Notes on the Book of Revelation

LDS believe the rapture will occur Post-tribulation and pre-wrath. LDS believe the rapture will occur simultaneously with the second coming of Christ. Upon Jesus' return, believers will meet him in the air while the Earth is burned and will then return and accompany him in His Millennial reign on a Paradisaical Earth.

Joseph Smith was told by God that the 7 seals are 7 1000-year periods of the earth history. The 7 Seals make mention of the emergence of disease and earthquakes. It is likely disease and earthquakes had always existed, but the the devastation is a result of how these natural occurrences are magnified due to man's changing living conditions.

Seven Seals
1st Seal: 4000bc-3000bc man conquers and divides up the Earth,
2nd Seal: 3000bc-2000bc man wars and disputes over boarders,
3rd Seal: 2000bc-1000bc money invented by Phoenicians,
4th Seal 1000bc-0 disease due to city crowding, and poor sanitation,
5th Seal: 0 -1000ad Christian Martyrs,
6th Seal: 1000ad-2000ad Sun, moon, stars darkened = Apostasy, Earthquakes cause fear, death, and destruction due to congested city living, city fires, and use of unreinforced concrete/cement. Restoration and elect of God from every nation receive the "sealing in the forehead."
7th Seal: 2000ad-3000ad 1/2 Hour Silence, Tribulation, Rapture, Wrath, Second Coming, Millennium, Final Battle.

Events of the 7th Seal
The angel says hurt not the Earth, Seas, Trees until we have Sealed the Believers.
Therefore, the Seal begins with 1/2 hour of silence = 21 years?
Then the 7 Trumpets Sound and 7 Vials poured out (like the 7 trumpets at the wall of Jericho)
The Beast is false government and economic system
The Harlot is false religion riding on the back of the Beast
The Beast turns against the Harlot, devours and destroys all false religion (Rev 17: 16)

Seven Trumpets
1st Trumpet: Hail, Fire and Blood burn 1/3 trees and all grass
2nd Trumpet: Mountain in the Sea turns to blood and kills 1/3 fish die and 1/3 ships
3rd Trumpet: Woomwood star contaminates 1/3 rivers and 1/3 springs
4th Trumpet: 1/3 part of Sun, Moon, Stars hidden
5th Trumpet: Another star falls, Sun is dark by smoke and Scorpion Locusts torment man 5 months
6th Trumpet: Armageddon kills 1/3 man, 2 Witnesses prophesy and call plagues
7th Trumpet: Christ Appears and wrath unleashed

Seven Vials
1st Vial: Sores upon those who worship the Beast and its Image
2nd Vial: Sea turns to blood and men in sea die
3rd Vial: Rivers and springs turn to blood
4th Vial: Sun scorches man with fire
5th Vial: Darkness and torment of man
6th Vial: AntiChrist and 3 frogs emerge to bring about Armageddon
7th Vial: Christ appears, believers raptured, and the Great Earthquake and Wrath unleashed

List of Symbols
Events of Apostasy during Roman Times replayed in the Last Days
It seems the Trumpet and Vials seem to be describing the same events.
Seas, Rivers, Springs , Water = peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues. (Rev 17:15)
Seven heads = seven mountains = continents (NA, SA, EU, Afr Rus, SEAs, Aus)
7 Headed Beast = Summation of all beasts in Dan 3
Beast = False government and economy (merchant city)
Harlot = False religion

Old Temple Covenant vs. New Temple Covenant

Many Christians misunderstand LDS doctrine because much of it is sanctification focused while evangelical doctrine tends to be more justification focused. This focus on sanctification through the grace and power of Christ's atonement is evident in our name as "Latter-day Saints." Our sanctification doctrine is also reflected in and is a product of the LDS Temple. The whole purpose of the New Testament Temple and its associated ordinances and covenants is Christ preparing man after they have come unto Christ to enter into the presence of the Father through complete sanctification. While justification describes the initial rescue from sin by the mercy alone of Christ; Sanctification is the process by which the believer, through Christ, finally reaches the point at which they have lost all desire for sin. Satan has lost all power over them, and they have developed complete mastery over all the appetites of the flesh. Also, they have completely surrendered their will to God and only desire to do His righteous will continually.

When Moses was invited by God to receive and re-establish the higher covenant of Abraham, he and all the Elders of Israel were invited up into the mountain. God wanted a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation (Ex 19:6). But the Elders were afraid of God and told Moses to speak to God for them (Ex 20:19). The Elders told Moses, "You go Moses, and we'll stay here." However, while Moses was away, because Moses "delayed" his coming, the Elders and the people backslid into the practiced priestcraft and idolatry by making a golden calf and worshiping it through sexual sin. This is a type of the Last Days. Aaron becomes a type of the Anti-Christ who receives filthy lucre (gold) and administers a false religion to the people. Then God warns Moses to "hasten" and hurry down because the people were defiling themselves. Catching the people in sin suddenly like a thief in the night, Moses broke the tablets of the higher covenant. God then gave Israel a preparatory covenant instead of what was originally given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now the New and Everlasting Covenant is extended to the Gentiles and all Gods people are again invited up to the mountain to be made kings and priests unto God, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and a peculiar people (1 Pet 2:9).

Old and Preparatory Temple Covenant
The purpose of the OT temple was to make Israel ashamed and remind them of their sinfulness and the need for a Savior and point them to Jesus Christ.
Ezek 43:10 Ezekiel is shown the temple and commanded to "measure the pattern", form, fashion, ordinances, covenants, comings in, goings out, etc
Heb 7:11 The Levitical priesthood and covenant does not perfect or sanctify only the higher or Melchizedek priesthood and temple covenant can sanctify.
Temple only given to one nation, kindred, tongue and people and Priesthood only given to one tribe.
Temple priests wore robes and undergarments of blue, red, gold, and purple to represent their sins (coats of many colors)
Veil was 4 in thick, 60 ft high, and embroidered with angels who stood in the way like the Seraphim to guard the way of the tree of life or the Holy of Holies.
Animals were sacrificed pointing to the great and last sacrifice by Jesus Christ
Once a year only the high priest dressed in white and was washed and anointed to enter into the Holy of Holies and pass by the angels through the veil.
To enter the OT temple a Jew must meet specific criteria of outward cleanliness

New and Everlasting Temple Covenant
The purpose of the New Testament Temple is to bring us from Christ to the Father through purification and sanctification
Ezek 37:26-29 Israel promised the Everlasting Covenant and temple (tabernacle and sanctuary) in the Last Days to purify and sanctify Israel.
Rev 14:6 Another angel to deliver the everlasting gospel and covenant to all kindred, nations, tongues and peoples
Members of all 12 tribes are made kings and priests unto God and not just one tribe
Those who "overcometh" are made kings and priests unto God, given "hidden manna", and a "new name" and dressed in "white robes" and blessed to "eat of the tree of life" according with the words of John in Revelations Ch 1-3
The first shall be last and the last shall be first, the temple and covenant will go to the gentiles first and then to the Jews last when the temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem.
All members are made Priests in the New Testament Temple are washed and anointed and dressed in white robes symbolizing they have been washed by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Rev 7:14 John in Revelations asked who are all these people dressed in white robes in the temple and told they are those who have come out of or through the tribulation turbulence and have washed or sanctified their robes through the blood of Christ.
The veil of the temple is almost see though, and has partitions so that we can easily pass through symbolizing the torn veil at Christs death
Temple workers representing angels serve to help us through the veil instead of prevent our passage
Rev 3:5 Christ promises to confess our name to the Father and to the angels
To enter the NT temple a Christian must meet specific criteria of inward cleanliness (1 Cor 5:11)
The covenants, sacrifice, and ritual help you be a better person, become better sanctified, and lose desire for sin via 3 motivations and 3 mechanism:

3 Motivations for Sanctification
1. Awe, fear, and reverence of the power of God (Eccl. 12: 13)
2. Plan of Salvation and promise of reward (Heb. 11: 6)
3. Love of God for you. (1 Jn 4: 7-8)

3 Mechanisms for Sanctification
1. Sacrifice of will via the covenant of consecration (Matt 19:21) "if thou wilt be perfect"
2. Remembering Christ's Atonement (Luke 22:19)
3. The Holy Ghost (1 Cor 6:11)

A Few Thoughts on Atheism

I was watching a documentary on NetFlix the other day entitled "The Atheism Tapes." The documentary involved a series of interviews with famous intellectual atheists who were asked to comment on their objections to religion. There are several interesting atheist arguments. Here are a few thoughts I had as I watched this BBC documentary from my LDS perspective.

1. Christianity like all religion drives people to kill
A. A small minority of Christians inappropriately used religion as a justification to kill. However, if you look at the Israel/Palestinian conflict, the fight is not over religion, but land and power. No one on either side is forcing the other to deny their God or die. Also, according to Edward Peter's Inquisition, the Spanish Inquisition (state controlled), held 49,000 trials between 1560-1700 and executed between 3 and 5,000 people. On the other side atheists, secular, utilitarian regimes lead by Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, French Revolution, Adolf Hitler, etc have killed in the tens of millions.

2. The idea of God is oppressive. We are not atheist but antithesis.
A. Commandments are directions and not restrictions. God empowers, and doesn't restrict believers. There are many more successful and creative believers than non-believers. Many evangelicals don't like the LDS religion because they think having an organized LDS church with a structured hierarchy is oppressive. Science has proven that religious people are on average happier, healthier, and give more to charity than the non-religious.

American Democracy is based on self-government based on the Judeo-Christian principle of the "golden rule." Limited government cannot be expected to make rules about every little thing. Therefore, people are expected to govern their own lives based on the principle of "doing unto others as we would have others do unto us" and the belief that all mankind will stand before God in the next life and stand accountable on how we lived with respect to this divine and self-evident and natural law.

3. God cannot exist because of the problem of evil and bad stuff happening to good people.
A. LDS understand that the spirit of Lucifer always existed, so that God is neither responsible for making a defective creation, nor is He responsible for being an accomplice to evil by giving a murderer (Lucifer) a gun (agency). Evangelical claim God created Satan from nothing, and had perfect foreknowledge of Satan's evil intentions and claim God isn't responsible for letting Satan loose on the universe or that evil and sin is necessary. Only the LDS understanding of the eternal nature of the spirit addresses this argument.

There is another issue with the so-called "problem of suffering." When an atheist tries to argue that there cannot be a God because such-and-such bad thing happened to so-and-so, they usually don't tell you about how the person who was experiencing the pain, trial, or adversity felt about it. I have experienced many people of faith meet adversity, pain, and death with very little suffering. Instead, I have witnessed children and adults face great adversity with faith, courage and hope. Atheist object that religion is the opioid of the masses or a crutch, the Bible teaches that faith in God is balm that has the power to sooth a troubled heart.

4. A good atheist only believes what he can see.
A. Atheist claim this universe and the fact that it is calibrated from life is just a manifestation of luck. This universe is just one of a gazillion other universes not calibrated for life. "Other Universes?" When has anyone seen another universe? For an empiricist, all this talk about other universes sounds like voo-doo to me. LDS are taught that the only way to know God is to have a personal experience with God and allow God to reveal himself to them. There is no way to intellectually prove or disprove God. Therefore, LDS believe in God not because we can prove God, but because God has proved Himself to us.

The Beast Shall Devour the Harlot

Rev 17: 16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire.

I was listening to an Evangelical preacher on TV the other day talk about His love for FOX News and the alliance of Christian Evangelicals and FOX against the formation of a "one world government" which he and other Christians understood the Bible prophesies about. This isn't the first time I have heard Evangelicals on TV talk about this. Jack VanImpe and Pat Robertson on the 700 club has been talking about this since I can remember.

My late maternal grandfather served our country in the navy during WWII as a sub spotter on a destroyer in the Pacific. He was a hardworking, honest, man of few words. And those few words usually involved some sort of humor. On one occasion near the end of his life, he made a brief comment to me about his concern for the creation of a one-world government and about his concern that certain ultra-elites were organizing things in this nation and around the world which threatened the freedoms that so many had fought and sacrificed for.

Rumors of some sort of one-world government have been around since the days of Woodrow Wilson who regretted establishing the Federal Reserve and putting monetary policy and credit into the hands of a select few unelected individuals. Since then we have seen an ever increasing number of the masses enslaved to both debt and socialism. And most recently, these social elites are attempting to control and tax the nations of the world under the false pretense of anthropogenic global climate change. While credit should be extended to 3rd world countries to allow them to industrialize and prosper, outside companies and banks fear investing because of the risk of regulation and taxation of these industries. Instead of allowing the poor nations to learn to fish, climate treaties are seeking to just throw them an occasional fish from the basket of the richer nations.

Now, I really didn't buy into the conspiracy theory of a one-world government either until I read the biography of Edwin Teller, the inventor of the Hydrogen Bomb. In that book there are several instances where the nuclear scientists need to convince the President to support nuclear research and the nuclear and hydrogen bombs. To help sway the President, these scientists on one occasion obtained a personal letter from Einstein himself. However, what Teller describes is that the letters by prominent scientists did very little to convince the President. What made all the difference was not Einstein's letter, but encouragement by the investment bankers.

The Beast in Revelations and Daniel represents a government or empire. In fact, these passages apply to the time of Christ and the Last Days at the same time. During the time of Christ, the Beast with the 7 heads and 10 horns is the Roman Empire and Emperor Titus who destroys the temple, crucifies Jews, and feeds Christian martyrs to the lions. In the Last Days, I am less certain of the specifics, but there is one very fascinating point that John makes about the relationship between the Beast and the Harlot in Revelations.

While the Beast represents corrupt government, John uses the symbol of the Harlot or Whore to represent false religion and likens the true Christian Church to a Virgin or virtuous woman dressed in white clothing. While, no single religion can be singled out exactly John begins by saying earlier in Revelations that the Beast and the Harlot were in bed together. Then in Revelations 17, John tells us that the Beast will become angry with the Harlot and devour and destroy her. So, the same false religious institutions which brought the Beast into power, those leaders will then turn against those religions and destroy them.

Up to this point, I had thought of ends times prophecies as describing the rise of false governments, false economic systems, false religion all focused on persecuting the true believers. Until now, I had never realized that John in Revelations makes it clear that all these false institutions would start fighting each other. According to Rev 17, the Beast will fight against and destroy the Harlot. So, according to the Apostle John in Revelation, the future, false one-world government will persecute, devour, and destroy the false religions, Christian or otherwise, who helped it rise to power.

Signs of the fulfillment of this prophecy can already be seen as Evangelical Christian-supported FOX news leads the opposition against socialism and liberalism in America and world-wide. I love FOX NEWS and their cause in support of conservative values. And I am sad that John foretells that the Beast may prevail initially. But this only serves God's higher purposes of having the wicked destroy the wicked. But while false religion will be burned with fire, John promises that Jesus Christ, His Church and His people will prevail because they are called, chosen, and faithful.

Rev 17:14 These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.

Spiritually Begotten or Made?

The Nicene Creed says that Jesus Christ was "begotten and not made." Many Evangelical Christians on CARM have told me that this spiritual begetting does not apply to man. Man is, according to their interpretation of the Bible, a created being "made" no different than a "dung beetle" and not spiritually begotten like Christ who the Bible names "The Firstborn of many brethren" and the "Firstborn of every creature."

LDS understand that the Bible does talk about being adopted a son of God upon being born again, accepting Christ. However, we believe this adoption is referring to Christ becoming the Father of our eternal life. The God referred to here is God the Son and not God the Father. LDS would differentiate this from our understanding of the Bible that all men regardless of belief are spiritually begotten of God the Father who is named "The Father of Spirits". (Acts 17: 28-29, Heb. 12: 9. Eph 3:14-15, Heb. 2: 11, Ps. 82: 6, Col. 1: 15, Rom. 8: 29)

"The Value of Believing in Free Will" by Kathleen Vohs and Jonathan Schooler, Psychological Science, 2008:53

In the following study, Vohs and Schooler demonstrate that belief affects moral behavior. In this study the researchers had college students read some information about genetics. Half the students had the following quote placed within the material by Nobel Laurette Francis Crick "We are nothing but a pack of neurons." The other half read the same information without this quote. The researchers then had the students take a math quiz where it was possible to cheat. The results of the study were that the students who were exposed to the deterministic statement were much more likely to cheat than the others who were not.

So, my question, is how is evangelical doctrine that men are made a created like "dung beetles" or Calvanist doctrine that our fate is already predetermined or predestined before we were born any better than evolutionists who say man is "evolved from pond scum" or "just a pack of neurons"? The Book of Mormon foretells and explains this false doctrine with the following prophecy:

2 Nephi 28: 7-8 Yea, and there shall be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; and it shall be well with us. And there shall also be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear God—he will justify in committing a little sin; yea, lie a little, take the advantage of one because of his words, dig a pit for thy neighbor; there is no harm in this; and do all these things, for tomorrow we die; and if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God.