| Author | Message | ||
| Pegg Registered user Username: Pegg Post Number: 541 Registered: 2-2006 |
The Christian's Lack of Hope About 2 years ago I had occasion to be talking with a very dear SDA woman in the few hours before her husband's funeral. As she and her husband were much loved members of their community, non-SDA neighbors and friends had been stopping by all day to pay their condolences. During a break in the visitors she told me of one lady who had said to her, "It's quite wonderful to think, though, isn't it, that your husband is in heaven and he's happy now?" As she told me this, she matter-of-factly added, "I'm so glad we have a hope." This was not the time to get into a discussion about the state of the dead with this dear woman, and we soon left. Driving away, I commented to my husband, "What is this 'hope' that SDAs think other Christians are lacking?" I never did get to discuss it with my friend. But the question has haunted me. I have heard it SO many times. I have SO many recollections of my family saying this. I have said it myself --> But for the life of me, I cant figure out what it means. "I'm so glad we have 'a hope'." "I just can't imagine living without 'a hope'." "Can you imagine what it would be to face this without 'our hope'?" Whatever this "hope" is, it is something they take comfort in and think that other Christians don't possess. I'm asking a serious question. To what are SDAs referring when they say this? What is this "hope" that they think they possess that other Christians don't have? Pegg  (Message edited by pegg on November 07, 2009) | ||
| Skeeter Registered user Username: Skeeter Post Number: 438 Registered: 12-2007 |
The "hope" of being found "worthy" of someday getting into Heaven at the ressurection. Completely a works based hope.:-( Francie | ||
| Pegg Registered user Username: Pegg Post Number: 542 Registered: 2-2006 |
I thought of that too, but as you have indicated, I don't think this is a "hope" that anyone, even SDA, would take comfort in.  Okay, at first I thought you were talking about the same thing as the second part of your comment (above). Do you instead mean to indicate that they find comfort in the idea that they have "a hope" of being found worthy of Heaven at the resurrection while other Christians do not? Thanks For Your Reply Pegg (Message edited by pegg on November 07, 2009) | ||
| Jeremy Registered user Username: Jeremy Post Number: 3077 Registered: 10-2004  |
Pegg, I think maybe they mean that they have the "blessed hope" of the "Second Coming"/"resurrection" (although it's really a re-creation in SDA theology), while others "believe their loved ones are looking down from heaven having to watch them suffer and that's more like hell than heaven." SDAs actually say that--that being with Jesus would be hell. Jeremy | ||
| Bskillet Registered user Username: Bskillet Post Number: 630 Registered: 8-2008 |
From my experience, most Adventists naively think that non-SDA Christians do not believe in the Second Coming. Thus, they think that Christians have no hope. | ||
| Jeremy Registered user Username: Jeremy Post Number: 3078 Registered: 10-2004 |
Yes, and they seem to think that non-SDAs don't believe in the resurrection, either! Jeremy | ||
| Pegg Registered user Username: Pegg Post Number: 543 Registered: 2-2006 |
Well, that is some perspective, Jeremy. I do think I've heard some say that it would be very sad to look down at your loved ones suffering and be unable to help them. I have never heard anyone liken it to hell. Yes, Brent. I think this could be it. I still remember my surprise the first time I discovered other Christians awaited the 2nd Coming. (I found this out from a co-worker. I was more than 40 years old!) In fact, I can hardly believe some of the things I thought about other Christians. Do you know that I thought my own grandparents didn't read the Bible. I remember being SHOCKED one day when I went in Grandma's bedroom and noticed her well-worn Bible on her nightstand. (I was at least in my mid-teens at the time.) I also remember being surprised that she prayed, but I was much younger then. Okay guys, I'm on the East Coast, and if I don't go to bed I'll be sleeping in church in the morning.  Nite! Pegg | ||
| Jonvil Registered user Username: Jonvil Post Number: 315 Registered: 4-2007 |
How wonderful Christians don’t have the SDA ‘hope’! Their ‘hope’ is wistful longing for some hitherto undiscovered process by which they can become ‘safe to save’ (sinless perfection). BUT, even if they did discover a means to obtain sinless perfection by their own efforts, the use of the term ‘saved’ is forbidden until AFTER the return of Jesus, not before. Their hope is a question mark, a maybe. They face the grave/Second Coming with ?????‘I hope (maybe) I’m saved’?????. "When the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord, then the sins of the repentant soul who received the grace of Christ and has overcome through the blood of the Lamb, will be removed from the records of heaven, and will be placed upon Satan, the scapegoat, the originator of sin, and be remembered no more against him forever. The sins of the overcomers will be blotted out of the books of record, but their names will be retained on the book of life. The True Witness says, "He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and we will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but we will confess his name before our Father, and before his angels." When the conflict of life is ended, when the armor is laid off at the feet of Jesus, when the saints of God are glorified, THEN AND THEN ONLY WILL IT BE SAFE TO CLAIM THAT WE ARE SAVED AND SINLESS. True sanctification will not lead any human being to pronounce himself holy, sinless, and perfect. Let the Lord proclaim the truth of your character." (The Signs of the Times, 5/16/1895, 4.) John Douglas | ||
| Pegg Registered user Username: Pegg Post Number: 544 Registered: 2-2006 |
I know, I know, John! It's all too sad to hardly be able to bear. That's not the question I'm asking, though. I'm not asking to look at this question in hindsight. Of course things look different with the veil off! What I am curious about is what they perceive as such a comforting hope that they have and which the rest of us are denied. It doesn't matter what we know now, John. That's like trying to explain a computer to someone who has just gotten their first paper adding machine. That adding machine is the very best thing since sliced bread. Running-down their new adding machine won't do any good. They won't trade it in for anything... Unless You Can Discover Why They Like It So Much And Convince Them How Very Superior A Computer Really Is. This Is Exactly What The Book Of Hebrews Is All About! Pegg (Message edited by pegg on November 08, 2009) (Message edited by pegg on November 08, 2009) | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 1088 Registered: 7-2007 |
I didn't think "other" Christians would be lost if they were "living up to all the light that they had." I don't know for sure, but I think that quote came from Ellen White: "living up to all the light they have." I kind of envied "other" Christians, (I put quotes on the "other" because unless a person really accepts Jesus' finished work - and SDAs don't; they aren't saved), because they didn't have to DO all the things I had to do, as an SDA, to be "right" with God. Anyway, Pegg; I never thought Christians didn't have "a hope," and now I KNOW that their "hope" is something that's real and they actually have a GUARANTEE of their salvation (see Ephesians 1:13,14 about how the seal of the Holy Spirit in us is our guarantee). To an Adventist, the Holy Spirit being given to them is simply the ability to "BE GOOD" that they think God gives to them. There's no relationship and no sense of His actual Presence. I had no idea as an Adventist that God is literally WITH a Christian. If I'd met a Christian who had let me know that he/she actually had God living within them and if I could have seen the joy bubbling up out of them; I would have either thought they were a new convert or if they HAD BEEN in Christianity a long time, it would have given me cognitive dissonance. To me as an SDA, God had His own little "box" in my life like all the other things and interests in my life and I'd open that box when I felt I needed to ask forgiveness for something or keep the Sabbath, etc. And as an Adventist, my "hope" was in just making sure I kept asking God to forgive my sins. I had no idea what salvation REALLY meant and of the security a real Christian has in Christ. I could only "hope" that when I died that I'd have time to ask forgiveness for all my sins first. | ||
| Bb Registered user Username: Bb Post Number: 594 Registered: 7-2004 |
My perception is that when an adventist says they have hope that others don't have, it is that they are saying the grave is not the end. That someday they will be reunited with their loved one (hopefully) and unlike atheists, who think the grave is all there is, they have a hope that they might be able to be reunited with the deceased, as long as each party gets through the investigative judgement and is found "worthy". I always thought other Christians expected Jesus to return, but that we had the correct version of the final events. | ||
| Pegg Registered user Username: Pegg Post Number: 546 Registered: 2-2006 |
Okay. Then for you, this was a statement about the hope of Christians vs. non-Christians? In that case, what criteria did you used to identify these non-Christians? Thanks. Pegg | ||
| Pegg Registered user Username: Pegg Post Number: 547 Registered: 2-2006 |
Thanks Bb. Then you wouldn't have used this comment about what another Christian said, like my SDA friend did, is that correct? For you it was only non-Christians who did not have hope? Pegg | ||
| Jonvil Registered user Username: Jonvil Post Number: 316 Registered: 4-2007 |
Pegg “What I am curious about is what they perceive as such a comforting hope that they have and which the rest of us are denied.” That’s the point, they don’t, they’re lying!!! Comforting hope is clearly denied by their own theology. They’re whistling in the grave yard. John | ||
| Philharris Registered user Username: Philharris Post Number: 1885 Registered: 5-2007  |
My take on “The Christian Hope”: First, I must explain. When I was an open sinner, I still believed that Adventist were of the only true Christian faith. Then, along came this weldor who worked with me on the shipyard who over a period of time upset this whole concept. For about two or more years I simply could not stay away from him. His love of God was something I could not comprehend but simply could not stay away from. Eventually, I joined him in Bible study and went around and around with Romans Chapter Eight. What can separate you from the love of God. It was a major struggle, but suddenly I knew nothing could separate me. Jesus was my Savior and I had assurance. This was the beginning of Hope. Then (I was now married) we started attending church…oh no…on Sunday. To add to all the built in contridictions, it was in a mortuary in the middle of a cemetery in the middle of what had been a war time government housing development. I was now able to sing gospel music in a room full of caskets in about the same place I had once played in my uncle’s home as a young Adventist teenager. Talk about mixed emotions….but the people were so excited for the Lord and very much Spiritually alive. Wow, I just didn’t know what to make of things! But, hope was growing and growing! Then, I decided to become an open full fledged Christian. I assumed this meant returning to the “true church”, the Napa Seventh-day Adventist church I was still a member of. We did so. It was horribly dead. Much of my family “welcomed” me but is was shallow and empty. The Lord then led me to an understanding of the true Scapegoat. From this I knew Ellen was false and that meant everything else must be false. It was a ‘no-brainer’ about what to do. We returned to where the Spirit was alive and where there was true Christian Hope. Fearless Phil | ||
| Hec Registered user Username: Hec Post Number: 722 Registered: 3-2009 |
I may be totally wrong, but I understand that SDAs believe that "other" Christians don't believe in the resurrection because they believe that when they die the go to be with Jesus. SDAs don't understand the intermediate state. They think that Christians believe that going to heaven at death is the eternal state. Otherwise why the resurrection? They argue. So the "hope" is that when Jesus comes He will resurrect us and give us a glorified body. In SDAs thought: Christians believe that when they die they go to haven and that's it. That's the eternal state. SDAs believe that when they die they go to sleep until Jesus comes and resurrect them. Gives them a new body. Hec | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 7692 Registered: 3-2004  |
Adventists do not believe we have a dead, to God, spirit in us that becomes alive to God when we accept Jesus Christ. Then the Holy Spirit talks/communicates with our Spirit to teach us and comfort us. Our body is where Jesus lives in us through the Holy spirit. That is why they tell us that we can break any commandment and not be guilty. They do not believe the HS teaches what to do as we read and study the Bible. Am I making sense?? Diana L | ||
| Pegg Registered user Username: Pegg Post Number: 549 Registered: 2-2006 |
Okay, that's fair, John. Thank you for clarifying it for me. Pegg | ||
| Pegg Registered user Username: Pegg Post Number: 550 Registered: 2-2006 |
Awesome moment! "Oh, what a wonderful, wonderful day,Praise God For Hope, Phil! Pegg | ||
| Pegg Registered user Username: Pegg Post Number: 551 Registered: 2-2006 |
Okay, Hec. So you're saying this is about having a real body rather than being in a disembodied state which they (erroneously) think Christians believe is how they will spend eternity. (Heavenly ghosts!  Thanks for the additional insight. Pegg |
