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Luke 8:17 says, “For
nothing is hidden that will not be made
manifest, nor is anything secret that will
not be known and come to light.”
The New World Encyclopedia has this
to say about the Seventh-day Adventist
Church:
The Seventh-day
Adventist Church traces its roots to the
preaching of William Miller, “Originally a
Deist, William Miller converted to
Christianity and became a Baptist lay
leader. After years of intensive Bible
study, Miller concluded that the Second
Coming of Jesus Christ was near. He took a
passage from Daniel 8:14, in which angels
said it would take 2,300 days for the temple
to be cleansed. Miller interpreted those
“days” as years.
Starting with the
year 457 BC, Miller added 2,300 years and
came up with the period between March 1843
and March 1844. In 1836, he published a book
titled Evidences from Scripture and History
of the Second Coming of Christ about the
Year 1843.
But 1843 passed without
incident, and so did 1844. The nonevent was
called The Great Disappointment, and many
disillusioned followers dropped out of the
group. Miller withdrew from leadership,
dying in 1849.
Many of the
Millerites, or Adventists, as they called
themselves, banded together in Washington,
and New Hampshire. They included Baptists,
Methodists, Presbyterians, and
Congregationalists.
Ellen White
(1827-1915), her husband James, and Joseph
Bates emerged as leaders of the movement,
which was incorporated as the Seventh-day
Adventist Church in May 1863.
Adventists thought Miller’s date was correct
but that the geography of his prediction was
mistaken. Instead of Jesus Christ’s Second
Coming on earth, they believed Christ
entered the tabernacle in heaven. Christ
started a second phase of the salvation
process in 1844, “Investigative Judgment,”
in which he judged the dead and the living
still on earth. Christ’s Second Coming would
occur after he completed those judgments.
Ellen White’s Vision of the
Church:
Ellen White,
continually active in the church, claimed to
have visions from God and became a prolific
writer. During her lifetime she produced
more than 5,000 magazine articles and 40
books, and her 50,000 manuscript pages are
still being collected and published. The
Seventh-day Adventist Church accorded her
prophet status and members continue to study
her writings today.”[1]
Ellen G. White’s prophecies and
visions were central to the early growth and doctrinal beliefs
of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
But what kind of person was Ellen G.
White?
Ellen G.
White lied about her sources on many
occasions, and she was afraid of being sued
for stealing the writings of other authors
on other occasions.
[2] She
made many false prophecies about people and
future events: the Civil War, England
Invading the United States, the Shut Door,
Sunday worship and the nations, including
England, Israel and the United States.
[3] The
Seventh-day Adventist Church continues to
lie about the Pope’s title adding up to
“666”. No evidence has ever been produced by
Seventh-day Adventists to substantiate the
claim that the title “Vicarius Filii Dei” is
used to designate the Pope.
[4]
The Seventh-day Adventist Church
focus on last day events!
We have to be careful not to place too
much emphasis on the last days. We will
never know exactly how all the end-time
events
will play out until we are in the middle of
it all. Eschatology is given to inspire hope in
us that God will ultimately win so we can have assurance that we will be
with Him for eternity. Eschatology is not a
crystal ball that tells us every little
detail about what the future holds.
Christians
can
disagree about the timing of the Second
Coming. If there will be a secret rapture
seven years before Christ comes? If the Millennium
is a
literal 1,000 years long, or if it is figurative?
We can disagree about how the Judgments will take place, and in what
order. No one can say for certain about many of
the details regarding last-day events
because they haven't happened yet, but we can
know for certain that they will take
place because God knows how everything will
play out.
Cultic religions like the
Seventh-day Adventist Church often focus on
last-day events to bring people into their
churches. Most cults teach they alone have
the special, last-day message for the world
and the Seventh-day Adventists are no
different.
1 Corinthians 13:12 says, “For now we
see in a mirror dimly, but then face to
face; now I know in part, but then I will
know fully just as I also have been fully
known.”
We need to focus on
our relationship with Jesus Christ and know
that the last days will work out just as God
expects them too.
The
Seventh-day Adventist Church has been trying
to gain acceptance as part
of the orthodox, Bible believing community
for a long time. However, the following points
show they do not hold to the “faith that was
once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3).
The false doctrines of the Seventh-day
Adventist Church need to be understood by the
evangelical world. Seventh-day Adventism was
founded by a false prophet, Ellen G. White
and a group of lay ministers and teachers
who were all Arian cultists that denied the Biblical
teaching of the Trinity.[5]
It is a dangerous thing to lead a person
into a false religion. We have been warned
many times about false prophets in the last
days. As a buyer, beware!
The Cultic
Doctrines of
the Seventh-day Adventist Church:
The Seventh-day Adventist
Church teaches many doctrines that are false
and even cultic compared to the historic
beliefs of the Christian Church.
Webster’s Dictionary gives this
definition of a “cult”:
1.
“A cult is a system of religious beliefs and
rituals that is regarded as unorthodox or
spurious, with a great devotion to a person,
idea, or thing.”
2. A great devotion to a
person, idea, object, movement, or work
(such as a film or book).
So, a
Christian cult is a religious group that
differs significantly from the churches that
are considered to be the normative
expressions of biblical Christianity in our
culture. A cult often has, or has had in the
past, a charismatic leader who is, or was, a
strong authority for the believers and has a
strong influence on the religious teachings
of that group. Cults often have unique
doctrines that make it very difficult for a
cult member to leave.
Seventh-day
Adventism is a cult according to every
definition of a cult there is!
Listed below
are some of the
heretical
and cultic beliefs of the Seventh-day
Adventist Church:
1).
Christ’s atonement was not completed at the
cross:
“The blood of Christ, while it was to
release the repentant sinner from the
condemnation of the law, was not to cancel
sin.... It will stand in the sanctuary until
the final atonement.” — Patriarchs and
Prophets, page 357.
“Now while our great High Priest is making
the atonement for us, we should seek to
become perfect in Christ.” — The Great
Controversy, page 623.
“...instead of coming to the earth at the
termination of the 2300 days in 1844, Christ
then entered the most holy place of the
heavenly sanctuary to perform the closing
work of atonement preparatory to His coming.”
— The Great Controversy, page 422.
(See what the Bible says: Heb. 9:26; Rom. 5:8-11; cf.
John 5:24; 10:27-28; Rom. 3:23-25; 1 Cor. 15:3-4; Eph. 2:8-10; 1 Jn. 5:13).
The AMG Concise Bible Dictionary
says this about Christ’s finished atonement:
“Atonement may be defined as that
act of dealing with sin whereby sin’s
penalty is paid and the sinner is brought
into a right relation with God. In the Old
Testament the word is used mainly in
connection with the offering of sacrifices
for sin. The word does not occur in most
versions of the New Testament, but it is
used broadly in the language of theology in
relation to the sacrificial death of Christ.
Man has
sinned and is therefore under the judgment
of God. He is guilty, the penalty is death,
and there is no way he can, by his own
efforts, escape this penalty. He is cut off
from God and there is no way he can bring
himself back to God (Ps. 14:3; Isa. 59:2;
Rom. 1:18; 3:20,23; 6:23). God, however,
gives man a way by which he may obtain
forgiveness and be brought back to God. This
is through the blood of a sacrifice, where
blood is symbolic of the life of the
innocent victim laid down as substitute for
the guilty sinner (Lev. 17:11; Heb. 9:22; 1 Jn. 4:10).
Atonement is therefore not
something that man can achieve by his own
efforts, but something that God provides.
Whether in Old or New Testament times,
forgiveness is solely by God’s grace and the
sinner receives it by faith (Ps. 32:5; 51:17;
Micah 7:18; Eph. 2:8). The Old
Testament sacrifices were not a way of
salvation. They were a means by which the
repentant sinner could demonstrate his faith
in God and at the same time see what his
atonement involved. The sacrifices showed
him how it was possible for God to act
rightly in punishing sin while forgiving the
repentant sinner.
The sacrifices of
the Old Testament pointed to the one great
sacrifice that is the only basis on which
God can forgive a person’s sins, the death
of Christ. Through that death God is able
justly to forgive the sins of all who turn
to him in faith, no matter what era they
might have lived in (Matt. 26:28; Rom. 3:25-26; 4:25;
Heb. 9:15; 1 Pet. 2:24).”
2). Believers enter into a judgment
of works which determines their salvation:
“At the time appointed for the judgment....
All who have ever taken upon themselves the
name of Christ must pass its searching
scrutiny. Both the living and the dead are
to be judged “out of those things which were
written in the books, according to their
works.” — The Great Controversy, page 486.
“Every case had been decided for life or
death. While Jesus had been ministering in
the sanctuary, the judgment had been going
on for the righteous dead, and then for the
righteous living.” — Early Writings, page 280.
“So in the great day of final atonement and
investigative judgment the only cases
considered are those of the professed people
of God.” — The Great Controversy, page 480.
“as the books of record are opened in the
judgment, the lives of all who have believed
on Jesus come in review before God.
Beginning with those who first lived upon
the earth.... Every name is mentioned, every
case closely investigated. Names are
accepted, names rejected. When any have sins
remaining upon the books of record, unrepented of and unforgiven, their names
will be blotted out of the book of life, and
the record of their good deeds will be
erased from the book of God’s remembrance.”
— The Great Controversy, page 483.
What is the
judgment seat of Christ?
Both Romans 14:10 and 2 Corinthians 5:9-10 speak of the “judgment seat” of
Christ. This is a translation of the Greek
word, “bema” which was the tribunal bench in
the Roman courtroom where the governor sat
while rendering judicial verdicts.
Metaphorically it refers to the place where
the Lord will sit to evaluate believers’
lives for the purpose of giving them eternal
rewards.
Salvation and sin are not in
view at this judgment (as that was paid for
by Christ on the cross), but only
faithfulness in Christian service. Selfish
works or those done with wrong motives will
be burned up (the “wood, hay, and stubble”
of 1 Cor. 3:12). Works of lasting value to
the Lord will survive (the “gold, silver,
and precious stones”). Rewards, which the
Bible calls “crowns” (Rev. 3:11), will be
given by the One who is “not unjust; he will
not forget your work and the love you have
shown him” (Heb. 6:10).
(See what the Bible says: John 5:24; Rom. 8:1; cf.
Rom. 4:7-8; 5:1; 7:17, 20; John 3:1, 18; 5:24;
Gal. 3:13).
3). Works
plus grace equals salvation:
“The judgment is to set, the books are to be
opened, and we are to be judged according to
our deeds.” — Testimonies for the Church, Vol.
1, page 100.
“While good works will not save even one
soul, yet it is impossible for even one soul
to be saved without good works. God saves us
under a law, that we must ask if we would
receive, seek if we would find, and knock if
we would have the door opened unto us.” — Selected
Messages, Book 1, page 377.
“Not one of us will ever receive the seal of
God while our characters have one spot or
stain upon them. It is left with us to
remedy the defects in our characters, to
cleanse the soul temple of every
defilement.” — Testimonies for the Church,
Vol. 5, page 214.
“All who receive the seal must be without
spot before God--candidates for heaven.” —
Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 5, page 216.
Remember, Ellen White
was saying the judgment seat of Christ is a judgment of
works to determine salvation, not for rewards like
the Bible teaches (2 Cor. 5:10).
At the judgment seat of Christ, our
salvation and sins are not in view because
Christ paid for our sins in full on the
cross. Only our faithfulness in Christian
service is going to be judged.
(See
what the Bible says: Eph. 1:7; 2:5-10; Gal. 3:11; 2:16; Luke 18:9-13;
2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 3:5; Rom. 3:20-28; 4:15-16; 6:23; 7:9-13; 8:1-11;
1 Cor. 6:20; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 1:5, 18, 19; 2:24;
Rev. 20:11-15).
4).
Satan is the one who bears our sins:
“It was seen, also, that while the sin
offering pointed to Christ as a sacrifice,
and the high priest represented Christ as a
mediator, the scapegoat typified Satan, the
author of sin, upon whom the sins of the
truly penitent will finally be placed.” — The
Great Controversy, page 422.
“Their sins are transferred to the
originator of sin.” — Testimonies for the
Church, Vol. 5, page 475.
1 Peter 2:24
says, Christ “bore our sins in his
body on the tree, that we might die to sin
and live to righteousness. By his wounds you
have been healed.”
“Christ never
sinned, and yet he suffered so that we could
be set free. Jesus’ suffering was part of
God’s plan (Matt. 16:21-23; Luke 24:25-27; 24:44-47) and was intended to save us
(Matt. 20:28; 26:28).” [see: The Life Application
Study Bible: 1 Pet. 2:24].
Satan plays
absolutely no roll in
our salvation! Christ, like the sacrificial
lamb of the Old Testament, died for our
sins, the innocent for the guilty. Such is
the substitutionary nature of the atonement.
(See what the Bible says: Isa. 53:4-11; 1 Pet. 1:18-19; 2:24; Matt. 8:17;
Heb. 9:28).
5).
Christians will stand in the sight of God without
Christ’s intercession:
“Those who are living upon the earth when
the intercession of Christ shall cease in
the sanctuary above are to stand in the
sight of a holy God without a mediator.” — The
Great Controversy, page 425.
“When Jesus ceases to plead for man, the
cases of all are forever decided. This is
the time of reckoning with His servants.”
— Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 2, page 191.
(Because they will have to stand before God
without a mediator, most Seventh-day Adventists
fear for their salvation because they believe they must be perfect and sinless before Jesus returns).
(See what the Bible says: Matt. 28:20; Eph. 4:30; Rom. 3:23; 6:23; 8:34;
Heb. 7:24-25; 13:5; John 10:28-30; 14:16; James 4:17; 1 Jn. 1:8-10; 2:1-2).
6). Christians must be sinless
before Christ comes:
“Those only who through faith in Christ obey
all of God’s commandments will reach the
condition of sinlessness in which Adam lived
before his transgression. They testify to
their love of Christ by obeying all His
precepts.” — Seventh-day
Adventist Bible Commentary, Vol. 6, page 1118.
“To be redeemed means to cease from sin.”
— Review & Herald, September 25, 1900.
“In order to let Jesus into our hearts, we
must stop sinning.” — Signs of the Times,
March 3, 1898.
Our goal should be
to become more like Christ in every way!
When we strive to be sinless we are focused
on our performance. Christ wants us to be
more like Him, and we do that by letting the
Holy Spirit into our lives. We need to focus
on Christ to be transformed into His
likeness, and reflect His glory (2 Cor. 3:18;
Rom. 12:1-2; Titus 3:5).
(See
what the Bible says: Phil. 3:7-16;
Rom. 4:4-7; 11:6; Acts 16:31; 1 Jn. 5:4;
Gal. 2:21; 5:18; John 5:24; Eph. 2:4-7).
7). The Sabbath is the
seal of God and those who worship on Sunday
will receive the mark of the beast:
“The living righteous will receive the seal
of God prior to the close of probation.”
— Selected Messages Book 1, page 66.
“The sign, or seal, of God is revealed in
the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath,
the Lord's memorial of creation.... The mark
of the beast is the opposite of this—the
observance of the first day of the week.”
— Testimonies for the Church Vol. 8, page 117.
“Sundaykeeping is not yet the mark of the
beast, and will not be until the decree goes
forth causing men to worship this idol
sabbath. The time will come when this day
will be the test, but that time has not come
yet.” — Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Vol. 7, page 977.
Ellen White said we must keep
the Sabbath in the last days to be saved.
“In the last days, the Sabbath test will
be made plain. When this time comes, anyone
who does not keep the Sabbath will receive
the mark of the beast and will be kept from
heaven.” — The Great Controversy, page 449.
“… [T]he divine institution of the
Sabbath is to be restored … The delivering
of this message will precipitate a conflict
that will involve the whole world. The
central issue will be obedience to God’s law
and the observance of the Sabbath.” — The
Great Controversy, pages 262–263.
“The
Sabbath will be the great test of loyalty,
for it is the point of truth especially
controverted. When the final test shall be
brought to bear upon men, then the line of
distinction will be drawn between those who
serve God and those who serve Him not. …
While one class, by accepting the sign of
submission to earthly powers, receive the
mark of the beast, the other, choosing the
token of allegiance to divine authority,
receive the seal of God.” — The Great
Controversy, page 605.
“It means
eternal salvation to keep the Sabbath holy
unto the Lord.” — Testimonies for the Church
Vol. 6, page 356.
It is well known that Adventists teach
Sabbath-keeping.
What is not so well known
is that they teach that the seventh day
Sabbath is the seal of
God and that those who worship on Sunday
before Christ comes will receive the mark of
the beast and be lost. According to
Adventist theology, salvation in the last
days boils down to the day you go to church on!
According to the New Testament, the Holy
Spirit is God’s seal for the New Covenant
believer.
The New Testament explicitly teaches
that Sabbath-keeping along with all of the
other ceremonial requirements of the Old
Covenant Law are not required for Christians
who live under the New Covenant (Matt. 11:28-30; 12:1-8;
Acts 15:1-20; Col. 2:14-17; Gal. 4:10-11;
Rom. 14:5-12; Eph. 2:11-18; 2 Cor. 3:3-11; Heb. 3:7-4:13; 8:6-9:4; 10:23-25).
(See
what the Bible says: Eph. 1:13-14; 4:30;
2 Cor. 1:21-22; 2 Tim. 2:19).
8). Soul sleep:
Seventh-day Adventists, like Jehovah’s
Witnesses, teach that when a believer dies
their soul sleeps. Some also believe that we cease to exist
entirely when we die.
The Seventh-day
Adventist Church’s Fundamental Belief,
Number 26 (Death and Resurrection) says
this: “The wages of sin is death. But God,
who alone is immortal, will grant eternal
life to His redeemed. Until that day death
is an unconscious state for all people. When
Christ, who is our life, appears, the
resurrected righteous and the living
righteous will be glorified and caught up to
meet their Lord. The second resurrection,
the resurrection of the unrighteous, will
take place a thousand years later.”
[6]
Ellen G. White said:
“The saints must get a
thorough understanding of present truth,
which they will be obliged to maintain from
the Scriptures. They must understand the
state of the dead, for the spirits of devils
will yet appear to them, professing to be
beloved friends and relatives, who will
declare to them that the Sabbath has been
changed, also other unscriptural doctrines.”
— Early Writings, page 87 (1854).
“Through
the two great errors, the immortality of the
soul and Sunday sacredness, Satan will bring
the people under his deceptions. While the
former lays the foundation of spiritualism,
the latter creates a bond of sympathy with
Rome.” — The Great Controversy, page 588
(1911).
What the Bible says:
When a
believer dies, they go to be in the presence
of the Lord awaiting the resurrection. All of
God’s people will be raised up together in
the resurrection at the same time (1 Cor. 15:19; 1 Thess. 4:13-14;
Heb. 12:23-24).
Sleep is used as a
metaphor to describe the state of a
believer’s body in death (Job 19:23-27;
Ps. 49:15; 71:20; Isa. 26:19; Dan. 12:3;
Hosea 13:14; John 11:24; Acts 23:6; 24:15; 2
Cor. 5:1-4; 2 Tim. 1:10).
When a believer dies, their body is said
to sleep and their soul goes to be with God
(Luke 23:43). Believers are forever safe and
secure in God’s presence (2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23;
Heb. 12:1; 1 Thess. 5:10; Luke 16:19-31). The term
“sleep” is never applied to the soul, or the
spirit, only to the body.
9).
They also deny the biblical doctrine of Hell:
Seventh-day Adventists do not teach the
biblical doctrine of hell. They, like
Jehovah’s Witnesses, teach that unbelievers
will be annihilated and that hell is
temporary.
Ellen G. White
said:
“How repugnant to
every emotion of love and mercy, and even to
our sense of justice, is the doctrine that
the wicked dead are tormented with fire and
brimstone in an eternally burning hell; that
for the sins of a brief, earthly life they
are to suffer torture as long as God shall
live.” — The Great Controversy, page 535.
“There is not one Place of Scripture
that occurs to me, where the word Death, as
it was first threatned in the Law of
Innocency, necessarily signifies a certain
miserable Immortality of the Soul, either to
Adam, the actual sinner, or to his
posterity.” — The Ruin and Recovery of
Mankind, page 228, (as quoted in Froom,
Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, Vol. 2,
page 220).
(See what the Bible says: Rev. 14:11; 21:1;
Matt. 25:41-46; Mark 9:43-48; Luke 16:19-26;
2 Thess. 1:7-9).
(Regarding hell, it should
be noted that many good, Bible believing
Christians have believed that the duration
of hell is not eternal, only its
consequences).
The list of 9 doctrines
above is adapted from, “A Quick Introduction to
Seventh-day Adventism” by exAdventist
Outreach. [7]
Christians have
always disagreed about end time issues. There
are different schools of thought on the
subject, and I
think any group that makes their
understanding of future events (eschatology),
a test of fellowship is completely wrong to
do so.
Seventh-day Adventists, like other cults,
insist that their way of believing is the only
right way and
everyone else is wrong. In their
beginning, many Seventh-day Adventists followed
the false prophecies and teachings of
William Miller; after him came the false
prophet and teachings of Ellen G.
White.
Seventh-day Adventists claim
they believe the Bible only but they actually
put the writings of Ellen G. White above the Bible itself.
Ellen G. White said that we had to
either believe everything she said was from
God, or none of it was.
“The
visions are either of God or the devil.
There is no half-way position to be taken in
the matter. God does not work in partnership
with Satan. Those who occupy this position
cannot stand there long. They go a step
farther and account the instrument God has
used a deceiver and the woman Jezebel. If
after they had taken the first step it
should be told them what position they would
soon occupy in regard to the visions, they
would have resented it as a thing
impossible. But Satan leads them on
blindfolded in a perfect deception in regard
to the true state of their feelings until he
takes them in his snare.” — Letter 8, 1860,
pp. 16, 17, to Brother John Andrews, June
11, 1860. 1MR 307.1.
“…I am
presenting to you what the Lord has
presented to me. I do not write one article
in the paper expressing merely my own ideas,
they are what God has opened before me in
vision- precious rays of light shining from
the throne.” — Testimonies for the Church
Vol. 5, page 67.
Who are you going to follow, the false
beliefs of Ellen G.
White and the Seventh-day Adventist Church,
or the Bible? You cannot be true to both!
Remember, when the foundation
is flawed — the building will crumble (Luke 6:46-49).
References:
1. The New World Encyclopedia/The Seventh-day
Adventist Church.
2.
Life of Paul Plagiarized.
3.
Five Failed Prophecies.
4.
Bible Truth Versus SDA Truth: 666 and the
Pope.
5.
Does Seventh-day Adventism Teach the
Trinity?
6.
Death, the State of the Dead, and
Resurrection.
7.
A Quick Introduction to Seventh-day
Adventism.
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