I Need Help
I honestly cannot express my gratitude to you two for your podcasts. They really are eye-opening and expose so many flaws in Adventism.
I have written to you before and you have helped me greatly in your replies. I am in need of help again and I don’t have anyone else to turn to or ask advise…
My wife is constantly “harassing” me about Sunday worship and is now digging deeper and deeper into the sanctuary doctrines of Adventism. I have attached a document that she made for me in her attempt to convert me to Sabbath keeping. My faith is strong, and I appreciate the two of you explaining how important it is to stay strong and stand firm (Podcast 70).
Would you please take the time to help me explain to my wife that her document has sooo many flaws. (The second paragraph on page three is particularly confusing.)
I try and explain in love, but as you know the Adventists twist and use Scripture out of context.
I look forward every week to hearing your explanations in your podcasts.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: We are so thankful that the podcasts are helpful. Praise God!
I confess the document you attached irritated me! The document’s name, “His Way Is In the Sanctuary”, is the name of a book and also of a TV series produced by “Secrets Unsealed”, an independent Adventist ministry. I cannot prove it, but I believe the document you shared is either taken directly or derived from a Secrets Unsealed study guide. I seriously doubt that your wife would be able to amass and organize all the proof-texts and diagrams contained in the document on her own. In the first place, one has to be taught those “proof texts” in the order they are presented. One would NEVER find those texts to convey the message they are used to convey in the document if one simply read the Bible in context.
That being said, the document is classic Adventism. I learned this sort of proof-texting for the “sanctuary doctrine” when I was in Adventist school. “Sanctuary Doctrine” is another name for “investigative judgment”. The entire doctrine attempts to build a case for Jesus continuing the atonement in heaven where He is perusing the records of believers’ sins and seeing whether or not they were confessed. If they are, He then applies His blood to the records of those sins so that they can be blotted out and eventually placed on Satan for bearing out of heaven and thus cleansing the sanctuary. This entire doctrine is the central pillar of Adventism and denies Jesus’ atonement was finished at the cross. It demands perfecting one’s law-keeping and the conscious remembrance of every single sin so that each can be confessed. This doctrine is the demonic core of despair that shapes Adventism and keeps the members enslaved to their own law-keeping, soul-searching indebtedness to Jesus who managed to keep that law perfectly and thus set an example they must follow. That perfect Jesus is now examining them with an “eagle eye” to determine whether or not they are obedient and observant and keeping up with their sin-confessions.
The document depends upon out-of-context texts that have been combined with other out-of-context texts. When these texts are recombined and explained by the writer, they create an entire argument that teaches a different system of theology than does the Bible. To use a simplistic example, this document does what a person would do if he took Matthew 27:5 where the writer says of Judas, “And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself.”
Then, if the person took Luke 10:37 where Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan and said, “You go, and do likewise,” and combined Jesus’ words with the story of Judas, he would get this command: Judas “departed, and he went and hanged himself. Now go and do likewise.”
The absurdity of this sort of recombining of texts is obvious—and yet, that is exactly what Adventism does with its recombined texts from Exodus, Leviticus, and Hebrews as well as other passages. One absolutely CANNOT get the “sanctuary doctrine” from Scripture! In fact, the book of Hebrews, in context, destroys the Adventist doctrine. Yet this recombination of texts strips Hebrews of its power and is the reason Hebrews was incredibly confusing to me as an Adventist. I felt I had to read it in the light of the Adventist interpretation of it—yet the book itself contradicts Adventism.
Furthermore, Adventism depends upon speculative interpretations such as the document’s assigning meanings to the colors and the metals in the Old Testament sanctuary. Those meanings are not in Scripture, and we cannot go beyond what the word says. Yes, there may be some truth to the idea that purple is royal, and so forth, but we cannot use that idea to assign meanings to the sanctuary appointments and furnishings. The real point is that God commanded Moses to build a beautiful place for His worship to be carried out, and the entire nation of Israel was to see the glory and majesty and transcendence of God in the beauty and richness of the sanctuary. It stood in stark contrast to their existence in the wilderness, and it stood in even starker contrast to the temples of the Canaanite gods. Israel’s system of worship was the most beautiful, the most “clean”, the most reverent of all ancient religions.
I do not know of any better way to discuss this with your wife than to talk to her about how to read the Bible and to literally sit with her and read through Hebrews in context. Adventists do not learn that the words mean what the words say, but the meaning of any book of the Bible is determined by what the first audience would have understood. Once we commit to the idea that Words Matter and Context Is Everything, we then begin reading, one chapter at a time, through whole books at a time. Hebrews, for example, systematically shows that the tabernacle and the law and the entire Mosaic system have been fulfilled and superseded by the Lord Jesus. It doesn’t mean what the recombined Adventist texts say it means.
Adventism doesn’t teach that there is an actual New Covenant that replaces the Old Covenant because Jesus fulfilled the Old. It teaches, instead, that there is just an expanded, “renewed” covenant that retains the law. This idea is adamantly discredited throughout the New Testament.
The very best way to counter that Adventist worldview is to read Scripture in context, agreeing not to use supposed interpretations or explanations but rather reading the words and understanding them using normal rules of grammar and vocabulary. It might be helpful, after reading through a passage, if there are questions about certain verses, to use the marginal references in your Bible to look up comparative verses and read those in the larger context of their chapters. Adventists simply do not learn to read contextually. They feel free to take passages from Exodus and place them next to Hebrews and then decide what they think it means.
One last thing: I would call out the document you attached on the basis of its name. That is a copyrighted name, and it seems clear to me that your wife is giving you the study guide from a false teacher. You can’t trust a human document that uses Scripture out of context. Its point is discredited immediately by the fact that it is agenda-driven and uses texts outside the contextual way the Bible uses them. In other words, it is not presenting Scripture. It is presenting a pre-determined agenda and is using Scripture to support that agenda. This document is classic Adventism, and if one really wants to see what the Bible teaches, one must read The Bible—not the prepared material of an organization with an agenda. Adventism is effective precisely because it misuses God’s word and twists and adulterates it in order to make it appear to support a soul-destroying doctrine. It does what Satan did with Jesus in the wilderness. He tempted Him with His own word used out of context!
I pray the Lord will bless you as you talk to your wife and that He will open her heart and mind to the truth of the Lord Jesus who has finished His work of atonement!
Removing My Name from Adventism
I wrote a letter to my former Adventist church to remove my name from their register, but they refused. I’m moving on in my new Christian church. I think the Adventists will come to realize that I am not interested in going back there and remove my name.
Thank you for the introduction to the book of Daniel [in the Former Adventist Podcast]. I am looking forward to the proper interpretation of this book. Thank you.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Thank you for writing! How interesting that your former Adventist church will not remove your name! I pray the Lord will bless us all as we study the book of Daniel together!
Praising God In South Africa
I live in South Africa. The Lord Himself led me to your YouTube channel after having some enlightenment through the word about the Gospel. I prayed that God would show Himself to me through His word, and He led me out of the Adventist Church after more than 25 years of being an Adventist. It wasn’t easy, and even with the criticism and hate my husband and I have faced, we have found comfort in your fellowship even though we are thousands of miles away from you (thank God for technology).
Thank you and please continue with the Lord’s work. Do not be weary in doing good, for in due season you will reap if you faint not…
—VIA EMAIL
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