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 10: Satan’s Final Deception
COLLEEN TINKER
Problems with this lesson:
- The central points of the lesson, “Immortality of the Soul” and “Sun worship”, are built ENTIRELY upon straw-man arguments.
- Adventism denies the biblical teaching that when we die, we are literally absent from the body and present with the Lord.
- The “sun worship” argument is invented and insulting. Christians do not worship Sunday, and Sunday is not holy. They merely honor the Lord’s resurrection and the formation of the church.
We have written repeatedly about these two Adventist arguments. To be honest, the boldness of Adventism’s deception when it comes to teaching its members that they have no immaterial part of the themselves and that worshiping on the first day of the week is a Catholic substitute for Sabbath is so egregiously unbiblical that it hardly deserves a response.
In fact, Adventists are so indoctrinated with the idea that believing that people go to be with the Lord opens them to spiritualism, and they are so brainwashed with Sabbath arguments and tales of Catholicism changing the day of worship that it is almost impossible to breach the walls of cultic doctrine when addressing them.
Regardless of what Adventists say, the Bible is clear: we are bodies that have spirits, immaterial parts of ourselves which do not cease to exist when we die. I will give three central passages that address this fact, and I will give some links to articles—again—that address these Adventist teachings.
Texts that show our spirits go to God when we die:
For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this [house] we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord– for we walk by faith, not by sight– we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him (2Co 5:1-9 ).
For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if [I am] to live [on] in the flesh, this [will mean] fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard-pressed from both [directions,] having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for [that] is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake (Phl 1:21-24).
…and [if] He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard [that] righteous man, while living among them, felt [his] righteous soul tormented day after day by [their] lawless deeds), [then] the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment (2Pe 2:7-9).
Here are some articles that address the nature of man and what happens when we die:
The Real Deception
Since this lesson has gone to great lengths to “expose” the core “deceptions” of Christianity, one being worship on Sunday, I believe this is the time to address the REAL deception before us: Adventism’s counterfeit gospel and unbiblical worldview.
Adventism has created a false gospel and established the idolatry of Sabbath in order to keep its members enslaved to the organization because they believe Adventism has the correct view of Scripture.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Adventism’s use of proof-texts twists the meaning of the Bible, and its prophet Ellen White has established the Adventist hermeneutic. Although many Adventists claim not to believe in her, she nevertheless established the doctrinal understandings the early Adventists desired to have by endorsing them with visions.
Adventism is guilty of Paul’s warnings against false teachers who would arise and teach doctrines of demons:
But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, [men] who forbid marriage [and advocate] abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer. In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, [constantly] nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following (1Ti 4:1-6).
Ellen White has led an entire organization and millions of people into a morass of deception and counterfeit beliefs. When we finally see who Jesus really is, we realize that we have to renounce everything we learned as Adventists, submit to the Bible, and ask the Lord to teach us truth.
Here are some links to help explain how Adventism has twisted Scripture and deceived its members. This first link is to a video of Dale Ratzlaff teaching:
This next article contrasts the Adventist worldview with a biblical one:
The next two videos discuss the biblical covenants and the biblical teaching of Sabbath:
Finally, I challenge each reader to get a notebook and begin, verse by verse, a few verses a day, to copy the book of Hebrews into that notebook and to ask the Lord to teach you what He knows you need to know. God does not trick us, and His promises are sure. We have to believe the words the Bible says, in context, and refuse to take proof-texts out of context and string them together to say something God did not say. The word of God is living; immerse yourself in it.
It will give you life in the One who wrote it! †
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