What is the seal 3rd Attempt

What is the seal?

(Third Attempt)

   This sealing of the servants of God is the same that was shown to Ezekiel in vision. John also had been a witness of this most startling revelation.—TM:445.2

Read Ezek. 9:1-7

Where is this brazen altar?

The first movement by these angels who draw near is not explained from the North Gate to the Brazen Altar. Yet we know from Moses’ testimony…

Ex 25:8, 9—And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.
 9 According to all that I shew thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it.

We see here that the angels were waiting for Christ at the Brazen Altar. Christ ceases from his mediatorial work between the cherub where he was and with Him they (6 angels with destroying weapons) come to the threshold of the house.…Then they began at the ancient men [men of responsibility] which were before the house.”—RH, May 21, 1895 par. 4

How much of this is symbolic? None of it. For proof you may read 1MR:260.2 at your convenience.

Notice that none of this movement could have begun without a command from the Lord. Where was the Lord when this command is given? What will he be wearing when this command is given?

So how do we account for the knowledge, precondition and solemn activity of sighing and crying BEFORE the fulfillment of Ezek. 9?

   Speaking of the 144,000, Volume 5, pages 210-11, says, “These sighing, crying ones had been holding forth the words of life; [a message] they had reproved, counseled, and entreated.—1SR:31.1

Although not directly relevant to this study the words of warning contained herein come now to aptly apply to us who claim to be believers of THIS present truth:

…Some who had been dishonoring God, repented and humbled their hearts before Him.  But the glory of the Lord had departed from Israel; although many still continued the forms of religion, His power and presence were lacking.  In the time when His wrath shall go forth in judgments, these humble, devoted followers of Christ will be distinguished from the rest of the world by their soul-anguish, which is expressed in lamentation and weeping, reproofs and warnings.  While others try to throw a cloak over the existing evil, and excuse the great wickedness everywhere prevalent, those who have a real zeal for God’s honor and a love for souls, will not hold their peace to obtain favor of any.—1SR:31.1

Returning back to our study

   The half-hour silence in heaven brings the voices down to earth, and at the sounding of the seventh trumpet the mystery of God is finished (Rev. 10:7).  Then it is that “the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord.”  What does it all mean?—Just this:

   As we have seen, the silence divides the two pre-millennial Judicial sessions, the one for the dead and the other for the living, and the fire from the heavenly altar, the voices, lightnings, and thunderings, descend to earth.  These facts, along with a number of scriptures on the subject, besides the remainder of The Revelation, the chapters after the breaking of the seventh seal, prove that the Judgment of the living, the cleansing of the earthly temple, is something which takes place on earth, not in heaven only!

   “Behold,” declares the Lord, “I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way BEFORE Me: and the Lord, Whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple,... But who may abide the day of His coming?  and who shall stand when He appeareth?  for He is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap.” Mal. 3:1, 2.

   Yes, the work of the second Judicial session includes the earthly sanctuary, the church.  At that TIME the Lord’s “fire” is “in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem.” Isa. 31:9.—15Tr:65

   Says the Lord: “When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.”

   Therefore, if such an individual can not live without sinning now, neither will he later, and as he cannot deceive God, he is left without the seal though he may acknowledge the truth in the message.—1SC13:9.7, 8 (July, 1935)

Similar to 2Ans:33-35 (1944) except for the added phrase that is not present in 1935 “…in the period of the sealing.”—2Ans:33.

Yet much earlier he said the following:

Question #4. “Micah 6:1 says, ‘Arise, contend thou before the mountains and let the hills hear thy voice,’ but the SRod says to work within the S.D.A. denomination.”

   True, our duty at the present time is to confine our efforts within the denomination. Nevertheless, the SRod, Vol. 2 contains also the message for the world. One must understand that these scriptures do not find their fulfillment in a moment. Micah 6:1, like Malachi 3:1-3, will find its perfect fulfillment in the period of the message for the church, the sealing time of the first fruits (the 144,000), and in the period of the sealing of the second fruits (the great multitude). See Vol. 1, p. 242.—1SC5:6.3, 4 (Nov. 15, 1934: in Los Angeles California)

Therefore, we have present three known, separate and distinct things: (1) The Sealing time, (2) the Sealing message, (3) and the Sealing angel.

How limited is the whole event of Ezek. 9?

   The truth therefore is trouble-free: Between the Judgment of the dead and the Judgment of the living stands the half-hour silence, the time absorbed in bringing the first Judicial session to a close and in preparing for the second session.—15Tr:67.3

Revelation 8:1, speaking of

        1.      the silence in Heaven for the space of half an hour, PROVES to be THE EVENT of

        2.      the fulfillment of Ezekiel 9. At which TIME

        3.      “shall Michael stand up.”

        4.      It is at this juncture that Christ puts on His garments of vengeance

 and surprises the hypocrites in Zion. See “Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. 5, p. 690.—2SC5,6:10.2

   2.  “In our conversation I meant to explain that we are not in the sanctuary-judgment of the living, not in the time for our sins to be blotted out, but in the time for us to decide (judge ourselves) either to receive the mark and be saved, or to remain without it and be taken by the slaughter weapons of the angels. We are not in the seventh seal; the half hour silence is yet future.—12SC3:19.2

How many aspects are in the second period of the third angel’s message? There are Two.

   To get the proper understanding of the third angel’s message we shall divide it into three periods: (1) Beginning of the proclamation of the true Sabbath, Rev. 14:6-11; (2) Reformation, and sealing of the 144,000, Rev. 7:1-8; (3) The Loud Cry, Rev. 18:1.  The truth of the sealing (144,000) being made known, it is evident that we are in the second period.  If we had not known the commencement of the third angel’s message in its beginning, we would have had no message.  Therefore, we must know the time of the last two periods when they came, being of no lesser importance.—1SR:32.2

Objections:

   The sealing of the 144,000 can not extend to the close of probation, for they must be sealed long before that time, and it must close before the loud cry of the third angels’ message.—1SR:35.9

The 144,000 are sealed before the silence “of half an hour,” or at the opening of the seal, but they are judged in the period of the seventh seal, for the prayer was for “all” saints—the living.—2SR:220.2

However, the reading from the same 1SR just a few pages ahead proves and sustains the very point that is being brought out from this third attempt to bring out now the correct understanding since the beginning:

   The men with the slaughter weapons must immediately follow the one with the writer’s inkhorn.  God must separate His people if the marking is to be of any value and except the separation takes place, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit can not fall in its fullness upon the people of God.…The men with the slaughter weapons were already slaying before the man with the writer’s inkhorn returned to report the matter that he had done as he was commanded.  See Ezekiel 9:8, 11.—1SR:37.2

Do you want to know which reference (and there might be another) that Davidians have been guilty of subjugating one passage incorrectly and making the others conform to it? It is 1SC13:9.4-6.

Question: “If the sealing message of the 144,000 is being proclaimed since 1929, are they being sealed now or is that work to be done later? Moreover, if no one can receive the seal as long as he is sinning, and if some are being sealed now, are they sinning no more?”

   Answer: If the sealing is not in progress now, then the sealing message which we bear since 1929 would be no more present truth than the proclamation of the judgment of the dead since 1844 would be if the dead were not judged during the same period of time. Hence, it is definite that the message and the sealing go hand in hand the same as the needle and the shuttle travel together until the seam is completed.—1SC13:9.4-6

   The Lord commands the angel with the writer’s ink horn to go and “set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof”—in the church—so that when the men with the slaughter weapons start slaying they may pass by those who have the mark. To sigh and cry for the abominations is a sign of reformation and as reformation never takes place without a revelation of some new truth, it is evident that the message must be brought to every one’s attention and if the individual does not reform at the moment he is convinced of the truth, neither will he do it later. Therefore, as the sealing message makes its way through the church, those who awake and reform (sigh) and endeavor to enlighten others by the light that is shining upon them (cry), he receives the seal.

   Thus the silence of half an hour points forward to this great event for the church of God.  Its fulfillment would bring us to the time of the harvest, or as it is called, the Loud Cry of the Third Angel’s Message of Revelation 18—the last message for the world.  Thus, while the five men with the slaughter weapons are taking away those represented by the tares within the church, there will be silence in heaven for about half an hour (seven days), after which the judgment will commence again for those who shall be sealed in the time of the great harvest, which is the end of the world.  Said Jesus: “Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn”—the church.  (Matt. 13:30.)—2SR:217.1

Is this still my own independent understanding or have you rather failed to examine more closely what is written?