Brass Mirror and the Flood

Presentation Notes for Live Stream

Recap on the mirror

James 1:23-25 (NIV) Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror  (24)  and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.  (25)  But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it--not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it--they will be blessed in what they do.

2 Cor 3:14-18  But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.  (15)  But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.  (16)  Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.  (17)  Now the Lord [Jesus] is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. [Freedom] (18)  But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass [mirror] the glory of the Lord, [Christ] are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. [Christ]

1 Cor 13:12  For now we see through a glass, [mirror] darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 

"Now we see through a glass, darkly." 1 Corinthians 13:12. We behold the image of God reflected, as in a mirror, in the works of nature and in His dealings with men; but then we shall see Him face to face, without a dimming veil between. We shall stand in His presence, and behold the glory of His countenance.  {GC 676.4}

God’s dealings with men form a mirror. How does the mirror work? If you hear the word but don’t do it, meaning, you don’t believe it – then you will see your own face in the mirror.

Deut 28:15  But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken [listen and do] unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:  …

Deut 28:23  And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron. 

Job 37:18  can you join him in spreading out the skies, hard as a mirror of cast bronze?

Why do the heavens spread out and become hard like brass?

1 Cor 13:1  Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, [hear the word] and have not charity, [don’t do it] I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 

Psa 95:7-8  For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice,  (8)  Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:

Isa 63:9-10  In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.  (10)  But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.

  The very same spirit has been manifested in Battle Creek. Those who opened the door of their hearts to temptation at Minneapolis, and carried the same spirit home with them, will realize, if not now, in the near future, that they resisted the Holy Spirit of God, and did despite to the Spirit of grace. Will they repent? or will they harden their hearts, and resist evidence? SpTA06 21

When the Spirit of Christ speaks to the soul and the soul refuses to listen, the heart must harden itself against Christ to shut out the voice. The voice speaks very gently so only a little hardening occurs at first. The hardening is like the impurities placed into Gold or silver to degrade it to brass or iron. The ear becomes a little deafened to the Spirit and so the voice becomes a little louder so the soul can hear. But if it continues to resist it becomes like a shiny brass surface. Through this mirror surface a reflection is placed upon the sky reflecting the heart and the sky looks like what is in the heart of the person. When the person then reads the Scriptures he will see his own face.

The resisting of Christ in the everyday appeals is what crucifies Him in the Spirit.

"And they also which pierced Him." These words apply not only to the men who pierced Christ when He hung on the cross of Calvary, but to those who by evil-speaking and wrong-doing are piercing Him today. Daily He suffers the agonies of the crucifixion. Daily men and women are piercing Him by dishonoring Him, by refusing to do His will.  {ST, January 28, 1903 par. 8}

So when Jesus convicts you not to speak evil of others and you resist you pierce Christ and harden your heart. The hardening of the heart to those around us is the crucifixion of Christ in the Spirit and puts brass into you the mirror of your reading of Scripture.

The more you resist counsels on relationships, diet, entertainment, dress, the harder and shinier the mirror becomes and the more God looks like you when you read the Bible.

So if you have been convicted of things you need to change in your life and you resist those promptings and you keep reading the Bible then you will see more and more your own face in the mirror of Scripture as you read about God’s dealings with men.

The only way to remedy this is to look into the face of Jesus on earth – the glory of the Lord and let your heart be melted otherwise a veil of brass is over the heart when reading Moses.

Pivotal quote

God's standard of character is his law. Satan said, I will tear down this standard, and will plant my own standard in its place. This he has tried and is still trying to do, that God's standard may be eclipsed or seen through a glass darkly. The Jews did not see it, and that is why they crucified Christ. The Christian world do not see it, and that is why they refuse to acknowledge the law of God. In so doing they make themselves accountable for the sins that [1] destroyed the inhabitants of the old world by a flood, [20] that brought fire and brimstone upon Sodom, and [3] that destroyed the Jewish nation. Shall those to whom God has given wonderful opportunities and great light follow in the tread of those who rejected light to their ruin? Shall those to whom God has entrusted wonderful truth remain on the low level of the teachers of this generation? Christian Educator, August 1, 1897. 

The Big Four

Men cannot with impunity reject the warning which God in mercy sends them. A message was sent from heaven to the world in Noah's day, and their salvation depended upon the manner in which they treated that message. Because they rejected the warning, [1] the Spirit of God was withdrawn from the sinful race, and they perished in the waters of the Flood.[2] In the time of Abraham, mercy ceased to plead with the guilty inhabitants of Sodom, and all but Lot with his wife and two daughters were consumed by the fire sent down from heaven. [3] So in the days of Christ. The Son of God declared to the unbelieving Jews of that generation: "Your house is left unto you desolate." Matthew 23:38. [4] Looking down to the last days, the same Infinite Power declares, concerning those who "received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved": "For this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12. As they reject the teachings of His word, God withdraws His Spirit and leaves them to the deceptions which they love.  {GC 431.1} 

1. The Flood

Gen 6:7  And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. 

Luke 9:55,56  But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.  For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.

In stooping to take upon Himself humanity, Christ revealed a character the opposite of the character of Satan. DA 25

Jesus Christ is the Restorer. Satan, the apostate, is the destroyer. Here is the conflict between the Prince of life and the prince of this world, the power of darkness. . . . CTr 247.2

Are these plain statements? To ignore or resist them is to reject the pleading of the Spirit which could be pushing a person further into seeing God as someone like themselves.

Let us read the Scriptures simply

Gen 6:11  The earth [H776 firm, common, field, a land, ground, wilderness, nations, world] - also was corrupt [H7843 – decay, ruin, destroy] before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 

Gen 6:12  And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; [H7843 – decay, ruin, destroy] for all flesh had corrupted [H7843 – decay, ruin, destroy] his way upon the earth. 

What had destroyed the earth?

Man had destroyed his way upon the earth. This caused the earth – the field, the wilderness, the land to be filled with violence.

Isa 24:4-5  The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish.  (5)  The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.

Rev 11:18  And the nations were angry, [mirror] and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth. 

How Does God destroy the earth? His Strange Act

Isa 28:21  For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; [turn aside, to be a foreigner, go away, ]and bring to pass his act, his strange act. 

The Bible tells us what process led to the destruction of the flood.

Gen 6:12  And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; [H7843 – decay, ruin, destroy] for all flesh had corrupted [H7843 – decay, ruin, destroy] his way upon the earth. 

The violent spirit of man defiled the earth itself and the earth itself was filled with violence.

Gen 7:11  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. 

The Antediluvians

The people used the gold, silver, precious stones, and choice wood, in building houses for themselves, each striving to excel the other. They beautified and adorned their houses and lands with the most ingenious works, and provoked God by their [68] wicked deeds. They formed images to worship, and taught their children to regard these pieces of workmanship made with their own hands, as gods, and to worship them. 1SP 67, 68

Whole groves, because of the shelter of their branches, were dedicated to their idol gods, and made attractive for the people to resort to for their idolatrous worship.  {1SP 68}

When we study the history of the sumerians – the most ancient recorded civilisation we note that the their primal goddess was a water god called Nammu.

Nammu was the Goddess sea (Engur) that gave birth to An (heaven) and Ki (earth) and the first gods, representing the Apsu, the fresh water ocean that the Sumerians believed lay beneath the earth, the source of life-giving water and fertility in a country with almost no rainfall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nammu    

Nammu is the Sumerian Creatrix Goddess. Her name is usually written with the sign engur, which is also used to write Apsu. She personifies the Apsu, or the sweet fertile waters, as the source of water and hence fertility. God-lists and other texts describe Her as "The Mother who gave birth to Heaven and Earth", "Mother, first One, who gave birth to the gods of the universe", or "Mother of Everything". She is a goddess without a spouse, the self-procreating womb of the universe, the primal matter, standing for the female Sex as the one apparently able to create spontaneously, as expressed in a hymn to the temple of Eridu, "E-engurra, womb of Abundance".

Of Her, Samuel Noah Kramer (History begins at Sumer, 1981, the University of Pennsylvannia Press, Philadelphia) says:

" first was the primeval sea. Nothing is said of its origin or birth, and it is not unlikely that the Sumerian conceived it as having existed eternally" pg. 82

http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/gods/ladies/ladynammu.html

So the ancients worshipped the waters and was considered, at least to the Sumerians to be the primal eternal goddess figure.

Psa 9:16  The LORD is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion. Selah. 

The Antediluvians created gods to worship. A central god they worshipped was water. God allowed the people to be snared in the work of their own hands.

Rom 1:21-23  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.  (22)  Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,  (23)  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.

The Spirit of God was pleading with the people all the time. They knew their deeds were evil

Rom 1:32  Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. 

They knew they were worthy of judgment. It was through the gods of their own creation that judgement came: A water god, maybe even Nammu.

Just as Egypt was destroyed through the gods they worshipped so were the Antediluvians. They worshipped the sky and the earth as well but the water goddess Nammu gave birth to the sky and earth.

 A common quote

The aggravating character of sin against such a God cannot be estimated any more than the heavens can be measured with a span. God is a moral governor as well as a Father. He is the Lawgiver. He makes and executes His laws. Law that has no penalty is of no force.  {12MR 208.2} 

The plea may be made that a loving Father would not see His children suffering the punishment of God by fire while He had the power to relieve them. But God would, for the good of His subjects and for their safety, punish the transgressor. God does not work on the plan of man. He can do infinite justice that man has no right to do before his fellow man. Noah would have displeased God to have drowned one of the scoffers and mockers  that harassed him, but God drowned the vast world. Lot would have had no right to inflict punishment on his sons-in-law, but God would do it in strict justice.--Ms 5, 1876, pp. 1-3. 12MR 208.3

Strict Justice

Exo 20:5  Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

Psa 9:16  The LORD is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion. Selah. 

Eze 9:10  And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head. 

How did God drown the world in strict justice?

He snared them in the work of their own hands.
He visited their iniquity upon them
He recompensed their way upon their heads.

Those voice that claim that we believe that God does not punish have the same spirit as those who say we do not believe in the Holy Spirit. They are not listening – they are hearing but seeing their own face.

God will turn aside. He will allow me to receive what they have sown. He will do it in strict justice. He will bring their own ways upon them. How? By turning aside. This is His strange act. This is how He drowns the world.

But this statement God drowned the world is a perfect. On a surface of pure gold in the face of Jesus, this statement tells us that God will allow men to reap what they sow. To those looking in the brass mirror they see that God Himself violently destroyed the world and personally crushed out their life.

Which mirror will you look into the gold one or the brass one?

Stop resisting the Spirit of God and putting brass impurity into the gold mirror. Take off the veil on the writings of Moses and look at it through the glory of Christ – the glory of the Lord.