When I was pastoring the Sedona Christian Fellowship in Sedona, Arizona, one day Don and Vesta Muth, whom we had known for many years, both before and after we all left Adventism, invited me to accompany them on a Bible study with a Seventh-day Adventist doctor and his wife. At the Bible study, the doctor’s wife gave us each a printed sheet with headings, which I immediately saw were the Adventist doctrines. Under each heading was a series of numbered proof texts designed to support each particular doctrine. I had seen the sheet many times before as it had been used back in the ’70s. This study guide was usually offered in conjunction with a free Bible.
We let them lead, and they just went down the list of proof texts in the order printed on the sheet. We wanted to build rapport with them before we confronted them with the errors of Adventism. Some weeks later, in the course of our study, the Adventist doctor presented The Clear Word Bible (TCWB).116 He prefaced its use by telling us this was the most accurate Bible translation available today. On the jacket of this “Bible” are the following comments.
For everyone who hungers for a clearer understanding of God’s Word and a richer devotional life….Imagine how much more you would get out of the Bible if the meaning of every passage was crystal clear…The Clear Word Bible lets the power of ancient texts come through today…The result of this careful paraphrasing is that you find not only more understanding in reading the Bible, you find more joy. As the meaning of Scripture becomes more transparent…every text is phrased to make its original meaning as plain as possible to a modern reader.
On this particular evening, our study led us to Daniel 8:14. I was dumbfounded when we read this text in the TCWB. I had studied this topic thoroughly and knew this verse inside and out. When I read this text in The Clear Word Bible, something inside of me rose up and said, “This must stop!” Thousands of Adventists, like this educated doctor and his wife, would read this text, trusting Adventist “scholars” as they were taught to do, thinking this was what the Bible actually said. I invite the reader to compare any literal translation of the Bible to The Clear Word Bible rendering below. I have listed verses 12–14. Note the words that I have bolded as they have no support in the original manuscripts and are deliberately added, subtracted, or changed, to teach Adventist theology.
12Because of their sins, the people of God were given over to this power, and the services of the Temple ceased. Then I saw the little horn change its appearance and attack the truth about the Sanctuary of God and the daily intercession in heaven. The little horn practiced and prospered.
13 Now one of the angels said something to my angel and my angel asked him the very questions I wanted to ask, He said, “How long will God let the little horn try to take God’s place? How much longer will God continue to let it pervert the truth about Himself and the Sanctuary in heaven and allow it to persecute His people?”
14 He said to him, “After two thousand three hundred prophetic days (or two thousand three hundred years), God will step in, proclaim the truth about Himself and restore the ministry of the Sanctuary in heaven to its rightful place. This is when the judgment will begin, of which the cleansing of the earthly sanctuary was a type.”
I had no idea that the Adventist church would stoop to this. Jack J. Blanco, author of TCWB and chair of the religion department of Southern Adventist University, holds a doctor of theology degree in New Testament, and he added words to the text to change the meaning of the text to fit Adventist theology. This was done without any manuscript support whatsoever. Not only that, but you will notice that the added or changed words are inside the quotation marks indicating they came from the angel who was speaking to Daniel. This must be seen for what it is: blatant, purposeful deception. I knew why it was done—because there is no biblical support for Adventist’s 1844 investigative judgment doctrine.
This must be seen for what it is: blatant, purposeful deception.
After this study I felt impelled to write The Cultic Doctrine of Seventh-day Adventists. I knew I had the needed source materials as I had gathered these in my study before leaving Adventism. After that “Bible study” at the doctor’s home, I devoted every spare minute to this new book.
It had taken me many years to write Sabbath in Crisis.117 However, as Cultic Doctrine simply was a review and reorganization of my previous study, it went must faster. I do not claim divine inspiration (aren’t you glad!), but I felt that the Holy Spirit guided my mind and research. This book has 388 pages and over 700 footnotes, and it was ready for printing in about six months.
Before Cultic Doctrine was printed, I sent out manuscripts of this book to about a dozen Adventist pastors and a few evangelical pastors. One Adventist pastor in his evaluation said, “You have written my book.” He went on to explain that his study had led him to the same conclusions, but he was not in a position to publish them. Several others also expressed their approval. One reader responded: “I feel like I have been hit between the eyes with a sledge hammer.” Many of the Adventist pastors were supportive, and some actually provided me with considerable additional documentation. Some, however, for obvious reasons, were not in favor of the book
While I was in Sedona, I started getting more orders for Sabbath in Crisis. Most of these came from members or pastors in the Worldwide Church of God. I noticed that a number of orders came from 300 W. Green Street, Pasadena, California, the central office for the Worldwide Church of God (WWCOG). Sometime later, a WWCOG pastor in the eastern US read Sabbath in Crisis, and we talked on the phone on several occasions. He told me he was ready to resign because he could no longer support the WWCOG position on the Sabbath and the feasts. I encouraged him to stay in the church as long as he could and just focus on the gospel. Some of the surrounding WWCOG pastors, however, began to suspect that my friend was not supporting the full teachings of the WWCOG and began to complain to the headquarters in Pasadena.
Joe Tkach,118 Pastor General of the WWCOG, went to the district and announced he was going to have a two-hour meeting for all the pastors in the area. My pastor friend realized his days were numbered, so he typed up his letter of resignation and took it to the hotel where Joe Tkach was staying. However, when my friend presented his letter of resignation to Joe Tkach, Pastor Tkach said, “Don’t turn it in; hear what I have to say tomorrow.”
About 2:00 a.m. Arizona time, my pastor friend called me, and excitedly told me about the meeting. He said, “Joe Tkach went right down the outline of your book.”
Not long after that, all the pastors of the WWCOG were to show a video to their congregations on the same Sabbath. In the video,119 Pastor General Tkach announced to the church at large that they were accepting the new covenant gospel and that the old covenant observances of Sabbath and feast days were no longer required.
I feel very humbled that it played a small role in helping the Worldwide Church of God move from its cultic, legalistic, old covenant focus toward new covenant theology.
The WWCOG purchased Sabbath in Crisis for all their pastors, and many WWCOG pastors ordered Sabbath in Crisis by the case for their members. I had no idea when I wrote this book that it would ever influence anyone other than a few former Adventists. I feel very humbled that it played a small role in helping the Worldwide Church of God move from its cultic, legalistic, old covenant focus toward new covenant theology.
Sedona Christian Fellowship had grown to about 150 in attendance when I began to have problems with irregular heartbeats. Several times my heart started jumping and skipping beats during a sermon. One time I almost fainted. One day these episodes became so bad that Carolyn took me to the emergency room. On the way there, I recalled the time Carolyn had taken me to the hospital many years before in Phoenix, and how, at that time, I knew I was not ready to meet the Lord. This time, however, it was different. I had no fear of dying, other than of leaving my beloved Carolyn and life in the here and now. I knew that I was accepted by God based solely upon my faith in the righteousness of Christ and God’s abundant grace.
I had an evaluation by a cardiologist who recommended that I go on a heart medication that had detrimental side effects; I gave serious consideration to retiring from the ministry. I never wanted to pastor past the time when I was effective.
After prayer and much thought, I turned in my resignation letter, and we moved to Glendale in the northwest Phoenix area. Not long after I resigned, I discovered that my heart problems could be controlled by taking large amounts of magnesium. Both Carolyn and I went back into sales. Some months later, we got our real estate licenses. We visited some fifteen churches trying to find a church where we would feel comfortable.
One day we decided, rather than trying to find the ideal church, we would just go to some little church, pitch in, and help the pastor by doing whatever he wanted us to do. We had seen a little old church from the freeway that only had a few cars. The Sunday we visited, there were fourteen people present, nine of whom were visitors. We found out that the pastor was preaching his last sermon the next week. In conversations with the elder of the church, I learned that no one was scheduled to take over, and there was some talk of the church closing its doors. The church was called Christian Community Church (CCC) and was associated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance organization. I told the elder that I had been a pastor of the C&MA some years before in Santa Cruz, California, and I would preach for a week or two until some action was taken about the future of the church. He was overjoyed. The next week I was invited to meet with Rev. Bill Vaughn, the district superintendent,120 who was visiting in Phoenix, and he asked me to take over the church. As the funds were not sufficient to provide a living salary, I was hesitant. Having gone through financial difficulty before, I did not want to go there again. I prayed about it, seeking some kind of confirmation from God. While praying, I considered the idea of trying to raise money from the many former SDA friends we had. I did not like the idea of asking for money, but it would be something that would be a blessing to the church. I started calling, and in just a few days, I had enough commitments to allow me to accept this position.
Carolyn started her real estate career, and I started pastoring with less than ten members. I went door to door inviting people to come, outlining my vision for the church, and people came. Our music consisted of playing worship music tapes on a little cassette player. One lady later told us she came because she felt sorry for us. During the next several years, God blessed our efforts. We saw our group grow to over 150, had many baptisms, a good youth program, a worship team, and did major church remodeling.
I worked hard at sermon preparation and usually preached without any notes. One Sunday after preaching without notes, something happened. After the service I lost my memory. I could not even remember the topic or passage I had preached on just a few minutes before. I tried to get into my car which had combination buttons to unlock the door, but I could not remember the combination which I had used for several years. Carolyn said that I repeated myself over and over again that day. She took me to the emergency room, and after many tests, the doctor’s concluded that I had experienced a mini-stroke. I also started having a number of other physical symptoms that caused me much frustration.
During my ministry at CCC I also became more involved with former Adventist ministries with increasing book sales. Also, at this time, I started the periodical, Proclamation! I spent many hours talking with Adventists, and Adventist pastors who were seeking answers. This, along with my declining health, caused me to retire from active pastoral ministry again and allowed me to spend more time with ministry to transitioning Adventists.
As my health allowed, I joined Carolyn in real estate and continued working with Life Assurance Ministries, enlarging and revising Sabbath in Crisis into Sabbath in Christ, printing The Truth About Seventh-day Adventist “Truth”, reprinting Cultic Doctrine and printing several other books authored by former Adventists.
Working with several Spanish-speaking former Seventh- day Adventists, we translated several of our books into Spanish.
Now, in January of 2008, we are in reasonably good health working with Richard and Colleen Tinker in Life Assurance Ministries, Inc., writing many articles for Proclamation! and working with our ever-expanding mailing database which is at this writing about 35,000. I just finished a major revision of the Truth about Adventist “Truth”. I am now finishing this book and have another huge project in view.
I feel God is calling us to expand our ministry to questioning, transitioning and former Seventh-day Adventists and to help evangelical pastors and lay members learn how to better minister to the approximately 470,000 Adventist members who leave that church every year.
I feel God is calling us to expand our ministry to questioning, transitioning and former Seventh-day Adventists and to help evangelical pastors and lay members learn how to better minister to the approximately 470,000 Adventist members who leave that church every year.
One of the biggest encouragements of our lives has been the hundreds, if not thousands, of letters and emails we receive from people who have read our articles and books. Many tell us they have been freed from the errors of Adventism and have come to a personal relationship with Christ and a better understanding of the simple, new covenant gospel of God’s abundant grace in Christ.
Carolyn and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in June, 2007. Both our dear boys, Bruce and Mike, were present with their wives and our four grandchildren. Also attending were many of our friends: Adventists, former Adventists, neighbors and people from the church we now attend. It was one of the highlights of our journey together.
We feel so blessed to have traveled our spiritual journey together, and we look forward to many more years of active ministry as God leads, blesses us with health and provides for our needs, according to the promises of His trustworthy Word. Looking back, we thank God for His sovereign grace.
He truly has worked all things together for good.
NEXT WEEK: “CHRISTIAN”
ENDNOTES
116. The title of this work has been changed to The Clear Word. However, his copy and the copy that I purchased shortly thereafter were both titled, The Clear Word Bible.
117. Now revised and enlarged in Sabbath in Christ.
118. This was Joe Tkach Senior, now deceased.
119. I have never seen the video but this is what I have been told by several WWCOG pastors.
120. Comparable to the conference president in the Adventist organization.
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