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# The Book of Joel and The Laodicean Seventh-day Adventist Church - Number Fourteen

Number Fourteen

Author

Jeff Pippenger

Published

December 20, 2025

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Key Takeaways

- The ten tests framework culminating at Kadesh is the controlling type for the sealing-time crisis.
- It emphasizes that at Kadesh God says Israel has tempted Him “ten times” (Numbers 14:22), validating the test-count as prophetically significant.
- The tenth-test outcome is the refusal of “rest” (the true latter-rain message), resulting in exclusion and wilderness death.
- “How long?” marks the same prophetic span as “marvelous works”: the period in which a final message separates two classes (true new wine vs counterfeit wines).
- Joel’s “new wine” becomes the symbolic indicator of who receives the true “rest” message and who is cut off from it.
- The article asserts 1844 is the foundation stone and 1863 the capstone of a real prophetic period, even if widely unrecognized.
- This period is made parallel to the wilderness progression that climaxes at Kadesh (the “rest” refusal).

The history of “God’s marvelous works,” is also represented by the prophetic question of “how long.” The history represented in those two, and many other symbols, represents the sealing time of the one hundred and forty-four thousand. In that period there is a debate over the true and the many other false latter rain messages. There is only one genuine latter rain message. The story line of the sacred history where God performs His marvelous works is placed within the context of the book of Joel where the “new wine” is cut off from one class while being poured out upon the other class.

There are a few contrasts in the book of Joel that are to be noted. The root of the word “parable” means “placing beside” and inherently involves a contrast of two classes. We have touched some of the ‘contrasts’ in the book of Joel previously, pointing out that the crown of pride that is worn by the drunkards that rule Jerusalem is contrasted with those who wear the crown of glory. We have not yet shared how the symbol of joy is the opposite, but a counterpart of being ashamed, but it is, and we intend to show that. The subject of alpha and omega is also located in the book of Joel and that principle of the first illustrating the last is also confirmed by Peter’s two sermons in the book of Acts.

Acts chapter two takes place on Pentecost at 9 AM (the third hour) and chapter three is the ninth hour (3 PM) the time of the evening sacrifice. In Acts two the message Peter proclaims is in the upper room of a private residence, but his sermon in chapter three is given in the temple. They are tied together by the call to repentance in both meetings. Same message, two geographical places representing the symbol of a doubling within the Pentecostal message that is divided between the courtyard and the temple. In Revelation eleven John is told to measure the temple, but leave off the courtyard for it was given to the Gentiles.

> And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months. Revelation 11:1, 2.

Thus, the doubling of the two sermons and the division of the two sermon’s location, identifies two audiences for the latter rain in the book of Joel. One audience is the Gentiles outside the temple and the other is the Jews in the temple. In the judgment of the living the house of God is judged first, and from 9/11 unto the Sunday law the temple is judged, and from the Sunday law until the close of human probation the Gentiles are judged. That judgment occurs during the latter rain identified by Peter as being set forth in the book of Joel. What the courtyard (the Gentiles) and the temple (God’s church) in the division represented in Acts chapters two and three, is also the distinction in Joel of the former rain and the latter rain. The former rain arrived at 9/11 and is poured out while God’s temple is being judged. When that process is finished the latter rain is poured out upon the Gentiles in the courtyard.

> Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month. Joel 2:23.

It is not my point currently to identify the prophetic distinction between joy and being ashamed, but the verse informs God’s people to “be glad” because of the latter rain message. The latter rain message produces prophetic joy in God’s people. That being said the subject of the former or early rain, followed by the latter rain is an illustration of the stone of stumbling that was set aside and marveled at. The symbol of the corner stone that ultimately becomes the cap stone is what is marvelous in the eyes of both God and His people.

The marvelous stone represents the Alpha and Omega of prophecy. The principle of the alpha and omega in terms of prophetic application is identified by Alpha and Omega repeatedly in His Word, and He is the Word. For this reason, that what has been revealed of this principle has been revealed to us and our children forever. The year 1863 is the cap stone of Bible prophecy, and it is the cap stone of the period of the third angel from 1844 unto 1863. 1844 was the foundation stone 1863 the cap stone of that prophetic period. 1844 to 1863 is an established prophetic period, just as established as 538 unto 1798. The fact that mankind does not know something which God has established, does not make that thing un-established!

We ended the previous article with the following passage.

> “I was shown that his relation to the people of God was similar, in some respects, to that of Moses to Israel. There were murmurers against Moses, when in adverse circumstances, and there have been murmurers against him.” Testimonies, volume 3, 85.

In 1863, James White represented “in some respects” “Moses to Israel.”

The period of 1844 unto 1863 was typified in the period of the Red Sea deliverance unto the first Kadesh. The first Kadesh is an alpha and the second Kadesh is the omega—providing two forty-year periods that lead to Kadesh and both ended in rebellion.

The Spirit of Prophecy aligns the Red Sea crossing with the great disappointment of 1844. The Bible aligns the Red Sea crossing with the cross, and Sister White confirms the disappointment of the disciples at the cross was typifying the great disappointment of 1844. It was the Lord’s will to go directly into the Promise Land, and the geographical marker of the entrance into the Promise Land was Jericho, which is where in this second week of December, 2025, that the archeologists just dug out ancient Jericho—only to find to their dismay that the fallen walls they discovered there had all fallen outward, not inward as they always do during a siege. In an ancient siege the walls were beaten down and pushed over towards the inside. Not so with Jericho.

> So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. Joshua 6:20.

The archeologists also found jars with food, identifying that when the walls came down it was not a long drawn-out siege. It also answered a question among the archeological group as to why the biblical record of the fall of Jericho identifies them going “up” into Jericho over a hill or ramp, which they now know was created when the walls fell outward.

The first obstacle which announced the entrance into the Promised Land was Jericho, a city of influence and wealth. Jericho is 1863, and Jericho is a subject of Bible prophecy, not only as an illustration of the Sunday law time period, but also in connection with its fall and rise. Jericho also had its own specific prophetic curse pronounced upon it. Joshua pronounced a curse upon the man who rebuilt Jericho, and in so doing identified that the man who rebuilt Jericho would lose his youngest and oldest sons in the re-building of that cursed city. One son was to be lost at the laying of the foundation and the other at the raising of the gate. That prophecy was fulfilled, and the record of its fulfillment is recorded in the Bible, making Jericho an established biblical symbol.

Within its historical demise, and in its prophetic curse, followed by the historical fulfillment of that prophecy, we find three witnesses speaking about Jericho in 1863. All three of those testimonies are to be applied to 1863. Those three witnesses stand together just as three Moses’s stand prophetically at the end of their respective forty-year periods. One of those forty-year periods is clearly aligned with Millerite history, establishing that all three representations of Moses at the end of each forty-year period align with the history of 1863—the history of the third angel.

Two of those three witnesses of Moses’ forty years end at Kadesh, the third conclusion of the forty years was the Jordan River, and the conclusion of the second was the Red Sea. The conclusion of the first forty years was Moses fleeing Egypt. All three are describing a flight out of Egypt in fulfillment of Abraham’s four-hundred and thirty year prophecy of bondage in Egypt.

Moses’ three forty-year periods, whose endings (capstone) represents a type of deliverance from Egypt, were a fulfillment of Abraham’s prophecy of captivity in and deliverance out of Egyptian bondage. As the prophesied deliverer of Abraham’s covenant promise, Moses himself began by being saved out of the water, as his name means. Thereafter Moses led God’s people through the waters of the Red Sea and thereafter to the shore of the deliverance, represented by the Jordan River. The alpha of Moses life was saving from the water of the Nile and omega was the salvation represented by the water of the Jordan River. The alpha of Moses life illustrated by the experience defined by his name and his parents, being godly parents knew that the baby had been sentenced to death, as he would be forty years later after killing the Egyptian. As godly parents who knew their son needed to be saved from the death sentence, prepared for him an ark, that passed from the Hebrew world unto the Egyptian world, just as Moses left at the end of forty years the Egyptian world for the Hebrew world.

Moses repeated the story of Noah in his salvation from the water. The very first mention of Moses as the “deliverer” of Abraham’s four-hundred and thirty year covenant prophecy was a repetition of the history where God entered into covenant with mankind, therefore bringing Abraham’s covenant prophecy of a chosen people together with the covenant promise to all mankind. This identifies a baptism in the transfer of the baby Moses to Pharaoh’s daughter, for the death was acknowledged by the parent’s work, the burial is represented by the ark upon the water, and the resurrection is Pharaoh’s daughter.

Moses’ life begins with the baptism of Noah’s ark being typified. This then means that from the outset the number “8” is associated with Moses, for the root of his covenant relationship began with the number “8” from the covenant of Noah, and his work was to institute the rite of circumcision on the “eighth” day. He was then tested and he failed on the very rite. Moses life begins with a baptism and forty years later there is a death (of an Egyptian) that marks the point where the Egyptian Moses dies and becomes strictly a son of Abraham. The beginning and ending of Moses’s first forty years is represented by a baptism. The first identified a transition from Hebrew to Egyptian and the last from Egyptian to Hebrew. Forty years after that, Moses takes God’s people through the baptism of the Red Sea, on his way to the baptism at the Jordan, which he never made.

God’s people under the guidance of Joshua entered the Promised Land without Moses for he died just before the baptism of the Jordan River arrived. Moses said, and Peter repeated that the Lord thy God would raise up a prophet like unto Moses. The prophet who was typified by Moses was Christ, and He began His work exactly where Moses left off. He began His work at His baptism, and that baptism was the exact place Joshua baptized ancient Israel when they crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land. The gospels inform us that John was baptizing at Bethabara, which is the crossing point, and means ferry crossing.

The Red Sea is the symbol of the rebellion of Egypt, identifying Moses prophetic testimony in this line as truth. The Nile River to the Red Sea (sometimes called a river) and on to the Jordan. Moses, meaning ‘saved out of the water’ begins and ends his testimony at the water of deliverance, and each of those waters manifest two classes of worshippers.

The first forty years of Moses represents the first angel’s message and the second forty years is the second angel, the third being the third. The three angels possess their own peculiar prophetic characteristics such as that all three messages are represented in the first message. We have demonstrated this phenomenon publicly for years in connection with the first three chapters of the book of Daniel.

Daniel feared God in chapter one and refused to eat the Babylonian diet, and God glorified him in the second and dietary visual test that followed, which led to the judgment and third test carried out by Nebuchadnezzar himself. Daniel chapter one is the first angel of Revelation fourteen who announces “fear God,” “give him glory” as Daniel did in the second dietary and visual test, for “the hour of the judgment” of Nebuchadnezzar has come.

The first forty years of Moses’s life began because his parents feared God. When Pharaoh’s daughter saw the ark in the water, Moses had passed the second test, which is a visual test. Then Pharaoh’s daughter judged that he was not to die. Judgment also arrived at the end of the first forty; when He slew the Egyptian and had to flee Egypt.

In the second forty years, the second angel of Revelation fourteen announcing the fall of Babylon was typified by the fall of Egypt. In that fall, at the end of the forty years there was a tremendous manifestation of the power of God, as there was at the end of the second angel’s message during the Midnight Cry of 1844.

The third forty years begins with the judgment of death being pronounced on virtually the entire congregation, and it ends with the judgment of death upon the leader of that congregation.

Sister White identifies that our work is to combine the three angels’ messages.

> “The Lord is about to punish the world for its iniquity. He is about to punish religious bodies for their rejection of the light and truth which has been given them. The great message, combining the first, second, and third angels’ messages, is to be given to the world. This is to be the burden of our work.” The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, volume 7, 950.

Moses’ first forty years represents the first angel of Revelation fourteen, and his second period of forty years is the second angel and the third forty-year period is the third angel. Our “great message” is to combine “the first, second, and third angels’ messages” which places all three symbols of Moses’ in 1863, and therefore three Moses’ at the Sunday law.

1844 to 1863 includes two witnesses of both forty-year periods that led to Kadesh. Inspiration identifies that a third cannot exist without a first and a second, the first forty years of Moses’ life must also represent 1844 to 1863. Moses is killing the Egyptian in 1863, along with Moses striking the Rock with his rod of authority and also when Moses asks to see God’s glory in the history of the rebellion of the golden calf. There are three Moses’ at 1863 and the Sunday law, and they are all forty years old.

Moses’ three periods each contain a deliverance by water; Moses in the basket aligns with Moses through the Red Sea which aligns with Moses twice at the Jordan River: the Nile, the Red Sea and twice at the Jordan. Waters of deliverance are represented in each of the three periods, for they all align with the period when the water of deliverance is being poured out during the latter rain period.

At the end of the third period of forty years Moses struck the Rock with his rod. At the end of the second forty years his rod parted the Red Sea. At the end of the first forty years, he rejected the rod of Egyptian authority, chose to suffer with his people.

At the end of the first period an Egyptian died, and at the end of the second period the military, firstborn and leadership of Egypt died. At the end of the third period the nation of Israel, Aaron and Moses had all died. These are three parallel histories that “line upon line” each represent 1844 unto 1863—the history of the third angel, which in turn represents 9/11 to the Sunday law, and the Pentecostal season when the waters of deliverance are poured out.

Moses is at both rebellions at Kadesh, and the Kadesh rebellions are both capstones in their respective periods. They both represent 1863, which is also the capstone of the period of the third angel, starting with the alpha in 1844 unto the capstone of 1863. When considering the marvelous light of the stone that begins as the foundation and ends as the cap stone it is recognized that the capstone is always prophetically larger. The few drops at the beginning of the Pentecostal season, leading to the full outpouring at the capstone on the day of Pentecost, illustrates this truth.

At 9/11, the sprinkling began and it ends at the full outpouring at the Sunday law. This truth identifies Moses’ sin at the second and omega Kadesh as a greater sin than the rebellion in the first alpha Kadesh rebellion. The alpha rebellion produced the death of an entire nation, and omega rebellion produced the death of one man (Moses), but the one man’s sin was greater than the entire nations corporate sin. The man who sins dies, and at that level there is no distinction between the sins of Moses or any other Israelite, but prophetically Moses’ striking Christ a second time was greater, for it was the capstone of that forty-year period.

The rebellion of Moses at the second omega Kadesh was a greater sin than the rebellion of the children of Israel rejecting the message of Joshua and Caleb. Moses prophetically stands at 1863, where he dies in the wilderness for his rebellion. Moses also stands at 1863, where the former covenant people die in the wilderness for their rebellion, but Moses did not participate in that rebellion. 1863 aligns with the Sunday law, as does Aaron’s rebellion of the golden calf. That history, which aligns with Kadesh, 1863, and the Sunday law, Moses is praying to see God’s glory.

Kadesh represents 1863, and Moses is at both Kadesh’s, so upon two biblical witnesses, who are both cap stones we establish that the third forty-year period which does not end at Kadesh represents 1863 as well. There ‘Moses the unsanctified’ is crucifying Christ afresh, as he rejects the Rock. In 1863, and the giving of the Law at Sinai, ‘Moses the sanctified’ is seeking Gods’ character. In 1863 Moses represents a wise and also a foolish virgin.

> “The Pharisee and the publican represent two great classes into which those who come to worship God are divided. Their first two representatives are found in the first two children that were born into the world.” Christ’s Object Lessons, 152.

At Kadesh and 1863, Moses represents “two great classes into which those who” “worship God are divided”. Moses is an example of the one hundred and forty-four thousand as is Peter.

> “For each of the classes represented by the Pharisee and the publican there is a lesson in the history of the apostle Peter. In his early discipleship Peter thought himself strong. Like the Pharisee, in his own estimation he was ‘not as other men are.’ When Christ on the eve of His betrayal forewarned His disciples, ‘All ye shall be offended because of Me this night,’ Peter confidently declared, ‘Although all shall be offended, yet will not I.’ Mark 14:27, 29. Peter did not know his own danger. Self-confidence misled him. He thought himself able to withstand temptation; but in a few short hours the test came, and with cursing and swearing he denied his Lord.” Christ’s Object Lessons, 152.

At the Sunday law, which is 1863, Peter represents two classes. Those who receive the mark of the beast or those who receive the seal of God. When Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter, it symbolized the one-hundred and forty-four thousand. That understanding is also symbolized by multiplying Peter’s name using the number from the letter position in the English alphabet. If we use that same technique on 1863, we get 144.

Two of the three symbols of Moses which align with 1863, establish that the third period must align also. The two lines of Kadesh identify the story of the wise and foolish virgins, and the third period identifies an attempt to employ human effort to accomplish a godly work. To trust in human power as did Moses with the Egyptian represents trust in human authority over ordained authority.

Sister White states her husbands, “relation to the people of God was similar, in some respects, to that of Moses to Israel.” In 1863, Moses was represented by James White. In 1863, James White is slaying an Egyptian, striking Christ a second time and praying for the rebels who rejected the message of “rest” set forth by Joshua and Caleb. Moses is both a foolish virgin when he struck the Rock a second time and a wise virgin as he interceded for the rebels of Israel.

We will close this article with the passage in Numbers fourteen where Moses is at 1863, when he is given a view of God’s glory in the parallel history represented by the golden calf rebellion.

In the passage the Lord asks “how long” would he have to deal with the rebels of Israel, which is the same question Isaiah asked the Lord in chapter six. Notice that the book of Numbers places this history in the period when the earth is lightened with God’s glory, as the angels also marked in verse three of Isaiah six. 9/11 was the foundation stone of the history of 1844 to 1863 and the Sunday law is the capstone. The setting in Numbers is nothing less than an illustration of the song or the parable of the vineyard, as ancient Israel is being passed by as the Lord entered into covenant with Joshua.

> And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness! And wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.

> Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes: And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying,

> The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land. If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the Lord is with us: fear them not.

> But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel. And the Lord said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them?

> I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.

> And Moses said unto the Lord, Then the Egyptians shall hear it, (for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them;) And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land: for they have heard that thou Lord art among this people, that thou Lord art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest before them, by day time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying, Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness.

> And now, I beseech thee, let the power of my Lord be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying, The Lord is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.

> And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word: But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.

> Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice; Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it: But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it. (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley.) Tomorrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea.

> And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me. Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you: Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me, Doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised. But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness. After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.

> I the Lord have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil congregation, that are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die. And the men, which Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land, Even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the Lord.

> But Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of the men that went to search the land, lived still. Numbers 14:1–38.

We will continue these thoughts in the next article.

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