The Triple Application of the Messenger: Unveiling Prophetic Dynamics
Key Takeaways
This article delves into the intricate layers of prophetic symbolism surrounding the triple application of the Messenger, examining its significance in addressing the message, the messenger, and the movement throughout pivotal periods of divine judgment and purification. Drawing parallels between historical events and biblical prophecies, the article navigates through the preparations made by messengers like John the Baptist and William Miller, leading up to the climactic moments of divine intervention and purification. It explores the transitions from periods of testing to moments of purification, shedding light on the spiritual significance of temple cleansings, prophetic numbers, and the manifestation of God’s jealousy. Through meticulous analysis, the article unveils the timeless truths encapsulated within these prophetic dynamics, offering insights into their relevance for contemporary spiritual understanding.
- Triple Application of the Messenger: Examines the multifaceted role of messengers like John the Baptist and William Miller in preparing the way for divine intervention and purification, addressing both the message they conveyed and their pivotal role in shaping the movement.
- Symbolism of Temple Cleansings: Unveils the symbolic significance of temple cleansings as representations of spiritual purification and prophetic fulfillment, drawing parallels between historical events and biblical prophecies.
- Prophetic Numbers and Biblical Symbolism: Explores the intricate symbolism behind prophetic numbers such as “forty-six,” highlighting their significance in representing periods of divine instruction, restoration, and judgment.
- Manifestation of God’s Jealousy: Investigates the manifestation of God’s jealousy as depicted in biblical narratives and prophetic symbolism, shedding light on its role in purification and the testing of faith.
- Historical Parallels and Contemporary Relevance: Draws parallels between historical events, biblical narratives, and contemporary spiritual realities, offering insights into the enduring relevance of prophetic dynamics for modern-day understanding and spiritual growth.
The triple application of Elijah addresses the message, the messenger and the movement during the time period of God’s executive judgment, which begins at the Sunday law in the United States and continues until the close of probation. The executive judgment escalates from a period where God’s judgment is mixed with mercy unto the time when His judgments are poured out without mercy in the seven last plagues.
The triple application of the messenger who prepares the way for the Messenger of the Covenant addresses the message, the messenger and the movement during the closing period of God’s investigative judgment, that identifies the period of the sealing of the one hundred and forty-four thousand. That period ends at the soon-coming Sunday law in the United States, which is when God’s executive judgments begin.
John the Baptist prepared the way for Christ, the Messenger of the Covenant to confirm the covenant in fulfillment of Daniel chapter nine, verse twenty-seven. In so doing he also prepared the way for Christ to suddenly come to His temple and purify the sons of Levi, which He did at the beginning and ending of His ministry of three and a half years. The cleansing of the literal temple was the symbol of His work of cleansing the soul temple of those represented as the sons of Levi.
His literal work of cleansing the temple was a fulfillment of prophecy, and when He accomplished the work in John chapter two, verses thirteen through twenty-two, the Holy Spirit led the disciples to remember a passage from the Old Testament that was part of His work of purifying and purging the disciples in fulfillment of Malachi three.
In the passage in John, Christ identified that when His body temple was destroyed, He would raise it up in three days. The interaction with the quibbling Jews added that the remodeling of the literal temple that had been carried out by Herod, and which had finished that very year, had taken forty-six years. Jesus was purifying His disciples through an example of one of the rules associated with the prophetic word that Jesus had enshrined within His word, through the work of angels, the Holy Spirit and the prophets.
He provided the prophetic example that the literal represents the spiritual. He put in place the prophetic key of the number “forty-six,” as a symbol of the temple. “Forty-six” had been the amount of days Moses was on the mount receiving the instructions for the temple. “Forty-six,” is the number of chromosomes that make up the human temple. “Forty-six” is the number of years (1798 to 1844) that were accomplished in restoring the spiritual temple which had been trampled down by paganism and then papalism.
The two temple cleansings include the symbolism that three days equals forty-six years. It includes the principle that the literal represents the spiritual. It represented both a fulfillment and a prediction of prophecy. The two cleansings represent a truth that is misunderstood by one class, and revealed unto another class.
The two cleansings identify a period of time when God’s church has been corrupted to the point where it is “an adulterous generation of vipers,” who are seeking for a sign, when the sign is being directly explained to them, for the only sign to be given is the sign of the destruction of the temple that is raised up in three days.
O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. . . . Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee. But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Matthew 12:34, 38–40.
All these prophetic dynamics are represented in all three fulfillments of the Messenger of the Covenant suddenly coming to His temple, as He did in John chapter two.
And the Jews’ passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said. John 2:13–22.
The Messenger of the Covenant was to purify and also purge the sons of Levi as “silver” which represents God’s word, and “gold,” which represents faith. The Messenger of the Covenant would purify His disciples by increasing their “faith” in His prophetic “word”. That prophetic word was designed to purify, but also to purge. His prophetic word always represents a test, and it is through His prophetic word that the sons of Levi’s are purged in the period when He suddenly comes to His temple.
“‘Whose fan is in His hand, and He will throughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner.’ Matthew 3:12. This was one of the times of purging. By the words of truth, the chaff was being separated from the wheat. Because they were too vain and self-righteous to receive reproof, too world-loving to accept a life of humility, many turned away from Jesus. Many are still doing the same thing. Souls are tested today as were those disciples in the synagogue at Capernaum. When truth is brought home to the heart, they see that their lives are not in accordance with the will of God. They see the need of an entire change in themselves; but they are not willing to take up the self-denying work. Therefore they are angry when their sins are discovered. They go away offended, even as the disciples left Jesus, murmuring, ‘This is an hard saying; who can hear it?’” The Desire of Ages, 392.
Those “souls that were tested” in “the synagogue at Capernaum,” refused to understand that when Christ told them they must eat His flesh and drink His blood, that He was employing His literal body to convey a spiritual truth. It was the identical prophetic representation He made of the temple in John chapter two. When the principle that the literal precedes and represents the spiritual was recognized as “an hard saying” which they were unwilling to “hear,” they turned and walked with Him never again. That took place in John chapter six, verse sixty-six (666), which represents the soon-coming Sunday law, which was typified by October 22, 1844, which in turn was typified by the cross of Calvary.
From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. John 6:66.
In John chapter two, the Holy Spirit had led the minds of the disciples to “remember” the prophecy describing God’s zeal, and the word “zealous” is the same word as “jealous” in both the Hebrew and Greek.
For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me. Psalm 69:9.
God’s zeal, which is His jealousy, represents the element of God’s character as a jealous God, whose jealousy is manifested in the third and fourth generation of those that hate Him. In John chapter two, the Holy Spirit was putting in place that the purification accomplished by the Messenger of the Covenant occurs in the fourth and final generation, though there are always some of the third generation still standing when the cup of the final generation is filled. That generation is an adulterous generation of vipers.
Moses represented the fourth generation, and it was then that Moses, during forty-six days, received instruction on erecting the temple. In those days He received the law, which in the second commandment identifies that God’s jealousy is manifested in the third and fourth generations.
And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. Genesis 15:13–16.
In the final generation of ancient Israel, the temple of the Christian church, which Peter called a “spiritual house,” was erected. During that history God manifested His jealousy twice when in His zeal He cleansed the temple. In 1844 God had raised up the spiritual temple of the Millerites, and once again He had passed by the former chosen people. In that history the Messenger of the Covenant came suddenly on October 22, 1844.
His appearance had been prepared for through the ministry of William Miller. As the Protestants and Millerites approached October 22, 1844, two classes were tested. The Protestant’s test arrived at the time of the end at the arrival of the first angel in 1798. After the message that was to both “purify and purge” the sons of Levi was formalized in 1831, the testing of the Protestants began when the message of the first angel was empowered on August 11, 1840. On April 19, 1844, the Protestants failed the test, and became the daughters of Babylon.
The second angel then arrived and the Millerites faith was then tested, and a purification and purging was accomplished. When the message of the second angel was empowered at the Exeter camp meeting on August twelfth through the seventeenth, the testing of the Millerites’ separation of the wise and foolish Millerites was accomplished.
The distinction between the wise and foolish was the oil, which was the prophetic message of the Midnight Cry. When the third angel arrived on October 22, 1844, the temple had been erected (in forty-six years). At that point the Messenger of the Covenant came suddenly to His temple.
“The coming of Christ as our high priest to the most holy place, for the cleansing of the sanctuary, brought to view in Daniel 8:14; the coming of the Son of man to the Ancient of Days, as presented in Daniel 7:13; and the coming of the Lord to His temple, foretold by Malachi, are descriptions of the same event; and this is also represented by the coming of the bridegroom to the marriage, described by Christ in the parable of the ten virgins, of Matthew 25.” The Great Controversy, 426.
It was then that the Messenger of the Covenant began His work of purifying and purging the Millerite disciples, identified in Malachi chapter three, as the sons of Levi.
“Many who went forth to meet the Bridegroom under the messages of the first and second angels, refused the third, the last testing message to be given to the world, and a similar position will be taken when the last call is made.
“Every specification of this parable should be carefully studied. We are represented either by the wise or by the foolish virgins.” Review and Herald, October 31, 1899.
When the first angels’ message was empowered on August 11, 1840, multitudes joined the Millerite movement. Then on April 19, 1844, a large class left the movement. On October 22, 1844, the traditional view is that there were about fifty souls that entered by faith into the Most Holy Place. Assuming the number is roughly fifty souls that initially followed the light of the third angel, what does it mean when we are informed “many” who had accepted the first and second angel’s messages, “refused the third, the last testing message”?
The Messenger of the Covenant suddenly came to His temple and opened the light of the sanctuary in heaven and the third angel’s message to the fifty that followed on into the experience of the third angel, but they were initially scattered. Their disappointment then was greater than the first disappointment, though we are informed by Sister White their disappointment was not as great as the disciples after the cross.
In both parallel histories, Christ opened His prophetic word to the disappointed ones, and by 1850, Sister White states that she was shown that the Lord was then stretching forth His hand again to gather His people.
“September 23d, [1850] the Lord showed me that he had stretched out his hand the second time to recover the remnant of his people, and that efforts must be redoubled in this gathering time. In the scattering time Israel was smitten and torn; but now in the gathering time God will heal and bind up his people. In the scattering, efforts made to spread the truth had but little effect, accomplished but little or nothing; but in the gathering when God has set his hand to gather his people, efforts to spread the truth will have their designed effect. All should be united and zealous in the work. I saw that it was a shame for any to refer to the scattering for examples to govern us now in the gathering; for if God does no more for us now than he did then, Israel would never be gathered. It is as necessary that the truth should be published in a paper, as preached.” Review and Herald, November 1, 1850.
At the cross the disciples had been scattered, and in that history, three days later He began to gather His scattered disciples. It was roughly three years after the end of 1844, that Christ began to gather His scattered flock. In that history He led His people to begin the publishing work and to publish the second of Habakkuk’s two tables, which was manufactured at the end of 1850, and then began to be offered for sale in the Review and Herald, in January of 1851.
The 1843 chart had been the physical representation of the message that cleansed the temple that was erected in the history of the first and second angels’ messages. With the arrival of the third angel, God designed to finish His work and take His people home, but they rebelled as did ancient Israel, and both ancient and modern Israel were then assigned to wander in the wilderness. Had those Adventists who had initially accepted the light of the third angel followed on by faith, bearing the physical representation of their message which was the 1850 chart they could have ushered in the second coming of Jesus and gone home. But they were destined to repeat the history of Joshua and Caleb, and the ten unfaithful spies.
“Had Adventists, after the great disappointment in 1844, held fast their faith and followed on unitedly in the opening providence of God, receiving the message of the third angel and in the power of the Holy Spirit proclaiming it to the world, they would have seen the salvation of God, the Lord would have wrought mightily with their efforts, the work would have been completed, and Christ would have come ere this to receive His people to their reward. But in the period of doubt and uncertainty that followed the disappointment, many of the advent believers yielded their faith. . . . Thus the work was hindered, and the world was left in darkness. Had the whole Adventist body united upon the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, how widely different would have been our history!” Evangelism, 695.
John the Baptist and William Miller prepared the way for Christ to suddenly come and purify a people who would take the message of salvation under the power of the Holy Spirit to the entire world. The disciples of Christ accomplished their assignment, but the beginning of Adventism did not. By 1856 they had fallen into the condition of Laodicea, refused the advanced light of the “seven times,” and in 1863 began the process of escalating rebellion all the way through to the soon-coming Sunday law. The rebellion of 1863 was typified by the rebellion of the ten spies. At the end of the forty years of wilderness wandering ancient Israel was brought back to the same test, thus providing example of modern Israel being brought back to the beginning test.
The rebellion of the ten spies at Kadesh, was repeated at Kadesh forty years later. The rebellion of the ten spies that brought about the forty years of wilderness wandering, that represents the rebellion of 1863, when modern Israel brought about their own wandering in the wilderness of Laodicea. At the end of the forty years ancient Israel was brought again to Kadesh, thus identifying that the test which purged Millerite Adventism at the rebellion of 1863, is to be repeated when the Messenger of the Covenant again suddenly comes to His temple again.
We will continue this study in the next article.
“In the conquest of Gilead and Bashan there were many who recalled the events which nearly forty years before had, in Kadesh, doomed Israel to the long desert wandering. They saw that the report of the spies concerning the Promised Land was in many respects correct. The cities were walled and very great, and were inhabited by giants, in comparison with whom the Hebrews were mere pygmies. But they could now see that the fatal mistake of their fathers had been in distrusting the power of God. This alone had prevented them from at once entering the goodly land.
“When they were at the first preparing to enter Canaan, the undertaking was attended with far less difficulty than now. God had promised His people that if they would obey His voice He would go before them and fight for them; and He would also send hornets to drive out the inhabitants of the land. The fears of the nations had not been generally aroused, and little preparation had been made to oppose their progress. But when the Lord now bade Israel go forward, they must advance against alert and powerful foes, and must contend with large and well-trained armies that had been preparing to resist their approach.
“In their contest with Og and Sihon the people were brought to the same test beneath which their fathers had so signally failed. But the trial was now far more severe than when God had commanded Israel to go forward. The difficulties in their way had greatly increased since they refused to advance when bidden to do so in the name of the Lord. It is thus that God still tests His people. And if they fail to endure the trial, He brings them again to the same point, and the second time the trial will come closer, and be more severe than the preceding. This is continued until they bear the test, or, if they are still rebellious, God withdraws His light from them and leaves them in darkness.” Patriarchs and Prophets, 436, 437.
So much depressing rebellion in God’s chosen people! And we know what the vast majority of Laodicean Adventism is doing. How few can be saved!
A salvação pela mensagem que vai limpar o corpo e espírito, para sermos salvos em Cristo.