| Author | Message | ||
| Pegg Registered user Username: Pegg Post Number: 127 Registered: 2-2006 |
Did you ever ask your dad (or teacher, or SDA pastor) how they knew that the Sabbath day you were keeping had been unchanged over 1,000s of years? And were you told, as I was, "No problem! The Jews were meticulous at keeping records of these things." Folks, I want to share a discussion that is currently in progress on CARM. You can reference the whole discussion here: http://www.christiandiscussionforums.org/v/showpost.php?p=4778986&postcount=1 Following is my summary of what you will find in the thread:
To Which the thread author responded:
There is just too much information in this thread for me to post it all here (besides, I'm no expert). Just Go And Read It For Yourself. (Be sure to follow the links that Sophia has posted.) Pegg  (Message edited by pegg on June 11, 2009) | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 830 Registered: 7-2007 |
It would be wonderful to get some of the minutes of that meeting and copy-and-paste it in an email to my SDA sister!  I'm afraid though, that she's one of those Adventists who doesn't want to see the truth. | ||
| Mommamayi Registered user Username: Mommamayi Post Number: 813 Registered: 12-2007  |
Wow. Just wow. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 9973 Registered: 12-2003  |
Sigh. It's like the 1919 Bible Conference where the assemblages decided that, even though many of them doubted the veracity of Ellen's visions, it would be too upsetting to the church to discredit her then, so they voted that the minutes of the meeting had to be locked into a vault for 50 years, and nothing would be said. One of the questions we were asked at this meeting in Auburn by some of the on-the-edge formers was, "Do the church and the leaders know their beliefs are wrong?" The answer, Indeed, YES! Colleen | ||
| Pegg Registered user Username: Pegg Post Number: 129 Registered: 2-2006 |
Did you-all see this? Adventist Yearbook, 1883:
Here's the jpeg http://www.4angelspublications.com/articles/adventist_year_book.jpg -- you'll find it at the bottom of the page, and will have to enlarge it to read it. Pegg | ||
| Helovesme2 Registered user Username: Helovesme2 Post Number: 2043 Registered: 8-2004  |
Oh my! I wonder who slipped that in? | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 7006 Registered: 3-2004  |
WOW!!!!! The leaders knew back then and still taught all the abberant beliefs. Diana L | ||
| Grace_alone Registered user Username: Grace_alone Post Number: 1461 Registered: 6-2006  |
Lies upon lies. | ||
| 8thday Registered user Username: 8thday Post Number: 966 Registered: 11-2007  |
I think I'm going to be sick. Being sincerely misled is one thing - being lied to... another thing entirely. Too upsetting for the church???!!! I think rather, too damaging to their profit, positions, power, pride,.. any more "p" words I can throw in there? So sick. Paul seems to always throw in the "dishonest gain" element when warning about false teachers. | ||
| Hec Registered user Username: Hec Post Number: 269 Registered: 3-2009 |
1888 Righteousness by Faith - under the rug 1919 EGW under the rug 1938 Discrepancies on calendars- under the rug 1950 Daniel 8:14 Ramon Cottrel - Bible Comentary - under the rug. 1980's IJ under the rug Has anyone collected a list of the different times when committees have been formed to resolved Bible or theological issues and the results have been swept under the rug? That would be a good project for the researchers in this forum. | ||
| Bb Registered user Username: Bb Post Number: 440 Registered: 7-2004 |
pensions, pretense, percentages, popularity | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 9977 Registered: 12-2003 |
It is a fact: we were lied to. It's embarrassing at first to realize that...but evil always lies. We are born into evil; of COURSE we were lied to! We just happened to be part of a lie that masqueraded as a church. Praise God for transferring us from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of His beloved Son! Colleen | ||
| Jackob Registered user Username: Jackob Post Number: 515 Registered: 7-2005 |
Good question: "Do the church and the leaders know their beliefs are wrong?" In a sense "Yes", in another "No". But in the first sense, they knew because their consciences tell them what is wrong and what is right. In my personal case, and I'm not speaking regarding others, I was always embarrased about the fact that my denomination's central teaching was resting on a history that started with a gross blunder, fixing a date for the coming of the Lord. I was always embarrased when I thought of explaining to others (which I never attempted to do, due to this uneasiness)the reasons for the existence of my church. How can I explain to others that my church started with the announcement of a second coming at a specific date which proved that it was a mistake? And that rejecting this message by the churches of that time was the equivalent of apostasy, hmm, does this sound entirely right? How God's special church and a grossly erroneous message at the start of it were simply two concepts that I was unable to fully reconcile in my mind. In this sense, I deeply felt that the teachings of the church are wrong. In another sense, I was thinking that, due to my ignorance, I'm unable to see the greater picture that resolves the apparently contradictory positions. I applied to seminary partly because I wanted to find answers for my questions, and I ended with more questions. Still, because I had a vague understanding of the gospel, filtered through the lens of the investigative judgment and all the stuff associated with it, I was unable to perceive that my beliefs are wrong. That my sound contradictory, but it's not. Jesus told the Pharisees that they are not blind, and they are responsible for their rejections of Him
Clearly, they were responsible, and their attitude of rejection was sin. They knew that rejecting Jesus was wrong. Still, they had not "knew" Jesus in another sense.
Notice that Paul speaks of a wisdom of God, a knowledge of Jesus that those who crucified Jesus missed. In a sense, they knew that Jesus was the Lord of glory, in another, they were ignorant. That's why only when the gospel brings light, through the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, people are able to have true faith Jesus. Until then, they are dead in sins, even if they are made conscious by God through their conscience of their wrong paths. In our case, adventists are certainly without excuse, they know that their beliefs are wrong, still they lack the ability to identify precisely their beliefs as being wrong because they don't understand and see the truth of the gospel. It's like perceiving that what you hold in the hand is a false coin, still, because you don't know how a true coin looks like, you're unable to identify with precision your coin as false. And it takes God's supernatural intervention of his grace in order to resurrect a sinner dead in trespasses and bring him to faith in the gospel. Because, drawing further on the analogy of false-true coin, when confronted with a true coin, you should first assent to the authenticity of the coin before assenting to the falseness of your false coin. When confronted with the truth gospel, you need first to believe that this gospel is indeed true, that it is authentic, before you will recognize and assent that the gospel you previously held was false. Even if you knew that something is not quite right with your gospel. Anyway, good question. Good enough to stir me toward giving my two cents. Gabriel | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 9982 Registered: 12-2003 |
I understand what you are saying, Gabriel. Nevertheless, Adventist leaders actually DO know that their beliefs are wrong. Have you read Dale Ratzlaff's book, Truth about Seventh-day Adventist Truth? Back in the early 80s, when Dale was trying to resolve the question of the investigative judgment, he asked a great many theologians and teachers and administrators whom he names in the book. These people, including Graham Maxwell, conference officials, and teachers at both PUC and Andrews, failed to answer his questions. Instead, these men told him in various ways the same thing: Consider the church to be your employer; do what you can to avoid making waves; stay quiet about the unanswerable questions. Graham Maxwell even told Dale, 'Your problem is that you are too honest." These men over 25 years ago KNEW the IJ was non-biblical. They KNEW it could not be proven without EGW. But they refused to refute it. Instead, they chose to stay quiet, get rid of those who insisted there was a problem, and continued supporting it. Perhaps some of the lay people in the pews cannot tell how their doctrines are skewed because they were taught them with proof texts and never really had reason to pursue a clearer understanding. Those people undoubtedly experience the dissonance you describe above. However, most pastors and administrators do know these doctrines are not biblically based. In fact, our pastor at Glendale City Church told us in his SS Class in the mid-80s that they were actively taught, when he was at Andrews seminary, what the problems were with SDA doctrine, but they were instructed not to tell their parishioners because it could cause the to lose faith. On the whole, the pastors and theologians do know that their central doctrines are not biblical, but they refuse to take a stand against them and silently (if not overtly) endorse them to the people by staying within the ranks and collecting their salaries. Absolutely, only when a person is born again do these things become clear, but like the Pharisees, many of these Adventist leaders DO see—and refuse the truth. They cannot be excused because they haven't been regenerated. God presents them with reality, and many look away. God holds each of us responsible for receiving or rejecting truth. The uncomfortable conclusion from this scenario is that probably many Adventists (like JW, Mormons, even false Christians) are not born again. Colleen | ||
| 8thday Registered user Username: 8thday Post Number: 971 Registered: 11-2007 |
Gabriel, I understand what you are saying - we all have to take ownership of our being deceived and choosing a lie over the truth. There is willful blindness, where you sense something is wrong, but you don't really want to "know" know. (I remember well the twinges I would ignore when things just didn't sit right). It's a sin. But then there is another level of boldly acknowledging an untruth and continuing to propagate it that is beyond my ability to understand. (back to the "p" word list! lol thanks Bb!) There is no way to know exactly how many people fit this category - there are many sincere blind guides - (which I reiterate is still wrong) but I would not want to be the men who have chosen to turn away from doing the right thing - in full knowledge of what was true. | ||
| 8thday Registered user Username: 8thday Post Number: 973 Registered: 11-2007 |
Well, that added some perspective to what I was trying to say Colleen! ha. (Message edited by 8thday on June 13, 2009) | ||
| Jackob Registered user Username: Jackob Post Number: 517 Registered: 7-2005 |
Colleen I agree that the clergy of the SDA Church know a lot more than the average SDA member about the lack of scriptural basis for their teaching. I see the difference between their knowledge and the laity knowledge about this huge problem as being one of degree, not qualitatively different. What I mean by this is that even the laity is to a certain degree aware that there is impossible to prove from the Bible that Investigative Judgment is right. After the Quarterly about sanctuary written by Clifford Goldstein, how many members were able to prove their position exclusively from the Bible? It was related to me that a man prayed "God, we don't understand what you're telling us, but we know it's truth", obviously he was unable to sustain his belief with the Bible. I assume that he was aware that his position is not biblical, to a certain degree, but, of course, he trusted blindly in his leaders for the answers to this problem, even if he didn't understood the answers. To my knowledge his inability to articulate his faith and back it up with the Bible is not the exception, but the rule. Of course, the leaders knew better than him that there is no biblical basis. And they deliberately chose to conceal this fact and continue propagating their false teaching, that makes them to a greater degree responsible for what they are doing. That leaves them inexcusable, I understood that I was not clear in my previous post, leaving the impression that somehow I'm excusing them. I'm not. I just want to say that this is only one side of the coin. The other side is the laity's responsibility in this affair. The salaries of the pastors are paid by the members. They effectively give those pastors the power to think for themselves and trust them for interpreting the Bible. We may ask ourselves who's more responsible, the laity or the clergy, and the greater responsibility is placed on the leaders. But as the leaders cannot be excused for refusing to admit that what they believe is wrong, neither the laity is. They simply give the control of their lives to these leaders, I remember Greg Albrecht said that he blames Greg Albrecht for giving control of Greg Albrecht's life to Herbert W. Armstrong. You printed his declaration in the 2006, January/February issue of Proclamation! on page 6. It was a very insightful statement. Hope that this clarifies what I said previously. I don't want to excuse anybody, I just wanted to say that there are different degrees of responsibility, and, as Jesus said, the servant who knew the will of the master and didn't do it will receive greater punishment than the one who didn't. Gabriel | ||
| Jrt Registered user Username: Jrt Post Number: 613 Registered: 10-2008 |
Gabriel, Your post piqued my interest. Last night I met with another former and 2 Adventists that were trying to justify the I.J. . We listened for awhile and the Adventists wanted us to read an EGW quote from COL. As they read this long piece, I felt physically sick to my stomach. I couldn't just sit and listen. I reacted. Pointing out that EGW said one thing and then two sentences later she said the opposite - giving a skitzy point of view. Long story short. I asked these Adventists what was the purpose of the I.J. if they, too, believed in salvation by faith alone, through grace alone, by Christ. If they believed salvation is a done deal, then what is the purpose of the I.J. Their only answer. The I.J. is to justify God before the watching universe. I asked for a scripture text to indicate that ... The one fellow said there were no scripture texts to indicate it. The other Adventist said, "I'm sure I've read it somewhere". I told them to come back with a text that showed the I.J.'s purpose is to justify God before a watching world. If they could find a clear text and it is taken in context - I might consider the validity of the I.J. Made me sick saying it - cause God doesn't have to justify Himself to any human being - or any entity "out there" (ha!). Anyways, one of these individuals may be a leader in the SDA church in the future ... I pray his eyes and heart will be opened. He himself admitted scripture didn't support the purpose of the I.J. Keri | ||
| Jackob Registered user Username: Jackob Post Number: 518 Registered: 7-2005 |
Colleen said:
And to complete what I said about the saving knowledge of God that comes through the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, I found a helpful quotation from John Newton, the author of the hymn "Amazing Grace", wrote about how to treat those whom we don't think are truly believers, he wrote:
These persons are culpable since they decided to embrace error, but at the same thing they are deceived, they deceive others and themselves. We often speak of adventists as having a veil on their eyes, and are unable to open their spiritual eyes. Meekness does not mean that we should not rebuke sharply those persons, Jesus remained meek even when he told Pharisees that they are vipers. And what I wrote here I wrote especially with my person in view: I often get frustrated with adventists who obviously were aware of many of the problems and still decided to go the wrong path, in spite of their knowledge. It's easy to lost your temper and enter into quarrelsome talks with them. They are able to raise your blood pressure to higher degrees, and I think that any former can confirm this. That's why Paul told Timothy: "Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels" And to Titus, he wrote: As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned. Titus 3:10,11 The greek word translated "who stirrs up division" is "airetikon", from where "heretic" comes, the only place in the Bible where this word appears. Interesting is that this text confirms what we said about people who know what is right and still do the wrong. they are self-condemned, their own conscience tells them this. And with these persons, it is wisely to stay away from them after one or two encounters that proved unsuccessful. Otherwise we will end up frustrated or step over the line and become quarrelsome. I'm not suggesting here that we should stop ministering to adventists, I'm rather speaking of a practical strategy with individuals. I remember an advice I received from an old man, more experienced that I am, that in talking with adventists one of the essential skills that I should strive to develop is to discern between who's a sincere searcher for truth, and who's just wanting to stir controversy. For the second, after two or three warnings, there is no reason to consume energy and become frustrated. We may pray that God will grant him repentance, and refuse to engage in controversies without end. It will only bring us frustration and affect negatively our testimony. Gabriel | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 9987 Registered: 12-2003 |
I totally agree. Controversies only frustrate and negatively affect our testimony. I also agree with your previous point, Gabriel, that there are differences of degree but all are responsible for their own hanging onto error. Keri, I "get" your sick feeling--but good answer! Colleen |
