Slithering Sabbath Takeover
Thank you for Life Assurance Ministries. My husband and I will be meeting with our daughter and son-in-law to discuss the Scriptures regarding the Sabbath, and they have sent us this video to introduce us to their view of the Sabbath.
The issue isn’t keeping the Sabbath, but it is the Gospel. I so appreciate your presentation on the Gospel from the 2022 conference. I listen to ALL of them over and over, and I listen to the Former Adventist podcasts on Colossians over and over. I just can’t get enough! There is such a plethora of Adventist lies woven into God’s truth; it’s explosive!
Funny story: Yesterday my husband and I were working on planting two plum trees in our raspberry patch. I saw a rather large snake slither away from my path. Snakes terrify both of us. I knew I had to kill it or live with the terror that he would be under my next step or my grandson’s next step or keep my husband from helping me plant those trees!
I had a shovel in my hand. Instinctively and frantically I plunged that shovel into its body! Thank God I cut him at the first strike, but he kept slithering about and I continued to cut it apart until I saw its head and crushed it with my shovel. Even though it lay lifeless in the vines, the sight was nauseating. My adrenaline had me on high alert! I lifted it with my shovel and threw it in our trash. Still a super creepy sight!
That is how I feel towards this slithering Sabbath takeover of the Gospel. I must kill it before it has babies and infests my raspberry patch and eliminate the possibility of it ever diluting the Gospel again. Still, even after listening to all your videos and podcasts, scrutinizing, and talking with my husband, this snake of a lie keeps raising its ugly head, and that creepy forked tongue wags for attention among my friends who love the Lord and among my own children! It even wraps itself around my feet to trip me up again.
Whew! my heart rate escalates even as I tell you this story! I cannot just be satisfied with my own assurance; I have to know how to communicate the deceitful lies and the true Gospel.
As a background of my pursuit of the Gospel and the Sabbath truths, I have scrutinized your presentation of the Gospel and the Sabbath and the Law. I listen to your podcast to hear God’s truth on these matters in hopes that I will be so inundated with the truth I will discern a lie swiftly.
Please pray for me to be able to make a defense for the Gospel and for what I believe and why, and that the truth can be untangled from the lies. Pray that the Holy Spirit will lift the veil from our eyes forever!
Here is a quote at the end of the video my kids sent that distresses me:
The Torah is everything I have been looking for all my life, and you ask what about the Messiah? Messiah is the Word made flesh. He is the Torah made flesh. The Torah is His character. He is the Word made flesh. He walked around and showed us how to do it. So when you say you follow Torah and the Torah is in your heart, that is the Messiah in your heart.
I did hear you say something directly related to this but I don’t remember where or what talk it was. If you have the time, can you respond to this phrase, or just attach some Scripture verses in response to this confusion?
This is going to take much unraveling. It’s my assignment for today…Frankly, this deception is terrifying.
I am looking forward to this week’s Proclamation! newsletter. God bless all you put your hand to do today and everyday. Thank you for your faithfulness to your calling. I am blessed.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Thank you so much for writing! Your snake story is really vivid and perfectly represents Adventism and its infiltration of the gospel with deathly poison. Wow…go YOU, killing that snake that way…!!! You are ’way more of a woman than I am!! Haha! Not sure I could have don’t that…but your motive certainly gave you the impetus to get it done!
Even without watching that video or reading the transcript, I can address that quote you gave. These arguments for the Torah that your children are giving you are not taking the entire New Testament into consideration as they attempt to apply the Old Covenant to themselves. The book of Galatians and the book of Hebrews completely undoes these Torah-centric arguments.
Here is my first thought as I read that quote you shared. Yes, Jesus WAS the living Torah. He is the Living Law, and according to Colossians 2:14-15 He nailed that Living Law to the cross and fulfilled every single purpose of it when He died. The Law’s purpose was never to help us know how to be good. He was given to reveal our depravity, not to reveal righteousness. Have you been listening to our Galatians podcasts? We have been addressing this VERY issue, and both Nikki and I have been learning in new and deep ways what the purpose of the law was and what Jesus has done. If you haven’t heard them yet, I suggest that you listen to those we have done on Galatians 3: Former Adventist Podcast.
The Law’s purpose was to reveal our depravity and inability to sin (see Romans 5:12–16 as well), and Jesus became a curse for us and fulfilled the Law’s demands of death for sin—and then He broke that curse by rising from the dead! He did not come to “show us how to keep the law”. That idea of Jesus as “example” is where legalists go to justify their arguments. Yet Scripture NEVER says that is why He came. He Himself said He came to FULFILL the law. The Law revealed Jesus and His righteousness which was APART from the law (Romans 3:20-21).
Jesus NAILED the living Torah IN HIS FLESH to the cross and thus disarmed Satan by removing His only weapon against us. The Law is Satan’s tool to accuse people of sin, and Jesus has removed that tool. NOW we all deal with Jesus, not with the law. Furthermore, Hebrews 7:12 says that where there is a change of the priesthood, there must of necessity be a change of the law. The old covenant was established on the basis of the levitical priesthood. The new covenant and the law of Christ (1 Cor 9:20) was established on the basis of the Lord Jesus. You can’t have a new foundation to the old covenant. They are incompatible and do not go together. The covenants are built on their respective priesthoods.
Here is a link to an article that will help you. This article really helped me understand what it meant that Jesus was the Word—the Logos, the Torah—and that the law was never divided into parts: The Unity Of the Law
I pray the Lord will give you insight and His wisdom and words as you speak with them and that they will have hearts open to the truth. They are reading Scripture inside-out and backwards. The Old Covenant must be understood through the lens of the New Covenant as revealed in the New Testament!
In A Dark Place
I am delighted to write to you after long months of pondering over doing this. I’m always listening to your podcasts. I must say, I really enjoy your discussions; they are very helpful and enlightening.
I am from Ghana. I am a theological studies student at an Adventist institution of higher learning in Ghana. I am in my final semester. I started questioning most Adventist beliefs and doctrines when I was in level 200, and innocently asked questions and wanted explanations.
SINCE THEN, all I have had was opposition and name-calling and even unfair treatment from some ministers and lecturers here. I have been in a dark place for two years now, although I have never given up on the new enlightenment from Scripture against the great controversy worldview. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one standing apart here, and it is everyone against me.
Before, I wanted to be a pastor in the Adventist church, but not anymore; I want to be a scholar and a minister of the true gospel. Finding your podcast through Facebook was one of the best things that ever happened to me, and for that, I am grateful. I acknowledge myself as a former Adventist, looking forward to coming out on that decision after school. And I hope to interact with more former Adventists and learn a lot.
I hope one day I can help and support former Adventists, like you inspired me, so we can spread the true gospel especially to the Adventist church.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: We understand the opposition you have been facing; indeed, leaving Adventism is dealing with darkness. Adventism teaches doctrines of demons, and when we leave for the sake of the gospel of the Lord Jesus, we do enter a spiritual battle. The good news, though, is that Jesus has already disarmed Satan and his demons at the cross (Col 2:14,15). When we trust Jesus, He holds us securely no matter what happens, and He completes what He begins in us (Phil. 1:6).
Meanwhile, the Lord WILL teach you. I suggest that you make a habit of beginning to read and study whole books of the New Testament in context. I would begin this way: get a notebook, and, after reading whichever book you wish to pursue, begin literally copying that book into a notebook, a few verses at a time. Read and study IN CONTEXT. Use normal rules of grammar and punctuation and vocabulary. Ask yourself what the first audience would have understood the passage to mean in context, and then know that it cannot mean something different to you. Application is the last step you should take, and application, while it may vary slightly because of culture and time, will still reflect the original meaning.
I recommend beginning with Galatians (you may be listening now to our podcast series on Galatians). Begin copying the book, one word at a time, into a notebook. After Galatians, move on to Hebrews, then to Ephesians and Colossians, the gospel of John, and so forth. You may already have discovered that we have also done podcast series on Hebrews, Ephesians, and Colossians.
If you wish to listen to some good expository preaching on these books, search online for pastors such as Steve Lawson, John MacArthur (at Grace To You or Grace Community Church) Gary Inrig (his current sermons are here), and the late S. Lewis Johnson and J. Vernon McGee.
Although we are not currently publishing a printed version of Proclamation! magazine, all our back issues of this magazine are online here: LifeAssuranceMinistries.org.
We have also added your name to our weekly Proclamation! email updates. Archived articles are available at ProclamationMagazine.com.
You might also enjoy our YouTube channel here: Former Adventist YouTube Channel.
Christian Connexion Missed
I noticed in the last chapter from Clara Endicott Sears’ book that you published, chapter 4 entitled “Spreading the Warning”, that she seems to get the origins of Elder Joshua V. Himes wrong. He was not a Baptist at the time of his meeting Miller in 1839-40. My research has him as a Christian Connexion preacher and a former Campbellite.
Miller’s association and direct linkage with this Campbellite cannot be overstated (bolding is mine):
“In December 1839, while giving a series of lectures in Boston, Miller met a young pastor of the Christian Connexion, Joshua V. Himes. Himes was persuaded of Miller’s message and totally devoted his efforts and genius to its propagation. Soon thereafter, he became the “general manager” of the movement. Miller, who was 57 and in poor health, welcomed this new associate. Under Himes’ leadership, the movement was propagated with more intensity and diversity and generated much antagonism” (Fortin, Denis. “Millerism in the Eastern Townships, 1835-1845.” Retrieved from Andrews.edu).
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Thank you for this information. This detail makes sense; James White (Ellen’s husband) was an anti-trinitarian Christian Connexion minister, and Joseph Bates was a member of the Christian Connexion prior to their becoming involved in the Millerite movement and ultimately founding the Seventh-day Adventist organization. Apparently the author of Days of Delusion, during the 1920s, did not know of this association.
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