Prism of the GREAT CONTROVERSY Theme

-Intro
-What's in the Bible?

-Apostle Paul & Peter's WARNING on this GREAT CONTROVERSY
-The Who, Why & What of this GREAT CONTROVERSY
-The Who, What, and Why of Creation
-Our First Parents
-The Wherefore {SIN}

-The Bane of Mankind in this GREAT CONTROVERSY (The First Lie)

-Our 3 step Apostasy from God of the Human Race
-Point of Christ's Mission
-God's EVERLASTING COVENANT with mankind
-On the Cross: Christ zig zagged through the Sanctuary
-Rumblings of the Roots of the PAGAN & SECULAR APOSTASY
-Duel of the Images (The Mark of the Beast)

-2 Baptisms of the Earth in this GREAT CONTROVERSY

-Noah's Dove in this GREAT CONTROVERSY Theme & the 3 Advents
-God's Text Message to YOU

--Intro--

Now we see things imperfectly, 

like puzzling reflections in a mirror, 

but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.

All that I know now is partial and incomplete, 

but then I will know everything completely, 

just as God now knows me completely....
1 Corinthians 13:12NLT

Q: Based on actual Science which makes the most sense?

4 Possibilities for the existence of the universe:

A) It is a figment of our imagination

B) It sprang from nothing
C) It existed from all eternity
D) God created it

A: I have made the earth, and created man upon it: 

I, even My hands, have stretched out the heavens, 

and all their host have I commanded. 

Isaiah 45:12

--What's in the Bible?--

Q: What's in the Bible?
A: It's a book that begins and ends the same---
--In the first story God leans over and breathes the breath of life into Adam.
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Genesis 2:7
--In the last story God leans over and wipes away all tears from our eyes.
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes;
Revelation 21:4

It begins and ends with God leaning over and touching us...

In the pages in between He tells us what He thinks of us:
...that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
James 5:11....put Thou my tears into Thy bottle:
are they not in Thy book?
Psalm 56:8

--Apostle Paul & Peter's WARNING 

on this GREAT CONTROVERSY--

Of this Great Controversy, 

--raging between God and His opponent 

--played out here on this Space Fabric of Time, 

--between the Twin decrees from the Throne of God of "Let There Be Light" to "It Is Done", the Apostles Paul & Peter gives us a WARNING:

For we wrestle not 

against flesh and blood,

but against principalities, 

against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this world, 

against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

Ephesians 6:12/1 Peter 5:8

--The Who, Why & What of this 

GREAT CONTROVERSY--

The who...
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world:
--he was cast out into the earth,
--and his angels were cast out with him.....
And He [Christ] said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.
Isaiah 14:12/Revelation 12:9 /Luke 10:18
The why...
And there was war in heaven:
Michael and His angels fought against the dragon;
and the dragon fought and his angels,...

How art thou fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning!
For thou hast said in thine heart,
I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God:
I will be like the most High.
Revelation 12:7 /Isaiah 14:7,12 ,14
The what...
....your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion,
walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
1 Peter 5:8

--The Who, What, and Why of Creation--

The Who: In eternity past, God spoke the physical universe into existence. “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3). Unlike the triune

Godhead, the matter-space-time universe had a specific beginning.

The What: God spoke into existence what previously had not existed (Hebrews 11:3). The Hebrew words bara (divine creation through God’s command) and yom (the day-by-day pattern of God’s creation work) remove any wiggle room for evolutionary insertion into the first chapter of Genesis. 

The Why: Man’s creation is listed separately because he was created in God’s image. “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them” (Genesis 1:27). God’s purpose for the entire material universe was humanity. “The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat”  (2 Peter 3:10).

 Everything will eventually be uncreated except for humanity. 

ICR

--Our First Parents--

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and

breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.....And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
Genesis 2:7/3:20

--The Wherefore {SIN}--

Wherefore, 

as by one man sin entered into the world, 

and death by sin; 

and so death passed upon all men, 

for that all have sinned: 

For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. 

Romans 5:22/8:22

--The Bane of Mankind in 

this GREAT CONTROVERSY--

(The First Lie)

"The deception of thinking that they have life in themselves has been for ages, and is still, the bane of mankind.
This deception is couched in the conception of the immortality of the soul.
Q: For what was it that the deceiver said to the woman, to get her to

depart from God into sin? What was it?—“Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be like God.”
You will be like the divine, and not subject to death. 

That was the original proposition in the original deception that brought us under sin; that was the original deception into which the race went by that “one man,” by whom came sin and death.

Man is MORTAL

Shall mortal man be more just than God?

Job 4:17

ONLY God has Immortality

....the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see:

1 Timothy 6;15,16

2 Resurrections

And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, 

and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

1st Resurrection (of the Saints)

For

[1] the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with

the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: 

[2] and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 

[3] Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. 

2nd Resurrection (of the Lost)

But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. 

Daniel 12:2/1 Thessalonians 4:16,17Revelation 20:6,5

--Formula that Led to the Myth of Immortality of the Soul

Vanity the root of the inquiry,

and self the root of the vanity.

Mankind

*When they viewed with complacency the extent of their own mental powers,
-a- when they exercised the various faculties of memory, of fancy, and of judgment, in the most profound speculations, or the most important labors,
-b- and when they reflected on the desire of fame, which transported them into future ages, far beyond the bonds of death and of the grave;
-c- they were unwilling to confound themselves with the beasts of the field or to suppose that a being, for whose dignity they entertained the most sincere admiration,
-d- could be limited to a spot of earth and to a few years of duration.

Lucifer

*What is that but the description of Satan's career when he started.
-a- His reason prompted by his imagination; his imagination guided
by his vanity,
-b- and viewing with complacency the extent of his own mental powers; the desire for fame beyond that of God,
-c- and unwilling to allow that a person for whose dignity he entertained the most sincere admiration
-d- could be properly confined to a subordinate place in the universe of God." A.T. Jones

Q: Where is Mankind between Access to the Tree of Life?
Access Denied: And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. Genesis 3:22.23
Location of Mankind in Death while awaiting Access Again: They

shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust. His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust. They shall lie down alike in the dust, and the worms shall cover them.

Job 17:16/20:11/21:26
Access Granted Again: And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. 

Revelation 22:1,2,14

--Our 3 step Apostasy 

from God of the Human Race--

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft,

and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.

1 Samuel 15:23

Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this

they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let Us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

1) Because that, when they knew God, 

they glorified Him not as
God, neither were thankful; 

but became vain in their imaginations, 

and their foolish heart was darkened.
...Who changed the truth of God into a lie...
Romans 1:21,25
2) Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God
into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things..... and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator.....
Romans 1:22,23 ,25

3) Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the
lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: ...for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another...
Romans 1:24,26, 27

"They lost God, "because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." Romans 1:21.
They attributed everything to themselves,
--and as self was advanced,
--faith in God decreased,
till they were in the darkness of idolatry."
E.J. Waggoner

--Point of Christ's Mission--

* Point of Christ's Mission:

1) To Live a Life WITHOUT Sin
2) So He could Die for OUR Sins
* Point of the Cross:
---God's Physical Laws are tightly wound and any deviation results in destruction (such as the nuclear force that holds atoms together-if it was off a fraction either way we wouldn't have carbon required for life)
---God's Moral Law is also tightly wound. When we deviate it's called Sin (we too are destroyed by death)
---Hence, the Point of the Cross -- to make an exception.
* Gospel Simplified:
--For God so loved the world,

--He gave His only begotten Son,
--that whosoever believeth in Him
--should not perish,
--but have everlasting life.
John 3:16
* Gospel Summarized:
--Christ Lived the Life we should Live
--Christ Died the Death we should Die
--Hence, weaving a perfect Robe of Righteousness for us

For I am persuaded,

that neither death, nor life,

nor angels, nor principalities,

nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

Nor height, nor depth,

nor any other creature,

shall be able to separate us from the love of God,

which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38,39

"The way for man's return to God and heaven has no barriers. The matchless depths of the Savior's love have been demonstrated; and if this manifestation of God's love for the children of men does not prevail to draw men to Himself, there is nothing that ever will."

E.G.W.

--God's EVERLASTING COVENANT 

with mankind--

For if that first  (Old) covenant had been faultless,

then should no place have been sought for the second (New).

Hebrews 8:7

1. The Everlasting Covenant consists the same Covenant (whether "Old" or "New").
1a) The Old Covenant involved 

--the blood of animals, 

--was written on Tables of Stone 

--and carried out in the earthly Sanctuary.
1b) The New Covenant involves 

--the blood of the Lamb of God, 

--is written on the flesh of your heart, 

--and is carried out in the Heavenly Sanctuary.
*He shows you in the Sanctuary - Become Justified (Outer Court), then pass through Sanctification (Inner Court) to be prepared for your Judgment Day (Most Holy Place).

(Justification - Grace, Forgiveness)

Neither by the blood of goats and calves, (Old)
but by His own blood (New)

He entered in once into the holy place, 

having obtained eternal redemption for us.
For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:

How much more shall the blood of Christ,

who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself

without spot to God....

(Sanctification - Holiness, Obedience)

For this is the covenant that I will make .....
I will put My laws into their mind,
and write them in their hearts:
and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people:
....written not with ink (Old)

but by the Spirit of the living God, (New)

not on tablets of stone

but on tablets of flesh,

that is, of the heart.

(Judgment)

Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: (Old)
But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come,

by a greater and more perfect tabernacle,

not made with hands.... (New)

Hebrews 8:10 /2 Corinthians 3:3/Hebrews 8:5/9:12-14,11

--The Old was SYMBOLIC--

--The New is REALITY--

--The Precepts are the SAME--

Jesus Christ the same yesterday,

and to day,

and for ever.

Hebrews 13:8

1- Repent ye therefore,
(Justification Grace/Forgiveness)
2- and be converted,
(Sanctification-Obedience/Holiness)
3- that your sins may be blotted out,
(In the Judgment)
4- when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;
(The coming Latter Rain of the Holy Spirit)
5- And He shall send Jesus Christ,...
(The 2nd Advent)

Acts 3:19

*Each Time You Open The Bible--this Verse is still there.....God has NOT removed it.

If we confess our sins,

He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,

and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:9

Where He Wants To Lead You:

His own nation rejected Him;

His own religion crucified Him;
and thus He presented Himself,
the willing victim of our sins,
to be rent in soul,
man­gled in flesh,
broken in heart,
that He might show us the Father,
and lead us back to our Father's house.
by George D. Herron

But He was wounded

for our transgressions,

He was bruised

for our iniquities:

the chastisement of our peace

was upon Him;

and with His stripes we are healed.

Ye are bought with a price.....

And from Jesus Christ, ....
--the first begotten of the dead, ....
--Unto Him that loved us,
--and washed us from our sins in His own blood,....

Isaiah 53:5/1 Corinthians 7:23/Revelation 1:5

--On the Cross: 

Christ zig zagged through the Sanctuary--

(Where the Plan of Redemption is laid out)

Christ walked into the outer court to the Altar of Sacrifice (that was for the Forgiveness of sins) and said Father Forgive Them.

He then proceeded to the Brazen Laver (representing Baptism) and said Today thou shalt be with Me in paradise, as He was about go through the Baptism of Death.

He then entered the inner court and went to the Table of Bread (that contained the cups for the drink offering) and said I thirst.

He then crossed over to the 7 Branch Candlestick and said Woman,

Behold Thy Son.

He then went to the Altar of Incense (representing the Prayers of God's people) and communed with the Father -- My God, My God, Why hast Thou Forsaken Me?

He then entered the Most Holy Place and approached the Ark of the Covenant (where the Law of God was placed -- the Law that requires complete submission) and uttered a Prayer of total submission Father into Thy Hands I commit My spirit.

Finally, He climbed up on the Judgment Seat and gave a decree while wearing a Crown of Thorns -- It Is Finished.

Then He bowed His head and gave up the ghost.

--Rumblings of the Roots of the PAGAN & SECULAR APOSTASY--

The Pagan Apostasy within Christendom gave us Catholicism. 

This occurred with the 

"conversion" of Emperor Constantine. 

1) He tasked Lactantius with making Christianity more appealing to pagans.
2) Then came Emperor Justin the Apostate, who tasked Iamblichus with modeling a paganism in the mold of Christianity. 

--What emerged after these 2 back-to-back events gave us many of the paganistic rituals within Catholicism, and some Protestantism still, today.

The Reformation scaled back the Pagan Apostasy within Christendom. It did 3 things:
1- Placed the Bible into the hands of the people.
2- Led to a movement for freedom of conscience.
3- Encouraged scientific empirical investigation of the Creation.
--Lucifer countered with the counter-reformation.

The Rumblings of the Roots of the Secular Apostasy began as the counterfeit to the Great Awakening, ---the Enlightenment.
The Great Awakening was the birth of Evangelicalism.

It modified the Reformation by re-focusing on concepts of Salvation, re-focused the freedom of conscience movement into Missionary zeal & shifted focus less on studying the Creation and more on the idea of New Birth.
The counterfeit of Lucifer to this was the Enlightenment....sort of the Great Awakening without

Religion. It gave rise to agnosticism rather than outright atheism---the age of Voltaire vs. Wesley.
And science without a God gave rise to uniformitarianism, Lamarckism, etc. by the late 18th & early 19th century.
A transitional Link between the age of agnosticism (like deists Ben Franklin & Thomas Jefferson of the time) and the future wave of outright atheism was the likes of Thomas Paine and his "The Age of Reason".

By the time that Origin of the Species (Darwin) Das Kapital (Marx)

and The Ego and the Id (Freud) came along the groundwork had been laid by the Enlightenment....paving the way for the firebrand Nietzsche (famous for declaring "God is dead").
Hence the Secular Apostasy within Christendom that led to splitting into 2 camps. Modernists (liberals, or today they call themselves "progressives") and Fundamentalists (conservatives).

Q: How would Paul describe the flames of the Enlightenment?

Ever learning, 

and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

2 Timothy 3:7

Summary:
1) The Pagan Apostasy (gave rise to Catholicism).

1a) The Reformation tried to clean up Christendom with reforms.
1b) The Great Awakening tried to bring revival to Christendom.

2) The Secular Apostasy gave rise to the modernist ("Liberal") wing of

"Christendom".
2a) The roots of this were in the Enlightenment, a "godless" counterfeit to the Great Awakening.
2b) The Modernist wing of Christendom became the traitors to the Word of God from within.

Finally...Ye shall know them by their fruits. Matthew 7:16....

Q: What were their fruits?

1) The Rumblings of the Pagan Apostasy led to the infamous Inquisitions & Papal persecutions.
2) The Rumblings of the Secular Apostasy--the Enlightenment--gave us the bloody French Revolution.
3) The Secular Apostasy gave us the bloody Bolshevik Revolution & the bloodshed of the following Marxist revolutions from China to Latin America (Marx). The Sexual Revolution leading to abortion on demand (Freud). And Hitler's Holocaust via Eugenics, an offshoot of evolution (Darwin).

Q: ..when the Son of man cometh,

shall He find faith on the earth?

LUKE 18:8

--Duel of the Images--

(The Mark of the Beast)

1) Christ Reflected God's Image through Obedience to the Father.

The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God,....
--And being found in fashion as a man,
--He humbled Himself,
--and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Hebrews 1:3 NLT /Philippians 2:8
2) Lucifer's "image" would therefore be one of Disobedience....
And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image,...
Revelation 14:9

Q: How do they "worship" the Image of the Beast? 

A: Obviously by venerating, giving homage to, going along with, his DISOBEDIENCE TO GOD by Law on a Global Scale.

--An INVERSE RELATIONSHIP OF THE IMAGES--

The IMAGE of God

was reflected in Obedience to the Father

The IMAGE of the BEAST 

will be reflected in Disobedience to the Father

--The Final Act on this Great Controversy Stage--

....for we are made a spectacle unto the world,

and to angel's and to men.

1 Corinthians 4:9

The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof;

because they have

-1-transgressed the laws,

Q: Whose Law?

A: Obviously God's Law.

-2-changed the ordinance,

Q: What Ordinance?

A: The Sabbath Ordinance of the 4th Commandment as they will have globally set up a counterfeit worship day by Law.

-3-broken the everlasting covenant.

Q: How?

A: By disconnecting True Righteousness By Faith - which is Justification (Grace/Forgiveness) and Sanctification (Obedience/Holiness).

*They want the Grace but not the Full Obedience.

Isaiah 24:5

--REMEMBER what the Beast/Little Horn Entity does: 

And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws:
Daniel 7:25

Q: What in the Law of God deals with Time?

A: The Sabbath Ordinance, the 4th Commandment.

--REMEMBER---when God said REMEMBER:

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 

Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: 

But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: 

in it thou shalt not do any work....For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
Exodus 20:8-11

--2 Baptisms of the Earth 

in this GREAT CONTROVERSY--

***In the Outer Court of the Sanctuary (representing JUSTIFICATION -in other words Purification) was the Brazen Laver of Water and the Altar of Burnt Sacrifice.

***To Purify the Earth God Baptized it once by water and will again by Fire.....just like in the Outer Court.

I. By Water: Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. . . .

The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened......when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. Genesis 6:5, 11–12/1 Peter 3:20

"Among those who insist that the Flood described in Genesis cannot be actual history, two reasons stand out more than all others.

First, naturalism demands a gradual development of everything over
“deep time” from simple to complex. Thus, the worldwide deposit of billions of fossils could not have been rapidly buried by a global cataclysm as described in the Bible.
Second, those who might otherwise accept the message of the Bible are appalled by the sudden and horrific destruction of the planet by a “loving” God. Thus, the Flood must be a localized or tranquil event rather than the wrathful judgment described in Genesis. Many who embrace this kind of thinking insist that “my kind of God” could never do such a thing.
The first rationalization insists that “all things continue as they

were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Peter 3:4) and that the Bible must be understood in the light of evolutionary naturalism.
The second rationalization ignores the holiness of God (Isaiah 5:16) and would also ignore the clear Biblical teaching that godless rebellion brings the “wrath of God upon the children of disobedience” (Ephesians 5:6).

The first deny the evidence in the earth.

The second deny the evidence in the Word.

The first group rejects the facts of science.

The second group distorts the facts of Scripture.

Both change “the truth of God into a lie” (Romans 1:25).

---For the pre-flood intelligentsia, the mistake was assuming that
what is now, the current physical condition of the world, would be the same in the future;
---for the post-flood intelligentsia, the mistake is assuming that what is now, the current physical condition of the world, was the same as in the past. In both cases, the assumption of continuity was—and remains—wrong.
No flood model exists because no model could exist." 

HMMIII/Clifford Goldstein

II. By Fire: But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the

elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; 

--because they have transgressed the laws, 

--changed the ordinance, 

--broken the everlasting covenant. 

Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned....
2 Peter 3:10/Jeremiah 4:23/Isaiah 24:5,6

"God does not desire the destruction of any.
As I live, saith the Lord God,
--I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked;
--but that the wicked turn from his way and live.
--Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways;
Q: for why will ye die? Ezekiel 33:11.
a)Throughout the period of probationary time His Spirit is entreating men to accept the gift of life.
b) It is only those who reject His pleading that will be left to perish.
c) God has declared that sin must be destroyed as an evil ruinous to the universe.
Those who cling to sin will perish in its destruction."
E.G.W.

--Noah's Dove in this GREAT CONTROVERSY 

Theme & the 3 Advents--

I. The Raven

And he sent forth a raven,
which went forth to and fro,
until the waters were dried up from off the earth.
Genesis 8:7
The Raven was sent out & never returned to the ark.
The Raven represents Lucifer, sent out first to the earth where he would stay.
The Raven is a scavenger bird as Lucifer scavenges for the souls of earth.
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent,called the

Devil, and Satan,
which deceiveth the whole world:
he was cast out into the earth,
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil,
as a roaring lion, walketh about,
seeking whom he may devour:
Revelation 12:9/1 Peter 5:8

II. The Dove

a) First Trip / 1st Advent

Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;
But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth:
then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto

him into the ark.
Genesis 8:8,9
The Dove represents Christ. Notice on its first trip it found no place to rest the foot
---as Christ found no place to rest His head.... .
And it was Noah (God) who reached out and the pulled the Dove (Christ) back into the ark (Heaven).
...but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.
Luke 9:58

b) Second Trip / 2nd Advent

....and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off:

Genesis 8:10,11
After the 2nd Advent of Christ, He returns to heaven with His people...represented by an olive branch... for Paul compares
the people of God to an olive branch.
...how much more shall these,
which be the natural branches,
be graffed into their own olive tree?
Romans 11:23

C) Third Trip / 3rd Advent

....and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more.
Genesis 8:12

The dove didn't return from the 3rd trip.
The 3rd time Christ leaves Heaven for earth,
He stays here.
For He brings down the City of the New Jerusalem.
And he carried me away
in the spirit to a great and high mountain,
and shewed me that great city,
the holy Jerusalem,
descending out of heaven from God,
Revelation 21:10

--God's Text Message to YOU--

Picture the Letter of 3rd John
as a Summary of God's Text Message to YOU:

Beloved,
I wish above all things

that thou mayest prosper
(personal wellbeing)
and be in health,
(physical wellbeing)
even as thy soul prospereth.
(spiritual wellbeing)
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.

But I trust I shall shortly see thee,

and we shall speak face to face.

3 John 1:2,4,14