By Colleen Tinker
People always have opinions about what we at Life Assurance Ministries should say when we talk about Adventism, and many do not hesitate to tell us how we should say it.
For example, this past Saturday several of the LAM board conducted a Former Adventist Fellowship conference at The Chapel in St. Joseph, Michigan. Then, on Sunday and Monday, we held four meetings for the members of The Chapel, helping them to understand the Adventist worldview so they can better converse with and witness to the Adventists they know.
At the end of Monday’s meeting, an Adventist who attended spoke up during the Q & A session. She accused us of lying, of twisting the truth, and declared we all were “disgruntled” before pulling out a paper she had written.“You all had 30 minutes to talk,” she said, arguing that she was entitled to take five minutes to read her response.
The pastor attempted to hep her formulate a question, but in the end he ushered her out so we could continue with our program.“The letters to the editor have come to life,” I thought to myself.
Over the years I have watched two attitudes mark the extremes of online former Adventist conversations, and neither one really helps people become anchored in truth. On the one extreme, formers become argumentative and harsh, mocking Ellen White and calling her demonic while insulting Adventists and rudely challenging them to face their prophet’s duplicity.
On the other extreme, formers swing far from the rigidity of their past religion and adopt an almost ecumenical view. They decry doctrine, insisting it divides believers, and they neither tell the truth about Ellen White nor do they point people toward the clarifying work of Scripture. Their response to questioning is to remind seekers that loving Jesus is all that matters, that not judging is the heart of love.
There are many people who do not fall into these two extremes, but I am certain that only those formers who have trusted the Lord Jesus upon hearing the biblical gospel can actually help questioning Adventists discover truth in their struggle to be free.
What is needed?
Dale Ratzlaff has said, Adventists have two things they have to deal with: their source of authority, and the biblical gospel.
As former Adventists reaching back to help our loved ones still caught in the quicksand of Adventist doctrine and practice, we HAVE to know that Ellen White was a false prophet and that she received her inspiration from an anti-Christ source. That bit of understanding is one of two things that makes people able to leave the false gospel of Adventism.
Because of Ellen’s commentary, Adventists have a wrong belief about the Bible; they do not believe it is inerrant even though they teach it is “infallible”. But Adventists specifically learn that the Bible has errors that have to be mentally “edited”, and this belief is a direct outgrowth of their concurrent belief that EGW was inspired by God just as the biblical prophets were— yet she has errors. As long as an Adventist (or any person) believes that the actual words and context of Scripture don’t really mean what they appear to say, they will rationalize God’s own word and revelation of Himself. They will blur the clear reality of the gospel and of the true nature of man and his unconditional need of a personal (as opposed to a general) Savior.
So, Adventists must come to the place where they see and believe that EGW cannot be in any way a mouthpiece for God, because she contradicts Scripture (and even herself) and because she speaks about the Lord Jesus and the Father in untruthful ways. She teaches her followers to believe a non-biblical Jesus as well as an unbiblical understanding of their own nature. Unless one places their faith in the God of Scripture, as Paul Carden has said, they are not believing unto salvation.
Second, the “fix” for our EGW worldview IS Scripture. Because Scripture is the ONLY place we find reality and truth, when people get stuck on disproving EGW, they are not directing people toward Scripture. It is useless for formers to rant about EGW without directing people toward truth and God’s word.
We HAVE to speak out about EGW and explain how her views are wrong when the questions arise, but people who just “sit” in that space are not opening their own minds and hearts to the humbling reality of submitting to the word of God so it can soften and change them in their deepest places. People who don’t want to know the truth about their own lives and hearts will resist the startling reality of what Jesus’ shed blood has accomplished, and they will resist trusting God’s word instead of their own logic.
On the other hand, people who discover the beauty of the gospel and then move away from wanting to know how the Bible informs our Adventist worldview are just as ungrounded as are those who focus on exposing Ellen without looking at Scripture. I see those online as well. People who insist that Jesus is about LOVE and tolerance toward everyone have not actually submitted to the Lord Jesus and His finished work, either. The Lord Jesus is clear that there is only one way to be saved—through believing in Him and His finished work—and to ignore this unique way to salvation keeps people cut off from the gospel.
Believing and trusting in Jesus requires that we see clearly that all humanity is born dead and must be brought to life. It requires that we recognize that we are sinners and must repent, and it requires realizing that submitting to the Lord Jesus and His shed blood and resurrection is the ONLY way we can be saved. We can’t tolerate a “soft gospel” and assume everyone who claims to “follow Jesus” is actually born again.
People need to know who Jesus is.
When an Adventist really meets Jesus and trusts in Him, he begins to see, one layer at a time, that all of Adventist doctrine is shaped by a false prophet. That religion hangs together because a false prophet wove the fabric that contains every single doctrinal thread.
Thus, when Dale Ratzlaff says an Adventist has to deal with two things, he is speaking profound truth. An Adventist must come to see that he can’t hold to a divided authority; he can’t turn a blind eye to EGW and say she doesn’t matter, that the gospel is all that matters, because EGW is a false prophet who received her revelations from someone other than God.
Some people can’t even “see” and trust the gospel until they recognize that EGW is a false prophet. Others have to embrace the gospel first before EGW comes into proper focus. But either way, a person must grapple with both of those things. Once a person is born again, the reality of our deception becomes more and more clear as we immerse ourselves in Scripture. Ultimately we have to be gospel warriors who are clear about the evil nature of EGW and are able to speak clearly about her wrong teaching in the light of Scripture.
We who have left Adventism for the sake of Jesus (as opposed to leaving just because we intellectually believe EGW was bunk without actually dealing with Jesus) have a unique responsibility: we have to speak the gospel, and we have to help those still caught in Adventism understand how their worldview is shaped by an extra-biblical authority who misrepresented our triune God and our relationship to Him. †
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Nice work! Sniper fire again – bull’s eye, dead center.
Thank you Colleen, Great advice!