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Message |
Asurprise
Registered user
Username: Asurprise
Post Number: 154
Registered: 7-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 11:52 am: |     |
Bree; another thing to consider is that the new covenant didn't come into effect until Christ's death. Jesus' disciples were ignorant about a lot of things during His ministry - perhaps they were unsure about whether they were supposed to keep the Sabbath or not, since He had just died.
Hebrews 9:15-17 says: "And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives."
Anyway, since the old covenant was ending and the new covenant just beginning, they might have been confused. |
Pastor2move
Registered user
Username: Pastor2move
Post Number: 7
Registered: 8-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 12:11 pm: | |
Hi Bree, and welcome,
Consider this possibility. Even if you could prove the Sabbath binding in the NT, which you cannot, How would you keep it? You cannot get a definitive picture of how to keep the Sabbath from the NT, everyone goes to the OT for that. But no one does all that the OT says to do. You cannot, Peter say so in Acts 15. So people they pick and choose, and there is automatically controversy, and divisions. No one can say for certain exactly what you are to do, except EGW, Oh, but wait a minute, she contradicts herself.
Jesus spent His time showing people all the things that were more important than the Sabbath. This is why attempting to keep the Sabbath will always make you feel guilty. You will never keep it good enough, and the focus is on self, your performance, and not on Christ. Thus Sabbath observance, (Sabbath regulations) is inescapably a performance prop to make me feel acceptable to God. People at first feel naked when they give up their Sabbath rituals, but then they find the opportunity for a deeper fellowship with Christ. They are saved totally and only through Him, and they are saved NOW. God is not interested in our guilt motivation, only our grace and gratitude motivation. Beloved, now are we the children of God. 1 Jn 3
I admire your courage.
2move |
Bree_w
Registered user
Username: Bree_w
Post Number: 10
Registered: 7-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 12:28 pm: | |
Hello Pastor =)
Good to meet you! I must say pastors make me very nervous, but I have seen you to be a very loving, grace-filled man. I have often wondered about the SDA principles of Sabbath-keeping. I've asked several people throughout the years why we don't keep the Sabbath as we are taught in the OT if indeed it is binding. Apparently, thats not a question an Adventist is supposed to ask, as I found out the hard way =)
ISO,
I did feel quite attacked at the suggestion of meeting with Union professors. I feel a little like they are trying to fix me hehe.
Asurprise,
I know if I had been around in Jesus' time, His death would've left me very uncertain and fearful. I think there is definetely truth in what you said. They were just doing what they had done their entire life, that doesn't mean we are required to do the same. Like my mother always said, "well are you going to jump off a bridge just because so and so did?" The same can be said of all these rules that were imposed upon us.
I am so glad that I have Jesus Christ as my Sabbath rest and that He is all I need.
In Christ
Bree |
Cortney
Registered user
Username: Cortney
Post Number: 28
Registered: 8-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 1:02 pm: | |
Bree-I often wondered too,how to keep the Sabbath Day,I know many Adventist who could never measure up to old testament Sabbath keeping.That includes myself too,when I was an Adventist.I know my MIL answered by saying "Jesus healed on the Sabbath,so we don't have to keep in OT terms." But we never healed on the Sabbath,like Jesus,we drove to church,gave tithe,in the winter sometimes we had to shovel snow off of driveway,no matter how hard you tried to prepare meals on friday afternoon you still had work to heat it up and serve it and clean off the table!Sometimes we would got out to eat and pay with a credit card,that way no money would be exchanged,even though we were contradicating our beliefs because others had to serve us,causing them to break the Sabbath!-Cortney |
Bigal
Registered user
Username: Bigal
Post Number: 89
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 2:07 pm: | |
From the NIV (the only version I have here at work) "Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy" Deut 5:12, "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy" Exo 20:8. How does one observe or remember or keep the Sabbath day holy? For that matter, how do we as humans make anything holy? Are these passages suggesting that we are doing something about the holiness of the Sabbath day?
Alan |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 6606
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 3:31 pm: | |
Hi, Bree--welcome to the forum! Wow, you have a big meeting ahead of you--do you know yet when it will be?
I have to say that I do agree with River that you do not have to meet with this pastor, although I understand your desire to protect your dad. Before you schedule it (if you haven't yet), I'd just like to suggest that you ask God if He wants you to meet with this man. It very well may be His will to have you meet--but you need to be certain. You can KNOW that the Holy Spirit will let you know if this is His will.
I've no doubt that you will be able to answer his questions; you are articulate, and its clear you have studied well. The place you are likely to be caught off guard (if at all) is the area of spiritual warfare. There are many things "behind the scenes" which you would not have any way to know: will the pastor seek to throw you off balance with subtle illogic that allows no good answer? Will the meeting actually be for the purpose of generating guilt--not over leaving Adventism necessarily but over personal influence and letting others down? Do you suppose God might actually not want you to protect your dad by agreeing to this meeting? In other words--if your parents weren't in this equation at all, would you feel differently about the meeting? Perhaps God is seeking to bring overt cognitive dissonance to your dad as well?
If you believe God is leading you to have this meeting, He will bless you and give you words. If He is not leading you to do this, He will give you other, more fruitful venues to state your convictions and to honor Him with your lips!
God will be with you, Bree, and He is also going to use your departure from Adventism as His tool in your family to bring them to see more clearly the incongruity of Adventist beliefs. He is faithful.
Colleen |
Bree_w
Registered user
Username: Bree_w
Post Number: 11
Registered: 7-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 5:10 pm: | |
Hello Colleen =)
Thanks so much for your post, it really made me reexamine my heart and why I feel the need to have this meeting. Christ will be the victor in any spiritual warfare as long as He remains my focus. I have nothing to fear with Jesus as the only focus of my life. I have no doubt that guilt and pressure will be used as well as circular reasoning, skewed logic and irrelevant concepts. I prayed hard about this before replying to your post and in studying Scripture I feel called to present the gospel to this man. He may not receive it and it may not protect my parents from the backlash, but I must be true to the gospel. We are all called to be ambassadors of Christ and I must follow that calling. I am convicted that I must not bring secondary and nit-picky issues into the discussion. It must be the Gospel of Jesus Christ, no more and no less. If after presenting this gospel, he turns away, I will shake the dust from my feet and have no more need to debate the issue. But for the sake of Christ I must present the truth I have learned from Scripture. The Lord is already working on my father and he and my mother are studying and finding the truth. I am confident in God's ability to finish the work he has started in them and in me. Thank you again so much for helping me to approach this with an attitude of submission to God's will. You are such a blessing to me =)
In Christ |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 4170
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 5:22 pm: | |
Bree, Welcome to FAF. I will pray that your meeting with the pastor is what God wants and that God gives you the words to say.
Let us know when that meeting is, OK??
Our awesome God will help you.
Diana |
Honestwitness
Registered user
Username: Honestwitness
Post Number: 301
Registered: 7-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 5:42 pm: | |
If you do meet with your pastor, Bree, you might consider sharing with him these thoughts:
From the Old Testament:
Numbers 15:32-36 gives the details of the first time capital punishment was administered for breaking the Sabbath. The man who picked up sticks was put to death for that infraction of the law.
From the New Testament:
John 5:1-18 tells about the lame man that Jesus healed by the pool of Bethesda. Jesus told the man to take up his bed and walk. The Jews told the man it was not lawful for him to take up his bed, because it was the Sabbath day. The Jews sought to kill Jesus because he broke the Sabbath and even told the lame man to break it.
Do you see a connection between these two passages? God gave the Sabbath commandment and instructed that the death penalty was to be administered for breaking it. The very same God was crucified because HE broke the Sabbath Himself and instructed the lame man to do an unlawful act on the Sabbath.
If the Sabbath is a moral law, Jesus could not be our perfect Savior, because He broke it. John doesn't say, "The Jews THOUGHT Jesus was breaking the Sabbath." John says Jesus WAS breaking the Sabbath. Furthermore, John says Jesus was making Himself equal with God. He doesn't say, "The Jews THOUGHT he was making himself equal with God."
John would be careful enough to make that distinction, as we see he made a similar distinction in John 19:19-21, when Pilate wrote on the sign that was nailed to the cross above Jesus' head. Pilate started to write, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." But the chief priests told Pilate to write, "He SAID, I am the King of the Jews."
If John wanted to tell his readers that the Jews THOUGHT that Jesus was breaking the Sabbath, he would have stated that. But instead, he stated that Jesus broke (or was breaking) the Sabbath.
If the Sabbath is a moral law, we should expect to receive the death penalty and to administer the death penalty for breaking it, because moral laws are binding at any time and at any place in the universe.
Jesus came to fulfill the Sabbath law by BEING the Sabbath for us. We are totally helpless to save ourselves or make ourselves have any special status before a Holy God. Jesus' sacrifice must be our covering, now and forever more, as we stand in the presence of the Judge of the universe.
How totally insignificant it would be for us to present to God our list of righteousnesses to gain any kind of favor from Him. Can you imagine us standing before God and saying, "I lived a righteous, moral life. I never did my laundry on the Sabbath, never bought gasoline on the Sabbath, never thought about paying bills on the Sabbath, never took out the trash on the Sabbath." The list could go on and on.
It is the ultimate insult to offer God anything other than Christ's blood to atone for our sins or make us right with Him.
The Adventists have one thing partly right. The Sabbath will be the ultimate test at the end of time to determine whether we are "safe to save." But the Sabbath of Adventism is infinitely minuscule compared to the infinitely powerful and holy Lord Jesus Christ, who paid the price to redeem us and IS our Sabbath.
Honestwitness |
Susans
Registered user
Username: Susans
Post Number: 429
Registered: 8-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 5:47 pm: | |
Hi Bree,
I was going to post earlier today asking you what was the main thing that led you to leave Adventism. SDA's like to go off on tangents with side issues as I'm sure you know. It's good to see you will concentrate on the gospel. I will pray that you are strong in the Lord!
Susan |
Bree_w
Registered user
Username: Bree_w
Post Number: 12
Registered: 7-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 5:54 pm: | |
Susan,
I started with the Sabbath when I first started studying because I was trying to prove the Sabbath to a friend. That led me to study about the covenants, law vs grace, and the nature of Christ. I am leaving first and foremost because I do not believe that grace and the law can coexist. You must choose which you will live by. I choose grace. Thank God for His mercy in leading me to His Son!
In Christ
Bree |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 6611
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 6:27 pm: | |
Bree, God will go with you! Let us know when your meeting will be so we can pray...
Honestwitness, thanks for your great post above.
Colleen |
Wooliee
Registered user
Username: Wooliee
Post Number: 91
Registered: 6-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 7:53 pm: | |
quote:The Adventists have one thing partly right. The Sabbath will be the ultimate test at the end of time to determine whether we are "safe to save." But the Sabbath of Adventism is infinitely minuscule compared to the infinitely powerful and holy Lord Jesus Christ, who paid the price to redeem us and IS our Sabbath.
Amen! It is like that song, "I Can See Clearly Now." Adventism holds the sabbath and other doctrines above Jesus. Jesus is never enough in Adventism. If they only knew and believed in their hearts that Jesus is EVERYTHING.
Julie |
Weimarred
Registered user
Username: Weimarred
Post Number: 121
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 11:05 pm: | |
Bree,
I can't really welcome you, as I am very recently a come-backer myself. But it’s good to hear your story, and I well relate to any anxiety you feel about meeting with this pastor.
Others have alluded to or articulated this already, but I would reiterate: weren’t Jesus’ contemporaries all observing the old traditions? What elevates one tradition over another?
For example, I’m sure that many were kosher, not just in the meats that they would eat, but rather, truly kosher, which means eating your foods separately, not mixing them on the same plate.
I doubt his contemporaries were blindingly aware of what the rent curtain meant!
Let’s face it, long after Jesus’ resurrection, the early church had to settle the issue of circumcision (shiver!). And (gasp!) they chose a new tradition!
SDA’s are often guilty of the “smoking-gun-syndrome”. They say, “Aha! Here is a bit of evidence that proves our point!” All the while, they ignore the 9 other bits of evidence that diametrically oppose their point.
Having lived the life, this tends to bother me even more. I have to be careful I don’t fall into the same trap, which I still do all too often.
Best Wishes,
Tom |
Mwh
Registered user
Username: Mwh
Post Number: 694
Registered: 4-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 - 10:25 am: | |
Bree, welcome here !!! :-)
It would be great for you to witness to your former pastor, maybe God will use you to sow some of the Gospel seeds into His heart and mind.
"This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith" (Tit 1,13)
Well thats just a bit of the Word of God, pray and hear Him speak to you in His Word and you will know what to do.
Have a great day,
Martin |
Bree_w
Registered user
Username: Bree_w
Post Number: 13
Registered: 7-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 - 1:11 pm: | |
Thanks for the welcome Honestwitness, Tom and Martin,
Sorry to be so slow in my reply, been quite busy with school =)
Honestwitness, I had to read your post several times to understand it all =) but once I did it made me feel so at peace...Jesus is my Sabbath and Praise God for the rest I have found!
Tom,
I still struggle with a lot of my old Adventist thinking and it is very hard to let it stay in the past, especially since I am attending an Adventist college. But I no longer worry about being right on all my points of theology. There are some things i've not examined at all and some I just dont have an answer to, but I know that the Holy Spirit will work on me in His time and at that point I will understand what I need. Until then I rest in the mighty arms of my God. I will be praying for you in your search for truth =)
Martin,
Thanks so much for the encouragement. It is my deepest hope that in speaking with this man, a seed will be sown and he will begin to search for himself and find Jesus in all His glory, power, grace and love.
In Christ Bree |
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