I See the Real Adventist Doctrines For What They Are
Thank you, Colleen and Nikki, for a wonderful podcast!
I want to write this email as a thank you and an encouragement for the amazing work you do with your Former Adventist podcast. Your podcast has been such a blessing to me the past months, and I wanted to share my story with you as a testimony of the importance of your ministry.
I am a woman from Sweden who discovered your podcast during a very special time in my life. I have been a Christian all my life and was raised in a Baptist church. My parents were church leaders for many years, and as a family we were engaged in ministry that was connected to many different Christian denominations in Sweden. With this background I have always felt free to engage in different Christian churches.
Five years ago I came in contact with the Adventist church through a friend of mine. We were both attending a local, quite charismatic church and were both looking for Christians our age to form a prayer group with. We were both not content with the charismatic format in that local church. During this time, my friend encountered a young woman and her husband, through her university studies, who were Adventists. Neither of us had any experience of Adventism since there are very few Adventists in Sweden. My friend and the married couple started to gather in their homes for Christian fellowship and Bible study, and I joined.
In the beginning of our fellowship, we noticed only very few differences between us. But as time went by, they started to share more about the Saturday Sabbath, about their being vegetarian, and about a woman called Ellen White. When these subjects first arose, I just saw them as minor differences in our beliefs and stood firm in my conviction that Christians don’t have to honor a certain day, that we could eat meat, and that Ellen White probably was not a prophet. I didn’t share those thoughts with the couple in some sort of belief that I didn’t want to pass judgement on someone else’s faith. I did not know at the time the doctrines that were behind their statements on Sabbath, food, and Ellen White.
After awhile my friend got married and moved to another city, and I started to develop a deep and meaningful friendship with my new Adventist friends. We shared our struggles with one another and became a small group of close acquaintances. Another Adventist couple moved to our city and started to attend the prayer group. As time went by it became more and more apparent that this group now was an Adventist fellowship, and suddenly, we were an Adventist church plant in connection to the Adventist church in Stockholm. We also began meeting on Saturdays.
As we tried to develop this church plant with Bible study groups for people on the outside, and with health ministries (the husbands were doctors, of course) I became more and more uncomfortable. I agreed to lead one of the Bible study groups using a study guide from the Adventist church. However, when we approached the chapters on health and Sabbath, I said to the others that I didn’t feel equipped to teach on those matters. Their response was that it was okay, and that it was okay to not “be there yet” in my understanding and knowledge. I also struggled with meeting on Saturdays. At the time I saw no issue with changing my day of worship but realized afterwards that I had overstepped something within myself. What that was I would understand only later.
This group of people, that I sincerely love to this day, were my only Christian connection I had in my town for some time, especially during Covid. A couple of months ago, I became sick and had to be home from work for a longer period of time. During this very difficult time in my life, I knew I had to use my time to really come to terms with my relationship with God and the beliefs of Adventism. One of the women in the group sent me a Bible study series from an Adventist TV ministry about the book of Revelation during this time. I decided to give it a try since I felt like I didn’t understand Adventism’s interpretation of Revelation.
At first, I felt a joy in studying the Bible, but as the study progressed, it became more and more incomprehensible, and I realized that the methods they were using were really far-fetched and unreliable.
At first, I felt a joy in studying the Bible, but as the study progressed, it became more and more incomprehensible, and I realized that the methods they were using were really far-fetched and unreliable. God also showed me during this time of study that I hadn’t been true to my convictions nor to all the Bible proof I had that confirmed that what I knew about Adventism was wrong.
When I discovered how fallible Adventism was through the Bible study that was recommended to me, I began to look for other sources talking about Adventism from the outside and, among other things, found your podcast. You put into words so many things that I felt and thought but couldn’t articulate myself. I have now seen the true Adventist doctrines and how they relate to real Christian doctrines. I want to stress that your podcast not only taught me about Adventism but has more than anything strengthened my understanding of the true gospel. I cherish that part more than anything else.
I have now left the Adventist group but try to support my friends in love and affection. I have presented some of Adventism’s false doctrines to one of my closest friends in the group. I told my friend, among other things, that I didn’t think Ellen White was a prophet. To my sorrow, she replied that she understood and respected my opinion but had no other opinion than that she regarded her as a prophet and said: “She is all we have”.
I see their faith (because I am sure they are honest in their search for God), but I also see their struggles.
I could go on writing about many things I have discovered during the time I have been listening to your podcast. Thank you for your ministry and for studying the word of God with such integrity, intelligence, and humbleness that in turn provides your listeners with truth and renewed faith.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Thank you so much for writing! Thank you for sharing the details of your story; they are poignant and moving. You are an example of God’s faithfulness never to let go of His own sheep. Even during that Adventist detour, He had you, and He was not going to leave you in that darkness. He will not waste those years; He has shown you the reality of Adventism, and He will use this knowledge and experience to bear fruit for His kingdom.
What a journey—and praise God for His revelation to you of the depth and truth of the gospel that is the truth that shatters the false gospel of false religions!
Thank you so much for letting us know how the podcast has been helpful. We praise God for His faithfulness and pray He will continue to use the podcast for His glory.
You have been rescued from a great danger—but the Lord intends it for His glory!
Sabbath And the “Duality” Of Jesus
I just wanted to give a small praise report and prayer request.
Through your podcasts and news letter I have learned so much about the doctrine of Adventism, which has been a blessing…
This past weekend my mother came out and started ministering to my husband over lunch about the dynamics of Adventism to see if he understood what kind of belief system he was under.
We found out he doesn’t. I have taken a lot of notes from you all and have written down every page all of you have ever cited from EGW’s writings. I showed my husband this is the lens through which he sees Scripture.
He tried to explain EGW’s words in the book Lift Him Up, p. 253, where she said, “The man Jesus is NOT the Lord God Almighty”. He asked me how I see the duality of Jesus.
I responded with, “He is fully man and fully God!” He said that response doesn’t answer his question. He proceeded to say that Ellen White is not wrong in saying what she said, because she was not talking about God Jesus, she was talking about the physical man Jesus.
I said , “The MAN Jesus is the Lord God Almighty.” Her words can’t be explained away; she is speaking blasphemy here.
…my husband has been taught that the the Trinity isn’t the same as the way Christians understand it.
So, my understanding in this situation is that, based on how how he tried to explain this statement, my husband has been taught that the the Trinity isn’t the same as the way Christians understand it.
He also added, “If I do find discrepancies in Ellen White’s writings and find heresy, I know I will need to leave the church, but what other church practices Sabbath? I still want to hold on to that.”
My question to you is this: is my husband really just hanging onto Sabbath because of fear—the “What if—just in case” argument?” I’m not sure I believe it really is a conviction of his.
The praise report is this: he is trying to look now when I bring up concerns instead of defending his position. So we have made some headway!! Thank you JESUS and this ministry for that.
Also, please, please pray for my husband’s eyes to see and ears to hear the truth, that God will remove his stony heart, give him a heart of flesh, and renew a right spirit with in him.
I want to thank you all so much for all you do. You all are truly a blessing! I praise the Lord you found Him and gathered strength to leave this cult, and now God has led you to this ministry.
My husband still has a way to go, as he still sees Scripture the way Ellen White taught. He doesn’t understand our understanding; he says he finds it so confusing, and Adventism just makes sense. We both wept, as we both so badly want to be equally yoked.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Thank you so much for writing! This is good news. It takes time for an Adventist’s cognitive dissonance to become so strong he can’t ignore it!
As for your husband’s clinging to the Sabbath: that is the way it is with almost all Adventists, and the reason is that Sabbath is, in actual practice, an idol. They believe they have to be loyal to the Sabbath in the face of the antichrist’s persecution in order to be saved. They believe that if they really love Jesus, they will keep the seventh day. If they let the day go, they let go of God. It means they will be lost.
They believe the Sabbath is, within itself, HOLY, but the Bible says that only God is holy. No created day is holy! Yet for Adventists, Sabbath is the “golden calf” that carries their god. If they do not have the Sabbath, they believe they have a false god. Sabbath is the actual focus of loyalty for them—not Jesus.
You are right; Adventists do not believe in the biblical Trinity. They do not believe or teach that the three Persons of the Trinity share substance. They say they share purpose and will but NOT substance. They believe the Trinity is like a “team”, a group of people all working for the same goal but distinct beings in themselves. EGW calls them the “three Worthies of heaven” and “the heavenly Trio”. Your husband reflects Adventism’s confusion: they do not realize they cannot separate Jesus the Man from God the Son. There is no “duality” of Jesus. He is one Person with two complete but inseparable natures: He is completely unique!
Have you tried reading through books of the Bible with him yet? Have you thought of starting with Galatians? Just sit with him and read one chapter at a time and talk about it. If he thinks a passage means something different from what it says, the burden is on him to show from Scripture how he supports that idea. I would suggest the gospel of John as the book to follow Galatians, and then Hebrews would be helpful as well!
Reading Scripture in context is the best thing to show an Adventist what is wrong with his understanding of the proof texts.
I pray that the Lord will soften his heart and give him a desire to know truth. And I pray that you will know how to love your husband for God and to patiently keep speaking truth to him. The Lord is at work! †
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