Rescued From the Health Message
I was very interested in your article concerning Ellen White’s health laws and the nonsense that they are. Many years ago, as a sincere 20-year-old who joined the Adventist Church to please God, I took on board her dietary laws. I gave up all animal food and took on veganism. I only ate plant foods. The effect of this diet on me became apparent within a few weeks. My weight plummeted to 63 kgs, a drop of 20 kgs. I am over 6 feet tall. I looked thin and gaunt in the face. People outside the church noticed this, and they were concerned about me and my involvement in this religion. I was not getting enough protein or calories.
Nowadays I eat a diet of both plant and animal foods, omnivorous I think it is called. I eat eggs, fish, full fat yoghurt, butter, as well fruit, vegetables and grains. I am a picture of health on this diet and a healthy 88 kgs. I believe that we are meant to eat a mixed diet of both plant and animal foods.
—VIA EMAIL
I Dodged A Bullet
I continue to be grateful for your ministry. I liked the recent “Help, I married an Adventist” letter in Proclamation! magazine. Due to Richard Tinker’s wise counsel earlier this year, I did not move forward toward marriage, but I had an Adventist girlfriend for a few months and thought Adventism was just another evangelical Christian church. When I had calm discussions and questions about the inconsistencies and apparent errors in Adventism vs. historic Orthodox Christianity with my former girlfriend, I would get written responses like this one:
I hang my head in sadness at the anger of some people’s (like the Tinkers et al) desire to attack other Christians.” [She of course has blinders on, still seeing herself as an Evangelical Protestant, an heir to the Reformation, and refuses to see that their unorthodox (heretical?) beliefs are not consistent with historic Orthodox Christianity.]
She continues on:
“…I could certainly do the same to your religion. There is negative information all over the internet I could drum up about conservative Lutherans, but it denies all that Jesus stands for and what it means to truly love someone as they are, without the desire to control them or what they believe. It is a shameful spewing of self-absorption. If I was not a Christian, I would read their blog and say, ’This is why I don’t want to be a Christian; they (Former Adventists) spend their time tearing each other apart with an arrogance of singular correctness.’ There is much misinformation about Adventism that they are stating, but it doesn’t really matter. Your people will carry their torch and criticize Adventism to whomever will listen. What a way to share Christ’s love. Jesus weeps when he sees His people get on their self-righteous stand and state, ’I know the answers; I’m right, you’re wrong. My religion is better than yours…and here’s why.’ It’s ugly, it’s mean. It’s shameful. You need to realize that criticizing someone’s belief system will only lead to a failed relationship…Resist the devil encouraging you to gather negative information from others.
I don’t expect you to understand how history is playing itself out related to Bible prophecy, because it is not of interest to you. And there is no point in discussing it further. But I do ask this of you. Please understand that all I have studied and researched about Adventism has shown itself to be true. You know I’m not ignorant in my choices or unkind to others. I truly do choose to serve my loving Savior and walk as He walked. As I watch history and news move forward, there is no doubt in my mind that persecution of Sabbath-keepers lies ahead. There will come a point that I will be asked to follow the mother church of Rome by keeping Sunday as my day of rest. They are calling it the Green Sabbath, and I’ve seen no less than 25 ads or requests from foreign governments already introducing the concept, with Rome in partnership. Certainly, Covid has shown us how quickly the government crosses over into our personal rights. When this happens, I will lose the right to buy or sell, and tough times will lie ahead. Neighbors will turn in neighbors that are not following the Sunday Rest law, and our privileges will disappear.
When this does happen, I ask you to remember your grandfather the farmer (and how he risked his own life and property when he helped fellow Japanese farmers during their WWII internment), and provide food and assistance to those of us struggling. My fellow believers are not bad people. They are peaceful, Christ-centered followers looking to make a difference in the world by providing free classes and medical care to a world suffering from the maladies of sin in this world. You don’t have to agree; just remember us and continue to be the amazing, kind man I have come to know.
Apologies for the long email. Thank God I walked away. Now, after listening to your podcast and reading the blog, I have come to believe Adventists are praying to another god. The cult psychology binding them to their group is so hard to break through.
I am thankful in this season for your voices in helping me dodge a bullet and strengthen my own Christian faith.
—RECOVERING LUTHERAN
Learning So Much about Jesus
My Adventist husband goes to church with me on Sundays as my small little church is doing a study on the book of Daniel (it’s been interesting, to say the least). He does not agree with things, and he does speak up quite often…we are a branch of [a New Apostolic Reformation] church.
But your teachings have been amazing. As a non-Adventist, I grew up going to church my whole life on Sunday, but the Bible still confused me in some ways.
I was sure that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, that the work was completed at the cross, and that I am saved by my belief in him. Yet your ministry has not only opened my eyes to my husband’s Adventist beliefs and has helped me understand his world view and why he sees Scripture differently, but it is also changing my heart and has given me SOOO much understanding of Jesus, of what He really was here for and how much rest I do have in Him. I am learning I don’t need to strive, but I just need to really believe Him and share what He did with others.
In your podcasts, you and Nikki explain things in such a simple way. Even though you both are dismantling the lies of Adventism, I’ve said in almost every episode, “ WAIT! I DIDN’T EVEN SEE THAT IN SCRIPTURE,” and I have cried because of these revelations.
I ask that you both keep my husband and me in your prayers…he has agreed to read through books of the Bible with me.
I was also wondering if you could help me understand the Three Angels’ Messages and the deception in there.
I was sitting in their church today, and I saw Scripture talking about a war with Michael and the angels and Satan that I never knew was there (which made me think of the great controversy).
And also soul sleep—could you send me Scripture that confirms we have a spirit?
Why do they hate the Catholics or talk about the Jesuits so much? The Adventists believe the Jesuits are taking over the whole world, and I have never head of them before.
If you have any information on these topics, could you send it to me or guide me where I need to look?
What are your thoughts on Walter Veith? My husband listens to him and almost idolizes him. I, on the other hand, have a hard time with him. Lol.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Praise God your husband will study the Bible with you! It will be important for you to remember and to insist that the words you read mean what they say. In other words, you have to read the Bible as you would read any other book: using the normal rules of definitions, vocabulary, and grammar. If the verb is in the present tense, you have to understand that the sentence is describing something that is true at that time, not sometime in the future. For example, in 2 Corinthians 5:1–9, Paul discusses that “we” live in mortal tents, and that when our moral tent dies (our body) we go to the Lord. He says, “To be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord.” (2 Cor. 5:8).
Adventists say this text just means that when you die, the next thing you know is that you’ll see Jesus coming. But the text doesn’t say that. It doesn’t say that when the body dies, you cease to exist, and the next thing you know, you’ll see Jesus coming. Adventists say this “next thing you know” could occur a day or a thousand years in the future, depending on when Jesus comes, but that the person who died will be unaware of the passing of time.
Yet Paul CLEARLY says that to be absent from the body IS to BE PRESENT with the Lord. The verb tense is PRESENT. He doesn’t say it will happen in the future. Furthermore, 2 Corinthians 5:9 states that “therefore, we also have it as our ambition, whether at home or absent to be please to Him.”
We cannot be pleasing to the Lord or have it as our ambition if we do not exist. Paul clearly says that WE have the ambition to be pleasing to the Lord whether we are at home [with Him] or absent [still in our bodies]. Read the whole passage from 1 through 9. Then context is clear; “we” have bodies, and when we die, our bodies die but “we” go to be at home with the Lord if we are believers. We cannot understand this passage in any other way without changing the meanings of the words and the tenses of the verbs!
Here is an article that will help you understand that we have immaterial parts of ourselves that survive apart from the body: Are Humans More Than Living Bodies?
As for the Three Angels’ Messages in Revelation 14, again, read the whole context. If you read the whole chapter of Revelation 14, you will see that those angels are NOT calling people to Sabbath worship nor are they declaring that the mark of the beast is Sunday worship. In the context, they are declaring the “everlasting gospel” that Paul identifies in 1 Corinthians 15:3,4: that Jesus died for our sins according to Scripture, that He was buried, and that He rose on the third day according to the Scriptures. There is NO OTHER definition of the gospel anywhere. Adventism, though, has taken those three angels out of their context in the chapter and has done two things: first, they made those two angels more important than the fourth and the fifth and sixth angels that follow the three. In context, those angels are not more special than the others. But EGW said they declared “the gospel in verity”, and Adventism has made those angels say Adventism: that people have to keep the Sabbath and come out of the religions that worship on Sunday. In context, however, this idea is NOWHERE in the passage.
Second, Adventism has misinterpreted those three angel’s messages to say that they are calling people to keep the seventh-day Sabbath and to “come out of her”—to leave the Sunday-keeping churches which they call “Babylon”. They say that the third angel’s message is that, if people do not leave the Sunday-churches, they will receive the mark of the beast because they have rejected the true Sabbath which Ellen White called the seal of God.
As for the war in heaven in Revelation 12, once again—you have to read in context. Revelation is, to be sure, highly symbolic because it is a series of visions, but Adventism’s interpretation cannot be supported by the rest of Scripture.The war in heaven in Revelation 12 does not, in context, seem to be describing an event that occurred before creation, as EGW said the Great Controversy did. She says the great controversy began before creation, but the Bible never says this. Many Christian scholars believe that the war in Revelation 12 has not yet occurred, that it is connected with a future battle related to the tribulation and the ushering in the millennial kingdom when Michael, the prince of Israel (according to Daniel 10), fights for the people of Israel against Satan and his angels. Others say this battle is related to Satan’s being cast out of heaven earlier, but either way one understands it, this passage does not confirm EGW’s great controversy. Her great controversy paradigm is based on a weak and fallible Jesus who is in an ongoing battle with Satan, and those who agree to keep the law will help Jesus win. That entire picture is heretical and is not found anywhere in Scripture. Furthermore, Adventism says that Michael is Jesus—and this identity is heretical as well. Jesus is not an angel, nor does he go by the name “archangel”. He is God and also fully man. He called Himself the “Son of Man”, and He is also the Son of God. He is NEVER identified as an archangel. This belief, though, is one Adventists share with Jehovah’s Witnesses. It makes their Jesus fallible, on an equal playing field with Satan who is an angel, and it supports their great controversy paradigm which cannot be true. Jesus was Lucifer’s CREATOR, and Lucifer has never been in doubt as to Jesus’ identity.
As for the Catholic fixation: EGW simply borrowed the prevailing Protestant view of her time, that the papacy was antichrist. In fact, it really may be an antichrist power, but Adventism has traditionally focussed on the pope as the eventual antichrist, and they find vilifying the pope to be convenient in creating their Sabbath arguments. They blame the Catholics for changing the day of worship. This argument, though, is a straw man argument. Christians worshiped on Sunday from the very beginning of the church. In fact, Christians have no “holy day” for worship. The ritual Sabbaths, including the weekly Sabbath, were fulfilled in Jesus, and now resting in His finished work is our Sabbath rest (see Hebrews 3 and 4, Romans 14, Colossians 2:16-17).
The Jesuits are an order of Roman Catholic priests known as the Society of Jesus. They were founded by Ignatius Loyola, and their purpose is to propagate Catholicism in any way needed. Adventism tends to see the Jesuits as the arm of Catholicism which will work to bring in persecution for Sabbath-keepers.
Walter Veith is a sensationalist, and he is truly Adventist. He seduces people with “special knowledge” and supposed insight into conspiracies within Catholicism and Jesuit circles to create Adventist fear of Sunday-laws and Sunday worship. He capitalizes on end-time fears, and he takes people’s attention away from Scripture. He, along with Adventism in general, alters the meanings of Scripture to deceive people into fearing the power of the Catholic-antichrist persecution that they say is coming. In fact, the Bible is very clear that a believer does not have to fear man. We are saved or lost on the basis of believing and trusting Jesus and thus being born again. We are NOT saved or lost on the basis of getting our “worship day” correct. To focus on the day, to focus on the men they fear, is to take one’s eyes of the gospel, off Scripture, and off of Jesus. We either believe Him and have eternal life, or we are still dead in our sins (see John 3:18; Eph 2:1–4, Col. 1:13).
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