This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.
Lesson 11: “End-Time Deceptions”
[COLLEEN TINKER]
Problems With This Lesson:
- The unbiblical heresies addressed in this lesson are not things Bible-believing Christians believe.
- These heresies do not support the biblical teaching that humans have immaterial spirits separate from the body.
- The lesson’s teaching on the armor of God reveals the Adventist misunderstanding of the new birth and life in Christ.
This lesson attempts to debunk the idea of an immaterial human spirit by disproving the pagan and new age ideas of mysticism, near-death experiences, reincarnation, necromancy, and ancestor worship. Ironically, they tip their hand by revealing that these ideas are compelling and attractive and must be resisted. Yet Christians who know the Lord and are born again do not struggle with these beliefs.
Scripture is explicitly clear that these ideas are false and are rooted in pagan practices. It is not the belief in the human spirit that survives the death of the body that endorses these unbiblical beliefs. On the contrary, believing what the Bible says about human life, death, new birth, and resurrection is the protection against these things.
Ironically many Adventists have sightings of their dead relatives. One would think, based upon their official teachings, that of all people the Adventists would be resistant to these things. Yet I have known more Adventists who see dead people than I have ever heard true Christians describe. Rather than setting them up for vulnerability to the spirits, the belief in the human immaterial spirit protects Christians spiritual counterfeits. Truth is the place of safety that guards us from deception.
Near-Death Experiences
The author’s attempts to debunk the many accounts of near-death experiences are actually speculative explanations, not authoritative disproving.
Here is what we can deduce from Scripture alone: God never revealed to us what people experience when they die or have near-death experiences. The silence of Scripture does not mean there is nothing after death; rather, it means that God has not revealed it and thus does not want us to focus on these things.
We know this: 2 Corinthians 12 has Paul explaining that he was taken to the third heaven where he saw and heard things he was not permitted to tell. In fact, he dates this experience as 14 years before he wrote the book of 2 Corinthians. Significantly, it is 2 Corinthians 5 that gives us one of the most complete descriptions of the fact that when we die we are absent from our bodies and present with the Lord.
What Paul saw and heard when he was taken to the third heaven clearly revealed and explained to him that our immaterial identities do leave our dead bodies and go to the Lord. Here is what Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12:2–10:
I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows—and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses—though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth; but I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:2–10).
If God forbade His apostle to the gentiles to describe or reveal what he had seen and heard in the third heaven, we can know that God is not revealing His secrets through people’s near death experiences. In fact, many of those with these mystical experiences are not believers.
By comparing their revelations with Scripture, we know that we cannot trust those accounts. We obviously cannot say they are all lies; we cannot prove or disprove another’s subjective experience. But we can know that God is not revealing truth and reality for us through them. His revelation to us is in His word and delivered by His chosen apostles and their scribes. Near-death experiences can be discounted as revelations of truth based on Scripture’s witness. Whatever they may be, they are not God’s revelation of truth to us.
Spirit-Heresies and the Armor of God
The rest of the new-age-y heresies in this lesson are simply beliefs that Bible-believing Christians know are not true. The lesson sets up a straw-man argument by saying that a belief in an “immortal soul” (a phrase which we, at least, never use to describe the human spirit) causes one to be vulnerable to spiritistic events is simply untrue.
Those who believe heretical things about the nature of man are much more vulnerable to spiritistic deceptions than are those who believe what Scripture says. Knowing that when a person dies, he is absent from the body and his spirit goes to the Lord—whether a believer or not—we can rest in confidence knowing that the spirits of believers are safe IN CHRIST, and the spirits of unbelievers are being held by Him under punishment waiting for judgment (2 Peter 2:9). There is no possibility that those spirits will roam the universe or come back to haunt us. They are kept where they belong, and they do not interact with us.
Adventists, however, believing the deception that the dead cease to exist, ARE vulnerable to spiritual deceptions. Truth, not enforced error, is our protection.
For example, the lesson uses the example from 1 Samuel 28 of Saul and the witch of Endor and the appearance of Samuel. The lesson teaches the traditional Adventist interpretation: Saul saw an evil spirit. Yet the Bible never states that Saul saw an evil spirit. The Bible said the appearance WAS SAMUEL. Furthermore, the witch was scared when she saw him; she apparently was startled that the person would appear instead of an apparition. Moreover, Samuel told Saul the truth: he would die the next day and be in the place of the dead where Samuel also was.
Even more amazing is the fact in 1 Samuel 15:35 we read that when Samuel rebuked Saul for his apostasy and rejection of the word of the Lord, the account ends with these word: “Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death.”
In chapter 28 we read the fulfillment of that statement: Samuel did, indeed, see Saul in the witch’s chambers on the day of Saul’s death.
The Adventist paradigm cannot accept that God would allow Samuel to return after death to deliver a message from Him—a truthful message of judgment. Yet without the Adventist skew, the biblical account is clear: it does not call Samuel a spirit nor a demon nor an imposter of any kind. It calls him Samuel, and this was God’s judgment on Saul. God is in charge of the dead, and He holds their spirits in His own keeping. He is sovereign over even them.
The Teachers Comments further attempt to teach the Ephesians 6 passage on the armor of God as protection against spiritual deceptions, but again the text reveals that the author does not understand the power of the gospel and of the new birth which is sealed by the indwelling Holy Spirit. Here is what the lesson says:
Putting on the armor is a metaphor for holding on to different aspects of God’s Word and for trust in God. The metaphor is built on the imagery of the Roman soldier’s armor. The belt of truth (Eph. 6:14, NIV) fastened around our waist reminds us of how imperative it is to grab on to the truth and not let go “that we may work together for the truth” (3 John 8, NIV). The breastplate of righteousness (Eph. 6:14, NKJV) should cause us to think of what Christ has done for us as we are covered by His righteousness because we cannot manufacture our own. Christ is the One who transforms us by His presence. For our shoes, we need the readiness of the gospel of peace (Eph. 6:15, NIV). This instance is the only place in the Bible where the gospel is called the gospel of peace. The gospel, the good news about Jesus, brings peace to those who accept Jesus into their lives. Paul not only tells us to accept the gospel ourselves but also to take it wherever we go and offer its hope to others. The shield of faith (Eph. 6:16) serves to extinguish the arrows of the evil one.
The devil knows what to aim at in each of our characters to cause us to stumble and fall: unkind words for some, alcohol or sex for another. But our taking up the shield means saying no to doubt, sin, and temptation because we trust that God has the power we need. He promised that when we are weak, He is strong (2 Cor. 12:10). The helmet of salvation (Eph. 6:17) reminds us of the hope of eternal life because of Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection. The assurance of salvation keeps our minds at peace. Last, the sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6:17), which is the Word of God, demonstrates our need of Scripture to be the weapon we use against the schemes of the devil. That is why memorizing Bible verses is crucial. If we hold the shield of faith in one hand and the Word of God (the sword) in the other, then we do not have a free hand with which to pick up revenge, malice, a curt reply, immorality, unethical behavior, temptation, lust, hatred, or deceit. If only we used faith and the Word as our weapons, we would not fall into discouragement and despondency so often.
The author manages to discuss the armor of God as if it describes moral behaviors. In Ephesians 6, however, Paul is describing the legacy of every born-again believer who is in Christ. First, this armor is not just a metaphor for holding onto God’s word and trust. The armor of Christ is His own personal character protecting us because we have trusted Him and have been born again with His resurrection life and indwelt by His Spirit.
The belt of truth is the first piece of armor listed in this passage, and the truth of who Jesus is and what He has done (the gospel) is the actual truth that is the first conviction we receive when the Lord opens our eyes. The truth of Jesus is what changes us and qualifies us to stand in His own personal righteousness and power. Jesus Himself is our armor, and it begins with trusting the truth about Him and His finished atonement.
The breastplate of righteousness IS CHRIST. His personal righteousness is credited to our account (see Phil. 3:9). It is not His perfection shared with us so we can be good. We literally are clothed with HIM. God looks at us and sees Jesus. His own divine righteousness is our breastplate.
The shoes of the gospel of peace protect us as we stand in the spiritual war-zone. The gospel sustains us and protect us as we move in this world bearing the presence of Jesus in this domain of darkness.
Our shield of faith is God’s gift to us. It is not a mustered belief in something that we cling to—such as the false gospel of Adventism which causes Adventists to believe that if they keep the Sabbath and honor the law and eat vegan they will demonstrate their loyalty to God and their willingness to sacrifice so they can perceive the Holy Spirit. NO! The shield of faith is our utter trust—a life-and-death confidence—in the sufficiency of Jesus’ shed blood and His resurrection which broke the curse of death. We stand in His life, knowing that He is sovereign and is the one who fights for us!
Taking the shield of faith does NOT equal saying no to sin. Rather it means literally trusting God and knowing that He is protecting us and leading us, guiding our steps exactly as He wants us to go. We trust Him, not our decision to be good. We REST in Him.
The helmet of salvation is NOT something reminding us of “the hope of eternal life”. NO! The helmet of salvation is the FACT that we are saved, born again and adopted by the Father, sealed with the Holy Spirit. We Are Saved, and helmet of salvation protects our minds from our own doubts. We can trust Jesus and His declaration of our righteousness instead of quivering in fear and doubt. That helmet of salvation protects us from ourselves as well as from outside deceptions.
The sword of the Spirit is the word of God, and this is our only offensive weapon in the whole passage. We wield God’s word as our protection. It reveals deceptive teaching; it corrects our thinking; it shows us who Jesus really is, and it silences the doubts and fears of false teaching and false beliefs.
Scripture silences deception, and Scripture feeds our own minds and hearts with truth and reality.
This lesson reveals that the Adventist worldview is not biblical. The author does not know how to deal with the biblical teaching of the nature of man or the nature of death. Instead of acting as a corrective and a protection, this lesson actually creates even greater vulnerability in the Adventist reader as it discusses a wide range of pagan heresies.
The Bible is clear. We can trust the words to mean what they say, and we dare not dismiss them by calling them “metaphors” and by making spiritual allegories out of them.
We can trust the Living Word—Jesus—to clearly declare Himself to us by giving us His written word.
I challenge you, Adventist reader, to go to Scripture and to ask God to show you what is real and true. The worldview established by a false prophet who never understood the nature of God or of man cannot save you. Only the biblical Jesus has the power to save. †
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You really have many points so wrong that I’d advise you to delete that.
You don’t seem to read the Bible from what u understand.