|
In 1979 I started to
study the Bible and what some of the
Christian churches around me believed.
During that time, I met
an older Seventh-day Adventist woman who
loved the Bible and we decided to do Bible studies
together. I was already becoming a Christian
when I started studying with the Adventists
and at that time, getting baptized and
joining the Seventh-day Adventist Church
seemed like the right thing to do. Their
teachings appeared logical in the beginning
but it didn’t take long for me to start to
see the many errors the church was teaching.
The very first doctrine that I realized
was in error was their doctrine of the seal
of God. It is very obvious that the New
Covenant,
seal of God is the Holy Spirit. The New
Testament says it clearly. So why were my
Seventh-day Adventist friends still
convinced that it was the weekly, seventh day
Sabbath? The fact that the Holy Spirit is
the seal of God is a beautiful doctrine
about God living His life through us! When
we come to faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy
Spirit seals us as God’s guarantee of our
eternal redemption (Eph. 1:13-14; 4:30; 2 Cor. 1:21-22; cf. 1 Cor. 12:12-13; 2 Tim. 2:19).
The Seventh-day Adventist Church has turned a beautiful doctrine
about what God does inside of us and made it
into something we must do to be saved. I believe
the only reason Seventh-day Adventists still
believe
the Sabbath is the seal of God is
because their prophet, Ellen G. White said it
was. Their doctrines are determined by Ellen
White and not by what the Bible actually says.
It was so clear that it made me look closer
at their other doctrines. I was never really
sold on Ellen G. White and her so-called,
prophetic gift (although God did use the
Great Controversy in my conversion). Then
when I read Walter Rea’s book, “The White
Lie” (and other books like it), I decided to
discard her writings altogether.
Ellen White used fear
and intimidation to
keep the Seventh-day Adventist Church
members in
line. She made
many false statements that if
you question her visions, you are
questioning God Himself. Seventh-day Adventists
still teach that anyone who leaves the
Seventh-day Adventist Church behind is an
apostate and lost because of her writings.
In the late
1980s, I
went to Atlantic Union College to study
theology but the doctrinal issues I
disagreed with, and the legalism that so
dominated the church led me and my wife to
leave the school after 3 years.
I did
evangelism for the Adventist Church for some
time, but it was becoming harder and harder
to stay in a church that taught a false, and
legalistic gospel.
Seventh-day Adventists
want the evangelical world to accept them
as fellow Christians, but they continue to
teach that all the other churches are
apostates and Babylon. They have never
really accepted Christ-followers from
different faiths as true Christians. If you
disagree with the Seventh-day Adventist
Church on just about any subject, they
reject you as a false teacher.
Fear
is a powerful motivator! Seventh-day
Adventists excel at instilling fear in the
minds of their members and it all began with
their prophet, Ellen G. White.
The
doctrines of
1844 and the Investigative Judgment are
fear-based doctrines. Ellen White said
we
must stand without Christ as our mediator
and
be sinless in the last days to be saved.
Ellen White and the Seventh-day Adventist
Church teach believers enter into a
judgment
of works that determines their salvation,
and Sabbath-keeping in the last days is one
of those works.
The Seventh-day
Adventist Church teaches a fear-based
religion that can only lead a person to
self-doubt and failure. Those fear-based
teachings are central to the beliefs of the Seventh-day
Adventist Church and cannot be avoided.
All the evidence proves Ellen G. White was a
false prophet who
contradicted the Bible in
many places,
plagiarized the words of other
authors, and then lied about where she
got those words. She made well documented,
false prophecies (such as
the shut door), and then said God showed
her those things in vision. When the Seventh-day
Adventist Church promotes her they are
telling people to believe in a liar, a fraud,
and a
wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church may not
say everyone has to become a Seventh-day
Adventist to be saved, but they do teach that
you have to keep the seventh day Sabbath
in the last days to
be saved; live without Jesus as your mediator, and be
sinless before Christ comes (if you live in
the time just before his coming). Ellen
White even said that understanding the doctrine of
the Investigative Judgment is just as
essential as understanding the plan of salvation.
I met many wonderful people in the
Seventh-day Adventist Church who were afraid
of losing their salvation. I knew they had
to be shown that
salvation is by grace alone,
through faith alone, in Christ alone, but the false
doctrines of their church and their belief
in Ellen White have blinded them to the
truth of the gospel. If you truly believe in
the writings of Ellen G. White then you
cannot have the assurance of salvation, but
only a fear of what is to come. We had hoped to see
change come to the church, but we finally realized that we
couldn’t stay in a false religion any
longer. My wife and I finally had enough so
we left the
church in 1995 and have never looked back.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church
cannot be reformed! When you accept
the true
gospel, you cannot stay in a church that
teaches a false gospel of
works-righteousness.
There is only one true gospel and the
Seventh-day Adventist Church has never
believed in it, or taught it.
Bill Fritz
|
