God Uses Social Media
I just thought you might appreciate the excerpt below from a friend of mine I knew long ago and just became reacquainted with a few years ago via Facebook. Yes, God is using social media for His purposes. I just want to praise His name and rejoice in His Sovereign grace in the salvation of many. I am still grieving and praying diligently for those in the clutches of Satan.
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your turning me on to Former Adventist Fellowship. I have been listening to their podcasts a lot the last few months. I especially enjoyed their review of the fundamental beliefs and am in the process of documenting each one so I can refer to the important points in the future. No one but former Adventists can appreciate the mind-control-brain-washing we endured from our church school teachers and ministers those many years we subjected ourselves to them. So many of my family are still stuck in that false religion, and it hurts my heart that they cannot extricate themselves from it. My mother and my sister both died without knowing that they were saved. My soul aches for them.
—VIA EMAIL
Walter Veith Is A Stronghold
My question is about Walter Veith. [Someone dear to me] is obsessed with his teachings. This person claims he is NOT a Seventh-day Adventist and doesn’t believe what they believe, but he does believe the Sabbath as the Adventists teach it. I have purchased two of Dale Ratzlaff’s books online, but I don’t think this person has read either of them. I am praying for God to reveal truth to him everyday, but Veith and the Sabbath are like a stronghold on him.
I find it difficult to listen to Walter Veith knowing the doctrines he believes. Can you tell me anything about him that I should know or that may be helpful for me to study about him? Veith’s teachings have become a bone of contention between me and this person as I do not want to hear anything Veith has to say. I feel his information is always tainted by the quotes he gives from Ellen’s “bible” of teachings.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: I don’t know a lot about Veith personally, but I know he gains his following by specializing in sensational conspiracy theories rooted in the suppositions of a false prophet, EGW. Veith uses just enough “evidence” from various sources to make his predictions and theories sound plausible. Yet one can never develop one’s worldview from unfounded theories, regardless of random, pieced-together “evidence”. If one is committed to Scripture in context, there is a framework for assessing random bits of evidence and seeing it through the lens of God’s sovereign care and faithful promise-keeping. People like Veith, however, are not taking people to Scripture and to the finished work of Jesus. Rather, he is building a scenario that locks people into a doomsday-mentality. People who follow Veith tend to become more or less obsessed with “prepper-behavior”: stockpiling food, planting gardens, and looking for hints that the pope is exerting his influence on politics and expecting a Sunday-law.
Without knowing what the Bible actually says about Jesus and the covenants, the Sabbath-scenarios almost make sense. Yet the fear of Sunday-laws is entirely INVENTED. Adventism teaches doctrines of demons (1 Tim 4:1–6). If one understands that Jesus fulfilled ALL the law, that Hebrews, Galatians, Ephesians, and Colossians (not to mention Romans and Acts 15) explain that the law is obsolete and has been replaced by the Law of Christ and a NEW priesthood (Heb. 7:12), one can easily see that the Veith fear-mongering is based on a worldview that is from Satan, not from the Lord.
The Adventist worldview and Sabbath-commitment is based on the soteriology of a false prophet. In a nutshell, Adventism teaches that coming to Christ means being able to turn to the law and keep it. Scripture, however, teaches that the law was a tutor to lead people TO Christ and lasted only UNTIL the SEED came (Galatians 3, 4, 5). Contrary to Adventism, Christianity turns one from the Law to the Lord Jesus!
Veith’s teachings have a strong spiritual pull because they ARE spiritual: they are doctrines of demons. Oh, they are cleverly disguised, but the tension between you and this person is expected because it is the point where two kingdoms collide: the kingdom of the Beloved Son and the domain of darkness (as per Co 1:13). Veith’s teachings have the added pull of being intellectually titillating, like science fiction. He specializes in putting together random bits of evidence and then teaching it as FACT or very real possibility because Veith BELIEVES in a false prophet!
Ultimately it is not the Sabbath or any observance that is the mark of the saved and the lost. Even the yet-unknown mark of the beast will be given to all who do not BELIEVE in the Son. It is belief and unbelief—being born again or not born again—that is the THING that divides the world.
I suggest that you ask the Lord to show you how to be non-argumentative and to love this person for God and to PRAY for him. He is being beguiled by the the teachings of an “angel of light” that is not from God. The Lord sees and knows, and He knows how to help this person see reality. Ask him if he would be willing to read Galatians with you, one chapter at a time with no outside commentary—just the Bible in context. Adventism says Galatians is only about the “ceremonial laws”, but the Bible never says that, nor does it divide the law in that way. Just read the words IN CONTEXT. I don’t know of anything as effective against Adventism as contextual Scripture reading.
I feel for you so much!
Questions Answered
My husband and I and our adult children left the Adventist church 22 years ago. Thank you for answering many questions that we had. Your FAF is so clear on the covenants! Blessings to all of you. We can now refer our Adventist friends to you.
—PARADISE, CA
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