NICOLE STEVENSON
I’ll never forget the moment. It was early 2010 and I’d only recently left Adventism and discovered the true gospel. It was a quiet afternoon, and I had wandered into a random online chatroom. It wasn’t a religious platform—it had chatrooms for various topics—but for whatever reason there was a room about Adventism. I can’t remember the details that led up to it, but I ended up engaging with an Adventist who was energized to share the “Three Angels’ Messages”. Concerned for those reading and engaging with him, I began to gently work to expose the contradictions in his thinking and to contextualize the passages he was using to promote Adventism.
As I attempted to share the gospel with him, supporting it with Scripture, I didn’t realize that the more truth I threw at the conversation, the more anger I would incite from him—so I plodded on, verse after verse. Naively, I thought that if he could see what the Bible really said, he’d begin to see that he’d been taught wrongly. The conversation culminated in the man losing his ability to focus and discuss. Instead he began turning on me personally and ultimately told me that I was a whore of Babylon, a Nicolaitan, and that God hates me. As I read his words, I experienced for the first time what it is to sit on the other side of the spirit of Adventism. From that time on if he saw me on the platform he would harass me until I ultimately left.
When I was an Adventist I was “one of them”, and while at times I had tenuous relationships or experiences with other Adventists, I never experienced feeling as though I was enemy number one, hated, and worthy of God’s hatred! That kind of turning didn’t happen until I began to learn how to read and share the Bible.
If this one random chatroom conversation had been the only one like it that I’d ever experienced, I’d be comfortable saying I had merely dealt with someone with a little mental instability. However, as the years progressed and I continued to work with LAM and FAF, these kinds of strange encounters only became the norm. It wasn’t the leaving that bothered people; it was the truth telling that bothered them. The “family thumbprint” mantra seemed to be, Leave for the world and we’ll “pray” for you; leave for Jesus and tell anyone, and we’ll shame or even slander you.
Spiritual Warfare is Real
So, what is this all about? How do all these people who’ve never met us end up saying the same things, spewing the same flavor of hatred and accusation, and with the same tone? As they breathe out curses of damnation and accusations of us being demon possessed, they claim that we are the hateful ones simply because we want them to see how we understand the Bible now. What is going on?
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience…” (Ephesians 2:1,2).
I think it was when Colleen and I were going through Ephesians for the podcast that I first focused on what these two verses say. Sure, I had a general picture aligned with the passage before, but slowing down and looking at these words—God’s truth-telling, reality-giving words— clarified so much for me. There is a spirit of evil at work in the sons of disobedience. Who are the sons of disobedience? All of humanity, unless and until we are born again through faith in the Word of Truth (Ephesians 1:13,14). This means that spirit was once at work in me, too! Before being brought to life, I, too, followed the course of this world. I followed the prince of the power of the air who was at work in me, and I did it while sometimes feeling like I was on God’s errands!
Let me interrupt here to say that I take 100% responsibility for my sin. I wasn’t “tricked” into my nature. I was by nature—on my own with no help from Satan—an object worthy of God’s wrath. Even so, in that state, I was also a tool in the hands of the prince of the power of the air.
Each of us, in our fallen and depraved state, circled the wagons around our worldviews giving credence to them with our participation in and defense of them.
Each of us, in our fallen and depraved state, circled the wagons around our worldviews giving credence to them with our participation in and defense of them. Whether we are former Adventists, former satanists, former secularists, former humanists, former atheists—whatever the cause—we were soldiers in a spiritual battle and were marching across the battlefield waving our flags of deception as loyalists to the causes of the prince of the power of the air, whether we knew it or not.
Spiritual warfare is real. I’m not saying I know the details of how it all works, but there is an antichrist spirit at work in the world, and he seems to promote pre-packaged worldviews, which, as different as they may be from one another, stand together in opposition to the gospel of the Christ of Scripture.
So, all the moments after we leave Adventism, when we scratch our heads and wonder, “How did that conversation go so bad so fast?”, begin to make sense when we remember that we’re no longer just operating within relationships after we leave for Jesus. We’re now functioning on the other end of the battlefield in a spiritual battle in which our loved ones are blind players as they’re manipulated by a spiritual commander who knows that we’ve crossed sides.
All the dynamics in our dearest relationships may end up turning completely on their head because when we have been born again, we have been transferred into a different kingdom—and that reality touches everything.
“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins…And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death…” (Col. 1:12,14, 21,22).
When we reflect on our time in Adventism, many of us can say we sincerely wanted to follow Jesus. We wanted to honor God and to do our part to bring others to know Him. Even so, before we were born again, Scriptures says that we were by nature “hostile in mind”. We stood against the truth even as we believed we were heralding it. Deceived people absolutely deceive people, and remembering this was once true of us can elicit in us the compassion we need to pray for those who, as hostile as they may be, are presently trapped by that same deception.
So what then? How do we navigate these encounters or relationships after we leave Adventism? In the same letter that Paul tells us we were once players on the wrong side of the spiritual battlefield, he goes on to tells us how to stand on that same battlefield but as soldiers and ambassadors in the cause of God our Father:
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:10-12).
There they are again—the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers over this present darkness, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places—our former spiritual commanders who were once at work within us. It’s not flesh and blood that we wrestle with; its our old commanders who know us well and who know how to get at us! Instead of blindly being used as their tools in warfare, we have turned to face them empowered by the strength of the might of the Lord, and we now stand as defectors of their cause.
“Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints…” (Ephesians 6:13-18).
In this spiritual battle we don’t set our gaze on these spiritual forces; we suit up in the armor of God and stand firm. We hold fast to the belt of truth which holds fast to us. We stand in the knowledge of our certain salvation; we are secure in knowing that we are sheltered by the righteousness of God in Christ given to us. We are guarded by faith and stand always ready to share the gospel according to the word of God. We don’t stand ready to fight the enemy; we stand ready to run into a lost world with the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we pray for the soldiers on our left and our right who stand with us in the Body of Christ. No matter the reactions or response we receive from the world or from our loved ones, we can know that we are not called to wrestle against them, but against the lies, using the word of God. We entrust all that to God alone, remembering God’s promise in Isaiah:
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10,11).
When we believe Scripture, we don’t have to live confused by the deceived and deceivers’ reactions to us. While they may take us by surprise, we can orient ourselves by going back to God’s word, and we can come alongside each other reminding each other that this is a spiritual battle. We don’t have to feel hopeless or alone. We don’t have to despair or allow the flaming arrows of our enemy get under our armor.
Just as we were once defenders of deception but were rescued, there will be others who come behind us to find the truth of the gospel according to Scripture, and when they do, may we all be ready to help them suit up in the armor of God! Let’s remember to pray for one another in this battle, and together let’s pray the rest of them home! †
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Thank you for this column and your insight into what we as formers engage in when we try to reason with our friends and family who continue to be caught in the jaws of the alligator that is Ellen White and her followers. I have recently read Mattias Desmet’s book The Psychology of Totalitarianism. In it he describes a human frailty of becoming hypnotized by one’s ideology and to form what is called “mass formation.” The process usually needs a charismatic figure to lead a portion of the population. Regarding the C—D epidemic he writes, “As much a I tried to bring this (false information about the virus) to the attention of society, it didn’t have much effect. People continued to go along with the narrative. That was the moment when I decided to focus on something else, namely on the psychological processes that were at work in society and that could explain how people can become so radically blind and continue to buy into a narrative so utterly absurd.” I couldn’t help but think of the Adventists and their inability to see anything other than what they are taught in their churches and schools.