Rocky Mountain Baha’i

 
Well, it tells you that He was persecuted by the High Priests. He went before the Sanhedrin and the High Priest Hannah slapped Him and said, “Now prophesy who slapped you.” They put Him on a donkey backward and paraded Him through the streets. When He died they put a crown of thorns on his head and said, “Hail, king of the Jews!” They hung Him on a cross. They scourged Him. They beat Him with ropes and things like that until He bled all over. Now this persecution, hatred, derision, all of these things, this is how He went up — in rejection, persecution and martyrdom (Isaiah 53). , These are all in the scriptures. This is what happened to Him.­ This is the way He returns. Baha’u’llah returns hated, persecuted, put into prison, and beat with the bastinado. Twenty thousand of Baha’u’llah’s followers were martyred. His forerunner, the Bab, was martyred just like the forerunner of Jesus, John the Baptist. They cut off his head and served it to Salome.
 
Baha’u’llah said when the manifestation of God returns the whole bunch returns with Him: all those that persecuted Him and all those that supported Him. That is, the people reject Him on the same basis that He was rejected before. In other words, Baha’u’ll’ah was rejected on the same basis. They said Jesus was a blasphemer claiming to be the Promised One. The Muslims said Baha’u’llah is a blasphemer claiming to be the Promised One. It is always on the same basis that the One that comes from God gets persecuted.
 
* It says in the Bible that He resurrected bodily. After three days the tomb was empty and He resurrected.
 
But the body of Jesus was not in the tomb three days and three nights. Look in the 12th chapter of Matthew. He was only in there 36 hours: Two nights and one day. He was killed on Friday. He was in the tomb all night Friday night, all day Saturday and all night Saturday night. Sunday morning when the sun came up the tomb was empty: two nights and one day (Matthew 12).
 
This is the only proof that Jesus gave that He was the Christ. They said to Him, Give us a sign. He said, “No, an evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, but no sign shall be given to it; but as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” All the Christians will accept that this pertains to Jesus. But they say Friday night, Saturday and Sunday morning, and that’s not three days and three nights. Why do you think that the tomb was empty after two nights and one day, if that’s the only proof? It was so you and you and you and nobody would believe that His physical body resurrected.
 
* It does say in the Bible that He is going to come again. If He didn’t resurrect bodily, how is He going to come again?
 
As a parallel, the Jews were waiting for the physical body of Elijah to come. They, like the Christians, thought Elijah had gone up into the sky in a flaming chariot because it said it went up into the heaven.
 
* Where does it say that in the Bible?
 
II Kings, chapter 2. So he went up into heaven in a flaming chariot with flaming horses and all. The horses were flaming and the chariot was flaming and there was a whirlwind-—a flaming chariot and a whirlwind.
 
In the last two verses of the Old Testament, in the last two verses of Malachi, it says Elijah the prophet must come before the Christ comes.
 
Jesus told His apostles to go out and teach the nations and the people that He was the Christ. They came up against the doctors and the lawyers, the priests and the rabbis and they told them that Jesus couldn’t be the Christ because it says clearly in Malachi that Elijah is going to come first. What did Jesus tell them?
 
Jesus told them that John the Baptist was Elijah. They went and asked John the Baptist and he said he wasn’t Elijah. This makes a conflict. Jesus said he was; John said he wasn’t. How do you resolve the conflict? The answer is, it was the spirit that was going to come back — not the bodily man (See Matt. 17: 10—12 & Luke 1).
 
It says in the Bible that Elijah was dressed in a camel’s hair coat, living on locusts and honey, asking the people to repent and return to the Lord. Nine hundred years later here comes John the Baptist walking in the same desert, dressed in a camel’s hair coat, living on locusts and honey, telling the people to repent and return to the Lord. If you looked at one and looked at the other you couldn’t tell the difference, just like two lamps give the same light. Jesus said that John the Baptist was Elijah because the same light that was in Elijah returned in John the Baptist.
 
The Jews had Jesus crucified because they were expecting the same Elijah to return. They would not accept John the Baptist being the Elijah. Every time they open their ceremonies, no matter which it is, they place a goblet of wine on the altar. If you ask them what that goblet of wine is for, they will tell you it is for Elijah when he returns. If you ask them why they didn’t accept John the Baptist they say they would have a conflict. They say, then what would we do with the true Elijah when he comes? We would have two Elijahs. We’d have John the Baptist and the real Elijah.
 
The Christians think they’re stupid because they didn’t accept John the Baptist as the return of Elijah. Yet they turn around and do the same damnable thing. Just as Jesus
resurrected and went up into heaven, exactly like Elijah had gone up into heaven, likewise when He returns He returns as a different person.
 
If He is going to come as a different person, how are you going to recognize Him? Suppose He was sitting across the table from you, or living next door. How would you know? How do you tell a true prophet from a false prophet? In the Bible it says beware of false prophets, so you have to beware of false prophets.
 
* I don’t know.
 
If you had a gold ring, how would you tell that it is pure gold?
 
* See if it has “14 carat gold” stamped on it. -
 
Well, it might have that stamped on it. The criterion for this is the acid test. When they had the gold out here in the west and they took it to the assayer, they exchanged the gold for money. The assayer weighed the gold and he’d give it the acid test. He can then immediately tell if it’s gold or fool’s gold or some other metal.
 
If I asked you to tell me how far it is from here to downtown Missoula, how would you be able to tell me how far it is?
 
*I’d look at the odometer on my car. I’d measure it.
 
Or, you could get a yardstick and measure it all the way down or you could measure it with surveyor instruments. These are all criteria to tell how far it is from here to downtown.
 
If I should ask you, “What is the temperature in the room?” How would you tell?
 
* The thermometer.
 
How can you tell what direction you’re going?
 
* The compass.
How fast you’re going?
 
*The speedometer.
 
Your blood pressure?
 
* Sphygmomariometer.
 
There is a criterion for establishing just about everything there is. In a chemistry lab they can tell how many blood cells
you have by counting them and so forth. So there is a criterion for everything. Therefore there has to be a criterion for telling a true prophet from a false prophet.
 
* What is that criteria?
 
The calling card. People have their name on it. They have their profession on it. They have the address and their office hours. For instance, take the calling card for my wife Opal. It says Dr. Opal M. Ardent, Chiropractic Physician, 328 Anderson Avenue, Bozeman, Montana, with her office hours. You could be in Minneapolis and I could hand you that card and you could go right down and sit in her office. All you’d have to do is get on an airplane, get off at the airport in Bozeman, get in a cab and tell him, I want to go to 328 Anderson Ave. You go and sit down in her office and she comes out and says, “I’m Dr. Ardent.” Would you call her a liar?
 
No. There might be other people called Opal Ardent and some of them might even be Chiropractors. But there is only one person in the world that is Dr. Opal M. Ardent, Chiropractor, 328 Anderson Ave., who is there during those office hours. There is not another person in the world that fulfills these criteria. Did you know that Jesus was prophesied by name, address, date, and profession?