| Author |
Message |
Lynne
Registered user
Username: Lynne
Post Number: 1
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, October 13, 2005 - 9:52 pm: |     |
I was baptized adventist many years ago and fell into not going to church because of many reasons that I saw posted. I initially was baptized and felt born again but I didn't realize the salvation issue with the church. I just thought they didn't discuss it. But I know now that I was pushed away from the spirit and have tried to stay a Christian, but my mind and my heart could no longer retain the spirit. I'm going to a new church and was asked to consider being baptized again but I feel strange about it with my age and the fact that I have tried to live as a Christian over the years (of course I'm not blameless and I have sinned). I initially gave my heart to Christ, but because of the salvation issue, found it difficult to stay in the spirit. Do you think that is a good enough reason to be baptized again? I am feeling now though like I am learning true salvation, like I'm starting from where I tried to begin many years ago when I first became adventist. Do many former adventists get baptized again? I was just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on it. Thank you very much! |
Patriar
Registered user
Username: Patriar
Post Number: 207
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, October 13, 2005 - 10:28 pm: | |
Hi Lynne:
First of all, let me welcome you to FAF! Praise God you have seen the problems with Adventism. I am so sorry to hear of you painful experience over the past few years. I pray you have found a healthy well-balanced church and are feeling the presence of Jesus vividly in your life. We'd love to hear more about your story if and when you'd like to share.
Baptism is an outward expression of your inward faith. Most people consider baptism to be cleansing and renewing and refreshing. I would just suggest that if you feel it would be those things to you; do it. If not, don't worry about it. Age really isn't a factor at all in determining whether or not a person should be baptized. I think of Jesus and His response to you. "Come unto me ALL who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest."
Most importantly, re-baptism would be for your benefit. God already knows your His!
Once again...welcome!
Patria |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 2713
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, October 13, 2005 - 11:08 pm: | |
Lynne, welcome to the forum! We're so glad you're here.
I completely agree with Patria. If you were baptized as an expression of accepting Jesus, there is no need to be re-baptized unless you wish to for your sake. If your baptism had been merely into the church without a heart surrender to Jesus, I'd say yes, do it!
Since you did accept Jesus, however, and you saw your baptism as a statement of that acceptance, I believe a re-baptism would be for personal reasons if you wish to do so.
Praise God you have followed Jesus into freedom in Him!
Colleen |
Lynne
Registered user
Username: Lynne
Post Number: 2
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 12:13 am: | |
Thank you so much for your responses. I've really had quite a push pull over the years. There were so many reasons why I didn't want to attend the adventist church, but I felt I had to since I knew about the Sabbath and all that I had been told. It was like I always had a fear of other churches and Christians though they appealed to me. I didn't want to take my children to Sabbath school because I didn't want them to be afraid of the message about the end and it being near and other Christians being out to get them. I married a someone who is not Adventist but is a Christian. He told me he has been praying over the years that we could go to church together. We started to, but I always felt obligated about what I was taught. The adventist church was where I learned about Christ, so I thought all that I was being taught was true. One day I looked at the sdaoutreach.org website and my eyes were opened. I showed it to my husband and we talked about the adventist church for at least 2 days. He went to studies with me and I just feel they have been so cleaver in not teaching the truth. It is painful, but I feel free to really throw myself into the spirit now. |
Melissa
Registered user
Username: Melissa
Post Number: 1115
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 8:30 am: | |
Welcome, Lynne. How nice you have the support of your husband to help you during this time. I have nothing to add regarding the baptism decision that hasn't been said. Just wanted to say hi. |
Dennis
Registered user
Username: Dennis
Post Number: 466
Registered: 4-2000
| | Posted on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 9:04 am: | |
Lynne,
A hearty FAF welcome! It is always awesome when God calls his children out of the darkness of Adventism and into his marvelous light. The transition from being a hope-so Christian to a know-so Christian is beyond human description.
Dennis Fischer |
Taybie
Registered user
Username: Taybie
Post Number: 86
Registered: 4-2005
| | Posted on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 9:28 am: | |
Hey there Lynn!!
I second all that was said regarding baptism. I personally DID get baptised again. I felt the need to express the new commitment I was making. It was beautiful and I didn't have to agree to making myself 'immediately perfect' before being allowed to step into the pool, (Which was shaped like a coffin! Imagine that! I LOVED IT!!!!!!)
Welcome again and I hope you come to know us as family and friends. I have been a FA for a bit over a year now. (I renounced adventism on May 28, 2004) The transition was hard at first, but I have grown and have been greatly blessed.
God is AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!
Shontay |
Lynne
Registered user
Username: Lynne
Post Number: 3
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 10:09 am: | |
Wow, hope-so to know-so. That sounds correct. My husband used to say to me he didn't see hope in the adventist church, but I always had the rationale that I was taught that there was hope in the adventist message. The church always had all the answers. I've known many adventists with addiction problems and they often would try to escape through being good in terms of adventism. I struggled a little myself with this. I somehow always felt that I was falling short. I mean if Jesus isn't our complete salvation all of the time, we must have something take the place. And the church doesn't teach total immersion in Christ. Perhaps, maybe from time to time, but.. not always, and I know now this is not the bottom line message of the church. Everyone needs Christ totally. Thank you so much for your input. I'm glad I'm not alone in these feelings that I'm having now. It is indeed beyond human description. |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 2002
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 12:39 pm: | |
Dear Lynne, Welcome. I'm looking forward to learning more from you and about you. About the baptism thing. I requested the minister where I attend baptize me. It was like pulling gum from the bottom of a chair, he just didn't want to do it because the Lutherans have a doctrine of one bapitism. He kept insisting to me that SDA is a mainstream protestant denomination with a few differences from mainstream Christianity. I finily brought him in the 27 fundamentals and went iver them with him to show him that the SDA church is not just another Christian body but ranks right there with other cults that consider themselves to be the only true organization of repressenting God on this earth. However, having said that I want you to know that is my experience and your experience seems very different than mine. If at the time of Adventist bapitizm you believe you were making a statement of Christian faith and not only a loyality statedment to the SDA church then I'd go for just what you are doing and that is to not be bapitized again. |
Lynne
Registered user
Username: Lynne
Post Number: 4
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 1:25 pm: | |
Susan - It has been over 15 years since I was baptized. But I just don't know how it could have only been a statement of Christian faith when we are required to accept the adventist truth as well. I struggled with drinking alcohol and smoking before learning about Christ. I thought that accepting the adventist doctrine would only help me with that. I tried to see the benefits of the doctrine, not as salvation, but as an added benefit which was consistant with what I thought I was learning. I was young and less mature as a person than I am now. I struggled over the years to mature as a Christian. I remember going to prayer meetings and seeing non christians come in and the message being way over their heads and knowing they would never come back. I wondered how the church could do better. I do agree that the church is a cult. As a former adventist, I am likely only being seen by serious adventist believers as another beast in these end times. I wonder how many adventist have homes hidden in the mountains out of fear of these end times. It is very sad. But I think for my own sake, it would be good for me to be baptized again. I need Jesus only, so much! |
Riverfonz
Registered user
Username: Riverfonz
Post Number: 923
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 2:15 pm: | |
Welcome Lynne to FAF, and thanks for sharing your story.
Stan |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 2003
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 2:37 pm: | |
Then, Lynne, I hope ypou do what the Good Lord is guiding you to do and it seems to be in being bapitized. Yes, please be prepared for SDA's who are in you life to now look at you as either the beast of Revelation itself or at least the harlot that pays homage to the beast. There are folks on here, myself included who have been actually told by our SDA loved ones that we will someday be persucating the commandment keepers. It is very tragic that so many in the SDA religion have such fear of Christians. And, yes, there are some SDA's back in the wilderness living as EGW says they should in the last days but really I don't think it's very many. Maybe if you log onto Pastor O'Fills site you could get a better idea of those who seem on the extreme fringe of Adventis. |
Lynne
Registered user
Username: Lynne
Post Number: 5
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 6:19 pm: | |
Thank you everyone for helping me leave behind guilt and for sharing with me. I will watch this board and share when appropriate. |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 1922
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 10:07 pm: | |
Welcome Lynne,
We here at FA Forum are glad you are here.
I was rebaptized because the two other times I was baptized into the SDA church was not because I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior. When I left Adventism, I prayed and God took me to the church where I was baptized last June 2004. Just ask God what He wants you to do and He will tell you.
Let us know more about you, when you are comfortable doing so.
We do have an awesome God.
Diana |
Lynne
Registered user
Username: Lynne
Post Number: 7
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 11:00 pm: | |
I gave my heart to Jesus when I was baptized, but I also took to heart the adventist message and that did somehow become connected with my salvation. The message of salvation, that is John 3:16, was in my heart, but because of the whole adventist message, I've struggled. Nobody ever told me I was being saved. I understood this to be a simple term used by the simple, uneducated other sunday keeping churches. Somehow I just didn't see this arrogance. I just accepted what the church wanted me to, that the adventist church knew more than the other churches, so we add to John 3:16. I didn't realize I was being manipulated away from it as I know now. My heart has gone in the direction of a natural, unsaved person as a result. That is why I am having very strong feelings right now, like I've never been saved almost. Perhaps this is another factor in my feeling baptism would be good for me. It tells me that yes, I am saved, really, and I can now nourish and strengthen my spiritual self finally. I don't need to graduate or move on from this experience. I can live it and grow in it, not grow out of it. I was baptized around the same time I was married. My husband and I moved a couple of times and I never really stayed connected with churches for very long, but I do have a good adventist friend that I've remained in touch with who is very concerned about these end times. |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 2004
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, October 15, 2005 - 5:28 am: | |
Lynne, you mentioned your friend who is concerned about these end times. The SDA's in my life put so much emphasis on what they call the end times and the second coming of Jesus that to me it sems like they are missing out in the joy and peace that a life in Jesus gives in the hear and now. I frequently will mention to my SDA loved ones, not only to irritate them but hopefully to give them food for thought that everyone's end time will come soon enough, generally sometime between ages 75-90 for us here in the US. My SDA kin will say things like, "The time of the end is fast approaching", etc. And, I say, "Yes, it is. Every day we live each of us is one day closer to our end so we'd best live with that in mind". I know that is not how they mean their term but I hope I get them to thinking. They will also say things like, "Soon we'll see Jesus". I answer, "Yep, no matter how we may differ in our understanding about life after death the fact is by the time we die we need to be reconciled to meet Jesus." Then I try to get in something about their understanding of the text that says we'll be with Jesus 'in the blink of an eye' and let them know weather they think they'll be with Jesus in a hundred-billion-kazillion years or if it's like I believe at our last breath it really doesn't make a big difference as far as salvation is concerned so I think more of their focus should be on now and not on the lateer. |
Patrickfoy
Registered user
Username: Patrickfoy
Post Number: 45
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, October 15, 2005 - 1:06 pm: | |
Hey Lynne, Welcome to FAF- you have made me think of the times I have been baptized.From my childhood to now, I have been baptized 3 times.
I have been dunked, sprinkled, held under and tinkled, but I was going through the motions and not really feeling it in my heart.
The last time I was baptized was in the adventist church and I did it because I loved the Lord and not because I had too to do it to join the seventh-day adventist church.
I feel that if you truly feel that you accepted Jesus as your savior and you were baptized in the water for that reason, you should feel secure in knowing that God accepts your baptism as your love for the Lord. But, if you really feel like you should recommit and be baptized again, Praise God and go ahead and do it.
It is a great feeling to be wash in the blood of the lamb.
There are really good people here and they are always here to give a helping hand, a loving thought, a shoulder and prayer. This forum and the people here have been an inspiration to me and has helped me stay close to the Lord.
I pray that the Spirit will lead you and your husband to do what you feel is right for you.
Patrick
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Lynne
Registered user
Username: Lynne
Post Number: 8
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, October 15, 2005 - 2:22 pm: | |
Thank you Patrick. I really appreciate this support group. I was sprinkled Catholic as a baby. My husband was saved many years ago and was supportive of me in the adventist church. Some of the teachings raised his eyebrows, but he just figured they were evangelical christians having known many of the people I knew and he knew that I was sincere. I told him where I was coming from now and he didn't know the true cult like nature of the church until I talked with him about it and until we both looked at the sdaoutreach website. It was like we needed to see it all on one page, not layered and buffered and jabbed around in the bible, like it wasn't there, or like it is but it isn't or like, well, you know. I've personally taken the adventist doctrine to heart because that is where I learned about Christ and I knew no other religious teachings. I did learn to base my salvation on what I was doing. I know I should not fear things I've been told, like going to hell for becoming a Sunday worshipper, etc. But, a bolt of fear from time to time will come out of out of my brain and into my heart and say, what if... But the Holy Spirit is engaging me in such a way that I did not know in the adventist church. The Holy Spirit comforted me before I was first baptized adventist (notice that I felt the spirit before, it slowly left). I want to believe that I am saved and maybe being baptized again will help me to know that, I don't know, or maybe it will just take time. |
Belvalew
Registered user
Username: Belvalew
Post Number: 685
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, October 15, 2005 - 3:34 pm: | |
Dear Lynne,
I was baptized twice in the SDA church -- once when I was 8, then again when I was 16. I told myself when I was 16 that I needed to do it again because I had been too young at the age of 8 to make such a momentous decision, but the truth of it was that I had been molested when I was 12, blamed myself for what had happened because I believed there was something basically evil within me that had caused a good person to do bad things. Anyway, the second baptism was supposed to wash away the stain of having been molested and to take away the evil. I now know that I had fully given myself to Jesus both times, and that the molestation had not been my fault. The oddest thing about the second baptism is that I prayed so very hard afterward that Jesus would come very very soon so that I would not have time to sin again, and thus end up lost anyway.
Due to my SDA understanding of salvation -- and having been third-generation SDA on both sides I had not other way of knowing true salvation -- I believed that baptism washed away all of my sins, but after that I had to make sure I didn't sin again. We all know what came next. I sinned again -- and again -- and again. I still sin. My focus has changed, however, and I realize that baptism is just water and cannot wash away sin. The blood of Jesus washes away sin, and his perfect life, which he has kindly wrapped around me, makes me perfect. The amazing thing about that is once I achieved that realization my "want to's" changed. None of that is of me, and all of Jesus, but I feel so much better now knowing that my salvation in Jesus is secure and that he has placed his Holy Spirit inside of me, and that same Holy Spirit is constantly scrubbing me clean. I have a home in heaven. I have a mission on earth. All of that is focussed on Jesus.
I had an opportunity to be baptized a third time because I apostacized and returned to the SDA church, so the minister wanted to give me that option. I told him profession of faith was enough for me because I knew that I had had my heart in the right place years prior to that. I'm not telling you that you should not be rebaptized because that is an oh so personal thing. I only recommend that you look at your motives when you were baptized earlier on. Were you doing it because of family/church pressure? Did you get baptized because a friend was getting baptized at the same time and you didn't want them to do it alone? Did you lay down your "man of sin" in the water a long time ago?
Whatever you decide to do, Jesus and his angels will rejoice. He loves you. He has always loved you, and your salvation and purity is secure in the heart of Jesus Christ the Savior of all.
Only Jesus can cleanse from all unrighteousness.
Belva |
Dt
Registered user
Username: Dt
Post Number: 66
Registered: 4-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, October 15, 2005 - 3:46 pm: | |
Belva,
Amen and Amen.
DT |
Lynne
Registered user
Username: Lynne
Post Number: 11
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, October 15, 2005 - 4:18 pm: | |
I appreciate your response. I came to the church alone with the idea that they were christian and ate healthy food and I found Jesus there. I was raped when I was young, but that had nothing to do with my thoughts when I was baptized. True salvation was in my heart. I was blessed at another time with a feeling of being cleansed when becoming a christian from the rape. I guess it is just a bit awkward to me right now with other people talking about being saved in other churches. It is awkward to them as well as me, not being able to relate. Like everyone I know I have and will sin, but I certainly try not to. With the adventist message, it became increasingly difficult for me not to carry thoughts consistant with being a christian, my heart grew more and more carnal in nature. I'm feeling purified by the holy spirit now, like when I first believed many years ago. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 2721
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, October 15, 2005 - 10:52 pm: | |
Lynne, God is healing your heart from your Adventist experience. Go read Romans 8--there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus--and that includes you!
Colleen |
Lynne
Registered user
Username: Lynne
Post Number: 13
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, October 15, 2005 - 11:23 pm: | |
Colleen - Thank you, I will read it tonight. |
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