Review of The Regeneration

By

J. Wilfred Johnson

May 26th, 1976

Transcribed from C/Ds #55, #56 and #57

August 20th, 2013 thru September 17, 2013

By

Steven Pond and Mary Savoy

(Wilfred) How many of you have read the chapter that John suggested you read in 1 Selective Messages sometime during the week? You want to show your hands.

(John) How to Meet a Controverter Point of Doctrine, its in the 1 vol. of Selective Messages.

(Wilfred) Its my fault perhaps because I cut John off a little when he was giving the reference, I had just a moment of tape left and I wanted one more reference on that tape so I didn’t give him time to amplify his request and then the tape cut off.

(John) Chapter 65

(Wilfred) We won’t read it tonight unless we have time later on to go into it.

We did cover last week some rather difficult spots and I don’t doubt that some minds found it a little hard to stretch quite that far to grasp the relationship between the key thoughts that we presented and the various problems that we have previously presented and I would not be surprised if some of you have not really seen the thing as it really is. Sometimes these elements are not immediately clear, it takes awhile for them to percolate, gel, and then ultimately they come together and the thing is seen. I suggested that the key that I present you could accept as a theory and check it, test it. I think this is a very wise thing to do, in my mind it is no longer a theory. I would not be presenting it to you in the way that I did if it had been simply a theory with me, I am quite clearly convinced that what I presented last week is genuine truth and I have spent upwards of thirty years checking it, testing it, comparing new passages of scripture and statements of The Spirit of Prophecy that I come across with it to see whether it contradicts or substantiates it. There are elements in the view that are unexplainable in my thinking as of yet, maybe someone else can explain them. But I did point out to you that any new concept is going to solve some of the past mysteries or problems or contradictions, but in doing so it will give rise to some further ones, new ones. And, if it did not do this it would become a static truth, a dead end truth and according to the word of prophecy, Gods truth is not static, it is unfolding and it will continue to unfold until the end of time. The new truth is not independent of the old it’s based upon the old its founded upon it, it grows out of it. And as it applies in the current situation it will ultimately make the old truth null and void if the new truth is not accepted.

(John) That happened in 1844 didn’t it?

(Wilfred) Yes it did.

(John) The churches that didn’t accept the new light, Sister White says were left in darkness.

(Wilfred) That’s right. Now it’s not that the old truth is wrong necessarily although there may be occasions when it is, there may be occasions, I have statements to that affect, but it is not normally incorrect, its correct and its present truth for a period of time. But as the generations advance, Sister White points out that God has a new truth or a special message for each generation. And it is only as the old truth becomes inapplicable in certain circumstances under the new situation that the new truth becomes necessary to understand the current situation.

Now there are certain elements in our message, the Advent message, which will never change, they are eternally fixed. But there are other elements that will be expanded and the view of the old element may have to be modified. Shall I read a little of this again or are you getting tired of it?

Review and Herald December 20^th 1892, “There is no excuse for anyone in taking the position that there is no more truth to be revealed, and that all our expositions of Scripture are without an error. The fact that certain doctrines have been held as truth for many years by our people is not a proof that our ideas are infallible. .... No true doctrine will lose anything by close investigation.”

And She makes this statement, Review and Herald July 26, 1892: “Those who think that they will never have to give up a cherished view, never have an occasion to change an opinion will be disappointed.” .... She’s talking here about cherished views and opinions not necessarily documented truth. .... “As long as we hold to our own ideas and opinions with determined persistency, we cannot have the unity for which Christ prayed.”

Then she points out in Education page 171; “It is impossible for any human mind to exhaust even one truth or promise of the Bible.” .... Now the resurrection is a truth and it’s a promise, therefore it is not possible for any human mind to exhaust it. .... “One catches the glory from one point of view, another from another point;”.... That means that there is a possibility that there may be more than one view of that particular truth. And it does not mean that another view is necessarily wrong that they may be completely compatible. On the other hand there are occasions when the views may not be compatible.

If it is a statement that Christ has made, she says in Christ Object Lessons page 108, says, “Christ is the truth. His words are truth, and they have a deeper significance than appears on the surface. All the sayings of Christ have a value beyond their unpretending appearance. Minds that are quickened by the Holy Spirit will discern the value of these sayings. They will discern the precious gems of truth, though these may be buried treasures.” Which is an indication that Jesus’ words were not framed carelessly. They were framed in a manner that there could be an application of truth to the current situation. But it may have a deeper meaning, an additional meaning, a meaning that isn’t obvious on the surface.

And finally, Review and Herald October 21,1890; To say that a passage means just this and nothing more, that you must not attach any broader meaning to the words of Christ than we have in the past, is saying that which is not actuated by the Spirit of God.” .... In other words, taking a limited view of the meaning of a statement of Christ and saying that it simply means what we have always said it means and nothing else, we know what that means, and so on. That attitude is not actuated by the Spirit of God.

Now in view of this we must be prepared to look at some of these mysteries with a broader mind, with a deeper view point, with the possibility of expanding, unfolding, renewed applications and meanings. Things that we have not seen in those passages before, otherwise how could God’s word expand if there was nothing more in it?

I want to read again a statement from Testimonies to Ministers page 243, which John brought to our attention last week. And incidentally, I said I would not have a plan or I did not have a plan of the presentation for this week, as of last week. I have just a few things to bring to you and then I will turn the meeting over for comments and contributions. I hope I don’t take to much time, but I would like to clinch some of these points here.

She says here that the .... “The human agent plants the seed,” .... She’s talking about planting gardens and things .... “And God waters it and causes His sun to shine upon it, and up springs the tiny blade. Here is the lesson God gives to us” .... Concerning two things .... “ Concerning the resurrection of the body, and the renewing of the heart.” .... Planting the seed and God waters it, and sometimes we have to because the devil has interfered with the processes of nature. .... “Causes His sun to shine upon it” .... I don’t think the devil can interfere too much with that yet, but maybe he will one of these days .... “And up springs the tiny blade” .... Now she says, .... “Here is the lesson God gives to us concerning” .... Two things, and I’ll reverse the order. .... The renewing of the heart” .... What’s that called?

(John) Conversion.

(Wilfred) What else is it called?

(John) The new birth.

(Wilfred) The new birth. What did Jesus say to Nicodemus?

(John) You must be born again.

(Wilfred) Born again. Born of the water and the Spirit. So this thing about the seed is to give us a lesson concerning being born again of the Spirit. But in that same text to Nicodemus He says, you must be born of water and of the Spirit. Now in this passage she says that it also illustrates the resurrection of the body. And the apostle Paul says in I Corinthians that you don’t get the new body until sometime happens to the old one. I think it’s I Corinthians 15 starting with verse 35. It’s a review of what we read last week. But that’s good because since some of you forgot to read the chapter for homework you probably have forgotten a good deal of what we said last week. Excuse me for chiding you a little bit, but the weather has been so beautiful who wants to stay in and study about the resurrection when you can go out study about the seed and put in the ground.

Anyway, starting with verse 35 in chapter 15,

35 But some man will say, how are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? And Paul says, 36 Thou fool, .... You are a fool for asking a question like that he says, don’t you know .... That which thou sowest is not quickened (That is that it is not made alive), except it die: 37 And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, .... In other words the body which you sow and that dies, is not the one that comes up. That’s what he says. .... It may chance of wheat or of some other grain: 38 But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body .... Which simply means that each particular kind of seed has it’s own particular kind of body according to the pattern that’s in the seed. If it is wheat it turns out to be wheat. If it is fingernail it turns out to be fingernail. If it’s eye it turns out to be eye, and the cells of your eyes are constantly dying and new ones are being recreated according to the pattern of the seed that died and the process is called regeneration. And the Bible calls the process of rebirth, regeneration. It’s the process of dying to the old man and coming up to newness of life, baptized with water, baptized with the Spirit. And when you are born again spiritually you are quickened, you are made alive, spiritually.

Let’s see, a little further down. Verse 42; “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:” .... So Paul is making a comparison here. He says, as the old seed dies introducing the new seed, so the old body is going to die in corruption and a new body is going to be raised in incorruption. .... 43 “It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” .... Someone may have a question on that one. We’ll pick it up in a minute. .... “There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body” .... And there are people who then because of that text and that thought say that when your natural body dies the spiritual body which is in you, so they say, continues to live on, it’s not dead, and they are partly right. We look back to the example of Jesus. When He laid down his life in the heavenly sanctuary, gave up the ghost, the Holy Ghost, the ghost of his eternal life, the image of Christ, his spirit, his power, and his mind and character were all wrapped up in the Holy Ghost. That was his divinity his divine nature which could not die. It was left as part of the heritage stipulated in his last will and testament, the Everlasting Covenant. With the administrator of his estate, his Father, to be delivered to man, human brains, to bring to humanity eternal life, life in itself, immortality, to bring to humanity the mind of Christ. Now, it’s interesting to note that the mind of Christ was expressed through the Word of Christ. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. What’s in the mind is what is spoken by the mouth, or conversely, what is spoken by the mouth comes from the mind.

Before Christ laid down his life in the heavenly sanctuary so that He could become a sleeping babe in the womb of Mary. Totally stripped of his former body and blood. Before He did that He expressed his word to his prophets and it was written in the scroll, He expressed his word in his created works and He expressed his word in the experiences that He maneuvered in the lives of his people, from Adam right on down to Malachi. After Malachi there is no more prophecy. There is no more word from heaven until John the Baptist, and I think that is significant. Somewhere between that point of time from Malachi and John the Baptist somewhere in there and I think pretty close to the last words of Malachi the eternal Son of God laid down He life in the heavenly sanctuary. Because that was the midst of the week of seven thousand years. And Daniel says that in the midst of the week, the angel said to Daniel, Messiah shall be cut off, and there were two deaths that Jesus died, remember? And typical of the Bible there is profound double meaning in these prophesies. And the first death of Christ, which was the death of sleep, which He died in the heavenly sanctuary, He was the lamb who was slain in the court of the sanctuary. The first death was the death of sleep from which there is a hope of a resurrection. The second death, which He died, He died where?

(John) On the cross.

(Wilfred) On the cross. And that was the death of the sinner from which there is no hope of a resurrection. The Spirit of prophecy tells us very plainly.

Now Jesus appeared on earth through the process of regeneration, through the process of natural birth and He says that a body was prepared for him and He came into that body. That’s what Hebrews says, its quoted from the Old Testament. And He grew up and He fed his mind on the word and He was anointed with the Spirit and the Spirit gave life to the word and the mind of Christ was reproduced in those 12 billion brain cells of the body of Jesus. Do you see that? Maybe not.

He was the first begotten from the dead, the first fruits of the resurrection. If He was the first begotten and the first fruits there must be more coming after. But if He was the first begotten from the dead and the first fruits merely in the sense that He went to the grave at his crucifixion and came out a day and a half later into the same body He went into the tomb, but gloried, translated, incorruptible. If in that sense He was the first fruits of the resurrection we have a problem as I pointed out last week because Moses beat him by several hundred years. So Moses must have been the first begotten the first fruits if that’s the sense that it means in it and only in that sense. Now we have to stretch our minds a little in interpreting some of these things. I do not question that Jesus was the first fruits of the resurrection, the first begotten of the dead, it says in one place and the first begotten from the dead and another place it says the first born of every creature and so on. I don’t question this thing, I think it is true and correct but I am pointing out to you that there is a contradiction in it, there is an element of inconsistency in it and that’s the element that opens the door to understanding advanced truth.

Now, if the seed is to give us the lesson of the renewing of the heart which is the rebirth, being born again of the Spirit and it also says being born again of the Word, where is that one? I think we better read it. I Peter 1:23, both the Word and the Spirit are involved, you understand. It says in John 1 chapter that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Christ was called the Word, the living Word. He was the embodiment of all truth, his mind had collected all knowledge, all truth, never forgot anything, so He was the truth. What He spoke was always the truth, his word was truth, He was the totality of the Word of truth. But when He was a little babe in the manger of Bethlehem He was not the totality of all truth. He couldn’t even speak, He couldn’t even think about the Word, tremendous condescension, a terrible mystery, but the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit was the soul of the life of Christ. The Bible calls it the Holy Ghost and everybody knows what a ghost is. A ghost is the image of that which has died. And the Holy Ghost the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead was identified with Christ. The Holy Spirit was the very life of Christ, I can read you that, and it was the very soul of his life, Sister White says that the impartation of the Spirit is the impartation of the life of Christ. The Holy Spirit my friends is the life of Christ. As the Word represented by the body, in Jesus’ own words, As the Word without the Spirit is dead as the body without the Spirit is dead. So, when Christ relinquished the Holy Spirit, the eternal Spirit of his eternal life He died. That’s what Jacob did. After he blessed his sons, it says, he gathered up his feet into the bed and gave up the Ghost. And the bible says that the Spirit goes back to God who gave it. The Bible says that God breathed into Adams nostrils the breath of life and Adam became a live soul. Jesus said, As the Father has life in himself even so has He has given the Son to have life in himself. Where did the Son of God receive his life in himself from?

(John) The Father.

(Wilfred) What was it that the Father gave him that He had life in himself?

(John) The Holy Spirit.

(Wilfred) His Spirit. Now, its all in the books, you just have to put the pieces together. God wrote his book that way on purpose, here a little there a little, precept upon precept, line upon line. Why did He write his book like that? So that we have to study to find it? Why should have to study and work hard to put all these things together to find it? Well listen, nobody can find it and put it together, no body, except the Spirit of God. And that is why God wrote it that why, because the controversy between Christ and Satan is between the most intelligent created being and the God of heaven. That’s what the controversy is centered around. And God was dealing with most intelligent individual that had ever being created, the one who knew more about God and God’s law and God’s ways and God’s everything than any other created being. And God had to write that book so that that creature couldn’t figure it all out. So that God could rise up a man and He has instructed that man to study diligently the Word. Why? To get the ingredients into the mind, to get the structure of the body of Christ, his Word, in the mind. Even as Adam was structured bodily before he came alive. Now the Devil can’t put the pieces together, he can’t read it because he doesn’t enjoy the measure of the Spirit of God that he had when he was in the kingdom. But a man who becomes anointed with the Spirit of God, that Spirit will make that Word live, it will bring life to the Word, it will bring creative energy to the Word. And the same creative energy that was used in the creation of this world is used in the regeneration of the soul in the recreation of the soul into the image of God, that’s in the books. It’s by the Holy Spirit that you become born again spiritually. It’s by the Holy Spirit that the enlightenment of the Word comes to your mind, your consciousness. And God can show you a truth that the Devil doesn’t understand. That’s why He wrote His Book like He did. And unless you are willing to spend the time and pick up the pieces, get the pieces, the Holy Spirit has nothing to make alive, there is nothing there to work on. He shall take of mine, said Jesus, and He shall show unto you. He is not going to give you new truth that isn’t revealed, that isn’t in the Bible.

It is true that there isn’t a new message in one sense of the word. There is no new truth, all the truth that was essential for the salvation of God’s people has been given, it’s all recorded, it’s in the Bible and in the Spirit of Prophecy. And if you fill your minds with that stuff, fill your minds with it, then the Spirit has got something to work with. And when God fulfills his promise to send that Spirit it will guide you into all truth and you will see things you haven’t seen before in those books, and that’s a necessity, its going to have to take place. Every one of God’s children is going to have to have the Spirit of God. I can talk here until I’m blue in the face giving you the ingredients and telling you and trying to show you how it all fits together and it will go completely over your heads, in one ear and out the other if you don’t have the Spirit of God. There is no way to understand God’s Word except by the influence of his Spirit, just no way.

Now, when Jesus came He filled his mind with the Word of God and the Spirit anointed Him and He grew, notice, He grew in wisdom, and in knowledge, and in favor with God and man. And he was the first born of the new body of Christ, the human temple which is to become the temple of the Holy Ghost and the indwelling of God through the Spirit. Don’t believe that? Well, if you don’t you don’t believe the Word of God. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 19; “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God;” .... See, they have been born again they belong to the family now and they are partakers of the inheritance, they become join heirs with Christ. They partake of that heritage that Christ relinquished and turned over to the Father, as the administrator of his estate to be bestowed upon mankind, they become partakers of that. Jesus was the first one who partook of it, the first. He became the head of the new body; it’s in that sense that He is the first born of the new body of Christ, the new structure. He says here .... 20 “And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone” .... So you see where the structure starts. Christ is the corner stone and the foundation is the apostles and the prophets. .... 21 “In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy” .... What?

(Someone in the audience) A temple.

(Wilfred) A holy.... “temple in the Lord: .... Now what’s a temple?

(Mumbling from the audience)

(Wilfred) A dwelling place of whom?

(Mumbling from the audience)

(Wilfred) God. Where He meets with his people. .... 22 “In whom ye also are builded together for” .... For what? .... “An habitation of God through the Spirit.” .... Through what? Now if that isn’t plain I don’t know what is.

It is by the Spirit that God comes to dwell in his temple. Got that? Its there plainly isn’t it? Now it’s also by the Spirit that Jesus comes to dwell in his new temple of saints. You want to read that? I think we’d better. We’ve done it before but we better do it again. We’ve got some folks here tonight who haven’t been with us before. And we would like to brush up ourselves and we would also like to share it with you. John 14 starting with verse 15 “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” .... We can dwell on that but I’ll simply point out that that is a condition. If you love him then you keep his commandments. And if you keep his commandments and love him then verse comes into play. What will He do if you love Him and keep His commandments? .... 16 “And I will pray the Father, .... Have you ever heard about an intercessor, a mediator? Have you heard about one? Who is it?

(John) Christ.

(Wilfred) And whom is He praying to and mediating to on your behalf?

(John) The Father.

(Wilfred) The Father. And what’s He going to ask the Father to do?

(John) To send His Holy Spirit.

(Wilfred) Very good. .... “And I will pray the Father and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for” .... For a little while. Until you get on your on feet and then you’ll be alright. .... I .... “will abide with you for ever.” .... Is this a sort of temporary dwelling place of God? No. It is not. Where did God dwell before this structure began?

(A woman in the audience) In Christ.

(Wilfred) In Christ. In Him was the fullness of the God Head bodily. And it still is in Him but it is in a way I’m not so sure you understand. Because Christ as He was, body and blood before Malachi’s time is now going to be divided, broken into His saints. I read you that you are to be an habitation of God through the Spirit didn’t I?

Now I wanted to show you that that not only means that God will dwell in you by the Spirit but that Christ will dwell in you by the Spirit. The message of the last supper indeed means exactly what it portrays. He broke the bread and He told you in John chapter 6: verse 51 “I am the bread”.... Of what?

(John) Life.

(Wilfred) Life. Now He broke the bread and He said it is my what?

(John) My Body.

(Wilfred) My Body. And what do you have to do with it?

(John) Eat it.

(Wilfred) Eat it. Does each one eat the whole thing?

(Someone in the audience) No.

(Wilfred) Oh no! Each one eats a piece. But when they all eat of it, they all partake of it the group has eaten of the body of Christ. And Paul tells us very plainly, and I am getting involved here because the subject is involved, Paul tells us that ye are the what?

(John) The body of Christ and members in particular.

(Wilfred) Right. Now there is Christ in you, so then ,,,. And I lost that little train of thought I was going to end up on. ,,, That Christ is not the same as He was, that when you speak about Christ in the New Testament Covenant when it is fulfilled and delivered to His saints it indeed means something more than just the person of Jesus. For the Ghost of Christ, the image of Christ, the divinity of Christ, which He relinquished in the heavenly sanctuary back in Malachi’s day, which could not die He as Jesus the priest no longer as the Lamb now, in the Old Testament He was the Lamb, see. In the New Testament He becomes the priest. Jesus as the priest is interceding his Father as He told His disciples; if you fulfill this now, I will pray the Father and He will send you what I ask Him to send. My life, the soul of my life, I’m giving it to you. Excuse me. Unless you eat that body, my flesh, my Word and drink that blood, my life, my Spirit, unless you do it you have no life in you. John 6, its in there, as plain as day. So He prays His Father that He would send the Spirit upon His people, the Comforter that He may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth, we’ve got two different names for Him here, Comforter and Spirit of Truth and over the page it tells you that the Comforter is the Holy Ghost. So He’s going to send the Holy Ghost, the spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because it seeth Him not neither knoweth Him, but ye know Him .... How do you know Him? He dwelleth with you and shall be in you.

Now who is it that shall be in you?

(John) The Holy Spirit.

(Wilfred) Yes, but so far as we’ve read?

(John) The Spirit.

(Wilfred) But what is that Spirit?

(John) His life,

(Wilfred) The life of Christ.

(Larry) Where did you get that quotation?

(Wilfred) Which one?

(Larry) That the Holy Spirit is the life of Christ.

(Wilfred) There are two. We’ll get them for you. I can read them right now if John .... Shall I read it?

(John) Yes.

(Wilfred) I don’t want to rob you folks of discussion time, but I am doing it. I get wound-up here .... I don’t like to let these points slip. We have to put them all together to see it.

It is found in the Review and Herald May 19, 1904, and it appeared in the Sabbath School Quarterly, 1^st quarter 1973 on page 51.

(Larry) What is the title of that Quarterly?

(Wilfred) “The promise of the Spirit” is the title of this article by Sister White. And the Quarterly is “The Christian and communication”.

Ok, here it is.

  “Christ declared that after his ascension, he would send to his church, as his crowning gift,” .... Now you understand what that would mean don’t you? The crowning gift is the top one, the most important one. What is the biggest gift Christ could possible send?

(John) His Spirit.

(Wilfred) Why? Because it is His life. That is all He had, isn’t it? Well, He had all his possessions but what good are possessions if you don’t have life? So, He declared that He would send to His Church, as his crowning gift the Comforter, who was to take his place.” .... Now there is another contradiction because she goes right on to say, .... “This Comforter is the Holy Spirit, the soul of his life, the efficacy of his church,” .... Now if it weren’t for that Spirit there would be no vitalization in his church. Nothing could be of any efficacy at all in his church were it not for that Spirit, .... “The light and life of the world. With his Spirit Christ sends a reconciling influence and a power that takes away sin.” .... Everything is wrapped up in that Spirit.

And the other one, I don’t have the location of it at the moment, but it says, the impartation of the Spirit is the impartation of the life of Christ. John has something.

(John) It’s Gospel Workers 284, 285. And then there are two others, Review and Herald November 29, 1892 says the Holy Spirit is the personal presence of Christ.

(Wilfred) Excellent. Personal presence.

(John) And Review and Herald November 19, 1908 states, this is my own words, Receiving the Holy Spirit is receiving the life of Christ.

(Wilfred) Now, there is a mystery here, see, because Jesus in person is in heaven but the Holy Spirit is the personal presence of Christ, it is the soul of his life and the soul is the thinking part of the man, your soul is your thinking part. If there is no thinking part there is no thinking going on, there is no soul. You can only use the term soul in the sense of the total being, which it is used in the Bible like fish have souls. They call them souls in the Bible in the sense of the total being. But when you are talking about the central core of a being, the soul, that has to do with the thinking part, including all the feelings, motives, memories, the whole thing.

Now, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost was the image of the person of Christ and when the Holy Ghost comes to his people it is as though Christ is coming and I was just coming to read that in John 14 if you still have it handy. I don’t think he can make it any plainer here, he says, .... He shall be in you. 18 “I will not leave you comfortless:” .... Now what’s the next word?

(John) I.

(Wilfred) If that’s “I” will come to you.” .... And He says that it is the comforter that will come to you to be your comforter, He says “I” will not leave comfortless “I” will come to you. In plain ordinary English logic that means that the coming of the Holy Spirit to his people it is the coming of Christ to his people or I can’t read English. And I have mentioned to you before that there is a secret coming of Christ, a mystical coming of Christ to individuals and the Bible says, one shall be taken and the other left. Two women shall grinding at the mill, one shall be taken, the other left. What does it mean? It means that one is going to receive the life of Christ and the other one isn’t. Christ is going to come to one and not going to come to the other. And the devil has caught on to that, I think he caught on to it before Adventist did. And he counterfeited it. He’s counterfeiting it all over the protestant denominations today. He says Christ is going to come and He is going take one of those women and whisk her off into space and nobody is going to see them, and whish, their gone, they went to heaven. Taken away from the tribulation that going to come upon the rest of us. I have been telling you from the Word of God, I hope, I hope you’ve seen it, that the tribulation is going to come on God’s people. But only certain parts of it.

But back to this other thought. Who is going to come secretly to his people and one will receive it and the other one won’t know about it?

(John) The latter rain.

(Wilfred) The Holy Spirit and the Latter rain. How does the Bible put it? In one of the last message that Christ gave to his prophets before he went through that condescension. Remember what He said? The messenger of the Covenant will sudden come to his temple. Who is the messenger of the covenant?

(John) The Holy Spirit.

(Wilfred) Well, we have up until this time said, Christ is. But if Christ is who is the agent who performs it? Who takes up Christ’s and give it to us? The Holy Spirit. How do we know that the Holy Spirit is the messenger of the covenant? Have we any proof/ Yes, we have. She tells us that the Holy Spirit will write the law of God on the heart, even as Christ wrote the law of God on the tables of stone.

(Woman in the audience) It also says in the Desire of Ages in the chapter on Christ In His Temple that the Holy Spirit is the ......... unintelligible

(Wilfred) You are right. I remember now. You are right. She applies it directly to the Holy Spirit, too. So we have definite evidence on that. Now that Holy Spirit, that messenger of the Covenant comes suddenly to his temple what’s He going to do? Well, He is going to write the law of God on the heart. But I have shown you that there is a process involved in that, right? And in Malachi he tells us, He is going to come as a purifier of silver, like a fuller’s soap and a refiner’s fire and Malachi says, “Who shall be able to stand?” And Joel says, “Who shall be able to stand.” So there is going to be a painful refining process among God’s people. And this constitutes, one being taken and the other left. It constitutes the coming of Spirit to his temple in it’s final fullness to reproduce in them the image of God, the character of God, it will give them the power to live without sin, we just read that someplace, and the restoration of the temple of Christ is completed. Destroy this temple, He said, and in three days I will raise it up. If you want to take that seven thousand year week, one thousand years is as one day says the Bible. In the midst of that week Messiah was cut off in Malachi’s day. Within the third thousand years, which is right now, He is going to restore that temple. And the Spirit is going to come in its fullness to fulfill John chapter 14 verse 18. He is going to come to his temple, suddenly to dwell in them. And a little further down, in verse 23 he combines the two. He says that, .... “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and” .... Who is going to come to him?

(John) We.

(Wilfred) We, .... “And make our abode with him.” So have we got it complete now?

(John) It is the Father the Holy Spirit and Christ.

(Wilfred) And where are they going dwell?

(John) In humanity.

(Wilfred) And the Spirit is the personal presence of Christ in the soul. Jesus is the head of the “new” body of Christ in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and all the others are members of that body receiving of that same spirit to restore that temple which was broken to give to them. And at the last supper He committed to them the New Covenant, she says. And that blood represents the life according to the Bible and what was the life of Christ? His Spirit. Now, why is He praying the Father to send the Holy Ghost to them? Because that is his life which He relinquished to give to them according to the terms of his last will and testament. He is now asking the Father to honor his agreement and send the Holy Spirit. Now we have problems in this parallelism because you see Jesus was not only the sacrifice but He was also the priest, not only the Lamb but the priest. So in his office of priesthood and King and mediator He is officiating on our behalf. Up until Gethsemane and the cross Jesus had power to return to his heavenly Father all on his own and reprocess his former heritage. He could have done that by a decision. But at Gethsemane and the cross He made the irrevocable decision, He guaranteed that He would never again go back on his word in promising the Spirit to his people, which was his life. If He had done it Brothers and Sisters you could not have eternal life in yourself. You could not have it. But He says that He would give it and He will give it.

Now, I got way off the track here. The next text I wanted you to look at was John 3:5 and 6. And I have referred to this, but we will just check it again. “Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Now He’s talking about entering the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is a ruler-ship, a form of ruler-ship or government. In God’s government originally there were no Ten Commandments written on tables of stone. The government of God operated from the inside out; every creature was created perfect in the image of God. And God’s character, God’s being, God’s essence, was the principle of self-sacrificing love. That was his nature and his character and his created being were made in that image. That it was instinctive and natural for them to do the things God wanted them to do, there was no problem because what they wanted to do of their own volition according to their own feeling and wants and desires and interest were the very things that were in harmony with God, and there can be no better government than that. I cannot think of a better kind of government than that. Don’t we all like to do as we please? Which one of us likes to do things we don’t please? We do them for expediency sake by reason of our understanding that in the future we may enjoy greater pleasure and satisfaction by sacrificing during the present time so we will do something we don’t really want to do instinctively because by reason we see the future we are going to gain a greater blessing but we see that only by faith because nobody has a guarantee on the future. And only as you but your trust in God Word can you function that way. That’s why faith is so important in the plan of salvation; you are saved by faith, why? Because it’s by faith that you see the city ahead. It was by faith that Jesus saw of the travail of his soul and the consequences of it and for the joy that was set before Him he endured the cross. But how did He know He was going to get there? He came here at the risk of failure and eternal loss. How do He know? Because He trusted his Fathers promise, that’s the faith of Jesus and the hundred and forty four thousand are going to have the faith of Jesus. It is because what they believe, Jesus said, in very truth because they believe this they are willing to make the sacrifice of righteousness and put their trust in the Lord, the Bible says. They offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put their trust in the Lord.

Self-interest is justifiable only when it’s based on faith in the promise of God. When God says I am going to give you eternal life IF you do this, then IF you do this you are looking toward eternal life yourself, but you are basing it on the promise of God, don’t you see? It’s faith that justifies the act. No act is justifiable in the sight of God except by faith. Whatsoever is not of faith Paul says, is sin. Have I explained that? Do you see that? Self-interest, well what do you think the Bible means when it says, who for the joy was set before Him endured the cross. What joy?

(John) The joy of seeing us saved.

(Wilfred) But wasn’t that self-interest? If it was going to be a joyful experience that He was looking forward to and He was moving towards that experience is not that self-interest?

(Larry) It was all for the personification of his own personal character of self-sacrificing love. He is will to sacrifice his self for the welfare of others.

There is a skip in the tape here

(Wilfred) You see Jesus reaching out for the joy that was before Him, if you can interpret that as self-interest, you could only interpret as self-interest that was justifiable by faith in his Father promise. Because, look, do you know what he was facing? He was facing the eternal death of the sinner from which there is no hope of a resurrection. And if He had not perfect confidence in his Father’s over- ruling mercy He would never have for from the tomb. If He did not have full confidence that His Father would use that life that was inherent in himself, the Holy Ghost, that the Father would use that life power to raise Him from the dead He would still be in the tomb. It was by faith that Jesus saw the joy that was before Him and endured the cross. He told his disciples that on he third day He would rise again, He said that by faith. On his resurrection morning He didn’t even know yet whether his Father had accepted the sacrifice. That is what He said. So, it is by faith then that the act was justified.

Now, I’m not sure I can get back on the track I was on here unless someone can help me, if not I’ll move on.

Self-sacrifice is the essence of God’s character. But self-sacrifice doesn’t

There is a skip in the tape here

,.... complete unity, that’s the way God’s people are going to be, that’s the way God’s government in heaven is going to be. Everybody is going to be in-tune with God. Perfect harmony, co-ordination, we’re going to be members of the same body. All my fingers co-ordinate, they work together, there is no conflict. If I want to pick up an apple all five of those fingers work together. One doesn’t start shooting off in the opposite direction from the other they work together. God’s people will love to do the thing that is harmonious was everybody else; it will be instinctive with them. That is when God’s law is again planted in the heart and that is the heritage of those who love God and obey Him to the best of their ability.

Now, you cannot obey God’s Commandments acceptably excepting on the basis of love. If you are obeying God’s Commandments out of a sense of duty and obligation you are still on the Old Covenant level. It’s not acceptable, it won’t get you to heaven but you still do it.

(Larry) And the law made you most miserable.

(Wilfred) Yah. I’ll say! But you still do it. Some people say, well I can’t keep it, why should I bother trying. And some preachers say, don’t try. Just let and let God. I feel sad that they preach that way, because it’s misleading. It’s true but it’s misleading. Because, the Bible says, if you don’t keep the law of God the promises don’t apply, they are not fulfilled. The Holy Spirit is only given to those who obey Him. That’s what to Bible says. Well, then if you don’t obey Him then you don’t get the Holy Spirit. What change have you got? So, you obey on whatever level you are capable of obeying and God will fulfill his promise and as you are able to endure greater and greater, and I say endure, greater and greater measures of the Spirit, because you will have greater and greater trials to enable you to build a bigger and stronger character He will give it to you. And ultimately you will come into the fullness and stature of Christ.

Now that brings me to this thought about the judgment, the investigative judgment. I’ve got to zero in fast here unless I cut you people right off and that would be tragedy. In the investigative judgment, which began in 1844 we pointed out last week that the door to the holy apartment was shut and only at the beginning of the day of atonement was the regular service, the sacrificial service, preformed for the sins of the people. No individual sins were brought into the sanctuary on the Day of Atonement. They were outside afflicting their souls, confessing their sins, penitent and all that. But the officiating priest had all ready preformed the sacrifice for the people at the beginning of the Day of Atonement, and so their sins have gone before to judgment. This was the Day of Judgment. This was the day when the decision was made as to whether the people were accepted or rejected and they listened for those bells on the priest’s garments to hear whether he was still alive in there and that would be a symbol that God still accepted them and if he came out they knew God would have accepted them. We pointed out that many of us, I guess all of us; have been born since that door was shut. So what chance have we got if we cannot depend upon the fact that our sins have gone before to judgment, well they have. I’m not going into all the details of this tonight.

The door that is open now is the door to the most holy apartment where the law of God is and the mercy seat. We now have the privilege that this stage in the sanctuary service to follow Jesus into the most holy apartment and have our soul temple cleansed from sin. As the cleansing of the sanctuary takes place in heaven above there is to be a parallel work of cleansing the soul temple on earth among God’s people. That’s what should be going on now. We should be afflicting our souls. Read it in Joel chapter 2 what we should be doing, weeping, fasting, praying, because the day is upon us, the day of purification. And we will not be cleansed and purified unless we are performing those obligations. What happened to those who did not afflict their souls on the Day of Atonement back in Israel’s day?

(A man in the audience) They were cut off.

(Wilfred) They were cut off from God’s people. What will happen today to those who don’t?

(The same man) The same thing.

(Wilfred) The same thing.

Now this again is emphasizing self-interest. But as I pointed out to you before, everyone of those who decides to go all the way with God today is going to be placed into a position where he would rather die than to go through from his own stand point. But when he realizes how important it is to God that he carry on his love for Jesus will cause him to decide to deny himself and do it for Christ’s sake. And that’s even made more effective when the judgment of the living begins and God’s people become aware, from the books, that they have been eternally accepted, that their destiny is fixed, that he will be forever their high priest that that is settled, imputed righteousness is chalked up in favor of their name forever, then their obedience becomes secondary so far as their own salvation is concerned. They’ve got their ticket, why do they have to keep the law? If they don’t keep the law the priest who has become their eternal surety is the one who is going to suffer the consequences of those sins,

(The end of C/D #55 and the beginning of C/D #56)

And He cannot leave the heavenly sanctuary until these people quit sinning or the plan of salvation has failed. Because He said that He will save his people from their sins and He hasn’t saved them from their sins until they quit sinning. He will not force them to quit the only way they will quit is by their own decision. The expulsion of sin from the life is an act of the soul itself, Sister White says. Therefore the refusal to sin on the part of God’s people will be based on their concern for Jesus and the exoneration of His charges, as He is being judged. He’s also on the block being judged. His character was investigated back there when He lived on the Earth I read that to you. He lived out the character of God in his human body. He proved that God’s character was perfect. But, He says, I am still being charged of not living my own law, of not being honest and truthful, because I said that I would save my people from their sins. And Wilf Johnson has not been saved from his sins yet, so Wilf Johnson is a disgrace to Christ.

Yet the first angel’s message is a call to his people; .... “Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come:” .... How can I give glory to Him because his judgment has come?

(John) By reflecting his character.

(Wilfred) By reflecting his character. By obedience to his commandment, proving that the charges against Him were false, that I am willing to live without sin but I can’t do it in my own strength, so the intercessor does what?

(John) Prays the Father ...

(Wilfred) That He will give me the power because I have plead for it, I have begged for it, I have asked for it. And if you ask for it how much more is your heavenly Father willing to give the Spirit to you than you are willing to give to your children bread when they ask?

So, the Bible says, rise and shine for the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Get that? What is the glory of the Lord?

(John) His character.

(Wilfred) His character. We are to rise and shine with glory of his character and those who are willing to do it will deliver a Loud Cry message and will vindicate the law of God and the truthfulness of His Word. And when it has been accomplished the door of probation will close to all here. Well, there is much more there....

(John) And they will go through the seven last plagues demonstrating that character.

(Wilfred) Because there will be no intercessor.

Now, the intercessor hasn’t gone, don’t get that idea. He is a priest forever but He doesn’t have to keep His robes on, why not? There is no mediating to do. They don’t need that mediator. They themselves are going to share His priesthood in that thousand years, where does come from? Anybody know where that comes from?

(John) Revelation 20.

(Wilfred) What does it say?

(John) They shall be kings and priests for a thousand years.

(Wilfred) Now, what do think that means? We’re kind of off the topic here.

(John) I think the hundred and forty four thousand are going to have a part in the education of those who did not attain to that experience and have come up with a lot of wrong ideas, wrong habits, and wrong practices, in the general resurrection.

(Wilfred) Yes, those who have not come to the fullness of the stature of Christ are going to have to grow up and you know how it is with your children don’t you? Somebody has to be there to kind of take care of them while blundering until they learn and grow up.

(John) And pay the bill when they break the windows.

(Wilfred) And pay the bill when they break the windows.

We’ll get a little taste of what Jesus has done for us.

Now here’s another text I think you would be interested to have. I Corinthians 11:32. It’s right in tune with this investigative judgment here. .... “But when we are judged, we are” .... What?

(John) Chastened.

(Wilfred) “Chastened of the Lord,” .... Why? .... “That we should not be condemned with the world.” .... Do you realize that during our judgment we would be condemned with the world if it weren’t for that fact that He chastened us? During our judgment we are going to have experiences of chastening. And I think I have explained thusly, or recently, that the investigative judgment is in fact a judgment of living people. You’re living today, this is the testing time and this is the judgment time. Everybody is going to be judged and if you are being judged you are going to be judged by chastening. The Lord is going to demonstrate before the universe your character. The books are going to be opened, the record of your life is going to opened in the sense that the Lord is going to permit Satan to come at you as He did Job, as He did Peter, and certain things are going to happen. Now with Peter he wasn’t yet converted, he hadn’t yet attained. What happened?

(John) He fell. He denied the Lord.

(Wilfred) He fell. He denied the Lord. Now when the Lord takes away the devil, how do you suppose Peter dealt with that?

(John) He doesn’t fall.

(Wilfred) He doesn’t fall. What about you? Do you really want to sin or are you trying not to? How come you sin?

(Larry) The devil overcomes us.

(Wilfred) The devil overcomes you. You are overcome by the devil. How do we know that these sins are not going to be accounted to you?

(John) Because the sins committed since 1844 are laid on the originator of those sins, the scapegoat.

(Wilfred) That’s right. And when are they laid on him?

(John) Christ tarries in the outer apartment of the of the heavenly sanctuary to lay upon Satan the originator of those sins since 1844 and he bears them during the thousand years and eventually suffers for them.

(Wilfred) That’s right. About where He is when He puts them on him I don’t think is really stipulated, it is as He leaves the sanctuary He pauses a moment. I think that’s the way it says it. To place on the head of the scapegoat the sins that have been confessed since He entered the most holy apartment. On the head of the scapegoat who is the originator of those sins.

Now, that tells me a little more about that shut door thing. Doesn’t you? It makes a little more sense. The fact that these people have a character that would not sin if the devil weren’t around. But listen, it doesn’t end there. They have to attain a position that Job attained, in a sense, that they will not sin even when the devil can get at them without a mediator. Now, that’s a pretty big order. But God’s going to do it. He is going to completely desolate the devil, send him into the wilderness.

Now I think I have covered pretty well the things that I thought I wanted to review and I have done a little more than that. And just before I throw this thing open I want to reshuffle your minds again with these little thoughts;

1. First one. Satan is counterfeiting everything that God is about to do, so let’s think. What are the things Satan is counterfeiting today? One of them is the false latter rain. The very fact that the charismatic movement this Pentecostal thing is infiltrating all churches and is uniting them in a sense is an indication that the latter rain is due, it’s about to come.

(John) Well, Pastor Victor Bill has been here the past week visiting us from New foundland and Pastor C. Lamen say that this Pentecostal movement and the speaking in tongues are just sweeping those provinces. All the little towns and everywhere. It’s just everywhere.

(Wilfred) Those eastern provinces have for some time being have been a little susceptible to ghosts and things like that, and spiritualistic things like that. And England is very much that way too.

(John) And it’s very strong in the Catholic Church. I heard from Pastor Don Letterman that the Catholics in Quebec are speaking in tongues.

(Wilfred) False prophets, the devil is counterfeiting prophets. You’ve got all kinds of them around today. What can you expect?

(John) True prophets.

(Wilfred) True prophets.

2. Next one. Reformations and revivals, movements, Jesus movements, all sorts of movements. What can you expect.

(John) A true revival.

(Wilfred) A true revival.

Reincarnation. Why do you think the devil’s doing this for anyway? Why do you think he is doing it? Because he knows that the hundred and forty four thousand over-comers from all past history are going to be born again on the Earth.

As Jesus was born and rise up into a personality who has lived before his character is going to be proved and tested before the universe while He is still asleep and unconscious of who He is. Even as Jesus was unconscious of who He was until He reached a certain level in his development. And even then they will be conscious of who they are, perhaps, I’ll put a perhaps in there, but not have a memory of their former existence. And I have some evidence to indicate that Jesus did not have a memory of his former existence, at least up to a point. There is evidence of that. And I am quite convinced in my own thinking, and this is my own opinion, I’m still looking for the definite evidence, that at no time did He have a full consciousness of his former existence. If He had a full consciousness of his former existence, then He had an advantage that you don’t have.

(John) Brother Johnson, on the mount of transfiguration Moses and Elijah were sent down to confer with Him concerning the scenes that lay before Him and to tell Him things that would strengthen Him to go through. Now if He had all his former memory He wouldn’t have needed that experience.

(Wilfred) Right, and furthermore He received his instructions from God day by day. If He had a former knowledge of his memory, completely, He wouldn’t have needed that because He was the one who planned the plan. In Gethsemane of course the Holy Ghost had left him. He was left in his humanity to die. So that was a tragic experience that was a terrible experience for Him. Do you know what carry him through?

(Several voices in the audience) Faith, character, trust.

(Wilfred) Faith, and character and trust, yes. There is a specific statement that tells us what carried Him through. I can’t tell you where it is right now.

(A man in the audience) His habit of trusting God.

(Wilfred) It was the habit of trusting God that He had built up. It was habitual with Him to put His confidence in God.

(John) The thing that was habitual was his surrender.

(Wilfred) His total surrender.

(John) He said, let this cup pass by from me nevertheless not my will but thine.

(Wilfred) Yes, total surrender. And we are to taste of that experience. We are to get a taste of that to find out what He suffered on our behalf. Oh, we won’t get the full shot, but we’ll get sufficient to smarten us up so that we will say; Ok, Lord I will not sin anymore if that is what you have to take. Because listen, when you continue to sin you crucify the Son of God afresh. In other words you are piercing his heart with the same pain that He had at the cross. And the cross was a revelation to us, to our dull senses of the pain that entered his heart at the inception of sin, and the pain doesn’t end there she says. It won’t end until we quit. So there is the motivation for our refusing to sin and not until we share the sufferings of Christ will we make that.

(Larry) Brother Johnson, you were going to give us a quotation last week and I looked up all the indexes I could and I wasn’t able to confirm anything on it. It said that the devil will impersonate the raising of the apostles or something.....

(Wilfred) I’ll turn to John here.

(John) Did you want it now or....?

(Larry) Yes, I have a piece of paper. I didn’t seem to be able to come up with anything in the index.

(Wilfred) Sometimes the index is a little hard to locate.....

(John This is on page 557 of Great Controversy where she states this; “The apostles, as personated by these lying spirits, are made to contradict what they wrote at the dictation of the Holy Spirit when on earth.” .... That’s under the chapter “Spiritualism”.

(Wilfred) Why do you think that the devil is going to impersonate the apostles?

(John) Because they are going to be here.

(Wilfred) That’s right. Why do the apostles have to be here? Can anybody answer that from what we went over last week?

(John) Well, they are the foundation of the Christian Church, we read that tonight.

(Wilfred) Yes, and if they aren’t here.....

(Larry) Then they can’t go through the time of trouble and they can’t go into the temple....

(Wilfred) And then they can’t go into the temple on Mount Zion where Jesus said, that where He went they could go. But only the hundred and forty four thousand go into the temple on Mount Zion and the hundred and forty four thousand are the living saints who go through the seven last plagues.

And further more the apostle Paul says, the dead in Christ shall rise first then we, which are alive and remain. Where did he see himself?

(John) We. With them.

(Wilfred) All right. Where was Sister White going to be according to the angel? With the hundred and forty four thousand.

Where was John the revelator going to be?

(Someone in the audience) .......Unintelligible

(Wilfred) How do you know that?

(John) You shall prophesy again before.......

(Wilfred) Before nations, kindreds, tongues and peoples. Don’t write what the seven thunders uttered because you are going to prophesy again. How can he prophesy again? He was an old man when he wrote that and he died.

(John) Another point in the early eras of the Christian Church in the book of revelation it says, To him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God and he shall go no more out.

(Wilfred) That’s correct and that’s one of the earlier periods of the Church’s history.

(John) And I would like to read this statement if I could again because to me it is very significant.

(Wilfred) Sure.

(John) From page 120 of Great Controversy where it says of Martin Luther, it says, his father .... “Intended him for a lawyer; but God purposed to make him a builder in the great temple that was rising so slowly through the centuries.”

(Wilfred) So, members of the temple are going to come form the centuries.

(John) And if you read the last two chapters of Great Controversy she talks about that temple, about that structure. That has been rising so slowly through the centuries, and she says that the building is not yet complete. She says it’s almost built.

(Wilfred) I think the truth is there if we are alert to look at it.

(Larry) Are we ready for discussion?

(Wilfred) Yes, I’ve got two things here but I’ll leave them, they may come up in the discussion.

Ok, you can stay here for the rest of the night if you like. (Much laughter)

(Larry) ...... any thoughts you wish to pass on to us but I have a little problem that is in my mind but ....

(Wilfred) I have some too.

(Larry) About this seed growing up in the natural way like you’ve been talking about and I think I follow what you mean. I see a completely different situation with Christ and what I perceive as what might occur with the hundred and forty four thousand, this process of growing up and becoming a person that cannot recall it’s past and yet his character will be lived out and so on. Might there be some possibility that their in this sequence? This is what I am thinking about, I’m not trying to refute anything you’ve suggested I’m just putting it on the shelf because I correlate it in my mind yet.

(Wilfred) We would be glad to have your thoughts because we need them

(Larry) This is the point that ... I would like to refer to the end of second book of Timothy there and it suggests there what Paul is saying. “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him .... But He says, But also I have what? .... Finished my course. I have fought a good fight I have finished my course henceforth is laid up for me a crown. So, by reading that statement, apparently there is not going to be any further need for Paul to run the race using the metaphor that he has already used there. He’s run his race he’s finished his course, he is a victor, he has a crown, the crown is positive.

(Wilfred) That’s right.

(Larry) Now when you crown a victor in a race and it’s apparent to everyone that the race has been concluded and it’s conclusive and he was very conclusive, and not for me only but for everybody else. Now when you finish your course you get an award if you finish it correctly. Now that’s my interpretation of that verse. Now, if as I understand and this is my dilemma, I may not understand what you are suggesting and that is why maybe I don’t understand how to correlate this. But if Paul has finished his course and had definitely an award coming and he is very confident why should he then have to live out his character again during particularly the time of Jacob’s trouble. Jacob’s trouble as we all know is not so much a time of physical trouble, and there will be no doubt physical complications to aggravate the situation but primarily it is a mental anguish that not everything has been completely forgiven, there might be something in my life that I should have asked for forgiveness but I can’t seem to think of anything but it’s there and it’s been a continual anguish. Now, Paul finished His course, he was positive that it was all over and the reward was there. Ok now, does he go through this time of Jacobs’s trouble, page 6 something in Great Controversy says, they will go through the time of Jacob’s trouble. Now does Paul have to come up to go through this time of Jacob’s trouble and all this type of thing? On the other hand, this I don’t really feel is very strong in my mind. I can see possibly that these men could be resurrected, because if you read again at the time of Christ’s first resurrection she says in Desire of Ages that Christ was the first fruit. He came up from the grave first, although when the angel first came down at the time of his crucifixion there was an earthquake, the graves were open but nobody came out from the graves until Christ arose Sunday morning and it says, He was the first fruit and they were also part of this first fruit and then it was for forty days that they lived in this body that they were given and they went into the city and testified before many. Now, could it be possible that this time of trouble we don’t know, or at least I don’t know that we are told the period of time that this might involve? You know, how long will the plagues last? Are they going to be twenty days like Jacob’s trouble was mostly one night because he had just heard that Esau was coming and he wrestled all that night, he sent his group across and then he went back across the creek and he wrestled one night. Now if this is a short period of time do these people have to be born, I mean this is where I am not sure that I understand you. Are they born and as a seed grow up all the way through or can they be just raise like these small multitude came up with Christ and they were only in existence forty days? And they bore their testimony. These people could come up and live for forty days and bare their testimony that would be an evidence to the universe.

(Wilfred) I follow your question quite clearly. You would like a reaction?

(Larry Then I would like another.

(John) Let him deal with this one first. (Much laughter)

(Wilfred) We better take on at a time. Your first one was, Paul had finished his course and he had a victor’s crown there why does he have to come again?

I think you probably missed what we were driving at here a little bit. The fact that the investigative judgment is not a judgment that is needed for God’s purpose for Himself, He knows that Paul has finished His course and that he’s accepted, Paul knows it. But in all fairness to the charges against Christ about the people and also in fulfillment of two texts that I can think of just now.

1. That it is given unto men once to die and after this the judgment.

2. That they without us should not be made perfect.

Those have a bearing on it. But in all fairness, God has chosen to display the character that Paul developed before he finished his course before the universe in a situation where that character will reveal what it is capable of and all of the over-comers will be in similar situations so that the comparison is clear.

Now the purpose for Jesus’ coming was more than single fold but one of the purposes I read to you last week. 7BC 924.6. “He lived out the character of God through the human body which God had prepared for Him. He blessed the world by living out in human flesh the life of God, thus showing that He had the power to unite humanity to divinity.” .... She’s got several things in that statement. But the fact that He lived out the character of God through the human body which God had prepared for Him that is the significant point. He came to prove what God’s character was like and what it could do in humanity with human degeneration notwithstanding. Understand?

Now as the character of God was put on display through Jesus in His incarnation and generation. Similarly, the character of Paul will come through but Paul himself has finished his course, he is asleep. It is a body that is being prepared for him. The memory of his former existence has not returned and will not return until the special resurrection just before Jesus comes. In it’s fullness at least. In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, suddenly he will be raised from the dead and he will be Paul. But listen; get the rest of the picture. Paul will be perfectly oriented in the present environment when he is raised from the dead. He can communicate with all the people around him.

(Larry) When you get down I want to interrupt at that point.

(Wilfred) All right. (Laughter). He will have the true gift of speaking in tongues because he will remember his former life. Even as I wake up tomorrow and I’ll remember today but I’ll also remember yesterday and I can remember way back to where I was five years old or something and all of those memories of my former existence is down through these years blend into one unit I am one person. Similarly, as Paul is coming into consciousness now, he is not coming into the consciousness of his former existence he is still asleep and his judgment in the heavenly sanctuary, the books of record are being cleared without Paul’s conscious presence, but they are being demonstrated in human bodies here on Earth that are actually living even as the character of God was being demonstrated through Jesus here on Earth. Do you follow?

Now, Christ and Jesus was the same person to what extent identity exist there I can’t tell you. To what extent the Holy Spirit and Christ are identical I can’t you. To what extent Paul and the body that is being prepared him in his resurrection are identical I can’t tell you. But there is no problem there because the Bible clearly indicates that God can take human flesh and change it in a twinkling of an eye. There is only one evidence that God ever created human flesh out of the dust of the ground directly, only one, Adam and it took Him a day, presumably, someone said He spoke and it was done. Then He must have rested twenty fifty-nine seconds of the first day and the Sabbath would sort of lose its significance.

(Larry) But after Adam was created then God put him to sleep and He still made Eve.....

(Wilfred) Out of something that was already living.

(Larry) That’s correct. But you see, after Adam was created he also named all the animals and all the rest of that thing, that might have taken a few moments, huh?

(Wilfred) Might have. I don’ know.

(Larry) Because you have to have the whole animal kingdom and what all else, bird kingdom possibly, parade before you, that would take a little while. And Adam having gone through all of that found no helpmate.

(Wilfred) That’s right.

(Larry) So when you have all that paraded, the whole animal kingdom and the bird kingdom and whatever else, you’ve got time going there.

(Wilfred) Well, I don’t get your point there though.

(Larry) Let’s come back to this other one. My question was, this one point may not be, Do I understand you to say that you feel that Paul has to be brought forth as a seed and as a seed grows so this body unidentified as Paul gradually assumes the personality, role, and character of Paul ....

(Wilfred) Right.

(Same man) .... Has to be formed of a woman and grow and all these other hundred and forty four thousand, or part of them because there’s going to be some, you know, living. You and I possibly, well, maybe the hundred and forty four thousand have to be born and brought of women and come all the way up through this unknown quantity, what about the personality they develop or are they not personalities or did they just gradually assume the personality of Paul. That’s the part that’s going to...

(Wilfred) I cannot give you those details, I don’t understand those details.

(Larry) In other words are these people perfect from the time of their conception onwards like Christ....

(Wilfred) NO, oh no! That’s the demonstration that nobody, nobody can live a perfect life, except through the Spirit of God. And it is not until the latter rain comes on all of these people after their judgment is completed.

(Larry) Well what happens to that person, you know, like I say, could I become Paul suddenly? I mean I was born of a women, my mother, I was given a name and there is a birth certificate and I’ve got a passport and all this kind of business and suddenly I lose my identity....

(Wilfred) No. You don’t

(Larry) I go on through. But there is going to be some unknown quantities there that have to be able to become personalities. That’s what I don’t understand.

(Wilfred) God doesn’t make any mistakes. Moses was Moses from the time he born.

(Larry) That’s why I am having difficulty with what I have understood you to say.

(Wilfred) The fact is that you don’t know of any former existence in your life except the one you are in now so you are asleep so far as any former existence is concerned if you had one. But, if God returned to you, through the agency of the Holy Spirit, if He brought back to you the pattern of your former memories so that they blended in with the memories that you now that is a far more logical reproduction of a human being and follows the pattern that took place with Jesus. He was the first-fruits of the resurrection and we follow after then the one in which something out of the elements there in the ground six feet below that aren’t even there anymore from the person who died there, their all disintegrated and God went down six feet in the ground and suddenly created thousands of people down in the ground there, just pronto, just like that and got an earthquake going and broke open the earth on all those thousands of graves at one time and they all came out with their ancient clothes and their beards and their old language completely disoriented in the present environment, that is no logical, nearly as logical in my thinking, then is the type of resurrection through which Jesus came.

Now do you say, Do they have to come this way? No, I don’t suppose they have to come this way. I am simply following what the Bible says. The Bible said that Jesus is going to come again and I believe that. The Bible says that if we eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of God we will have eternal life, and I believe that. The Bible says, unless you are born again you can see the kingdom of God and I believe that. Now, you say that means just this and nothing more and I go back to this statement, now if you say it means just this and nothing more you are cutting across the Spirit of God according to this statement. There is more to that then Jesus said to Nicodemus because Nicodemus couldn’t grasp this yet. It was a long time in the future, Jesus said look Nicodemus you’ve got to be born of the Spirit too and He explained what that meant, more or less. But all the words of Jesus, said Sister White had a deeper meaning. And she says in another place that if you take the Bible just as it reads then you’re going to -- how did she put it? I have forgotten the precise statement but I have it. But there is a merit in taking the Bible just as it reads. But you take all the pieces and don’t build a theory on one text, you take all the pieces and what I am showing you and I am telling you frankly brother, I didn’t figure this out this was given to me either from God or the devil and I have spent thirty years checking the book to see if it fits or doesn’t fit. And I am thankful to get your objections because....

(Larry) It’s not really an objection. I’m not fully sure that I follow you. Because you read that statement over there the one that I have in mind is, the risen saints came forth glorified, they were chosen and holy ones of every age from creation.

(Wilfred) I’m not talking about this,

(Larry) Even to the time of Christ, you see, now therefore there must have been somebody old with a beard and an old robe coming from time of creation and he suddenly appears at the time of Christ and he goes into the holy city of Jerusalem and he is there for forty days bearing his witness how does he know how to speak Jewish or whatever else?

(Wilfred) Well brother I’m not talking about these.

(Larry) Well He was able to do it so he was able to communicate because it says, He bore his witness.

(Wilfred) I understand what you are saying. I am not talking about these.

(Larry) Yah, I recognize. But you see it has been done this way.

(Wilfred) Can you prove that?

(Larry) Well, do you agree with Early Writings, that page where..?

(Wilfred) Yes, I agree with what that says.

(Larry) Well, that’s what I have taken for my basis for my thesis.

(Wilfred) It does not say how they came forth.

(Larry) No, it just says that they rose at the time when Christ came up.

(Wilfred) Right. It does not say how they came and there was nothing in those graves. If they came from two thousand years before, there is nothing in those graves. How did they come out? That’s not explained....

(Larry) God gave them a body.

(Wilfred) That’s right. How did he get a body?

(Larry) I would except that idea of this situation here, a little bit easier in my mind it would be more plausible than the one you’re suggesting at the moment. I’m not suggesting that I can....

(Wilfred) I not suggesting any of these.

(Larry) Well, I recognize this but your suggesting this other type of a process for the hundred and forty four thousand.

(Wilfred) Right.

(Larry) And that’s what I am trying to correlate in my mind.

(John) I think there would be a similarity here to what Brother Johnson is saying that is going to happen now.

(Wilfred) There may be.

(Larry) Could be. Now that’s what, I seem to be missing a link here somewhere.

(John) I think the problem is this. We use the term “The grave” and we always think of a hole in the ground but really the grave is the place where the memory is perished, the Spirit is gone back to God who gave it. The majority of people I suppose have been eaten by maggots.

(Same man) Well, could be because it has been pointed out that these people who were raised at this time, many of them, if I am not mistaken all of them were martyrs.

(John) I think many of them were.

(Same man) I think she says somewhere there they were all martyrs or something to that effect. Now, you know a martyr in body in not usually very carefully entombed in an expensive casket, it’s often dumped wherever it’s convenient to drop off the refuse.

(Wilfred) The fact is there is nothing there to start with except the dust of the ground. And you are assuming that God created bodies somewhere in the ground or somewhere near the ground just spontaneously the same way He did Adam, He made a lot of them all at once instead of just one. That’s what you are assuming.

(Larry) This is right, and if He had done this once why might this not be repeated.

(Wilfred) Well, we don’t know for sure that He’s done it.

(John) We don’t know if that’s the way He did it.

(Larry) Well, they were there.

(Wilfred) I know they were. But you are assuming that is how God did it where as it doesn’t say that.

(Larry) Well, they came up from the graves, that’s what it says.

(Wilfred) Well brother, some of them weren’t in the grave, you see. Some of them weren’t even the grave, they were eaten by lions, they were not buried,

(Same man) Well then the statement there has to be taken rather broadly.

(Wilfred) Right.

(Larry) But they came forth rather momentarily at the time of Christ.

(John) One place the Bible speaks of the grave as being the land of forgetfulness. I think that’s in the Psalms.

(Same man) When the earth gave back it says the graves were opened. Now, is this the opening of the mind of forgetfulness and coming back to reality? I take a grave opening, when a great earthquake happens as something that ruptures and possibly even the ground or something happens this is what I would literally interpret, it could be anything but bodies were prepared. How I am not sure and I am not contending it but it was momentarily they bore a testimony for forty days and then they were taken to heaven, now might this not all happen at the end? I mean; that’s the question I am posing.

(Wilfred) it might if it weren’t for some of the things the Bible talks about and the mysteries which you cannot explain. This key will dissolve those conundrums brought to you during two meetings. It explains so many things that are unexplainable in any other terms and it takes texts of the Bible that don’t make sense otherwise. it causes them to make sense.

(Larry) I guess I’ll put I back on the shelf. (Laughter)

(Wilfred) And furthermore, I am only talking about the resurrection of the hundred and forty four thousand they are the only ones I’m talking about. I don’t understand the general resurrection and I don’t understand this resurrection but I have some ideas as to what happened, but I am not prepared to share those, I am not commissioned to do that and I am not prepared to do it and the Lord has not forbidden us to think and study and to ponder. There is nothing wrong with that. But He doesn’t want us speculating and throwing out things that are purer imaginary and getting people all confused. If I had not brought from the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy at least plausible evidence that would incline toward what I have said then I have no business saying it. I am saying it because it was presented to me and answered all the questions that were in my mind that were hindering me from accepting the Lords program and it has never varied or changed for those thirty some years.

(Larry) If there is a hundred thousand people who would have to be born of a woman unidentified until they gradually develop their personalities of a pervious personality.....

(Wilfred) Until their character have been tested before the universe and have proved that they are over-comers and the Spirit is given to them and they are given the power to live without sin there’s the divinity and the humanity of Christ combined and the marriage union of the Lamb and they reflect the image of Jesus’ character perfectly, not in themselves but through the unity of divinity and humanity. And I have given all the proof of this over the past meeting that we have had it’s all on the tapes someplace.

(Larry) I have listen to four of them.

(Wilfred) Well, there is many more than that. There are about thirty some tapes all together on these subjects. More than that there must be close to fifty all totaled. But it’s someplace on the tapes and the restoration of the new body of Christ will be accomplish before the close of probation and that new temple will arrive according to the pattern of the first-fruits the first begotten they will sing the same song as Jesus sang, the song of Moses and the Lamb because of their experience. Moses’ experience of coming out of Egypt, which is a symbol of sin, deliverance, and going to the promised land and the song of the Lamb which is the song of His experience.

(Larry) She actually uses those very same words for the first-fruits in connection with these that were risen at that time.

(Wilfred) I cannot answer your question here. As I say, I have ideas about it but I am not prepared to share those ideas. I simply know that there is not positive proof here in this statement alone or in the statements I have been able to find on it as to how those bodies appear and what kind of bodies they were.

(A woman in the audience) Mr. Johnson, we then realize that these people who were raised at the time that Christ was were taken to heaven and they will not be in with the hundred and forty four thousand.

(Wilfred) Yes, if you can find a statement to that effect I would believe it.

(Same woman) Well, I haven’t found it I was just wondering if anybody found any light on it. And will they come back from heaven with to the Earth?

(Wilfred) I don’t know. But it does not say that they don’t. I mean you said that they wouldn’t.

(Same woman) Ok,

(Wilfred) There is one that is said to come back, to very last verse in the Old Testament.

(John) Behold I send Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord. And also it said of apostle John, Ye must prophesy again before many nations, kindred and tongues and peoples....

(Many voices at once)

(Same woman) Now just a minute, Elijah went to heaven and did not die and it is said. It is given man once to die and then the judgment.

(Wilfred) Right.

(Same woman) What? Did he have to die in heaven and then come back here?

(Wilfred) No.

(Same Woman) Well, what about Moses and Enoch?

(John) Moses didn’t.....

(Wilfred) That’s right.

Enoch is a type of God the Father, Moses is a type of Christ and Elijah is a type of the Holy Spirit. God the Father never dies. Christ the Son died and was raised again and so was Moses. The Holy Spirit never dies. Sister White said in Desire of Ages, he was never to come under the power of death.

(Same woman) Unintelligible

(Wilfred) Well, you can’t jump to conclusions unless you’ve got the evidence.

(Larry) They’ll have to come back down to Earth again live through the time of trouble and go through Jacob’s trouble.

(Same woman) Do they have to do that?

(Wilfred) Well, what makes you think that Elijah and Moses are among the hundred and forty four thousand?

(Same woman) ....... so I thought that Moses was to be there.

(Wilfred) You can come up with all sorts of ideas if you want to let your mind run away with you.

(John) Brother Johnson, one thing that does seem to me, and again this may be speculation, but it appears to me that these hundred and forty four thousand who are going to be the over-comers from all ages of both the Old Testament and New testament Church are going to be here not just to go through the seven last plagues, not just to go through the time of Jacob’s trouble, which is after the close of probation, they will be here prior to the close of probation because they are the ones that are going to be sealed and give the Loud Cry.

(Wilfred) Yes, that’s right.

(John) They’re the ones that are going receive the mark mentioned in Ezekiel nine, the seal of the living God and they all look forward, the one thing all these prophets of old look down through the ages these men of God and it says of the prophet, Sister White makes this statement that a prophet was a person who would rather die than to commit sin. I have that statement; I would have to find it. But she said that we have evidence that they look forward to Christ’s day. As they saw the day of God’s glory when the persecutions of the past, when celestial glory would be blended with the persecutions of the past during the Loud Cry they longed to be there, they prayed that they might be among that group.

(Wilfred) I think I can add a little light to this.

(Larry) In this case these people are already here.

(Wilfred) Yes,

(Larry) Because you see that if we believe that the Lord is coming very soon, and I do,

(Wilfred) You are right.

(Larry) I mean to get to the age of accountability by law you have to be eighteen years old, well they must already be around because, hopefully they are not just being born now because they would have to be another eighteen years before they could come to an age of accountability and then go beyond that....

(John) I believe the Seventh-Day Adventist Church was formed and the truth given the Seventh-Day Adventist Church was to raise up this group and then they give the Loud Cry, which goes to all the Churches....

(Larry) So they must be living now.

(Wilfred) Yes.

(John) And I believe they must be members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church because they are the ones who give the Loud Cry. Probation closes for Seventh-Day Adventists before it closes for the rest of the world. Sister White says that.

(Larry) That’s true, I agree with you. .... and after that is the Sunday law.

(John) Right. And that’s why she says; only those who have been diligent students of the Bible will go through the last great conflict. These ones that have been filling their minds with the ingredients the Holy Spirit can work on and they give the Loud Cry and they are in.

(Larry) Can you think of maybe, I don’t know, no need in putting numbers, numbers are irrelevant, but if it is proportional to anything, at the time of the flood they’re were several million people on the Earth we don’t know, I don’t know at least how many million were here and only eight people went into the Ark, If here is going to be a hundred and forty four thousand presumably there is going to be a hundred thousand people now that don’t know their own personality will become John, Paul,

This tape contains the over-flow of Study # 19

(John) The character of Jesus was not dependent on his former memory.

(Larry) But character is dependent on personality.

(John) That’s right.

(Larry) And personality has to be sort of related. Paul has to be Paul by character and because he was of this character he has a personality.

(John) Right. Which reacts.....

(Larry) As the character he developed many years ago will react under the present circumstance.

(John) Circumstances may change but principles don’t, so the principles that Paul exercised under different circumstance may show themselves in a different way here but those same principles are coming up...

(Larry) But you have to have calling.

(John) Right.

(Another woman in the audience) Why should Paul and the other apostles who went through so much to prove themselves, why should they have to prove themselves again?

(Wilfred) They don’t have .........

(John) This is a privilege not a ... This is the problem that we as Christians look upon the things that are the greatest blessing as curses when they are not.

(Wilfred) I can answer that question John.

The cleansing of the sanctuary does not take place until the Day of Atonement. The Day of Atonement did not start until 1844. The cleansing of the sanctuary takes place through the blood of Christ, the sprinkling of the blood. We have already discovered that that is the Holy Ghost and we realize how this is going to occur now because we know in the outpouring of latter rain the final cleansing and victory over sin will be accomplished. And the latter rain does not come until near the close of the Day of Atonement. Therefore, all of these people who are going to be cleansed and become members of the one hundred and forty four thousand to live without sin before the universe and without an intercessor will have to be here to go through the cleansing to attain to the fullness of the stature that will enable them to live without sin without an intercessor before the devil. They will all be assembled in the same group. The door to the Most Holy apartment did not open until 1844. So they without us, Paul says, will not be made perfect and Paul is going to be here along with them. They will all be in the same group and it is also the demonstration before the universe that God’s word was true. That is the best I can do. If you are disturbed over it and can’t see it put it on the shelf and forget it. I have delivered my message that God told me to deliver, I know that some will see it, this will be one of the hard points that will cause a separation among the association of God’s people, no question about it. But it has to be delivered because those who are going to go through the experience need to understand it and God says He will do nothing but what He first reveals it to His servants the prophets. And I have done my obligation and I trust that God’s Spirit will help those of you who are willing to see it and those who don’t want it put it aside but do try to fulfill the commission that Jesus gave before He left that you have love one to another.

Yes?

(A woman in the audience) Brother Johnson, the verse that was under discussion that Dr. Caney pointed out II Timothy 4, we didn’t read it all, we didn’t read the last part.

(Wilfred) Where was that text again? Oh,

(Woman) II Timothy 4:8 is the one we started out with but we didn’t read it all.

(Larry) Paul says there is a crown for him and not for him only but for all those who love His appearing.

(Wilfred) Well, we have interpreted that to mean his second coming in physical reality, which it could mean, I’m sure it does. But the Lord appears to his people before He appears in person at the second coming we have shown that, and the appearing will come through the coming of the Spirit, Christ’s Spirit to His temple to purify and cleanse them.

(Woman in the audience) Unintelligible

(Wilfred) Well, I think one of the biggest problems that you are going to have to face up to if you would relinquish this though is how can Paul be made perfect when he didn’t live in the day of atonement?

(Same woman) Well, apparently ..... although they obtained a good report through faith they received not the promise and it goes on the say that God had a better way that they without us should not be made perfect.

(Wilfred) That’s right, and he talks about a better promise in connection with the New Covenant and the New Covenant is not delivered in it’s fullness until the out pouring of the latter rain and I could prove that to you too. So that these people did not participate in the fullness of the provisions of the New Covenant because the Day of Atonement had not arrived and the application of the blood to the most holy apartment had not taken place. And therefore, they all come forward and receive their judgment and those whose characters indicate that they are over-comers will receive the sealing and those that don’t will go to their graves.

(John) May I bring in another thought that just occurred to me, it says that when Jesus came He came with four thousand years of degeneracy, you know, the degeneracy of the human race. But Sister White has pointed out that just before the second coming of Christ that the world will reach a lower abyss than even reached in His day. She also pointes out that the power of Satan to deceive is twenty times greater today than it was in the days of Christ. Therefore it would be very easy for Satan to say, Well now, Paul kept the faith at that time but if he were here now he couldn’t do it, And his contention has always been that man, that the human race cannot keep the law of God and that it was unfair of God to make that law in the first place.

(A man in the audience) Brother Johnson, Mrs. White aid that Christ could have come a long time ago.

(Wilfred) Right.

(Same man) Now in view of what we have been discussing what was the problem that stopped it?

(Wilfred) People.

(Same woman) Well if He could have come then were all those people the hundred and forty four thousand living in her day living again now?

(Wilfred) You’re asking the same question as, If God knew that Lucifer was going to sin, why did He create him? If God knew that Adam was going to fall and all of this was coming on the world and that He was going to have die to save the world why did He bother creating Adam? That’s really what you’re asking, a similar type of question. God knew how long it was going to take, I think He has a clock, I think He has a timetable. But the potential possibility was there that they could have done it. Only God knew that it wasn’t going to be done and He made his plan accordingly. After all he created us, He understands the principle of character and personality, and freedom of choice and the devil’s program and the whole bit. He is aware of what’s going to happen and at a certain time He is gong to step in and finish the work, He is going to do it. But He is not going to force the will, however He is going to force the situation He’s going to force a decision one way or the other.

(Larry) To produce the characters.

(Wilfred) To produce the characters, it will either go up or down. And my heart is burdened for you people, it really is because I can appreciate the problem that you have in facing some of the things we’ve talked about. I understand it and I have felt very reticent, John knows this. I have felt very reticent to bring out some of the things that I have brought out, but there is no way that we are ever going to understand want God is going to do, we are going to plunge into it, there is no way we are going to understand it unless we have these things. And we don’t really need to worry about them, let me put it this way, If it’s true it is going to happen and you’ll look back and say, There it is it was true and that in itself is going to do something for you that could not have been done in any other way. Jesus said, Lo, I have told you before that when it shall come to pass that you may believe. Secondly, if it doesn’t come to pass you’ll know I’m a misfit and you can function accordingly. I make an appeal to all the other things we have talked about, what is the message that is to come to God’s people before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord? Have we fulfilled it or have we not? It won’t be long before you’ll know, and I appreciate Brother Dean bringing these questions, I had them years ago, the very same things I mean I could just about given them word for word as he dictated them. I have thought of all these things I have thought a lot about them and I’ve prayed about them, I simply asked the Lord if there is something you want me understand about that I am willing to listen to you, if not I am willing to let it sit. And that’s been my attitude. And if any of you can bring to me evidences that hold water, and I’ll try to be as open minded as I can, I will acknowledge that it’s true if it holds water. If it doesn’t hold water or it doesn’t solve a problem there’s no sweat because what purpose is it? Now as I have pointed out I haven’t done a very good job, one of these days if the Lord gives me the strength and the time to do it I’m going to put it on paper as carefully as I can possibly put it together, and it can be studied with a fine tooth comb. If it doesn’t hold water, if it doesn’t prove to be true, oh well, that’s it. But if it doesn’t prove to be true let me point out to you something. There are perhaps a dozen contradictions in the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy that can be used to accuse God of not telling the truth. I can show them to you. I have shown you quite a few. But with this particular key, if you apply that key to the resurrection of the hundred and forty four thousand those contradictions are dissolved. New ones arise as Brother Dean has brought out. I don’t understand that one, I have an idea on that but I can’t prove it, so I’m not going to give it. I don’t understand the general resurrection but I have ideas but I can’t prove it. And if it were important for me to know then the Lord would have given it to me. If it is important for you to know He’ll give it to you and I don’t worry about it. But I am concerned about the hundred and forty four thousand because they are living today.

(The end of C/D #56 and the beginning of C/D #57)

(Continued)

And God has a special message for them today and He has given me a part of it. He has given it to me a long time ago, He explained it to me, showed me what I was to do with it and I waited until the Lord got thorough putting me through the mill and got His people ready for it and when He said go ahead I went ahead and this is the result. And there are others who are getting other areas of truth and they are speaking. The Lord has definitely taken the work in His own hands. The Seven-day Adventist Church is no longer run 100% by the General Conference. God’s people are functioning under the unction of His Spirit and that’s exactly what the prophecy said was going to happen.

(John) And it will increase.

(Wilfred) And it will increase and you’ll see it and the work will be finished. And I am sorry for anything I’ve said that is not correct, I am not infallible, and God permits His people to make mistakes, He does that, Sister White made mistakes, William Miller made mistakes, Moses made mistakes and you will make some and these mistakes are probably one means God uses to keep us humble, to keep us dependent. And if I have made some, I am not aware of any major mistakes that I have made. I am aware of things that are put on the tapes that I said something that I didn’t really mean in that particular way or could be misunderstood or I used the wrong word or I said something that I thought I said differently and I didn’t intend it that way but there are mistakes on the tapes. But I didn’t the best I could and sometimes we do use a word that we didn’t realize we used that word when we intended to use a different one, at least I do. Usually the mistakes are quite obvious you can tell that it’s a mistake and you know that I didn’t intend it that way but there may be times when it isn’t and I hope in no way will you become mislead by anything I have said. I hope that you will stay by the word, stay by the Spirit of Prophecy. Get into it and fill your mind with it and if you come across something that contradicts what we have said or that adds something to it we sure appreciate you sharing it. But I am not going to have time now to carry on any further meetings, this will be the last one in this group. And if we have any more, I cannot be sure. I’ll do want ever the Lord wants me to do. If He opens the way for further discussion and things I am perfectly wiling to participate or if He invites somebody else to do it I am perfectly willing to listen.

(A woman in the audience) Brother Johnson, your theology seems to tie in with some other .... the restoration of the twelve tribes .... some, especially the Baptists believe that the Jews are to be restored or if they should hear something like this and see....

(John) Yes there is a counterfeit. The counterfeit so closely resembles true...

(Larry) There has to be an element of truth in it to be a counterfeit.

(John) Yes. And if you go back through all the Old Testament, back in the Old Testament this regeneration is everywhere where is says, I’ll gather Israel the second time. There are so many prophecies in the Old Testament that how could they be possibly be true and I think there is an element of truth in this, these over-comers that lived after the Jews existed as a nation, who will come up in the last days? God says He is going to gather them.

(Same woman) Or maybe some of these people will accept this because it ties in with their way of thinking.

(John) I think that the devil has, maybe some of them will but it appears to me that if the devil brings a counterfeit in it does a work that makes it must harder for a person to accept it. I don’t believe and I would like to ask you this Brother Johnson, It appears to me that the messages that you have brought to us is not the Loud Cry message but is a message to prepare a people to give the Loud Cry which goes to all the world for a witness and that Loud Cry is the cast of the Sabbath the test of the Commandments and that this message relating it to Ezekiel chapter 9 where the man with the writers inkhorn goes through the midst of Jerusalem. This message that we have been hearing from Brother Johnson is a message to people who have a foundation in the Sprit of Prophecy and the Bible and that they are going to, what does it mean when it says, we are not to get into a discussion as to who is to compose the hundred and forty four thousand, is Gene Woods going to be one, or Dr. Dean, or am I, or you, we are not to speculate as to who is. She said, those who are the elect of God will know in a short time without question. Now, the only way that I can see that they are going to know it is that the Holy Spirit is going to show that to them. But back to my question Brother Johnson, Do you feel that the message that you have brought is .... this isn’t the Loud Cry that’s going to all the world is it? This is the message which will help to form the hundred and forty four thousand who will give the Loud Cry, is that correct?

(Wilfred) It is to prepare a people for the coming of the messenger of the Covenant to His temple. And it’s the messenger of the Covenant come to His temple to purify and cleanse them that will prepare the people to glorify His character before the world. But the messenger of the Covenant coming suddenly to His temple is going to be a terrific experience and when it hits those who are not prepared are going to be thrown completely off their feet. I have been trying to emphasize that, I have encouraged you to do what the Bible tells us to do and if you follow the instruction and the council, if you follow the conditions you’ll make it, if you don’t you won’t.

(John) Will it be during that time that the prophecy of Ellen White will be fulfilled when she says the majority will forsake us?

(Wilfred) I think that is a broader one that will take place right on through down the end of probation. But during this shaking time and this sealing time and there will be bitter animosity come in among God’s people. Jesus said He didn’t come to bring peace but a sword and I have shown you how the sword of the Lord is going to come upon His people to try them and the bitterest persecution and opposition to the message of the Lord is going to come from your own brethren before it comes from the outside. And this is what you have to be prepared for, it’s going to cut right to the core you will really be tested as to whether you want to stay with the Lord or not. Are you a member of the Church as a sort of security measure that you but your faith in the denomination that this is going to bring you through? It never will. Stay by the ship but don’t depend on the ship. It’s the truth that is going to bring you through and you attitude towards it as it tests you. If your heart is opened to the influence of the Spirit you’ll see the truth and you’ll make it through. You don’t have to go through as one of the hundred and forty four thousand it’s your choice it’s an invitation. She says that we should strive to be among the hundred and forty four thousand but that is not for our own sake it is because God needs us. Jesus cannot be exonerated from the charges against Him until He has a hundred and forty four thousand people who will demonstrate that He is innocent. That’s what He waiting for.

(A woman in the audience) Brother Johnson, the hundred and forty four thousand are predestined according to Building Your Faith.

(Wilfred) Very definitely.

(Same woman) So what’s the sense in striving if you’re not, you know.......?

Much laughter

(John) That’s fatalism.

(Wilfred) We’re right back to this investigation judgment again. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. But you are demonstrating you character before the universe and I’ll tell you frankly, but if you are one of the hundred and forty four thousand you are going to be one of the hundred and forty four thousand and you are going to make the choices....

(Same woman. Why should I strive because if I am one of the hundred and forty four thousand I am and I’ll go through on the other hand, if I am not I will die and be put into my grave.

(Wilfred) But you don’t know that yet. You are still in absentia your judgment is gong on while you are still asleep.

(John) Brother could I, there is a statement in the Spirit of Prophecy that says, many of those even of whom are called will desert the truth. Now the Lord called two people before Ellen White to fulfill the commission that she accepted and they refused. The Bible and Revelation, I forget where the text is says something about being faithful that no man take that crown. And I think that still if that character is not proven through you because you use your power of choice to go against it God will raise someone else up so I think that we still have the power of choice, I don’t know.

(Same woman) Yes, but you see if that body is prepared, if for instance I’m somebody back there, you know, or one of us are, that person is going to go through regardless, if they say they are not or what. We’re going to go through.

(Wilfred) How about Jesus?

(John) He could have failed.

(Same woman) Well, He could have failed but He wouldn’t He just naturally wouldn’t.

(Wilfred) So can you but you won’t if you are one of the hundred and forty four thousand because you are, you see, the Lord is purposely keeping you ignorant He is purposely going through this judgment in absentia. The books are being opened without you being aware of what’s going on. You are only aware now as I am telling you if you believe it, if you don’t believe it you are not aware of it anyway.

But here is what’s happening; He has angels about and the devil has angels about and maybe He’s there in person it depends on how important you are. And the Lord is purposely withdrawing his protecting from you and letting the devil at you at times to prove what kind of reaction your character will produce and your character is being reproduced through outside agencies, you are not your own, you are under the control of influences other than yourself. You are predestined so to speak. But you character, this is the thing that you built, is the element that determines how you react to these various situations that you put into. Your character is being tested, it’s being proved and the Lord knows what the outcome is but He wants to prove it to the universe that He has not made a mistake putting you into the temple on Mount Zion. Nobody is going to question the Lords judgment when it is all finished. Your proof is being established now and you are going to have the chance of going through all the records during the thousand years of those whose judgment you had no observation of. To find out whether the Lord made a mistake on those or not and you are going to be perfectly satisfied that He did not make a mistake. He is testing me and how I react and I‘m a victim of my character. Sure, I can make choices of my own, but I can’t, ask some of these people who have tried to get over certain sins, just ask them. They think they can do it and they try and they try and they go crazy trying. It’s only when the Lord permits protection or no protection and so on to vacillate that you have these vacillations in your experience. But the thing that is being tested is, how is your faith? When the Lord permits you to flunk like Peter did, what is your reaction? How is your faith? He said, He prayed that his faith wouldn’t fail. Now that’s the key. If you have built a character that has perfect confidence in God and your allegiance is on His side the reactions that you display before the universe will vindicate God in choosing you to be one of the hundred and forty four thousand. And He will prove it by pouring His Spirit upon you to provide you with the power to live without sin in spite of the devil, and He will do the same with everybody else.

(Same woman) I think when Sister White says to strive to be one of the one hundred and forty four thousand she is also saying to strive to vindicate God’s character.

(Wilfred) That’s exactly right.

(Same woman) Even if you are not one of the one hundred and forty four thousand.

(Wilfred) That’s right. You should strive to do it regardless of whether.... and you won’t know whether you are one of the hundred and forty four thousand or not until you are sealed.

(Same woman) And you shouldn’t be worried about that at all, well, if you are going to strive you are going to be worried about it though.

(Wilfred) Why should you be worried about it?

Many voices at the same time.

(John) I think what God is saying is build spiritual muscle, learn these principles, fill your mind with the Spirit of God and submit your will to the Lord.

(Wilfred) Now there’s another aspect that I didn’t mention at all, if I mention too many things I am liable to bring in confusion but if I don’t mention enough I am still bringing in confusion, so how will I do it? Christ had two characters, He was endowed with his divine character, his divine nature and it was that divine nature that enabled Him in his humanity to build a human character without fault. Now, you are in the same boat. You have a character that is being tested from a previous build up under your original heritage from wherever you where. Ok, you built that character which is now being tested in this body it is building a character in your present humanity through the choices that you decide and if that character measures up to the level that He is willing to accept for His hundred and forty four thousand people then he will provide the spirit for you which will enable you to reproduce the character of Christ. Now, this character that you are building now by you decisions is determined by the character that you are endowed with, you are predestined but it is proven by the development of that present character, what’s your life, and whether you can make it or not.

(Another woman) ...I won’t have a perfect character until after the latter rain falls then?

(Wilfred) You won’t have a character that reflects the image of Christ perfectly until you receive the latter rain. That’s right.

(Same woman) Will we have two characters or will these characters blend?

(Wilfred) The human character will blend with the divine.

(Same woman) No, I mean the character of the person.....

(Wilfred) They will blend like the two eyes in your head. The two images will fuse together.

(Same woman) And the person who was before won’t be any more....

(Wilfred) They are the same person, they aren’t two people, they are the same person.

(Same woman) ... the Paul that was known back then...

(Wilfred) Paul 1 and Paul 2 huh?

(Same woman) Yes, and Paul 1 is no longer, the body is gone and it will never be......

(She is interrupted by several voices)

(Same woman) he is, he is, I know what I trying to say but it’s not coming out right.

(Another man) I think what you are trying to say is that if I am Jonah, well; if I am in heaven somebody will say, Hello Jonah and somebody will say, No that’s Gustis. (Much laughter) how does that work?

(John) Well what does it mean when Christ..... It says in the Bible, it says of the over-comers that I will give thee a new name that no man knows except he that receives it.

(Wilfred) That has a significance too.

But listen, what is the problem? Was Jesus Christ or was He not? Who was this boy who was born in Bethlehem. The Jews said He wasn’t Christ they didn’t believe it. They rejected Him. He was the son of Joseph, but He wasn’t even that He was the son of Mary, that’s true that’s what He was. Do you believe that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh? That it is in fact the actual Christ that lived in heaven, the Son of God? Do you believe that that little boy in Nazareth was Christ? Do you believe that? The Bible says that if you believe that then you are a member of the family of God. Now, it’s the same thing here, do you believe that God can raise a body today as He raised a body for Christ in Jesus’ day? Do you believe He can do that? If He did it for Jesus and He is the first born of the new race of God-Men, union of divinity and humanity. He’s going to do it for a hundred and forty four thousand others to complete the body. Can’t you see that?

(Same woman) How could they look alike with the genes all mixed up?

(Wilfred) Why not? Can’t God control that? If He could make a body below the ground pronto, just like that, (snapping his fingers) and bring it out all exactly as it was before, don’t you think He can control the genes?

(Same woman) Well, I look a little like my mother and a little like my father but they didn’t say if I was somebody else......

(Wilfred) Well, why should they?

(Same woman) How could a person....?

(Wilfred) I think we’re bringing in a lot of irrelative things. You’re getting wrapped up in some of these fantasy things that really don’t concern the real issue. The real issue is that there are people today who claim to have lived before and the devil is doing it. But God is going to bring forth a people who are going to remember that they lived before and they are genuine and that’s the issue. And it’s going to happen to some of you people. And when it happens if you don’t understand what I am talking about you are going to think you are going crazy and so is everybody else. Didn’t they call Christ crazy? A blasphemer? They asked Him, Who are you? And He said, I am the Son of God. Somebody is going to ask; who are you? You’re going to say I am Peter. I stood there on the steps of the castle there and I gave that sermon that day. They’ll say, you’re crazy brother because here is another fellow over here who had another thing, he was Napoleon or somebody and he is in the asylum up at Ponoca and that’s where you should be. Now that’s what’s going to said about you. I am trying to give you truth so that you can face the issue. What are you going to do when it happens to you?

(John) This experience of the former memory does not come until just prior to the coming of Christ.

(Wilfred) No! But there will many things that will come to your mind that will be a reproduction of your former experience and you’ll wonder where you got it from. Where do you think I got some of the things I’m telling you? I sure didn’t figure them out.

(A woman in the audience) ......won’t necessarily have be a hundred years old then.

(Wilfred) No!

(Same woman) He won’t look and dress like an old person.

(Wilfred) He will be perfectly oriented to the present day society and nobody will know who he is except himself because nobody can counterfeit the memory of somebody else. But when Peter talks to Paul and talks to him in his own language and talks about

(The original tape was turned over at this point)

(Same woman) But we are supposed to be able to recognize one another...

(Wilfred) You won’t have to worry about that. The Lord will take care of your recognition, what you need to worry about is, am I right with God? Am I going to stand through the devil’s deceptions? He is going to throw them at you full blast. Someday you may wake up and you have an experience where you see yourself as having lived back in Ireland someplace and you get up and dance an Irish jig like Ruth Simmons did in Bridey Murphy you know. She never had been in Ireland in all her life and never dance an Irish jig and there she was doing it. Now if that happens to you what are you going to think?

(Same woman) May I tell you something Brother Johnson? I work down at the ......... on the alcohol unit and you’ve met this young chap, he has been coming to church. Well, he came up to me and I had never seen him before in my live and he said, You’re a Seventh-day Adventist and I said, Yes I am, how did you know? He said, I know. He said, can I come to church? Yes, I said to him, you can come to church if you want to. Now three times I almost got fired because I have been talking to these people, but he’s discharged and he’s still here. And he is a deep thinker and he believes a lot of things that you’re preaching and he doesn’t know anything about our message.

(Wilfred) My personal reaction is that it is the devils counterfeit. The people of God are going to be sealed, where are they? In the midst of Jerusalem. Now I give you my personal opinion, but I’ll tell you one thing, if it’s God that’s working through this boy he’s going to be keeping the Commandments of God in no time flat, and if he doesn’t, he is not God’s, that’s the test.

(Same woman) In which way do you mean? You mean by the Sabbath or......

(Wilfred) All of them.

(Same woman) Right now he’s preparing to be baptized.....

(Wilfred) Good. Very good. It could still be the devil and the Lords taking hold of him. You just can’t tell. You just have to bide your time.

(Same woman) That would be a terrible experience. How would he know if it was the devil ...?

(Wilfred) He probably wouldn’t know. If down in his heart he is genuinely interested in seeking God and following God’s program and becoming a member of His kingdom God’s not going to let him go. God will bring him in. And we don’t know either so we have to treat them all with respect. We have to give them the message, be patient and tolerant with them but as soon as some of these signs of the devil show up we better get on our knees and get on there fast.

(Same woman) ..........if we are deceived it is not our fault.

(Wilfred) No it’s not. And you will not be deceived, except temporally perhaps. Because the promise is that not one watching praying trusting soul will be deceived. However, you may get caught by the devil like Peter did, temporally, to learn a lesson. Maybe God wants you to have an experience so that you will understand first hand what that’s all about so that you can testify to that later, that can happen. But never lose faith no matter what happens, don’t lose your faith in God, hang on, just hang on and you’ll get through.

(A woman in the audience) I was going to ask you why does the Lord, like you were saying; the Lord is going to let temptations come to us, for instance .... you might have memory of being somebody back there in Holland or something, I mean how would that happen?

(Wilfred) The devil is trying to get people mixed up and lose confidence in God, get them all confused. That is why it is called Babylon, it’s confusion.

(Same woman) How can you tell the difference between if you’re a person back there or a person that was, you know, with a memory that the devil would give you or what God would give you?

(Wilfred) God isn’t going to permit anything happen to you that He hasn’t taken care of if you are one of His children and are trusting Him. And if it happens to you He’ll see to it that you get through it.

(Same woman) I don’t know whether we missed ........ or what but you said something about if you wake up and you are ....... and you’re dancing a jig will the hundred and forty four thousand have experiences that are revealed.....

(Wilfred) I don’t think I made myself plain. I meant that if that happens to you it’s the devil doing it because God doesn’t function that way. But what I mean is, what would you do about it?

(A woman in the audience) Unintelligible

(Wilfred) Would you get swallowed up by it and think that this is an experience that God was giving you? Or would you recognize that it is the devil that did it?

(A woman in the audience) Unintelligible

(Wilfred) Well God doesn’t act this way. God is going to give you revelation of truth and understanding through the still small voice of the Spirit. You’ll get it out of the books, as you read the book you’ll understand what that means because you’ll compare it with other things and the Spirit will bring those things to your remembrance and text after text will come to your mind and they’ll fit together and you’ll say, Oh, I never saw that before, there it is right before your sees as plan as day. You see, that’s God method of doing it. Now I don’t doubt that there will be some people who will have direct visions, but there again, you’re going to have to test those things because the devil is giving visions to all sorts of people today.

(Same woman) Is it possible that the hundred and forty four thousand will have counterfeit experiences?

(Wilfred) It’s possible, during their training. I mean, during their testing period, yes. But not when they are sealed. After they are sealed I don’t think there will be any of that stuff in their lives at all.

(Same woman) Like the devil wouldn’t try to throw in an artificial memory.........

(Wilfred) Well, he might try to do all kinds of things but he won’t be able to succeed because he will have no response and he will finally leave you alone.

(John) Well, the statement that says, those who are the elected of God will know in a short time without question. Seems to indicate that they are sealed and sealed into a knowledge of truth and their acceptance with God and their mission. And they can’t be moved from that.

(Wilfred) No.

(Same woman) But that is after the sealing takes place.

(Wilfred) Yes. The sealing is a settling into the truth.

(A woman) Is that taking place right now, Mr. Johnson?

(Wilfred) Yes.

(A woman) Well, how long does that sealing last?

(Wilfred) I don’t know.

(Another woman) Brother Johnson, you said that shortly we would know whether this is the truth or not. I am inclined to think it is. What were you referring too?

(Wilfred) By knowing.

(Same woman) By knowing shortly whether it is the truth or not?

(Wilfred) Because of the things I have told you will come to pass.

(Same woman) You were saying that the sword of the Lord is .........

(Wilfred) Yes I told you that too and there is not much doubt about that. Some of the things that we have been saying constitute that sword. But there are things that other people are saying a bringing to the attention of people of our church in various groups and segments, this isn’t the only group that is meeting in our church, don’t fool yourself. There are many other groups independent entirely of us, not even knowing that we exist who are studying things similar to what we are studying. But I don’t believe any of them have talked about some of the things we have talked about. In fact I know that because of the nature of the things and the nature of the work that the Lord gave me to do and what He showed me, this can’t be so. But that there are groups talking about many of the things that we have talked about.

(Same woman) So, the sword of Lord has been given and does not new anything else that comes?

(Wilfred) No, No, No. The sword of the Lord is the word of God and it just doesn’t come and that’s it. It is a progressive thing, it’s His word, it is unfolding truth.

(Same woman) Yah, I realize that but the sword of the Lord is going to come for a certain time.

(Wilfred) Yes.

(Another man) That time is not necessarily over.

(Wilfred) No, no, it has begun but it is not over.

(Same woman) In fact the hundred and forty four thousand, some of these will bring out new truth that will also cause dissension in the church it isn’t just the original message it will keep unfolding bringing more trouble down upon their heads.

(Wilfred) Sure thing. That’s right.

(John) During this time isn’t the devil going to bring in things that splinter off these truths that are going to be heresies on every side?

(Wilfred) Yes. He’ll make all kinds of monkey business out it so that you’ll be ashamed to even admit that you believe in some of these things we talked about.

(Same woman) Are those the abominations done in some of the.....?

(Wilfred) Some of them. Some of them.

(Same woman) The Mormons believe that they all existed before.

(Wilfred) The devils counterfeit.

(Same woman) They believe that they lived in heaven and that they were the two thirds who were faithful and they came and taught our family these things when I was young, anyway I asked my mother, we were Anglicans then, why they had to come down here if they all were approved and faithful? She said to gain a body; this is what she told me.

(Wilfred) Yes, it’s the devil’s counterfeit.

(John) I would like to ask a question and I don’t know if I have the right to ask it, but when do we have the privilege of actually beginning to share with other people these things that we see, not just because we’ve heard them from you but because we’ve looked in the books and we see them.

(Wilfred) I cannot give you the timing at the present moment because I do not have it. But certainly I know that God will definitely make it clear.

(John) I think what I was asking is, is your council to us to treasure these things in our hearts at the present time.

(Wilfred) That’s what it is. But I realize that some of us are going to spill it somewhere. Because I understand how human nature is and as soon as it is spilled then somebody is in trouble. And Jesus appealed to His disciples to be discrete with some of the things He told them but they didn’t always do it and it caused Him trouble and it made His work more difficult. But I am willing to accept whatever plan the Lord has. I have tried to follow His instruction as best I could I think I told you people, I’ll tell you again that He showed to me more than thirty years ago in response to my prayer of a short time prior to that that if He would just make His book plain to me I would do anything He asked me to do. He made His book plain to me, in a few weeks He solved the majority of the problems that were in the book that I couldn’t seem to understand that kept me from being a full-fledged Adventist. Within a few weeks He did that, there was no question about it, when I began to express some of these things I was cautioned that the devil was working in my experience and that I’d better leave all that stuff alone and to just clear out of it. If I had done that I would have been right back to where I was with no better foundation than I had before. I asked the questions of these good brethren who counseled me and they could not give me the answers. They just had no answers to explain the thing with and God had given them to me, at least I believed it was God who had given them to me. And when I discovered in the Spirit of Prophecy that I could talk to God without the devil knowing what I was saying, I did that. I prayed without saying a word to anybody or giving anybody a hint as to what I was talking to God about. And God responded on two occasions, definitely, so definitely that I had no question whatsoever that He heard me and He responded and I knew that it could not be the devil unless Mrs. White was a false prophet. And I accepted the fact that Mrs. White was a true prophet. Since that day He has continued to expand that book and there has scarcely been a week gone by but what I haven’t seen something more and it has all continued to build and build and dovetailed and continues to verify what has gone before to the point where I am completely settled into my own thinking regardless of what anybody calls me or thinks and whatever cruelty they can strike at me from the closest friend to the bitterest enemy it will not change my impression of the truth, it can’t, because it is so clear and positive that there is no way that it could be gainsaid in my thinking. God has made it very clear to me, I just cannot offend Him by saying I can’t believe it. He has permitted me to go through a number of experiences demonstrating my stupidity and my stubborn nature and what have you and I have been humiliated on a number of occasions and I thank Him for it. We all need these experiences. But those who want to criticize of course capitalize on these things and that’s natural, you can expect that and believe you me if you take up the challenge and tell the Lord that you’re willing to champion His truth and His cause your mistakes are going to be really made hay of, you can be sure of that. Your shortcomings are going to be magnified galore, what kind of a person is that anyway? I have nothing to stand on except confidence in God, that’s all, but He has never let me down, He has never let me down. And some of the miracles He has preformed for me and my own personal private life, well, they are just unbelievable, that’s all. They’re just unbelievable. And I wouldn’t be here tonight if it hadn’t been for the fact that God had done it for me, I couldn’t have done it, there is just no way. And if He takes His protection away from me and permits me to go back to my own SELF own my own feet I’ll be scattered, there’s just no question about that, I just couldn’t take it. I am only able to do it as He gives me the strength and I go day by day on that bases. I don’t know what the Lord has for me tomorrow or the next day but whatever it is I am willing to face it and if He wants to take me at this point I am willing to go, if He wants me to stay around for awhile and do something else for Him I am willing to do that. He has done abundantly more that I have asked Him to do. He has answered every question I had and a hundred more that I wasn’t worried about. There is some that He hasn’t given me yet and maybe He never will in this life and I am not worried about it. Like this one about the resurrection at the time of Christ, I don’t understand it, and it’s a thorn because everybody brings that up, the moment you mention the regeneration they bring that up every time. How about the general resurrection? But if God wanted me to understand that, I have enough confidence in Him and known Him long enough now to know that He would have given it to me. The reason He hasn’t given it to me is that He knows that if He gives it to me I’m going to share with you and maybe He doesn’t want you to have I yet. So, He keeps it away from me. Now He could have given it to me and said, Now, don’t tell anybody that, He’s done that with me. He’s given me a number of things and said don’t tell a certain person those things, and I haven’t and I have taken a lot of dirt because of that, but I’ll stay with the Lord. And as soon as He gives me the go ahead I’ll speak, but not until. I understand quite a few things yet that I have not told you. But I have told you the things that I have been instructed to tell you and these last two weeks have been the hardest ones because I know how difficult they are for some people, but it is the truth.

The hundred and forty four thousand are born again, spiritually and physical and they will come into the personality of a raised individual like Jesus did. Jesus became Christ, he was the one who lived from eternity and He was born of a woman. And there will be a hundred and forty four thousand people today who will be born of a woman. A body will be prepared for them; their characters will be tested. They will live out in this body the character that they had before even as Jesus lived out in His body the character of His Father which was His character, the same way.

(Same woman) Didn’t Jesus speak about this Himself in Mathew 19?

(Wilfred) Yes, He does. The apostles asked Him what they were going to receive because they left all and followed Him, do you remember what he said?

(Same woman) He said something about following Me in the regeneration.

(Wilfred) He said in the regeneration ye shall sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

(John) Is that referring to this time or is that referring to the thousand years?

(Wilfred) The regeneration includes the regeneration of the spirit and the body and the world. Now, do they sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel? At this time? Well, as of yet, No. The regeneration hasn’t been completed yet, but it has started.

(Same woman) Are these people peculiar people or the holy nation?

(Wilfred) Yes. Although that can apply to both the general group and the special group.

(Same woman) But sometimes we are kind of peculiar but we don’t seem very holy so I though maybe......

(Wilfred) The holiness you see is the work of cleansing the sanctuary on the Day of Atonement, this comes to you as the high priest administers the blood and cleanses. Do you remember the four angels that are about to let go those winds of strife and the angel cries? Hold, hold, because the servants of God are not yet sealed, remember that? Then she says, She saw a light come from the Father to Jesus, and what does Jesus do with the light he gets from the Father?

(John) He gives it to his people.

(Wilfred) He gives it to his people. And what’s the matter? Why did He have to hold those four winds yet?

(John) Because they are not sealed.

(Wilfred) And what does the sealing consist of?

(John) Settling into the truth.

(Wilfred) And what does the light stand for?

(John) The truth.

(Wilfred) The people do not yet understand the truth. That’s why they can’t be sealed and that is why they can’t stand. And that is why we are sitting here, to get you people ready for the sealing so that the thing can be finished off. God wants to close the work off the world is getting so bad you can’t live in it. If you want to keep living in it don’t worry about responding to God, He’ll let you live here. But meanwhile He is suffering more intensely than He has ever suffered and so are the people in the world. And when it begins to hit you in the great and dreadful day of the Lord, which is going to burst anytime, when it begins to hit you then you’ll think about it, you’ll begin to smarten up. You’ll wonder what the Lord is trying to do anyway, what’s He doing to you? How come He’s doing this to me? I have been so good to him all these years, I’ve faithfully served Him, gone to church every week, paid my tithe and I haven’t skied on Sabbath and this is all hitting me. Well, it’s the cleansing; it’s the purification process. And when that heat comes on see, if you are gold you are going to the bottom and if you are slag you’re going to the top in the crucible, not in position. And the slag is worthless it’s the gold that has to be purified. Now what really happens is if you’ve got slag in you, but there is gold there, the heat is going to separate the two, and you’ll have a chance to get rid of it. When it comes to the top you’re going to recognize it and then you’ve got to make your choice. Either you carry on the way you used to, hang on to your idols or you throw them away and go with god. And I hope you go with God.

(Same woman) Are you talking about when Holy Spirit shows us things in our lives that we really aren’t aware of and all of a sudden they are there......

(Wilfred) Right.

(Same woman) And this is the separation?

(Wilfred) Right. And usually they show up when you hit into a trial, that’s usually when they show up.

(Same woman) They usually show up when you least expecting it too.

(Wilfred) Yes.

(John) Maybe I’m just different but I am aware of a lot of things right now in my life that.....

(Wilfred) I think we all are.

(John) It isn’t the things that I am not aware of that bother me, you know, it’s the things that I am aware of that I’m doing wrong.

(Wilfred) Yes, that’s right. And as soon as you start doing something about those you will be shown some others.

(John) I was interested in a statement that says, The Holy Spirit, you know you hear people pray that if I have done anything wrong please forgive me, but Sister White says, That the Holy Spirit is always very specific in nature when He points out something wrong in our lives. It comes and it says, “That’s got to change”.

(Wilfred) Well, I don’t want to prolong the meeting. I can just keep on talking; I am just so full of it that it is no problem for me to keep on talking. But we do get tired and we get dull and don’t get much out of it anyway.

I thank you for your kind attention and for your faithfulness, for you interest. You have been an inspiration to me and it has given me an opportunity to record on tape as a matter of fact many of these things that have never been recorded they have just existed up here and it is much easier for me now to go back and gather the material from tapes than to have to go to work and dig it all out again and redo it. And I’ve been able to do that, that’s one of the reasons I have taped. And the second way is that I like to find any errors that are on there I can monitor it and make corrections the following week or when I come to record this on paper which I hope to do, I can adjust it at that time. Obviously I can’t put all of this on paper it would involve to many volumes, I wouldn’t have the capacity to do it, if I wanted to. But I hope to summarize the basic points on paper so that they can be made available for study by anybody who wants to study them. Because the day is coming when they will be in demand. God’s truth is not given to be hid under a bushel. It’s only a temporary measure. But you can see what a tragedy would result if you began to discuss some of these things especially the last two meetings with people who are not prepared for it and you’d get tied up in a knot and so would they, and it would do more damage to the cause of God than good, So, it’s better to keep the discussion within our own group until you are able to handle it. I will say frankly that I have offered on a number of occasions to sit down for as many hours or days as necessary with theologians, whoever they might be, selected by the authorities, to discuss all of the points that I have discussed with you and so far they have not taken me up on it.

(John) When you speak of the great and dreadful day of the Lord which is soon to burst upon us, are you referring to the great and dreadful day of the Lord which first will come upon this church or is it going to be simultaneously with tremendous economic upheavals and physical catastrophes in the world?

(Wilfred) I am sure they will overlap John. But as far as God’s people are concerned the great and dreadful day of the Lord, to them, is the coming of His sword upon them to separate and cut.

(John) Well, I can see if this, I mean, I am not looking at the regeneration but just this whole message of the revelation of the love of Christ, his immense sacrifice that He has brought to us, a lot of these points if they were given in the churches they would be just like a meat clever they would run up the middle.

(Wilfred) Yes, no doubt about it.

I brought this to the attention of the brethren at headquarters several years ago and I told them very frankly that the things contained in the document I sent them would be instrumental in initiating a shaking as soon as it was published. It was of coarse not published. It wasn’t my intention that it should be at that point. I expected that there might have been some feedback and some serious thought given to it, which I am sure there was, but there must have been some sufficient merit or there must have been sufficient reason for delay to not do that. I did have some communication including personal communication and the council was very well put I think, they recognized that I aught to be intelligent enough to be realize that certain things that I was discussing would not go over well in the church if I agitated them, which I do recognize and I did not agitate them. But there comes a day when God gives a commission to somebody in an emergency situation, that if you were to wait for these older brethren, she says, to see that it got to the people it would never get to them. I could read you the statement. (Gospel Workers. Page 303.3)

I didn’t want to get into that predicament and the Lord knows that, but sometimes the Lord puts us through certain tests and I had to go through that test. I had promised Him I would do it and I have done it, But I did not start my studies with you people and move into these questionable things until I first made an offer to the officials of the church to discuss them with them before I went ahead and did it, and they did not take me up on it.

(Same woman) Did they realize that you are offering them a message you had from the Lord?

(Wilfred) They have it so they should really be aware.

(John) I don’t say this to stand against our ministers; they are a hard working group....

(Wilfred) I didn’t mean to say that either, I am simply pointing out to you that I am not trying to bypass the denomination.

(John) But I’ve talked to a number of our ministers who are personal friends of mine and they have told me that they are so busy with so many programs and heavy responsibilities that they are not finding the time to study.

(Wilfred) Yes, I understand. The devil’s got it all taped up. I just want to be mighty sure that I’m doing the thing that God wants me to do. And until I am sure I don’t do it, and I am sure that I have done what He wanted me to do. For the past three and a half years I have fulfilled the commission that He gave me and it remains to be seen whether He has anything further for me to do.

(Same woman) You said on one of your tapes that one of the main issues is centered around the human nature of Christ.

(Wilfred) Yes.

(Same woman) So, should we fortify our minds with these....

(Wilfred) Everything she says about it. Don’t jump to conclusions, but get all the facts.

(Same woman) On both sides.

(Wilfred) Yes, I think I’ve given you the keys; they’re on the tapes.

(Same woman) It is also in the book, Questions on Doctrine ... it has a section ... in reproductions.

(Wilfred) In the back portion. Right. Those are the things you want to get, and the Bible.

(John) The statement in the Spirit of Prophecy on the human nature of Christ that I have never really been able to understand, I understand how He has offered his divine nature to us and by this divine nature we can be over-comers. But she says, and this statement has always puzzled me, she says, that in his humanity He wrought out a perfect human character, and THIS is the character that He offers to give to us.

(Wilfred) It’s identical with his divine character.

(John) It’s the pattern?

(Wilfred) It’s the same character.

(John) Identical?

(Wilfred) Right. That’s what I was telling Lonny here. That she is developing today an identical character as the one that is being tested by the decisions that she makes.

(Same woman) I would like to ask one more question. It may not be relative but do you have any knowledge of the abomination of desolation, you have mentioned it several times, I don’t know if it was a generalization or if you really knew something more about it.

(Wilfred) It is just what it says.

(Same woman) The desolation if what? The Spirit?

(Wilfred) If you go back and read it carefully I think you’ll see it.

(Same woman) There is something in Daniel that says he will make it desolate and it seems to me that this is a throw-back to something that happened in the Old Testament and it was the Spirit which was represented by the sun.

(Wilfred) Go back and read it.

(Same woman) I have read it and read it.

(Another woman) I guess the Lord doesn’t want to reveal it to you.

(Same woman) The temple was desolated wasn’t it back then ..... but there was also spiritual draught in Israel for three and half years and this also was a desolation.

(Wilfred) Yes, but what Jesus quoting?

(John) He was quoting Daniel.

(Same woman) I said Daniel.

(Wilfred) Well, that’s the one you want to read. That’s all you need to do. Just memorize that passage and when it happens you won’t miss it. I don’t want to add anything to it at the present moment. I don’t think it would be fair, it will show up in time.

(Same woman) I think it is vital, at least to me it is vital there are some things that hinge off .....

(Wilfred) There is. It’s when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place then let them which be Judea flee, and it is just what it says.

(Same woman) I thought that for a while it might be the Sunday law but I don’t think that is what it means.

(Wilfred) Well, just put on the shelf.

(John) Would you give us the key on this fleeing?

(Wilfred) At the present time I think it would be better if I just left that one. It’ll show up.

(Same woman) Well Mr. Johnson, this business ...

(Wilfred) The hundred and forty four thousand will be in little companies scattered in isolated places, the fleeing will have been all over by that time. But you won’t be fleeing until such time as the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet stands in the holy place and when that happens then you start moving out. You’ll have to.

Well, I guess maybe we should close it off. If you have really absorbed the things we have discussed you’ll never be the same again. If you haven’t really absorbed them it might not affect you that severely. But how can you let the Lord down? How can you refuse to tell Him you will stand with Him? And if you tell Him that you’re going stand with Him and you follow the instructions He has given relative to preparing for the outpouring of the latter rain, keeping his Commandments to the best of your ability, doing the things that you know are right and when you fail you respond with an attitude of penitents that your motivation is centered in your desire to see that Jesus is released from that terrible position He’s in of having to hold things together while you continue to sin. If you make an effort to work towards that then He will do the rest. He will accept you as you are, a sinner. He won’t reject you just because you sin, that’s not the way He is. It is true that sin has separated us from God but that’s why Christ came to remedy, He bridges the gap and I read that to you tonight. He intercedes and God sends the Spirit, it’s Christ’s Spirit and He abides with you and you have direct communication, direct communication with God through Christ.

(John) What a difficult thing for God to do.

(Wilfred) Yes, that’s why Christ intercedes. It is up to Christ to decide who’s going to get the Spirit. He says, Alright Father I would like you to give it to Wilf Johnson. That means that Christ has decided to accept me and take a chance on it and He is not going to do that until He has put me through my investigative judgment, if you please. He is not going to do that until He has determined that He can trust me, how could He? If He took me without being able to trust me I could cause Him to be an eternal suffer, that’s the chance He takes. Eternal death, believe it or not, is a merciful end but eternal torment is the penalty of sin to one who has eternal life. And the devil counterfeits that one too; he’s got it all through the protestant churches and in the Catholic Church.

(John) May I ask a question about the Holy Spirit? Prior to the latter rain the Holy Spirit can come to a person, woo him, seek to win him, but it can be returned to God and given to someone else, taken away from that person. But in the latter rain when they are sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise that is conferred upon them forever.

(Wilfred) Right.

(John) What a tremendous thing to do.

(Wilfred) And that declaration is made in the closing up of the great Day of Atonement, which is now. In fact, the provision has already been made it’s just that God has not brought it to light. The provision was made in 1844. That was the end of probation they saw it correctly.

(John) Time was no longer.

(Wilfred) Time was no longer. But because of this demonstration that the Lord had to provide in the investigative judgment before He could complete the work of cleansing to sanctuary it was necessary that they be left in ignorance of that particular situation until the investigative judgment was finished. And they had that vacillation there and that difference of opinion and the Lord showed Sister White in vision, but He showed it to her in such a way that they still preach the gospel with the idea of saving sinners. But the Bible says that the gospel is to be preached to all the world to save sinners as a witness, this is the judgment. Now you know.

(Same woman) Have you seen ..... seal.... 1844....... (mostly unintelligible)

(Wilfred) Well, was it or wasn’t it?

(Same woman) I gather it was and that this is just a demonstration.

(Wilfred) Well, it’s that and it’s the cleansing of the sanctuary. It’s the investigative judgment and the cleansing of the sanctuary.

(Same woman) Those who have been accepted are now being made perfect of the hundred and forty four thousand?

(Wilfred) That’s right. And those that are not, that did not make over-coming, that is they’re not victorious in a sense that they can become one of the hundred and forty four thousand, they are judged too, and they go to their graves.

(Same woman) As sinners, hundred year old sinners but those who are not going to be made, to make the grade......

(Wilfred) Sinners? Well their names are not even in the Lamb’s book of life.

(John) They’re not even judged during this time since 1844.

(Same woman) But they are there?

(Wilfred) They’re here, yes.

(John) Are they people who lived before?

(Same woman) And they are there to make the demonstration...

(John) Of their characters?

(Wilfred) Well, yes, they are.

(Same woman) Are they to make it more, to make it clearer to the universe?

(Wilfred) I haven’t found anything in the Bible that explains all the details of all that so I can’t tell you, nor the Spirit of Prophecy, all I know is that the wicked are here and some of these people are going to be regenerated to see Christ come who lived before, some of them.

(Same woman) Especially those who killed.....

(Wilfred) Yes, she named certain ones, but the rest of them are not. It’s my opinion that their characters are also being tested. Their names are not in the lamb’s book of life but it’s being demonstrated why they aren’t there.

(Same woman) I see. And it is necessary to have wickedness around else the other won’t be showing up to be nuggets.

(Wilfred) That’s right.

(John) The deeper the darkness the brighter the light shines.

(Wilfred) Yes,

Well it’s getting awfully late and I don’t want to keep....I think Jeana is tired tonight and I would like to let her get to bed. So, we’ll close it off for this time.

(The end of this three C/D series on Review of the Regeneration)

May you be richly blessed by this book is our prayer

In His prayer to the Father, Christ gave to the world a lesson which should be graven on mind and soul. "This is life eternal," He said, "that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." John 17:3. This is true education. It imparts power. The experimental knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ whom He has sent, transforms man into the image of God. It gives to man the mastery of himself, bringing every impulse and passion of the lower nature under the control of the higher powers of the mind. It makes its possessor a son of God and an heir of heaven. It brings him into communion with the mind of the Infinite, and opens to him the rich treasures of the universe.”