Moses, or where would we be now?  Joseph Smith once said:  “Great God!  Is there no common sense on the earth!” DHC Vol. 5; Pg. 297     If he were here now and see how many refuse to think things out in their mind as well as there heart, he would probably ask the same question again.  “Behold, I will tell you in your MIND, and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost… This is the spirit of revelation.”  D&C 8:2-3.  If one wants the spirit of revelation he must use his mind as well as heart.  Logic and reason are not evil as many accuse.

So how will William Smith REMAIN on the earth until Christ will come?  Try and explain that without the principle of reincarnation.

John the Revelator was also given an interesting promise, of which we have no record of fulfillment:  “And I went unto the Angel and said unto him, Give me the little book.  And he said unto me: Take it, and eat it up;  and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.  And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey; and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.  And he said unto me, Thou must PROPHESY AGAIN BEFORE MANY PEOPLES, AND NATIONS, AND TONGUES, AND KINGS.” Rev. 10:9-11.

Concerning this the question was asked:  “What are we to understand by the little book which was eaten by John, as mentioned in the 10th Chapter of Revelation?

A.  We are to understand that it was a mission, and an ordinance, for him to gather the tribes of Israel; behold, this is Elias, who as it is written, must come and restore all things.”  D&C 77:14.

Also concerning John the Lord said unto him:  “Verily, Verily, I say unto thee, because thou desirest this thou shalt tarry until I come in my glory, and shalt prophesy before nations, kindreds, tongues, and people.”  D&C 7:3

The great mystery then is where is John?  The answer is that he has either reincarnated or is walking and teaching on the earth incognito through some supernatural means.  If the scriptures are true he has taught “many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings” during the past two thousand years.

The average member of the church better pray that the doctrine of reincarnation is true for he surely will not get to the celestial kingdom or the presence of God without it.  Also those who died without a testimony of Jesus while in the flesh go to the terrestrial kingdom. D&C 76:71-74.  But even to go here we must be honorable and honest.  To go to the celestial kingdom we must be “Valiant”.   When you go before the judgment bar and the angel asks you what you have done that is valiant – what will you say? Wouldn’t you want another chance at life at that time to prove that you really can be valiant?  Also, before we can enter the celestial kingdom we must receive the “Manifestation of the Spirit, while IN THE FLESH, (that) they may be able to bear his presence in the world of glory.” D&C 76:118.  Why are we doing celestial ordinances for the dead, if they did not receive a manifestation of the spirit while in the FLESH???  Obviously, the only way those who died without such a manifestation can enter into such a world of glory, is to come back in the flesh and receive it.

And what is meant in the scripture by “manifestation?”   We are told that this is more than just a warm feeling, but that a man will have revealed to him things “not lawful for a man to utter”. Verse 115  These are things “seen and understood by the power of the Holy Spirit.” D&C 76:116. These are things which the average, or even the far above average member of the church cannot claim; thus they cannot claim the world of glory if their current belief system is accurate.

Therefore, the above average good Mormon who has not received such a divine manifestation should plan on going to the lower kingdoms for eternity – unless … unless there is some missing link of knowledge, such as reincarnation  which still leaves the door to the higher worlds open  to them.

Amazingly, the person with the largest number of unfulfilled promises was Joseph Smith himself.  To him the Lord said:  “And it shall come to pass that if you are faithful you shall receive the fullness of the record of John.” D&C 93:118.  The church believes that Joseph Smith was faithful unto the end, doesn’t it?  Where then, is the fullness of the record of John?

Continuing in that same section the Lord promises:  “That you may come unto the Father in my name, and in due time receive of his fullness.  For if ye keep my commandments  you shall receive of his fullness, and be glorified in me as I am in the Father; therefore, I say unto you, you shall receive grace for grace…Ye were also in the beginning with the Father; that which is spirit, even the Spirit of truth…And NO MAN receiveth a fullness unless he keepeth his commandments.” D&C 93:19-20, 23, and 27.

Read the whole section and you will see that “fullness” means to become like Jesus was.  How can Joseph Smith or any of us receive his fullness without further testing?

Speaking of his greatest promise Joseph said:  “I feel like Paul, to glory in tribulation; for to this day has the God of my fathers delivered me out of them all, and will deliver me from henceforth; for behold, and lo, I shall triumph over ALL my enemies, FOR THE LORD GOD HATH SPOKEN IT.” D&C 127:3

Many will say that Joseph did triumph over his enemies, and that the church is triumphing today, but scripture is not to be interpreted by impulse.  Let’s see what Joseph meant by overcoming his enemies: “Salvation is nothing more nor less than to triumph over all our enemies and put them under our feet.  And when we have power to put ALL enemies  under our feet IN THIS WORLD, and a knowledge to triumph over all evil spirits in the world to come, then we are saved.” DHC 5:387

It is obvious that when Joseph was promised he would overcome all his enemies that he interpreted  it to mean those in this world as well as the world to come.  We know little about his work in the spirit world, but we do know that he did not overcome all his enemies in THIS world.  His enemies temporarily overcame him and he was shot before he could fulfill his dreams of Zion and “a nation born in a day.”   He further stated: “Thus I will become a smooth and polished shaft in the quiver of the Almighty, who will give me dominion over every one of them” (His enemies). DHC 5:401  He also said:  “I prophesy and bear record this morning that all the combined powers of earth and hell shall not and cannot overthrow or overcome this boy, for I HAVE A PROMISE FROM THE ETERNAL GOD.” DHC 5:554

Brigham Young also expected Joseph to Triumph for he stated in 1843: “Yet he (Joseph) will lay a plan to speculate as large as ancient Joseph did; he will have power to buy up all the rest of the world.”  DHC 6:16

Speaking of Joseph’s future the Lord said:  “The ends of the earth shall inquire after thy name, and fools shall have thee in derision…But for a small moment and thy voice shall be more terrible in the midst of thine enemies than the fierce lion,”  D&C 122:1&4

Joseph was just approaching the point of overcoming his enemies when he was killed.  He was indeed laying a plan to buy up the whole world and bring peace as ancient Joseph did.  Joseph and his successors were not successful in establishing “a government of our own,” (DHC 6:222) and thus Joseph did not overcome his enemies in that life, nor did he fulfill his dreams.

As Moses, he was not allowed to enter the promised land.  After the failure in Missouri the Lord said:  “Now, behold, I say unto you, my friends, in this way you may find favor in the eyes of the people, until the army of Israel becomes very great.  And I will soften the hearts of the people, as I did the heart of Pharaoh, from time to time, until my servant Baurak Ale, (Joseph Smith) and Baneemy (Mine Elders), whom I have appointed, shall have time to gather up the strength of my house…They shall have power after many days to accomplish all things pertaining to Zion.”  D&C 105:26-27 & 37 (1962 Edition)

This is another promise yet to be fulfilled for Joseph and the Elders were never able to deliver the land of Zion in Missouri in that life.  Yet the Lord spoke it and can also fulfill.  Joseph was told to teach and learn all that he could “That ye may be prepared in all things when I SHALL SEND YOU AGAIN to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission which I have commissioned you.” D&C 88:80 Again we are told that Joseph was to “remain unto them that have received his, that I may reserve unto myself a pure people.” D & C 43: Interestingly, Joseph Smith also said that he was to be a witness to the whole world and then the end should come.  See DHC 6:363

Concerning the future missions of Joseph Smith, he said his father “anointed my head, and sealed upon me the blessings of Moses, to lead Israel in the latter days, even as Moses led them in days of old.” DHC 2:380.  It might be said that Brigham Young led the Children of Israel like Moses, but Joseph Smith did not.

For further testimony we quote:  “For Joseph truly testified, saying: A seer shall the Lord God raise up, who shall be a choice seer unto the fruit of my loins…And he shall be great like unto Moses, whom I have said I would raise up unto you, to deliver my people, 0 house of Israel… And out of weakness he shall be made strong, in that day when my work shall commence among all my people…  They that seek to destroy him shall be confounded…   I will raise up a Moses; and I will give power unto him.” II Nephi 3:6,9,13,14, & 17.  All the authorities of the church interpret this person to be Joseph Smith; however, the Fundamentalists believe it to be a future Indian prophet and not without reason, for Joseph Smith in one life did not fulfill the entire prophecy.  His enemies overcame him and he did not deliver the people as Moses.  If one does not consider reincarnation it is understandable that one would solve the discrepancies by looking for another prophet.  Another prophet will indeed come, but it will be Brother Joseph who will lead the people as Moses and fulfill all the prophecies written about him.

One of the most important things the scriptures indicate that Joseph Smith will do is to expound the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon:  “Then shalt thou seal up the book again, and hide it up unto me, that I may preserve the words which thou hast not read, until I see fit in mine own wisdom to reveal all things unto the children of men.  For behold, I am God; and I am a God of miracles; and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; I work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith.  and AGAIN it shall come to pass that the Lord SHALL SAY UNTO HIM THAT SHALL READ THE WORDS THAT SHALL BE DELIVERED HIM… And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the (sealed) book…. They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine.”  II Nephi 27s22-24,29 & 35.

Again speaking of Joseph Smith in the Latter-day period he said: “But behold, the life of my servant shall be in my hand; therefore  they shall not hurt him although he shall be marred (martyred) because of them.  Yet I will heal him (bring him to life in a new body), for I will show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil.” III Nephi 21:10

Interestingly, just before Joseph Smith went to his death he stated that he expected to be marred more than any other man indicating that he believed he was the person talked about here as well as in the similar prophecy in Isa 54:t4.

Another interesting promise made to Joseph Smith is that he will hold the keys of the Priesthood until the Lord comes.  This is easily proved from the scriptures: “Rebel not against my servant Joseph; for verily I say unto you, I am with him, and my hand shall be over him; and the keys which I have given unto him, and also to youward, shall not be taken from him UNTIL I COME.” D&C 112:15

“Verily I say unto you, the keys of this kingdom shall never be taken from you, while thou art in the world, neither in the world to come.”  D&C 90:3

Joseph’s Father blessed him that he would hold “The keys of the mysteries of the kingdom until the coming of the Lord.”  DHC 2:32

Even in our hymnbook we have the phrase in PRAISE TO THE MAN: “Ever and ever the keys he will hold.”  We also have the prophecy: “Millions shall know Brother Joseph again.”

Again, we find an interesting prophecy that cannot be fulfilled without reincarnation:  “And I have given unto him (Joseph) the keys of the mystery of those things which have been sealed, even things which were from the foundation of the world, and the things which  SHALL COME FROM THIS TIME UNTIL THE TIME OF MY COMING,  if he abide in me.”  D&C 35:18.  Did Joseph Smith abide in the Lord? All the authorities say “yes.”  If they agree to this then they must agree that he is the one, according to this scripture, who will YET bring forth those things which are sealed.  Since the Lord doesn’t send immortal beings to do our work for us, then the only way for Joseph to fulfill this prophecy is to come back as a mortal.  Who can refute it?  Who has logic strong enough to stand against it?

Joseph’s patriarchal blessing by his Father reads:  “Thou shalt hold the keys of this ministry, even the Presidency of this church, both in time and eternity… Thou shalt stand on Mount Zion when the tribes of Jacob come shouting from the North, and with thy brethren, the Sons of Ephriam, crown them in the name of Jesus Christ.” OUR LINEAGE (Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1933) pg. 14.  This certainly sounds like Joseph will be here during the winding up scene doesn’t it?

To Joseph the Lord also said:  “And this shall be you business and mission in ALL YOUR LIVES, to preside in council, and set in order all the affairs of this church and kingdom.”  D&C 90:16.

The mission of Joseph Smith in his various lives is given in the allegory of the tame and wild olive tree in Jacob Chapter Five.  We are told:  “I will liken thee, O house of Israel, like unto a tame olive tree, which a man took and nourished in his vineyard; and it grew, and waxed old, and began to decay.  The Lord of the vineyard is the Christ and the servant is Joseph Smith.  I will not quote the whole chapter, but the reader should read it all.  The allegory covers thousands of years and the servant is sent on numerous missions to work in the vineyard.  The ten tribes are hidden,  various branches are planted in the best part of the vineyard (America), the dispersion of Israel, Christianity, is all in the story and the servant is always there helping.  Each time the servant is sent to work in the vineyard it is symbolically speaking of Joseph being sent to the earth on a mission.

Finally speaking of the last dispensation  it says: “And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard sent his servant; and the servant went and did as the Lord had commanded him, and brought other servants (Brigham Young, John Taylor, Hyrum and others); and they were few.”  Jacob 5:70  After their mission is successful and the millennium ushered in the Lord said: “For behold, for a long time will I lay up the fruit of my vineyard unto mine own self against the season.” Verse 76  After this “long time” and evil fruit again appears the Lord indicates that he will send his servants to work for him again in verse 77.

A similar parable was given to Joseph Smith in D&C 101 :43-62. This parable concerns the redemption of Zion and again we have the Lord of the vineyard, the vineyard, the servant and his helpers.  The servant was told to redeem Zion and commanded to  “break down the walls of mine enemies… that by and by I may come with the residue of mine house and possess the land.”  D&C 101:57-58  “The servant said unto his Lord: When shall these things be?  And he said unto his servant:  WHEN I WILL;  go ye straightway and do all things whatsoever I have commanded you.  And this shall be my seal and blessing upon you – a faithful and wise steward in the midst of mine house, a ruler in my kingdom.  And his servant went-straightway and did all things whatsoever his Lord commanded him; and AFTER MANY DAYS ALL THINGS WERE FULFILLED.”   D&C 101: 59-62  Who fulfilled “all things?”  It was the servant.  The Lord himself answers: “Verily, Verily, I say unto you, that my servant Baurak Ale (Joseph Smith) is the man to whom I likened the servant to whom the Lord of the vineyard spake in the parable which I have given you.” D&C 103:21

How can any of these scriptures be fulfilled without reincarnation? In considering some of the scriptures referring to Joseph Smith, some of the early brethren speculated that Joseph Smith would come back as an immortal resurrected being and lead the Saints back to Missouri, but when has the Lord ever sent an immortal being to do the work of mortals?  That is not in the plan, and is against the law of the Gods, for there are certain things we must do for ourselves or they cannot get done at all.  After Jesus was resurrected and ascended he did not come back and head the church as an immortal, but let the mortal Peter do it.  God is the same yesterday, today, and forever in principle and cannot interfere with the free agency of men, or must suffer the effects of karma himself.

If one really believes the scriptures one must believe that Joseph Smith has unfinished business that he must return and fulfill.

Finally we examine one of the more interesting promises made to Joseph Smith:  “I was praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of Man when I heard a voice repeat the following:  Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art eighty five years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man; therefore let this suffice, and trouble me no more on this matter.  I was left thus without being able to decide whether this referred to the beginning of the millennium or to some previous appearing, or whether I should die and thus see his face.”  D&C 130:15-17

This was indeed a confusing answer to Joseph.  He wrote this in April of 1843, and at this time he was already aware that he would not live to be eighty-five for he prophesied that he would not live to age forty.  He also reported to have prophesied that he would not go to the rocky mountains with the rest of the Saints.  How was he to interpret it?  Perhaps, he thought, that he should die and see his face, but if he died before the age of forty how could it be said that he saw the Christ when he was eighty-five?

Perhaps it referred to a previous appearing or the millennium he thought. Finally he concluded that the millennium would not begin before 1890.  That much he knew for sure.  Finally, the idea must have occurred to him that he may be born again and live to the age of eighty-five, for he was praying to know the date of the second coming so the answer must apply to that; yet according to Joseph’s own prophesies the second coming will not be until the beginning of the seventh thousand years or at least the twenty-first century. Concerning the book of Revelation Joseph was asked:  “What are we to understand by the seven seals with which it was sealed?  We are to understand that the first seal contains the things of the first thousand years, and the second also of the second thousand years, and so on until the seventh.”  D&C 77:7

Here we are told clearly beyond the reach of argument that the seventh seal contains the things of the seventh thousand years which will begin at approximately the year 2000.  Almost all the Book of revelation deals with the seventh thousand years. Chapters eight through nineteen deal with this time period.

The ninth chapter deals with some of the last wars, and tribulations and concerning this, the question was asked:  “When are the things to be accomplished, which are written in the 9th chapter of revelation?
A.  They are to be accomplished AFTER the opening of the seventh seal (After the year 2000) BEFORE the coming of Christ.”

The 9th chapter just gives us the beginning of the tribulations. There are other things to come which may take quite a number of years.  Read the whole book and see.  In the face of all this evidence many in the church still say that the Lord will come BEFORE the year 2000. (I wrote this in 1978) We often hear people in the church say: “The coming of the Lord is nearer than you could imagine.”  Actually, it is farther away than they imagine and because they do not study the scriptures when the time passes that they expect the Lord to come and 2000, 2010, 2020 rolls by many will say “that Christ delayeth his coming until the end of the earth.”  D&C 45:26  But what are they saying now?  “The Lord is right on schedule!!!” They will not say that forever for the time will come when those who have not prepared will have their hearts and faith fail them.

In light of this evidence, why is it that so many expect the Lord to come before the year 2000?  (again the wording from a 1978 reference) The answer is that a day with the Lord is a thousand years to man and since the Lord made the world in six days and rested on the seventh then since the year 2000 approximately begins the Lords seventh day then the Lord will cause his millennium to begin around the year 2000.

This is good reasoning as far as it goes, but again someone did not read the scriptures..  It is true that the millennium is symbolic of the Lord’s day of rest, but the Lord did not rest at the beginning of the seventh day. He continued working:  “And on the seventh day God ENDED his work which he had made.”  Gen. 2:2 Then the same chapter goes on to tell us that God actually made Adam’s physical body on the seventh day and planted the garden of Eden.  Next God created the physical animals on the seventh day. See Gen. 2:19.  Finally, he created the woman.  Verse 21.

All this is easily verified in the Doctrine and Covenants: “Q What are we to understand by the sounding of the trumpets, mentioned in the 8th chapter of Revelation?

We are to understand that as God made the world in six days and ON THE SEVENTH HE FINISHED HIS WORK, and sanctified it, and also formed man out of the dust of the earth, even so in the BEGINNING of the seventh thousand years will the Lord God sanctify the earth and complete the salvation of man, and judge all things, except that which he hath not put into his power, when he shall have sealed all things unto the end of all things; and the sounding of the trumpets of the seven angels are the preparing and finishing of his work, IN THE BEGINNING OF THE SEVENTH THOUSAND YEARS – the preparing of the way BEFORE THE TIME OF HIS COMING. “ D&C 77 :12.

It is obvious then that Joseph taught that the second coming was going to be AFTER the year 2000.  Isn’t it possible that Joseph expected to be here in that time period when he said:  “I prophesy in the name of the Lord God and let it be written – the Son of Man will not come in the clouds of heaven till I am eighty-five years old.”  DHC 5:336.

In speaking of a future life when Joseph would live to be eighty five years old he told some faithful brethren:  “You will gather many people to the fastness of the Rocky Mountains and many of those who will come in under your ministry, because of their learning, will seek for position and they will gain eminence over you and you will walk in low places unnoticed, yet you will know all that transpires in your midst.  Those who are your friends are my friends, and I promise you that when I COME AGAIN I WILL LEAD YOU FORTH so that where I am you shall be with me.”  Life Story of Wandles Mace by Himself; Pages 131-132.

When will Joseph come again?  If we can figure out the time of the coming of the one mighty and strong we would know of the coming of Joseph Smith for the purpose of the one mighty and strong is to ”set in order the house of God”. D&C 85:7, and Joseph mission is to “set in order all the affairs of this church and kingdom” in all his “LIVES”. D&C 90:16.  Obviously, these two are one and the same person.

We do have one indication as to when this person will come. Lorin C. Wooley,  who was a body guard for John Taylor recalled an address he gave after receiving a manifestation of the Christ and Joseph Smith.  Brother Wooley said:  “He (John Taylor) said that in the time of the seventh president of this church, the Church would go into bondage both temporally and spiritually and that in that day the one mighty and strong spoken of in the eighty-fifth section of the Doctrine and Covenants would come.”  A LEAF IN REVIEW Page 235.

The seventh president was Heber J. Grant.  In his day the church did go into financial bondage, which bondage the average member has no knowledge, but it was caused by church’s investment in the sugar industry among other things.  The church was taken in spiritual bondage because they began to believe that all was well in Zion and adopt the ways of the wisdom of the world; the church was no more out of Babylon.   Finally, if the prophecy was a true prophecy, then Joseph Smith who is to be the voice of one mighty and strong was reborn during the administration of Heber J. Grant (Nov 23, 1918- May 14, 1945).

Sound unbelievable?  I admit that it does.   Yet old clichés are often true.  “Truth is stranger than fiction.”

Copyright 1996 by J J Dewey