Relieved Not To Feel Crazy
I left the Adventist church when I became a freshman in college and have never wanted to go back, even though I couldn’t identify exactly why I felt that way.
I’m now in my 30s, and I have my own family. My mental health reached a crisis point in 2020 when I could hardly function due to anxiety attacks. I started seeing a therapist & have continued to do so for the last 3 years.
My therapist is a counselor and has been working with me on trauma and moral scrupulosity thought patterns. My entire life I can say that I’ve felt terrified of God and positive I’m only one poor choice away from losing my salvation.
I’ve been praying that God would reveal himself to me as He truly is and not as I was raised to believe He was.
Two weeks ago, I found a pamphlet randomly in a bookstore about cults. I felt like I needed to open it, and so I did. On the second page it listed Seventh-day Adventism as a cult.
It felt like my entire world exploded. I spent the last few weeks diving off the deep end to research if this is true.
It felt like my entire world exploded. I spent the last few weeks diving off the deep end to research if this is true.
And then, a few days ago, I searched for the topic in my Spotify app and found the Cultish podcast where you guys were guest speakers for two episodes. I’ve listened to it a few times and can’t stop crying.
I finally feel like the pieces are falling into place for me and understanding why I have struggled so much in my relationship with God.
I just wanted to say thank you. It really felt like Colleen and Nikki were speaking of my exact experience, and I’m so relieved to not feel crazy anymore. I’m relieved to finally have a starting place in my healing of understanding the why behind all my church hurt.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Thank you so much for writing! Praise God; He always answers our prayers to know the truth and who He really is!!
We were actually on Cultish four times; the first two times were parts 1 and 2 of “Is Seventh-day Adventism a Cult?” And the last two were parts 1 and 2 of “Ellen G. White and the Millerites”.
There is so much “unpacking” to do in our heads when we realize Adventism was a counterfeit gospel and when we learn who Jesus really is. We have many resources available for you.
Have you found our Former Adventist Podcast? I think you may really find them helpful. You can find them here or anywhere that you listen to podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/former-adventist/id1482887969
Although we are not currently publishing a printed version of Proclamation! magazine, all our back issues are online here: https://www.lifeassuranceministries.org/
We have also added your name to our weekly Proclamation! email updates. You may need to add the email address LifeAssuranceMinistries@gmail.com to your contacts in order for the email not to be directed toward your Spam folder. These emails will arrive every Friday. Archived articles are available at ProclamationMagazine.com.
You might also enjoy our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/FormerAdventist/featured All of our FAF Conference videos are online here as well as our podcast. We have also recently begun a new podcast posted on YouTube in which we talk about the skews in each week’s Sabbath School lessons.
Also, if you might like to join us Friday evenings for our FAF Bible study at 7:00 PM Pacific Time, just email FormerAdventist@gmail.com and request a zoom link.
It is disorienting and liberating, all at once, to replace Adventism with the Lord Jesus and biblical truth. Please feel free to email anytime!
I am so thankful that the Lord has led you to come to know Him as He is.
Sobbing Over Galatians
Thank you so much for being there for people who are going through the birth pangs of coming out of a cult and becoming Christians. We just listened to one of the podcasts on Galatians 5, and it left me sobbing. I was baptized at 23 years of age. I didn’t read much from White’s books, but I was thoroughly indoctrinated in church and by the people in church.
I wanted, so badly, to have all that God had to offer me. I tried my heart out for 35 years! I wanted victory over sin, but I couldn’t manage it. I knew I could never say I was without sin, but I didn’t want to sin. I wanted evidence of God working in my life. I wanted a close personal relationship with Him, I wanted to serve Him. I finally became so discouraged that I wanted to give up, but God wouldn’t let me give up on Him, so I kept ’trying’, until I read in a book by Norma and Gus Youngberg about righteousness by faith.
At the end of reading it I got on my knees and surrendered my will to God. I felt the burden of self and works roll off of my shoulders.
I started looking for information and that led me to Adventist pastor Philip Dunham’s book Sure Salvation. (The conference didn’t support that book.) At the end of reading it I got on my knees and surrendered my will to God. I felt the burden of self and works roll off of my shoulders. It was life-saving, and got me through the last four-and-a-half years of heartache and tragedy. We’ve lost 14 family members in that time. I couldn’t cope with the grief, but when I gave it to God. He took it and left me with enough ’sad’ that I knew I had a son that I loved, and that he hadn’t just vanished as if he’d never existed.
Still, I felt a huge burden of oppression in Sabbath and diet struggles. My son HATED the church, my daughter still does, and she resents that she was raised in it. I hope one day she’ll forgive me.
I can’t tell you how grateful my husband (who was inching toward Adventism) and I are for all of the people who are working and trying to help us work through all of the religious confusion (is that what Babylon is they people will be called out of?).
I’m grateful that there are people who are willing to ’listen’, help, and encourage us.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
——VIA EMAIL
Response: Thank you for sharing your experience and pain. What a hard chapter you have lived! I am so sorry for the loss of your son and for what you have endured.
I know the Lord is faithful, and He is revealing that faithful love to you. I also know that He wastes nothing that happens to us, and He redeems everything we submit to Him.
Thank you again for sharing; I am praying now that the Lord will plant you deeply in His word and bring you true fellowship in His body.
Scapegoat Disagreements
A friend from church contacted me last night, wanting to talk about 1844. That chat evolved into a chat about the cleansing of the sanctuary. He’s highly intelligent and quick on his mental feet. He’s very confident that what the [Adventist] church teaches is correct.
I tried to tell him why the scapegoat couldn’t represent Satan. Here’s what he said:
You and I both believe that Jesus has taken away our sins when we trusted Him as our Savior. But the world is full of sin. Why is that? Because Satan keeps tempting people into committing sin. Satan is the instigator. Sin was first found in Satan and has spread to all humans because Satan lures them into sin. Despite the sacrifice of Jesus, which takes away our sins, the world is not sinless because people choose to heed Satan’s temptations and create more sin. Only when we confess our sins to Jesus can our sins be forgiven. 1 John 1:9.
Sin will ultimately be purged from the universe when Satan is destroyed, who is the source of sin since he continually causes people to stumble into sin. Each time we confess and repent, Jesus is faithful to forgive us. But we have the potential to sin again if we listen to Satan. But when Satan is destroyed, there is no more tempter to seduce us into sin. That’s what the scapegoat represents: the scapegoat takes the accumulated sin from the sanctuary and then dies in the wilderness, the sins being destroyed with the scapegoat. And the sanctuary is cleansed.
At first I was thinking, “He’ll be a tough nut to crack.” Then I realized that all I can do is tell him what I believe, then let him work it out with God in prayer. I have an idea this will be the way it will go with most of the people I talk to. Sigh. I don’t think people understand how EGW-ingrained their thinking is.
Is this a common response?
—VIA EMAIL
Response: This response IS the Adventist response. This twisted reasoning derives from EGW and her great controversy worldview. At the bottom line, Adventist physicalism keeps them locked into this worldview. They believe Satan is responsible for sin and that getting rid of Satan will eliminate sin from the universe. But Satan is NOT responsible for human sin. Humans are.
Adventists don’t understand that all humans are literally spiritually dead and must be made alive through faith in the Lord Jesus. They don’t believe this because they don’t believe humans have immaterial spirits. Without spirits, “sin” is a physical phenomenon passed down in the gene pool from one generation to the other. Then, because people are genetically degraded, they have tendencies to sin, and because of Satan’s temptations, they sin.
They do not believe people are born depraved and unable to seek or please God (Romans 3, Ephesians 2:1–3) but must be made alive by Him. Understanding the nature of humanity changes what one believes about the nature of the Lord Jesus and also of salvation.
Think about their reasoning: how can getting rid of Satan guarantee there will be no more sin? Satan fell once; how do we know another Satan might not emerge a few thousand years in the future?
No, getting rid of Satan will not get rid of sin. We are all born dead in sin and commit sins because we ARE sinners. Jesus’s finished atonement is the only thing that can guarantee that sin will come to an end. He has the right to rule and judge and save. When He makes us alive, we pass from death to life, and ultimately He will judge the earth and make all who trusted in Him not only spiritually alive but physically alive. It is Jesus’s atonement that is already full and complete that guarantees sin will be ended, we will be changed, and everything will be made new.
Adventism hangs all of their hope on getting rid of Satan instead of on Jesus having become our substitute and sacrifice! †
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