You Are Malicious and Unchristian
Dale and Group: I was utterly shocked and bitterly saddened when, by chance, I came across your YouTube videos, and to find out that such a group of ex-Adventists even existed in the world! I just cannot imagine and understand how people can make such a 180 degree turn against the church and the message that they had known. It clearly mentions in the Bible that in the last days people will fall away from Biblical truths. God does not force anyone, and people choose their own destiny in the choices they make.
I can understand that people can change their minds in whatever they want to believe, but what I just cannot understand is what you gain by attacking Adventism? What are you trying to accomplish by spending all your time, energy, and finance to discredit Adventism?
If you have your own theory and theology, go for it and start your own ministry with a new name. But labeling yourselves as “former Adventists” and trying to discredit Adventism just goes to show that you are malicious and are exercising an unchristian behavior.
When I see what you and your group are doing, it reminds me of Judas, and what became of his end…Your ministry will be more effective if you delete the name “Former Adventist Fellowship” and just call yourselves Life Assurance Ministries. By doing this you will have your own identity and message to share with others. By adding the Adventist name, you give a negative connotation that you have something against Adventists, an attitude which is detrimental to your group. Thank you for listening!…
PLEASE DO NOT BE THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE! LIFE IS TOO SHORT AND PLEASE DO NOT GET CAUGHT IN HIS TRAP!
—VIA EMAIL
Response: We at Former Adventist Fellowship/Life Assurance Ministries are passionate about the gospel: that Jesus died for our sins according to Scripture, that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to Scripture. Everything necessary for our salvation was done, and when we trust Him, we pass from death to life at that moment (Jn. 5:24) and are sealed with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13-14). Salvation is entirely of the Lord, not of ourselves. We do not choose Him nor please Him apart from the Father drawing us, and the true gospel and the true Jesus are completely different from what Adventism teaches.
If you and your family were dying in a desert from lack of water and food and you found a fresh oasis in the desert, would you not bring your family to share the water? If you were driving down a road and came to a bridge crossing a steep ravine—but the bridge was broken—would you not stop and wave away other cars before they fell to their deaths?
That is what we are doing. We LOVE Adventists; they are our families and friends and neighbors. But we have found the springs of living water. We see that the bridge of Adventism is out, and unless Adventists see and trust the real, infallible, eternal, omnipresent, Substitute for us that is Jesus, they will be lost, plunging to their deaths in that chasm when the bridge doesn’t support them.
We are warning people about the failed bridge, the false religion that has promised them the only way to be saved. NO! JESUS HIMSELF is the only way to be saved!
Jude 3 warns us to contend for the gospel that was once delivered to all the saints. That gospel was not delivered in 1844 nor in 1863 when Adventism was organized. No! It was delivered by Jesus when He rose from death and commissioned His apostles to tell the world what God has done.
We are committed to sharing this gospel with our Adventist loved ones.
Clarifying the Confusion between Christians and Adventists
Thank you for helping me understand what creates confusion in relationships between Christians and Adventists. Your teaching about the subtle and not-so-subtle distortions of this belief system has given me much-needed insight! I pray for you, your ministry, and those who are still caught in Adventism.
—REVIEW ON iTUNES PODCAST
I’d Like to Cut the Whole Web Down
As I do more research and internet searches, it seems like Adventism has “answers” for the objections I come up with . . .I’m just not sure what to do [in talking with my Adventist friend], because I wish there was an easy to summarize just a few key points—using references that Adventists cannot deny—which show the religion’s obvious errors. Is there, maybe, something like a gospel tract . . . ?
Instead of trying to untangle the web of deceit, I’d like to just cut the whole web down. But I guess that’s one of Satan’s strategies: using confusing and complicated “mysteries” to make things unclear.
Any thoughts?
—VIA EMAIL
Response: I understand your frustration so well! Unfortunately, there is no way to simply cut down the whole web. Adventists must, individually, step-by-step, untangle the false and deceptive worldview of Adventism and replace those deceptions with the gospel. They absolutely have answers for every objection. They are taught those answers!
Their worldview keeps them from seeing the plain truth of Scripture. An Adventist needs two things, as Dale Ratzlaff has said: they need to identify their source of authority, and they need to know the gospel. It is necessary for an Adventist to understand the biblical covenants, that Jesus fulfilled the law and the new covenant is based in His blood and the law is obsolete. Jesus has fulfilled every requirement of the law, and He and the Father keep the terms of the new covenant. We are ushered into it on the basis of Jesus’ fully finished atonement in His blood when we believe in Him and place our sins at His feet. Adventists, however, will argue and have objections to the gospel if they retain their EGW hermeneutic (which they may not even know they have) as they read Scripture.
Thus, Adventists have to know that Scripture IS God’s inerrant word, that the words mean what the words say, and context is everything. They have to be willing to read Scripture without allegorizing it or making metaphors out of what they do not understand. They have to read it like one would read any book, using normal rules of vocabulary and grammar, believing that the words mean exactly what they say—and context determines the original meaning of the words. We can’t jump to application without first knowing what the context says. Application is our last step in understanding, and application for us cannot mean something different than it meant to the first audience. The APPLICATION may be different, but the meaning remains the same.
The best thing to do with an Adventist, if he is willing, is to literally read the Bible together, one chapter at a time, and discuss it, not using any outside sources. One of my strongest memories was of our neighbors saying to us, as we read through NT books together and discussed them, “Where do you find that in the Bible?” as we suggested interpretations. That question kept catching us off-guard. We finally had to admit our understandings came from our Adventist worldview which had been established by the prophet.
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