Dale Ratzlaff Speaks Candidly | 8

Dale Ratzlaff remembers his shock when Adventist leaders admitted Adventism’s investigative judgment could not be supported biblically but told him to preach anyway and ignore what wasn’t true. He shares how he was fired and how he learned the truth of the new covenant that has shaped his ministry. Podcast was published November 6, 2019. Transcription by Gwen Billington.

 

Colleen:  Welcome to Former Adventist podcast, where we discuss our life after Adventism.  I’m Colleen Tinker.

Nikki:  And I’m Nikki Stevenson.

Colleen:  And today we have a really special guest.  We have Dale Ratzlaff here.  But before we say more about him, I just want to say this, Life Assurance Ministries produces a magazine, Proclamation!, twice a year.  If you would like to request a free subscription to the print magazine for yourself or for family or friends, you may do so by emailing formeradventist@gmail.com.  This podcast is made possible by your generous donations, and we are grateful.  To make a donation, you can go to our website, proclamationmagazine.com, and find a link to donate online either using credit card or PayPal.  And be sure and subscribe to our podcast.  So now, I’d like to introduce you to Dale Ratzlaff, the founder of Life Assurance Ministries, to whom so many of us feel we owe the understanding of the New Covenant.  Thank you, Dale –

Nikki:  Yes.

Colleen:  – for being here and for your integrity all these years.

Dale:  Oh, I’m glad to be here.

Colleen:  We’d like to start by asking you – you’ve written a book which actually you published – I don’t remember the year.  Do you remember what year this came out?  It was in –

Dale:  I think it was 2008.

Colleen:  Okay.  It’s called, “Truth Led Me Out,” and I’d like Nikki to introduce how this book affected her as she was an Adventist.

Nikki:  Well, I was given this book by my mother-in-law, who was a pastor’s wife and had read a lot of your material and was coming to see the truth about Adventism, and I wasn’t yet ready to read it, but I hung onto it for a while and finally picked it up during my first trimester of my pregnancy with my daughter, and what you wrote was so clearly true and vulnerable.  I mean, you were naming names, and I knew that you wouldn’t do that if it wasn’t true, because then people could check on you.  But you were willing to put all of that information out there, and I knew what I was reading was going to change my life.  So I actually had to put the book down because I was just getting sick thinking about what was going on, what this was going to do, and it was a few months later I knew I had to pick it up again, and I did, and I finished the book.  And I knew my husband had to read it, but he’s not much of a reader, so you have read this book on CD, and I purchased the CDs, and I gave them to him, and he listened, and then I listened again, and it was fascinating to me, when you read a book in your own voice, you kind of imagine how the author is speaking, but when I heard you read it in your voice and I heard your love for the people that are in Adventism and your love for your experience in Adventism before you started to unravel the problems, it was so touching, and I can’t encourage people enough to read this book, to pick this up, because it’s irrefutable.  It’s a wonderful book.  Thank you for writing it.

Dale:  Well, thank you.  I remember the day I started this book.  I was working on a sermon, and I was pastor of Christian Community Church in Glendale, and I got an email, and you know how the email dings your computer?

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  That was way back using Windows 2000, I think.

Colleen:  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Dale:  Anyway, I thought, “Well, I’ll just see who emailed me,” and it was a pastor, an Adventist pastor, and he asked a whole lot of questions, you know, about he had to really be sure, he had done a lot of study, he couldn’t find the Biblical basis for some of our doctrines in the Adventism, and he wanted me to write back and answer all of his questions, and I said to myself, “You know, I’ve gotten lots of emails like this.  It’s time I put it in print, because it’s so much easier to give them a book than for me to go into detail.”  So I sat down and made an outline and wrote the book.  It was kind of fun and tragic –

Nikki:  Yes.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  – and reminded me how God led us through difficult times, and He revealed to us the gospel slowly, and how we came to see the errors of Adventism slowly too.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  So it’s a good book.  By the way, of all of my books, this is the one you want to read first.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.  Yeah.

Colleen:  I would agree.

Dale:  Because – in fact, we’ve had a lot of people say that, “I won’t read ‘Cultic Doctrine,’ I won’t read ‘Sabbath in Christ,'” but if they read this book, then they’re open to read the others.

Nikki:  I agree.  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  I agree.  Um-hmm.  So what was the – I guess there are a lot of questions that I could ask, but I think I’ll ask:  What was the most horrifying, shocking, difficult thing when you discovered that Adventism could not be supported by the Bible?  For you, what was the hardest thing about that realization?

Dale:  Well, this is not quite the answer to what you asked –

Colleen:  That’s okay.

Dale:  – but I’m going to give you one of the hardest things.

Colleen:  Okay.

Dale:  I was studying, and I’d always had trouble with 1844.  When I was at Pacific Union College studying theology, I was in my senior year, and Dr. Leslie Hardinge was my teacher of Spirit of Prophecy class is what they called it, and I was studying Investigative Judgment, so I went to him one day, and I asked, I said, “Dr. Hardinge, what was trampled down in 457 that it was untrampled in 1844?”  Because I realized that it was a durative period, and it was something really interesting, because I thought I was one of his – I was getting straight A’s, okay?

Colleen:  Uh-huh.

Dale:  And you kind of get a feel for how the teacher likes you –

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  – and I thought I was one of his better students.

Colleen:  And I’m sure you were.

Dale:  And suddenly his demeanor changed, he stepped back, and he looked at me with cold, staring eyes –

Colleen:  [Gasps.]

Nikki:  Oh, wow.

Dale:  – and he said, “Dale, aren’t you studying for the ministry?” and I said, “Yes.”  He said, “You shouldn’t be asking questions like that.”

Colleen:  Wow.

Dale:  I never asked him anymore questions.  But anyway, I kept on studying, and then after – I’m skipping ahead quite a bit now, but the thing that hurt me was when we went down to – myself, I was pastor of the Watsonville Church at this time, and we went down to Loma Linda and spoke with Graham Maxwell, who was Chairman of the Department of Theology, and my job was on the line because I said, “I cannot teach the Investigative Judgment unless somebody can show me how to do it from Scripture.”  And so one of the dentists there in the church and one of my good elders – both of them were doctors or Ph.D.s or so on.  They flew me down to see him, because they said that he had all the answers.

Colleen:  Of course.

Dale:  So we spent five hours talking with him in private –

Colleen:  This is Graham Maxwell.

Dale:  Graham Maxwell.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  He’s dead now, and it is recorded, but I told him I’d never release it, because he didn’t want me to.  But I’ve reviewed it.  In fact, I reviewed it before I wrote “Truth Led Me Out,” and I have it summarized there.  But in the conversation, it became very evident that they knew the problems, and they also said the main problem is that if we throw out the Investigative Judgment, we have to admit that Ellen White is wrong, and if she is wrong there, then she could be wrong somewhere else.  And then after that, Harold West, my ministerial secretary, he took me aside at campmeeting.  He said, “Let’s go for a walk,” because he knew I was struggling, and he said, “Dale, we both know the doctrine’s wrong,” and it was obvious that we were talking about the Investigative Judgment.  He said, “But we’re too old to get a job outside of the church.  We can’t do anything about it.  It’s not our fault.”  He said, “Just do what you can, but don’t make any waves.”

Colleen:  Oh, my.

Nikki:  Umm.

Dale:  And suddenly I realized that I’d known before that the Investigative Judgment was not Biblical, it was contrary to the gospel.  I knew the church had wrestled with it because of Raymond Cottrell’s tape.  They had a secret committee that met for five years that couldn’t solve it, left, disbanded, with no minutes.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  Significant.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  Yeah.  And I also knew – I had personally talked to Walter Rea.  I had been to his home, and he showed me point-blank all the plagiarism from Ellen White.  So the thing that hurt me was that these teachers knew the problems, the administration knew the problems, and they were covering up the problems.  They were presenting error for truth, and at the campmeeting, some of the speakers who told me in private that the Investigative Judgment was wrong, you couldn’t trust Ellen White, were promoting that, that it was okay, in public meetings.  So I said, “Wow.  I know the doctrine’s wrong.  I can’t trust Ellen White.  I know that the administration has known about this, the church has known about it for years and years and years.  Go back clear to Canright –

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  – and the 1919 Bible Conference.  So the thing that hurt was to know that they knew and were still purposely deceiving people.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  That’s devastating.  I remember years ago you came and gave an evening talk at Trinity Church early on, like 2000, 2001, and I remember you saying something that has stuck with me.  You said, “There are two kinds of Adventists:  The deceived and the dishonest.”  Sometimes I think that the dishonest are those who came out of deception and have refused to face it.  I mean, you know, they might have started deceived, but they became dishonest when they wouldn’t face the truth.

Dale:  Yeah.  And there are some, I guess, that just don’t know.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  They don’t know they’re deceived.

Nikki:  Right.

Colleen:  So this story is raising a couple questions for me, and I’m just going to ask them.  You can answer them any way you want.

Dale:  That’s good.  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  [Laughter.]  It’s making me think of Des Ford and Walter Rea.  Walter Rea never actually left Adventism.  I talked to him actually not long before he died, and he never retracted.  He was very clear.  He stood by his research, but he also said something that surprised me, and he said – I believe he mentioned the Desire of Ages, and he said, “I still could teach good Sabbath school classes out of the Desire of Ages,” and it was surprising to me to hear that from Walter Rea after he exposed her.  And then Desmond Ford, who clearly understood the Investigative Judgment was not in the Bible, but he retained some kind of admiration for Ellen White’s prophetic voice.  How do you explain that?

Dale:  Well, I knew Des well.  He’s deceased now, and I’m sorry that he’s not longer with us, because he was a mentor for the gospel for me.

Colleen:  Yeah.

Dale:  I mean, he led me to see some of the truths of Romans and so on, but Des Ford knew the gospel, but he felt like he needed to stay in the Adventist church to try to move them toward the gospel, and as far as Ellen White goes, he admitted that she was not a prophet with authority, she was only a prophet like a pastoral prophet for the Adventist church, but he – even in his later years, he would quote good passages that – you know, drawing out some of the good passages from Ellen White, and that has troubled me, but I know Des, I believe he is an honest man and he’s with the Lord, I’m sure of that.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  And he has one of the clearest presentations of the gospel, I think it’s on two pages.  I have it on my desk at home.  I’ll have to share it sometime.  It’s really, really cool.  He was a great scholar.

Colleen:  He was.

Dale:  And he brought it out that the Investigative Judgment was not only wrong, but it contradicted the gospel, and he gave the 22 assumptions upon which it was built, and he did the church a real service by doing that.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  So I cherish the times that we’ve had together.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  Yes.  Well, from where I stand, I’ll just say that I have been deeply impressed by your integrity, Dale, you and Carolyn –

Nikki:  Yes.

Colleen:  – in going where the truth led you without trying to stay and compromise with the past, because ultimately, I don’t think we can stay and change or we compromise our own integrity.  That’s my perspective, and I just want to thank you for your integrity in not trying to do that.  Thank you.

Dale:  Well, in a sense, I didn’t have a choice.  I mean, I would either teach the Investigative Judgment or leave.

Colleen:  Well, but there are many people who taught it, you know?

Dale:  Right, right.

Nikki:  And there are people who left and never looked back or tried to help anybody who was stuck in that.

Colleen:  Exactly.

Dale:  That’s true.

Colleen:  Exactly.

Nikki:  And so your integrity, it gave the rest of us courage.

Colleen:  That is so true.  Watching the two of you and knowing how you suffered has been an example that the Lord has used in many of our lives.

Dale:  He has been gracious to us, He really has.  I mean, I look back, Carolyn and I, often we look back to the days of Adventism, and there are a lot of good things in Adventism.  I don’t regret that I grew up in the Adventist church.  Sure, I was legalistic, but I at least was taught obedience.

Colleen:  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Dale:  But looking back now, I can say, “Oh, we’re so glad that we’re out of Adventism,” that we can look at other Christians without trying to say, “Well, these people don’t, you know –

Colleen:  Right.

Dale:  – they don’t do this, they don’t do that, therefore they’re not God’s children.

Colleen:  Right.

Dale:  We can accept people with different beliefs as long as the gospel is clear.  That’s so nice.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  Yes.  Yeah.  And I’m thankful I grew up Adventist because I wouldn’t have pored over the Scriptures as I did, if I didn’t have to figure out what was wrong with what I was believing.  It led me to Bible study.  So after leaving, what would you say, in looking back, has been your biggest surprise or the most rewarding thing?  What did you not expect that has come to pass?

Dale:  Well, I never knew I would write any books, okay?

Colleen:  Interesting.

Dale:  I never knew I would give up the Sabbath.

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  [Laughter.]  That is a shock, isn’t it?

Dale:  [Laughter.]   When we left the Adventist church over 1844, and also I knew that Ellen White was not the prophet of the remnant church, I knew that, and I knew that the Holy Spirit was the seal of God and not the Sabbath, but when we first left, I gave three or four sermons why I would never leave the Sabbath.

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  [Laughter.]  Oh, interesting.

Dale:  So –

Colleen:  So tell us what happened after that.

Dale:  Well, we had a church.  We started with a Biblical Adventist Church, and this was a group of 50 to 70 people or so that were in the Watsonville church when I was being a pastor there and then when I left.  By the way, all of this is in “Truth Led Me Out,” how that church started and so on.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  But about two years later, one of our group – we had changed the name to Biblical Fellowship Church for two reasons:  We were getting hassled from the Adventists for using the word “Adventist” and –

Colleen:  Sure.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  – the further we got out of Adventism, the more we didn’t want to be associated with it, so we changed to the Biblical Fellowship Church.  And one of our members – we were still meeting on Saturday and felt no reason to change, okay?  We called it “Searching the Word Hour.”  It would be like Sabbath school.  We had about 40 people attending.  We would get into small groups around tables and study.  I would make study guides, and then near the end I would pull everybody back together and we would discuss what we did.  And one of them said, “Let’s study the Sabbath.”  I had read Robert Brinsmead’s article in “Verdict,” I believe it was, that he had on the Sabbath.  And it was very – how will I say, it raised lots of questions I hadn’t studied through.  Then also, when I was teaching at Monterey Bay Academy I had a class, it was called Advanced Bible, for the seniors, and I would invite in different pastors into my class, and for example, let’s say the Lutherans came in or I had the Mormons come in, and I would prep the students to ask them certain questions, okay?

Colleen:  I bet you did, Dale!  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Dale:  And the principal knew what I was doing, and it was accepted well.  So they would quiz these people and kind of make it hard for them to answer.

Nikki:  Wow.

Dale:  But I had a Baptist pastor come in, and he mentioned some things about the Covenant, the words of the Covenant, and the Covenant was no longer binding, and I thought, “Whoa, I’m going to have to study this,” but I just put it on the back shelf and didn’t study it.  Going back now to the person that wanted to study the Sabbath, I said, “Okay, under certain conditions.  One:  We’re going to throw out all of our presuppositions, so we’re going to study it from both points of view, or all points of view, not just the Adventist point, but the Protestant point of view; and we’re going to go slow; and we’re going to stay together; and we have no idea what our conclusion is going to be.”

Colleen:  That’s an amazing – that’s very courageous.

Nikki:  Huh.

Dale:  And it was one of the finest studies that I’ve ever been involved in, and the people who were involved in that study, when we get together and talk, they say that was the best study we’ve ever done –

Colleen:  I’m sure.

Dale:  – because it was truly inductive.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  It was like going through the wilderness and seeing the beautiful scene for the first time.  And we studied that for seven months.

Colleen:  How amazing.

Dale:  Every week.  And we read Des Ford’s “Forgotten Day,” which was pro Seventh-day Adventist.

Colleen:  Yes.

Dale:  We read Bacchiocchi’s doctoral dissertation.  They didn’t all read it, but I read it, and it was “From Sabbath to Sunday” was the name of it.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  We read D.A. Carson’s “From Sabbath to Lord’s Day,” which was written in response to Bacchiocchi’s book, and then Nordon Winger, who was an Adventist pastor, he was up in Paradise, and he took his Gospel Fellowship through a study of the Sabbath, and I had his tapes.  So those were the – and then some of the “Verdict” magazines from Brinsmead on the Sabbath.  But most of it was from Scripture.  So we looked at every passage in the Bible that mentioned the Sabbath, every passage that mentioned the Law, every passage that mentioned the Covenant, and we took our time.  And I thought that we would come up with the same Adventist belief about the Sabbath.  But when we got to the New Testament, there I was with Paul.

Colleen:  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Dale:  And I said, “You know, this doesn’t fit.”  And I was struggling with it, “How am I going to fit this into what we’ve already studied?”  We studied all the Old Testament and everything.  And then one day I was in my office, and I said, “Well, I’m trying to fit Paul’s teaching into the Adventist-style paradigm,” even though we weren’t Adventist.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  And I said, “Just for fun, I’m going to take Paul’s paradigm and see if I can fit what we have previously discovered –

Colleen:  Wow.

Dale:  – into Paul’s paradigm.”

Nikki:  Wow.

Dale:  So I started doing that, and suddenly, just in a moment of time –

Colleen:  [Laughter.]

Dale:  – it was like a page, a new page in a book, that instead of the Sabbath being the testing truth, it was Jesus Christ, and you know, He was the true rest of which the Sabbath in the Old Testament pointed.  But that was a real big discovery that we made, and it was phenomenal, as I look back at it.  Now, it took – when we got all done, we were still meeting Saturday.  But I wanted to kind of move to Sunday –

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  Because we were getting other Sabbatarians joining us that were – really had a bag of legalism –

Nikki:  Um-hmm

Dale:  – and these are not Adventist, now, but other Sabbatarians.

Colleen:  Right.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  And it was just getting bad.  So I said, “Let’s move to Sunday, but they didn’t all want to do that because of, you know, relatives and culture and so on.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  But anyway, they wanted me to put it in book form, but it took me a number of years to do it, so anyway.

Colleen:  What an amazing thing.  So wouldn’t you say that the overarching deception that blinds most Adventists is that Jesus is eclipsed by this Day.  It actually replaces Jesus in their minds as what counts in front of God.

Dale:  This is true.  Greg Taylor, in one of his presentations, he said that Adventists have put in the Sabbath as their Christ.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  Yeah.

Dale:  And you go to church, and you say, “Happy Sabbath everybody.”

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  Yes.  So do you ever look back?  Do you ever wish you could have stayed in some way or what is the greatest joy of being out?  How do you feel this side of things?

Dale:  I feel very grateful that we’re out.  Now, I still get the Journal from Andrews University.  I open it up sometimes, and I see some of my people that I went to school with –

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  Yes.

Dale:  – getting their degrees and getting the heads of the department, and I could say, “Well, I could be there.  I could have done that,” but I’m so glad I’m out.  I’m so glad.

Colleen:  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Dale:  But we have freedom now.  It’s not freedom to sin.

Colleen:  No.

Dale:  It’s freedom to enjoy the gospel, to know that you’re saved.  I’m 83 now.  Who knows how many years I have?  God does, I don’t, but whether I die of a heart attack tomorrow or I live to the Second Coming, I’m happy.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  Yes.

Dale:  And the first time – if you read “Truth Led Me Out,” you’ll see when I nearly died and I was fearful of dying.

Colleen:  Yes.

Dale:  But I’m not fearful of dying anymore.  I mean, I would hate to lose Carolyn and you friends, but I’m looking forward to meeting the Lord.

Colleen:  And that is different.  I used to be terrified of the Second Coming –

Dale:  Yes.

Colleen:  – and terrified of death.  So as you think about potential Adventists who might hear this podcast or people who are questioning and not sure what to do, what would you say to them?

Dale:  Are you going to have integrity?  A little violation of conscience can lead you to a bigger violation of conscience.  This is scriptural.  I think there’s a place that an Adventist needs to study for sure to know whether they believe the truth or not.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Dale:  “Thy Word is truth.”

Colleen:  Yes.

Dale:  “Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed.”  We need to study, and I would say start – if you want to start with one of our books, start with “Truth Led Me Out.”

Colleen:  Yes.  And I would also say, as you’re reading “Truth Led Me Out,” start reading Galatians –

Dale:  Yes.

Colleen:  – every day for one month.  Six chapters, it’s short.  Ask the Lord to teach you what He already knows He wants you to know from the book.

Dale:  Absolutely.  Galatians is a good book, and just by way of advertisement, I’m starting a study on Galatians.  I’ve done the first six studies now, and they’ll be starting out in, what?  A couple of weeks, I guess.

Colleen:  A couple of weeks.  And yes, I’m excited about the study, and this will be coming out every week when we send out our weekly Proclamation! emails, and they’ll be uploaded onto the Proclamation! blog site, so please follow along and study with Dale.

Dale:  Yes, and we have some interesting things coming up in that study.  You know, Paul talks about, you know, even if an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached, let him be accursed.  So just for fun, I thought I would do a search on Ellen White’s accompanying angel.  Quite revealing.

Nikki:  Hmm.

Dale:  You’ll hear more about this later.

Colleen:  I can’t wait, personally.

Nikki:  [Laughter.]  Me either.

Colleen:  And I’m so excited that you’re researching another new subject.  Well, not new, but in a sense, and writing about it.  I always love what you write, Dale.

Dale:  If God wills, this will be another book.

Nikki:  Wonderful.

Colleen:  Wonderful.  Well, thank you again, Dale.  We have so enjoyed interviewing you and letting you tell parts of your story.  We’re grateful to you, and thank you for having integrity –

Nikki:  Yes.

Colleen:  – and for going where the Lord led you and for helping so many of us discover the New Covenant.

Nikki:  Yes, thank you.

Colleen:  And to know that it’s actually in the Bible.

Dale:  Well, it’s been a privilege to go down this journey, and it’s been a privilege to work with you and the other Board members.  We just thank the Lord for you joining us or us joining you.

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  [Laughter.]  He put us together, I believe.

Dale:  Yes.  We’re thankful for that.

Nikki:  Yes.

Colleen:  Thank you so much, and thank you all for joining us.  We’ll see you in a week. †