We got mail…

You Are Evil!

Colleen, you LIE in every issue of Proclamation which, when combined with the Life Assurance Ministries, is nothing but a pathetic HATE GROUP. Every book, every article, every publication is loaded with the devil’s LIES about Adventists. And it is obvious that you cherry-pick which letters to publish to avoid those that confront your twisted, distorted opinions that have already been debunked many times by credible Bible scholars. 

In the issue dated January 21, 2022, “We Got Mail” claims that you don’t attend Adventist Churches because Adventism does not teach Scriptural truth. THAT IS FALSE! We most certainly do teach directly from the preserved Word of God! How do I know? I’ve taught Sabbath School classes and Bible studies for many years, directly from the version of the Bible that is the most trustworthy. The version you ignore.  

You also lied when you claim Adventists teach a different gospel and refer to Galatians 1: 1-6 and you add that it has a different Jesus. Where do you get such STUPID IDEAS? All you do is regurgitate the same old, worn-out, unbiblical narrative of other critics that are false. 

You claim you evangelicals are born again through hearing and believing the true gospel that Jesus died for our sins, was buried and raised on the third day. You LIE when you rant that Adventists do not teach this pure, simple gospel. WE CERTAINLY DO TEACH THIS! . 

“Our beliefs….Jesus, as Messiah, He suffered and died voluntarily on the cross for our sins and in our place, was raised from the dead, and ascended to heaven to minister in the heavenly sanctuary on our behalf.” 

There is much more in the statement regarding Adventists’ beliefs about Jesus at www.adventist.org 

You also LIE when you claim we add to the gospel by expecting Sabbath-keeping… 

God never changed the Sabbath from the seventh day to Sunday, the first day. The scriptures are clear that Jesus observed the Sabbath and showed how it should be observed, both in His life and His death by resting over the Sabbath in the grave. The Catholics boast that they changed the day of worship to Sunday, and that it is a MARK of their authority. I have all the documentation to prove this. I also have historical evidence that thousands of early Christians observed the seventh-day Sabbath for many hundreds of years in Celtic countries and Ethiopia, after those in Rome and Alexandria met on Sunday to avoid being accused of being Judaizers after the Jews revolted against Rome. You apparently are ignorant about history. 

You also rant that Adventists are, according to you, wrong in our focus on good health, which the Bible clearly teaches in the detailed instructions on the clean and unclean foods in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. You are CONFUSED when you claim that Jesus declared all foods clean to eat. I can provide very clear Scriptures that you ignore to prove you misinterpret the vision in Acts. God wants us to be healthy: 

“Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth” (3 John 2). 

And that tells me that because Dale Ratzlaff and his cousin Richard Tinker (your husband) have sinned against God by refusing to keep all of His commandments and taught others to sin, I am not surprised that they both have suffered cancer and other health problems. You may be next! 

And because you have taught others that it is okay to eat pork, I am not surprised that you had a dramatic kitchen disaster. God is not amused with your lifestyle. Perhaps He is trying to get your attention by allowing a rat to cause massive water damage in the very room where you prepared and consumed what He condemned as unfit for human consumption. 

And of course, you whine that our belief in the Investigative Judgment is “unbiblical”. Really? I have news for you. I can easily find it in MY Bible! 

A recent issue of your hate group’s publication explained “Why We Fight Against Adventism”. That shows you are doing the devil’s work because of the Life Assurance Ministries boast in the mission statement that you COMBAT what we Adventists believe. “Fight” and “Combat” are words used in war. You hate Adventists because we believe we are the Remnant Church that keeps all ten of the Lord’s commandments and has the spirit of prophecy through the ministry of Ellen White. 

“And the dragon was wroth with the woman and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony ofJesus Christ” (Revelation 12:17). 

YOU ARE EVIL! YOU ARE DOING THE DRAGON’S WORK, MAKING W A R WITH THE SAME TWISTED, LYING CLAIMS AS SATAN HAS DONE AGAINST GOD’S TRUTH. YOU ARE GUILTY OF MANY SINS, SO STOP CLAIMING TO BE “SAVED”. 

When former Adventists in your little cult following see that Ellen White’s many prophesies continue to be fulfilled, including the coming Sunday Law, and that she is not a false prophet, and that the Adventists have the truth that you and your hate group have rejected and arrogantly mocked, they will turn against you for deceiving them! 

And by the way, no one except her relatives cares about Carolyn Ratzlaff’s dumb book. 

—Sun City West, Arizona 

Response: First, Dale and Carolyn Ratzlaff have wisely written their autobiographies, naming names and places, so that the Adventist organization will not be able to write their own versions of their stories as they misrepresented Dudley Canright years ago when he left Adventism. 

Second, you may not have heard our recent podcast series in which we examined each of the 28 Fundamental Beliefs in detail using the General Conference’s latest edition of Seventh-day Adventists Believe as our reference. There Nikki Stevenson and I addressed the Adventist gospel as well as all the other doctrinal statements. You may access these podcasts here. 

Life Assurance Ministries takes Jude 3 and 4 seriously: 

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ (Jude 3–4).

The gospel which was handed down to the saints once for all is not the same as the Adventist gospel. The pure gospel—the one which we are to guard and defend and teach—was given to the church during apostolic times. It has never been changed, never added to nor subtracted from, and it alone reveals the truth about how we are to be saved and how the saved are to live. No 19th-century prophet has added any insight to the gospel; whatever EGW has added or changed is not the gospel and must be rejected. We cannot be true to the Lord Jesus and also embrace a prophet who teaches unbiblical things about Him. 

Please Pray for My Family

The article by Nicole Stevenson about leaving your loved ones in God’s hands in last Friday’s e-magazine came right on time for me. My grandson and his wife, who really are not practicing Adventists, have decided to enroll their soon-to-be-five-year-old daughter in the big Adventist grade school here our city. My concern was/is that they might become infatuated with Adventism and gradually drawn into its clutches by their complete involvement with their daughter’s education. And I know they will be there 110% with their daughter.

Another one in our household is my grandson’s father. My daughter passed away two years ago, but her ex-husband, my grandson’s father, is totally Adventist and happy with these educational developments. Although he is Adventist to the extreme, he has mighty queer ideas: he insists on Sabbath observance but only that you must worship that day, otherwise live as on any weekday; he does not believe in inerrancy of Scripture because the Bible writers just like EGW made mistakes and copied; he does not believe in the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity, and he generally believes only what he has “studied out.” Maybe he is just a typical Adventist who doesn’t read the Bible contextually. 

He knows where I stand as a former Adventist, and our discussions tended to be disastrous, so I now avoid them. My grandson had a typical Adventist education with two years at Southern Adventist University and has become very successful as an entrepreneur, and his wife has had no prior experience with Adventism. He listens to me as much as to his dad, but he very much follows his own thinking, which is probably as it should be. 

Please pray with me that they will not be drawn into Adventist circles; that these successful, sophisticated young people will be drawn to the beautiful, simple salvation story of the true Gospel.

Colleen, I appreciate Dale’s ministry and what you and Richard do through Proclamation!. You have all been very influential in my and my wife’s life while she was living. You have no idea what it has meant to me.

—VIA EMAIL

Response: Thank you so much for writing! Yes, Nicole’s article was spot-on, wasn’t it? 

What a grief to see these Adventist offspring and to bump into deaf ears and blind eyes! I see your concern about your grandson and his wife. I pray the Lord will open their minds and hearts to truth and give them a hunger to know what is real. Only the Lord Jesus can fill their internal emptiness and anxiety with peace and meaning. I pray also that the Lord will give you opportunities to speak to him about the gospel, about the Lord, and give you words as He brings opportunities. And I pray for their five-year-old daughter, that the Lord will protect her and help her parents see the danger she is in at that school. 

And I also pray that the Lord will give you His peace and comfort as you continue to live without your wife. I remind myself often that God determines our lives and He wastes nothing. The days and years He gives us are His, and He will not waste our lives lived trusting Him. 

Answer Me and Cite Sources

Colleen, you have often claimed that Ellen G White was a “false prophet” and that “many of her prophecies failed.”  I would appreciate you responding to my email as soon as possible with a list of her “failed prophecies” and cite sources. 

—VIA EMAIL

Response: I believe you are mistaking me for someone else. I have not often claimed that “many of her prophecies failed” because, frankly, I don’t know of many prophecies she has made aside from prophecies about the end times—which Adventists would say haven’t happened, yet. Rather, I have repeatedly said she is a false prophet because she contradicts herself as well as contradicting the Bible, and because she teaches unbiblical ideas about the nature of man, the nature of Jesus, about sin, about salvation, about the atonement, and about the law and the new covenant. She teaches an unbiblical, fallible Jesus who could have failed in His mission and who has forever surrendered an attribute of God: omnipresence. She teaches that while Jesus’ sacrifice was sufficient, His atonement was NOT completed on the cross but continues in heaven until the investigative judgment is done. She teaches that man has no immaterial spirit apart from his body, and she also taught that God Himself has a visible form. 

She never taught that mankind is created in God’s image because he has a spirit—and that God is spirit (Jn. 4:24). She did not teach that mankind is born literally spiritually dead in sin and cannot seek, please, or know God apart from His intervention. She did not teach the biblical truth about the new birth, and she did not teach that salvation is ENTIRELY the work of God without corresponding work on man’s part. She taught that our sanctification is as much a requirement for salvation as is our justification, not that it is a fruit of justification. 

She taught that Jesus came to show us how to keep the law—she did NOT teach that His perfect law-keeping was the consequence of His being born spiritually alive, conceived by the Holy Spirit and never being dead in sin as we are. He was the only person ever born who did not have to be born again. She taught that we become righteous by learning to pray and submit to the Holy Spirit, but she did NOT teach the biblical truth that when we BELIEVE and trust in Jesus’ finished work, we are imputed with Jesus’ own personal righteousness which is credited to our account eternally. She is a false prophet because she claimed these heretical, unbiblical ideas came to her in visions and dreams sent from God. Her “I was shown….” credits God and His angels with falsehoods about Him and diabolical ideas that lock her followers in a false worldview and keep them enslaved to fear and insecurity for their eternal future. 

All that being said, there are at least a couple of prophecies she made that failed. Here is one: 

I saw that Satan had greatly deceived some in this thing and that souls all around them in this land could be helped by them and led to keep the commandments of God, but they were leaving them to perish. I also saw that Old Jerusalem never would be built up; and that Satan was doing his utmost to lead the minds of the children of the Lord into these things now, in the gathering time, to keep them from throwing their whole interest into the present work of the Lord, and to cause them to neglect the necessary preparation for the day of the Lord (Early Writings 75:2, 1882 edition).

Have you ever been to Israel? Old Jerusalem has CERTAINLY been built up and is part of one of the most advanced, productive nations in the world today.

Here is another prophecy written just before the Civil War:

Said the angel, “Hear, O heavens, the cry of the oppressed, and reward the oppressors double according to their deeds.” This nation will yet be humbled into the dust. England is studying whether it is best to take advantage of the present weak condition of our nation, and venture to make war upon her. She is weighing the matter, and trying to sound other nations. She fears if she should commence war abroad, that she would be weak at home, and that other nations would take advantage of her weakness. Other nations are making quiet and yet active preparations for war. Other nations are hoping that England will make war with our nation, for then they would improve the opportunity to be revenged on England for past advantage she has taken, and injustice done them. A portion of the Queen’s subjects are waiting a favorable opportunity to break their yoke; but if England thinks it will pay, she will not hesitate a moment to improve her opportunities to exercise her power, and humble our nation. When England does declare war, all nations will have an interest to serve of their own, and there will be general war, general confusion. England is acquainted with the diversity of feeling among those who are seeking to quell the rebellion. She knows well the perplexed condition of our government; she has looked with astonishment at the prosecution of this war; the slow, inefficient moves, the inactivity of our armies, and the ruinous expenses of our nation. The weakness of our nation is fully open before them, and they now conclude that it is because it was not a monarchical government, and they admire their own government, and look down, some with pity, others with contempt upon our nation, which they have regarded the most powerful upon the globe. Had our nation remained united, it would have had strength; but divided it must fall (T07 10.1, 1862). 

Well, England never declared war against the USA, and the USA did not fall in weakness during the Civil War. Had she not claimed that all of her words are alive and that “My writings will constantly speak, and their work will go forward as long as time shall last” (General Conference Bulletin, June 1, 1913), then she might be forgiven for speculating about Old Jerusalem and the coming war with England. But she said that either all her words were of God, or none of them were:

 The visions are either of God or the devil. There is no half-way position to be taken in the matter. God does not work in partnership with Satan. Those who occupy this position cannot stand there long. They go a step farther and account the instrument God has used a deceiver and the woman Jezebel. If after they had taken the first step it should be told them what position they would soon occupy in regard to the visions, they would have resented it as a thing impossible. But Satan leads them on blindfolded in a perfect deception in regard to the true state of their feelings until he takes them in his snare. Letter 8, 1860, pp. 16, 17. (To Brother John Andrews, June 11, 1860.) {1MR 307.1}

Our work has been given us of God. What, then, will be the condition of those who refuse to hear the words which God has sent them, because they cross their track or reprove their wrongs? If you are thoroughly convinced that God has not spoken by us, why not act in accordance with your faith and have no more to do with a people who are under so great a deception as this people are? If you have been moving according to the dictates of the Spirit of God you are right and we are wrong. God is either teaching His church, reproving their wrongs and strengthening their faith, or He is not. This work is of God, or it is not. God does nothing in partnership with Satan. My work for the past thirty years bears the stamp of God or the stamp of the enemy. There is no halfway work in the matter. The Testimonies are of the Spirit of God, or of the devil (Testimonies for the Church, Volume Four, page 229, paragraph 2.)

By her own words, her claims condemn her. She contradicted herself. She contradicted Scripture, and she taught untruths about God and man. The “right” things she may have said do not rescue her. She herself said that either all her work was of God, or none of it was. We cannot have it both ways. She is not a false prophet just because she had some prophecies wrong—although that fact alone would disqualify her. She is a false prophet because she spoke untruthfully and unbiblically. She taught heresy, and she herself said either ALL her work was of God or none of it was. She condemns herself!

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Colleen Tinker

Colleen Tinker, the editor of Proclamation! magazine, and her husband Richard left Adventism in 1998 with their two sons, Roy and Nathanael, who were in grades six and ten. They have co-led the Former Adventist Fellowship since 1999. Colleen, a graduate of Walla Walla University, is a former high school English teacher and also the former managing editor of Adventist Today magazine. Colleen became the stepmother of Roy and Nathanael in 1989, and in 2008 she adopted them. Romans 8:15-17 has assumed new depth and significance for her and Richard since she and her sons chose to claim each other legally and permanently. She and Richard share an office and a commitment to sharing the gospel of the true Jesus with all of those seeking a way out of the bondage of the false gospel of Adventism.

Latest posts by Colleen Tinker (see all)

• May 4–10, 2024 - May 2, 2024
• We Got Mail - May 2, 2024
• April 27–May 3, 2024 - April 25, 2024