LCG, 1492, and the Last Great Day

Waters from Tobago

Today is the 518th anniversary of Columbus coming to America (the official holiday was observed by some yesterday). Wallace Smith of the Living Church of God wrote the following:

I recall Mr. John Ogwyn saying something about Columbus Day many years ago and decided to check it out for myself. Sure enough, as best as I can tell with some quick back-of-the-envelope (OK, back-of-the-spreadsheet) calculation it appears he was right: October 12, 1492, the day Columbus arrived in the New World, was the Last Great Day — the eighth day Holy Day after the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles that year (cf. Lev. 23:36, 39; John 7:37). [EDIT, 10/11/2010 PM: See comments, below. I may be off and the Last Great Day may have begun at sundown on 10/12/1492, meaning that Columbus arrived on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. You’ve got to be careful with those envelope backs!](Technical note: You can’t trust some of the automatic Internet Hebrew Calendar calculators for that calculation, because they do not always account for the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in the 16th century. Thankfully, some of them mention this, though some do not. Instead, I used my very own handmade (OK, spreadsheet-made) “Gregorian & Proleptic Julian” Calendar that gives dates and days of the week back to January 1, 1AD. Doesn’t everyone have one of those?)

The analogy to be drawn is just too tempting, isn’t it? The Last Great Day pictures a time when all of humanity who never knew and understood God’s truth, great and small, will rise from the grave and have their minds opened to things that had previously been “behind a veil” and beyond comprehension. To them, it will be as though a whole new world is stretching out before them. And on the Last Great Day in 1492, Christopher Columbus stepped foot onto a quite literal New World. Neat, huh? [EDIT: Actually, as my sharp-eyed calculating commenters mention, below, the Last Great Day was the next day, October 13. The 12th was the final day of the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Last Great Day started that evening at sundown.]

What was interesting to me, at least, was that LCG’s Rod Reynolds wrote the following for his commentary today (and I do not believe that the two coordinated their efforts on this:

Commentary: Thirst for the living waters

By Rod Reynolds | Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Without water you can’t live. In fact, your physical body consists largely of water. And the supply of water in your body must be constantly replenished for you to thrive. Usually, we rely on our sense of thirst to tell us when and how much water to drink…

On the last day of the Feast, Jesus said: “If anyone thirsts.” Israel thirsted in the wilderness for water. And God supplied their need, intervening miraculously to turn bitter waters into sweet, and causing water to gush forth from barren rock. Though God mercifully supplied them with physical water to keep them alive, they couldn’t see beyond that to their need for the living water of God’s Spirit. They thirsted for water to fulfill their fleshly needs, but they did not thirst for God…

We’re all in a spiritual wilderness. Whether we know it or not, we need God’s guidance, His protection, His assurance, His comfort, His faith, His love, His hope and confidence, His strength, His righteousness. We need His Spirit dwelling in us and the fellowship with Him that results. We need the life that only He can give us – eternal life, God life. God tells us that if we thirst, and if we come to Jesus Christ to be satisfied, He will give us freely of the water of life, abundantly; all that we need (Revelation 22:17).

We need to make sure that our sense of thirst, spiritually speaking, is well developed. Like David, we need to seek God. We need to put God first, making sure we study God’s word daily. Make sure you pray every morning. Pray at night and at other times during the day as well. Take your concerns, your cares, and your needs to God. Give God thanks; pray for the needs of others. Develop your relationship with God, and you’ll find that you begin to have the thirst for Him that David had.

When the vast multitudes of Israel and all of mankind are resurrected at the time of the Great White Throne Judgment, God is going to offer them the water of life freely. Read more

And while the “Last Great Day” for 2010 was observed on September 30th, the reality is that its fulfillment is in the future.

1492 changed the world–and not all for the good. Yet, the Last Great Day will represent a change to a new age that will be what most of humanity has often longed for.

A major reason that I became part of the old Worldwide Church of God and now the Living Church of God is that in addition to proving all things from the Bible, I truly believe that since “God is love” (1 John 4:16) that He has a plan of salvation that will ultimately result in everyone being called and nearly every one who ever lived being saved.

Two must read articles to demonstrate the truth of those doctrines are Hope of Salvation: How the COGs differ from most Protestants and Universal Salvation? There Are Hundreds of Verses in the Bible Supporting the Doctrine of True Apocatastasis.