[COLLEEN TINKER]
If there is any effect of Adventism—besides the worldview—that we formers share in common, it is some form of trauma. Of course, not everyone shares the same types of abuse or crazy-making. Nevertheless, the effects of Adventist double-speak and the organized effort not only to hide the true nature of Adventism’s worldview from the Christian world but also to keep its own members unaware of biblical truth leaves Adventists confused, anxious, and perfectionistic.
We recently received a poignant letter from a former Adventist that brought back so many of my own feelings of helpless desperation that I realized I should share it and my response to this person. I know that I was not the only Adventist who struggled with obsessive desperation and despair. I know I was not unique in my Adventist milieu as I tried vainly to overcome sin, please God, and maintain an organized household. I also know that I was not the only former Adventist who struggled early on to live with internal peace and who wondered if I really knew the Lord or how to “access” His power and help.
I share below the letter we received. I have changed some details to protect the identity of the author.
I’m in so much pain. I’m desperate. I’m a former Adventist and was recently baptized into a Christian church, but I still can’t get rid of my alcoholism. I feel like there is a demon inside me. No matter what I do, I can’t stop. I do fulfill my job obligations, and my husband and I have three children. But even with a full life, I can’t stop drinking, and I ask God for forgiveness daily. I’m literally emailing to ask if it’s possible to have a meeting over the phone to pray for me somehow to cast out this demon inside of me. I’m in so much agony; I feel I’m slowly killing myself, but I can’t help it. I keep on doing it. Please help.
Following is my answer to this dear fellow former Adventist:
I feel as if I have a sense of your despair and franticness and the self-feeding cycle of confession and helplessness and indulgence and guilt and shame you seem to experience.
First, I want to say this: your alcoholism is not the thing that condemns you. The thing that identifies us is whether we are still dead in our sin—unbelieving and a child of wrath by nature (Eph. 2:3)—or believing/trusting in Jesus’ sacrifice for us and and for our sin and made alive with His life, sealed with His Spirit, and adopted as His true child.
As an Adventist I thought my repetitive and unconquerable sin is what marked me as condemned, and if I managed not to indulge that sin, it meant I was acting on my love for God…
As an Adventist I thought my repetitive and unconquerable sin is what marked me as condemned, and if I managed not to indulge that sin, it meant I was acting on my love for God and thus demonstrating to Him and myself that I was possibly saved or on my way to being saved. I had to learn that the gospel said my behaviors were NOT what determined my status as saved or lost.
Just by way of review, I’m going to restate the gospel for you—for us both, actually! 1 Corinthians 15:3,4 says that the gospel which the Lord first delivered to Paul to preach and teach is this: Jesus died for our sins according to Scripture; He was buried, and He rose on the third day according to Scripture. That’s IT!
Ephesians 1:13,14 says that when we hear the gospel of our salvation and believe, He seals us with His Holy Spirit of promise. Ephesians 2:1–9 explains that we are all born spiritually dead in our sins, under the influence of the prince of the air, the spirit that is at work in the children of disobedience, and we are by nature (not by deed or by bad genetics but by NATURE) children of wrath. In other words, our spirits—the essential identity we all possess, our spirits—are cut off from God and by nature are dead. Our bodies are walking around, but our spirits are dead and unable to please God.
Ephesians 2:4–7 is truly remarkable:
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4–7).
Did you notice that? When we repent before Him, acknowledging our sin and our inability to change our behavior and believe that He has paid the price for our sin, when we TRUST that He has taken care of it and has given us His new life, He makes us alive “when we were dead in our transgressions.” He saves us while we are still sinners! He doesn’t ask us to clean up first. In other words, if you are an alcoholic, He saves you when you hear and believe and trust His finished sacrifice for YOU. After that He helps your life to change, but He saves you first.
It’s important to notice that it’s not your baptism or your change of church that saves you or that gives you the victory. It’s Jesus Himself.
Romans 7 gives us great insight into our condition as saved people still living in mortal flesh. Verse 23 says we still have a “law of sin” in our members that causes us to do what we do not want to do—but thanks be to God who gives us the victory (v. 25), and there is now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1), even when we sin.
So, what I am trying to emphasize, is that it is not our sin or lack of sin that defines us as saved or lost: it is whether we are alive in Christ or still dead in our sins. Have we trusted Jesus and been born again, or are we still bargaining with Jesus and our fear of letting go of what feels familiar?
What Is Our Identity?
I read a very helpful statement shortly after leaving Adventism: we cannot have two identities. When we come to Jesus we have identities according to our habits and sins, but when we become His true born-again children, we cannot have the identity of child of God AND any other identity such as homosexual or alcoholic or anorexic or rage-aholic, or so forth. We can only have ONE identity: if we have trusted Jesus, we are a child of God. Period.
Even if we still have temptations and even sin in our flesh, those things do not change our identities. We are His, and now He will begin to show us how to trust Him instead of to despair and indulge our flesh. Seldom, though, does all temptation for our addictions stop all at once. Rather, we have new identities and trust and God’s presence giving us assurance that our flesh is not entrapping us.
As far as having a demon goes—I understand that feeling. Demonic harassment can be real, but if we have believed and trusted the Lord Jesus for our sin and for our life, we cannot be possessed by a demon because we are God’s true child.
Here’s what I suspect, though, based on my own experience and franticness as I struggled with the temptations I couldn’t seem to manage. If you have not done so, I suggest that you consider renouncing Adventism. Adventism is a very dark religion that teaches a false gospel, a false Jesus, and a false understanding of salvation. I believe that, like other false religions, it is driven by doctrines of demons that somehow stake a claim on the organization and on those of us who were Adventist. It is not a hard thing to renounce Adventism, and it is something I believe we have to do. Simply ask the Lord to remove Adventism and the spirit of Adventism from your heart and to put His Spirit in the place where Adventism had been.
Adventism shaped us and taught us and gave us a false worldview that made it hard or impossible to see the truth in Scripture, and it gave us our early identity.
Adventism shaped us and taught us and gave us a false worldview that made it hard or impossible to see the truth in Scripture, and it gave us our early identity. When we admit that Adventism itself had been a deception that imprisoned us in a false view of ourselves and of God, that reality is the underlying sin we have to confess and release to the Lord. In fact, our foundational deception is one of our sins for which Jesus died. He propitiated for our Adventist loyalty and deception, and His love is the reason we were able to see Adventism was false. I believe that recognizing Adventism as one of our foundational sins is part of our repentance before the Lord. You can also ask Him to take the imprisonment you have to alcohol and to show you how to trust God when you feel overwhelmingly like nothing but alcohol will give you peace.
When you have trusted Jesus alone for your salvation, recognizing that even alcohol cannot separate you from God’s love (Rom. 8:31–39), you can ask God to show you what you need to know and to plant you deeply in truth and reality. Ask Him to keep you centered in your true identity and to help you give Him your frantic dance with alcohol and your obsession with giving it up. Let it be God’s problem, and when you desire a drink, roll it onto the Lord and ask Him to keep you grounded in truth and to learn how to trust Him at that moment. Ask Him to be all you need at that moment.
Seek Accountability
Then, I urge you to find someone you can talk to regularly for some Biblical counseling. Because alcoholism has not only a psychological but a physical component, you likely need someone who can help you with accountability and with a plan for giving up the alcohol.
I believe that the bottom line of your deepening struggle is not alcohol but the fear that you can’t overcome your sin. When I was able to tell the Lord that I wanted Him to keep me focussed on my identity in Him and that I would give up my obsessive franticness over my temptation, when I asked Him to take my struggle with my flesh and to place His Spirit in the broken place in me where I fixated on my sin and struggle instead of on Him—He relieved my frantic obsession.
I do not know all that has shaped your life, but knowing Adventism, I suspect you have had your share of trauma. I suspect that the addiction may be an outgrowth of that trauma. That is why I urge you to consider getting some personal help. If you are attending a church where you hear God’s word taught, I suggest that, leaning on your strength from the Lord, you ask your pastor who he recommends to help you and to talk you through some of these things. Most pastors know some Christian counselors or resources where you can receive help.
Get a notebook and begin copying a book of the Bible into that notebook. I suggest that you start with Romans.
I also have another suggestion for you—one that has helped me more than any other single thing: begin spending slow, concentrated time in God’s word. Get a notebook and begin copying a book of the Bible into that notebook. I suggest that you start with Romans. Because of your struggle with addiction, I believe that Romans will be helpful to you in profound ways. It is the book that has most clearly helped me see the truth about humanity, the truth about Jesus, and the truth about how He gives us new life and victory. I have very slowly worked on memorizing books of the New Testament, but I know others who spend time literally copying the words, a verse or a passage a day, into a notebook and asking God to show them what He knows He wants them to learn. I believe you will be shocked at how your insight and peace and understanding will grow. You won’t even be able to explain it—but your thoughts and reactions to life will change. I promise that it will surprise you! God’s word is alive and powerful.
The Lord has given us His living, eternal word, and He does not trick us nor trap us. He sees you and knows your pain and fear and obsession. He IS your peace, and His death and resurrection were for you personally. He took all of your sin—even your drinking—in His body on the cross and paid your debt. He asks you now to trust Him and to let His blood pay that debt for you as He gives you His presence and peace. †
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