These are strange times. None of us alive today has lived through a pandemic in which countries around the world have been “shut down” to one degree or another. People are frightened for their lives and their health, but they are also growing concerned about the future and their financial conditions.
Conspiracy theories abound, but there are no clear answers that satisfy everyone’s questions. A consistent theme that recurs among many—and especially among groups that have cultic doctrines and a central focus on eschatology—is that we are facing the “end times”.
To be sure, we have been in the “last days” since Jesus ascended to the Father. Hebrews 1:1-4 says,
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. (ESV)
Nevertheless, although we have been living in the last days for the past 2,000-plus years, we have not yet experienced the end of time. Theories fly about how we will know when we are entering that time—and people with cultic training are being triggered as an unseen pestilence threatens us and government mandates exert controls many of us in the “free world” have never experienced.
We who have left Adventism used to share fears revolving around plagues, persecutions, and protecting ourselves from death. In fact, this pandemic is causing some who are Adventist to begin questioning: what is really true? Is this the end of time—and can I really trust Ellen White’s description of the final days?
Just yesterday we received a moving email from a person who has recently found our Life Assurance website and has begun listening to our Former Adventist Podcast. Here is an excerpt from the letter:
I am a current seventh day Adventist. I was born in the church, went to an Adventist elementary school, and have held [many] posts in the church. Almost my whole family is Adventist.
I married a non Adventist and began participating in worldly things, but shortly later I decided that I was going to turn over a new leaf. I started to pray more to the Lord to help me.
I’ve always had a sense of “I really don’t believe that,” but I still stayed. Throughout my life I’ve always been afraid and full of anxiety when thinking about the second coming and the judgement. I have even asked the lord to end my life so I wouldn’t have to go through the torture and pain of the end times because I know I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I remember the fear being so great when I was young that I finally told myself to endure the pain, and goodness would come from it.
As this pandemic has evolved, I found my self frantically searching for the end-time timeline. What should I expect? Obviously the time of sorrow has begun!
I began searching Ellen White online because she told us what would happen. In my searching, though, I found things that debunked her visions. I read evidence that her writing had been plagiarized, and I saw her copied texts that proved she was a false prophet.
I guess I’ve always known I never really liked her teachings, and I always wondered if the things that she wrote were so crazy because of her head injury. When I was young I used to have sleep paralysis so often—sometimes every night—and I feel it was because of all the sermons on the occult I heard at church. It wasn’t until after I married and moved out of my parents’ house that the paralysis stopped.
After reading all these things about EGW, I’m having some of those unsettling feelings again, and I’m afraid of reading her books even though I want to to try and see if everything they say about her is true. So now I’m on this crazy search to uncover the truth.
In searching I saw your website and podcasts and blogs. You, an ex-Adventist, have been “born in the gospel”, and I feel like you’re onto something. I find myself needing some guidance. I’m not ready to depart from my family and church, but I also feel like I would be rejecting God if I don’t seek the truth.
I also don’t want to freak out my family, especially during this time; they might think that the devil has gotten into me, and that would be another sign of the end times. Any guidance you can offer will be appreciated; I need to know where to start to find the truth.
Truly God wastes nothing and redeems everything we submit to Him. Even the old Adventist fears raised by this current pandemic are things the Lord is using to lead people to know what is true.
Because this person’s questions are so familiar to so many of us, and because this writer is not unique in the desire to know the truth at a time when the old fears threaten, I will share my answer. There are real answers for the Adventist confusion, and they lie in knowing what Scripture says in context.
I understand your dilemma so well! I want to say this to you: your questions and your doubts about Adventism are God’s grace to you as He begins to show you what is true and to reveal Himself to you as your true Savior and Father. He is teaching you.
The fear of end-times that you describe is familiar to me. I grew up terrified of the time of trouble. I couldn’t sleep at night as a teenager, suffering insomnia into the morning hours, fearing I had committed the unpardonable sin accidentally and trying to recall all my sins so I could confess each one, as EGW said we must. She said that even forgotten sins would be held against us. There was no relief from the unending knowledge that I could NOT please God, because I kept sinning.
I was taught that if I prayed enough and “trusted the Holy Spirit” enough, I could avoid sin like Jesus did, but that never worked for me. I reached utter despair when, years ago, I found myself in the middle of a divorce. Ironically, I had prayed my way through every step of that broken relationship and was unable to reverse the destruction of that marriage. I knew I could not be considered innocent, yet I couldn’t stop the spiral downward. I felt utterly certain that God could never save me.
He reassured me that He loved me and wasn’t finished with me, and a few years later I clearly SAW the gospel of the Lord Jesus and His finished work. When I understood what Jesus actually did, that He alone saves me, that Jesus fulfilled all the requirements of the law including its curse of death for sin and broke that curse by rising from the grave—I knew that I was on a path out of Adventism.
That was a frightening thought, but just as you said that you feel as if you are “rejecting God” if you “don’t seek the truth,” I also knew I would be betraying Jesus if I stayed Adventist. The Adventist “gospel” is not the gospel of Jesus’ finished work. It is a system of beliefs that puts people in bondage and fear.
It takes time to “unpack” our heads from our Adventist worldview, and it requires two things: first and most important, we have to immerse ourselves in God’s word read IN CONTEXT. No proof-texting. Contextual Bible study reveals truth and shows the falsehoods of Adventism and its false gospel. The second requirement is hearing Adventist beliefs discussed and compared with Scripture.
You are absolutely right about the shocking things you have learned about Ellen White. She was a false prophet. As our younger son said when he was nine years old, she was a prophet—a false one. In other words, it’s not enough to say she wasn’t a prophet—she WAS, but a false one as Scripture describes false prophets.
This pandemic is triggering those old Adventist fears among so many people who have been raised Adventist. Interestingly, however, the Adventist teaching about end times is not biblical. Furthermore, Adventism focusses far more on the work of Satan than it does on the Lord Jesus. Adventists do not know that when a person trusts Jesus alone, that person is literally born again and made new. He or she passes from death to life (Jn. 5:24), and the fear of hell is completely destroyed. Death cannot take us from God, and death does not mean we cease to exist. We have Jesus’ resurrection life in us (Rom. 8:10–11).
Ellen White received her visions from someone—but they were not from God. Her scenarios made Satan the most powerful and feared being in the universe and made Jesus a “demi-god”, a sort of super human who was looking to us to help him defeat Satan. Contrary to Ellen’s Great Controversy, however, Jesus has already disarmed Satan at the cross. He is already a defeated foe, and Jesus ALONE defeated him (Col 2:14; Eph. 2:14). We do not win the war (or even help Jesus win the war). Satan is a creature, a created being, and he knows Jesus is his Creator. He is in no doubt about who Jesus is; Jesus was never exalted to the position of the Son, thus triggering Satan’s jealousy. Jesus has ALWAYS been almighty God the Son. He is eternal, and there has never been any doubt about Satan’s ultimate end.
I am going to give you some links and an assignment. (That’s the old teacher in me. Ha!) First, here is an article that explains the differences between the Adventist worldview and a biblical one.
This next article explains how the old covenant was replaced by the new covenant when Jesus fulfilled the law and took the curse of the law into Himself. The law was given to Israel and was a conditional covenant with a beginning and an end; it was give 430 years after Abraham and ended when Jesus the Seed came (Galatians 3:15–19).
We are currently doing a series of podcasts discussing the biblical covenants; these covenants are the key to understanding the role of the Sabbath and of the law. We were not taught the biblical covenants in Adventism. If you go to this link where the podcasts are, you can look for the last three or four weeks’ of podcasts; you will be able to tell from the titles which ones are about the covenants. I think these may be helpful to you.
Finally, here is my assignment: read the book of Galatians every day for a month. It is a short book: six chapters. It specifically addresses the problem Adventists have with the law as opposed to the gospel. Ask Jesus to teach you what He already knows He wants you to learn from the book. He is faithful, and He will teach you!
The gospel of John is also amazing. Ask the Lord to reveal Jesus to you and to bring your heart and mind to the place of seeing what is real and true. Ask Him to give you the faith to believe and to trust Jesus alone, no matter what the cost. He will never drop you, and He gives us true family in Him when we trust Him.
This current situation in which many of us are “sheltering at home” and avoiding meeting with others is causing all of us to question our assumptions. What will our lives look like when the acute danger of COVID-19 has passed? Will the financial situations in our countries recover? Will we be in extreme danger when this virus makes a second and a third appearance in subsequent seasons? How will power bases shift because of the rampant fear in the population? What do I need to know about the future?
We can know that God is sovereign over this situation. He is not surprised, and He is using this pandemic and all of the uncertainty we face for His glory. He is calling His sheep, and out of the fear and confusion, His own flock hears His voice and comes to Him. Faced with disorienting questions, people are looking for truth and peace.
The gospel of the Lord Jesus is the source of the peace everyone needs. His word tells the truth, and false prophets such as Ellen White are shown to be charlatans when Scripture is read in context. We do not need to fear her nor the devil whom she taught Adventists to fear.
In fact, Jesus said, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt. 10:28).
COVID-19 may kill the body, but we do not need to fear it nor any nefarious power that threatens us. The only One worthy of fear is God Himself—He is the only one who can destroy both the body and the soul in hell. Yet if we know Jesus, we are secure and already possess eternal life. The death of the body cannot annihilate us, and nothing can remove us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:38–39). †
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