Church

Religious Liberty and the Church

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We do not believe in putting too much confidence in impressions; however, we all have them. Recently I came across the notes of a sermon preached by my brother, Marshall, in Australia during the late 1980s. Though I had not heard it, I was aware of the concepts therein, as I was publicly challenged by a number of his elders and deacons denying those things to be really true.

Some people think that the church will continue to sink downwards into more and more apostasy and then, all of a sudden, bang, at the end, it is just going to spring up perfect. That is not the way it works. If you go deeper and deeper into apostasy, the end result is destruction.

God’s great desire is that He might have a pure and glorious church that is without spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Ephesians 5:27). Each church member has been called to be a steward guarding its spiritual interests, but as Jesus warned, while men slept, an enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat (Matthew 13:25).

God has ordained four basic ways to purify the church and protect it from being taken over by the tares.

New Members

The church is to exercise loving and judicious care when accepting new members into the church. “When a person presents himself as a candidate for church membership, we are to examine the fruit of his life, and leave the responsibility of his motive with himself. But great care should be exercised in accepting members into the church; for Satan has his specious devices through which he purposes to crowd false brethren into the church, through whom he can work more successfully to weaken the cause of God.” Evangelism, 313.

Baptism represents a death to sin. By it, the candidate makes a statement that he/she has chosen to leave his/her sinful life behind and walk in newness of life, a life that is in harmony with God’s law. This, according to the New Testament, is the condition of the person who is welcomed into church membership. It needs to be remembered that the church is not a club for saints; it is a hospital for sinners. The person who has not made a decision for baptism and chooses to live in sin should also be welcome to come to church, but that person who is openly living in sin, or one who has violated his/her baptismal vow and continues to live in sin, cannot be a church member.

Church Members

Matthew 18:15–17 spells out clearly the procedure to follow when a brother sins against a brother. If I sin against you, you are to come to me and speak with me about what I have done against you. But, if I will not listen to you, you then are to take one or two more and come and talk to me and say, “Look; what you have done is wrong.” If I still refuse to listen after the first two steps, then the matter is to be taken to the church.

Incidentally, Matthew 18 is not referring to difference of opinion. If you look in the Greek text, Jesus said, “If your brother sin against you.” This is specifically referring to a sin, breaking one of the last six commandments against you. The counsel is to labor with that person. If the sin is never acknowledged, the results will be disastrous. “If the sins of the people are passed over by those in responsible positions, His frown will be upon them, and the people of God, as a body, will be held responsible for those sins. In His dealings with His people in the past the Lord shows the necessity of purifying the church from wrongs. One sinner may diffuse darkness that will exclude the light of God from the entire congregation.” Testimonies, vol. 3, 265.

Open sin must not be allowed in the church. That does not mean that the open sinner cannot be saved, but the person who is living in open sin and continues in open sin cannot remain in the church, according to the teaching of Matthew 18.

Judgments

This is not our favorite way of purifying the church; however, it is one way that God uses. In response to the prayers of his servants, God sends judgments on the church. Elijah prayed because of the sins of the children of Israel and God sent judgments so that it did not rain for three years and 6 months, or 1,260 days, on that land (I Kings 17).

In the early church, judgments came upon Ananias and Sapphira who sold property and then lied saying they had given all of the proceeds to the church while keeping back part of the money for themselves (Acts 5:2). The problem was not that they kept some of the money; they could have offered half or a portion of the proceeds, but they lied. Peter said to them, “You have not lied to men, you have lied to God, because you have lied to the Holy Spirit” (Acts 5:4). Ananias immediately fell dead and three hours later his wife came in and told the same lie. Peter said, “The same people that carried your husband out will carry you out.” Immediately she dropped down dead. Verses 5, 7–10.

Ellen White writes about this. She says, “The Spirit of truth revealed to the apostles the real character of these pretenders, and the judgments of God rid the church of this foul blot upon its purity. This signal evidence of the discerning Spirit of Christ in the church was a terror to hypocrites and evildoers. They could not long remain in connection with those who were, in habit and disposition, constant representatives of Christ.” The Great Controversy, 44. This judgment kept unconverted people from joining the church, but it did not prevent them from soul winning and believers were multiplied to the church.

In our own denominational history as Seventh-day Adventists, God has also sent judgments because of backsliding into apostasy.

In 1902, there were two fires that burned down two of the headquarter institutions. Ellen White wrote, “In visions of the night I saw a sword of fire hung out over Battle Creek.

“Brethren, God is in earnest with us. I want to tell you that if after the warnings giving in these burnings the leaders of our people go right on, just as they have done in the past, exalting themselves, God will take the bodies next. Just as surely as He lives, He will speak to them in a language that they cannot fail to understand.” The Publishing Ministry, 171. That is a scary statement, if the lesson is not learned! Next time, it will not be the buildings; it will be the bodies. It is clear by this statement that judgments are not over yet.

Preaching the Straight Testimony

God purifies His church through the preaching of the straight testimony. This is also referred to in Revelation 3:14–22.

“The searching testimony of the Spirit of God will separate those from Israel who have ever been at war with the means that God has ordained to keep corruptions out of the church. Wrongs must be called wrongs. Grievous sins must be called by their right name. All of God’s people should come nearer to Him. … Then will they see sin in the true light and will realize how offensive it is in the sight of God. The plain, straight testimony must live in the church, or the curse of God will rest upon His people as surely as it did upon ancient Israel because of their sins.” Testimonies, vol. 5, 676.

These four methods are God’s true ways for maintaining and purifying the church and there is going to be a pure church when Jesus comes. We just read it in Ephesians 5:27 and you can read the same thing in Revelation 19:7, 8 and also in I John 3.

There is also another method being used. It is more popular than any of the four methods previously mentioned, but it is a counterfeit and produces the exact opposite result. People think that it will purify the church, but because it involves apostasy, it leads the church astray every time. Throughout the ages, church legislation and persecution have been the most popular method used to try to preserve and purify the church.

Whenever the church has tried to maintain church order by giving power to its hierarchy or ruling group to control its members, it has always, without exception, led to apostasy and persecution. This was the condition of the church in the days of Jesus. The leaders had assumed such great authority over the members that if they professed faith in Jesus, they were disfellowshipped (John 9). However, this control did not keep the church pure, protecting it from the abuse of sin. In fact, it did just the opposite. It protected the church from receiving the straight testimony which God sent to them through John the Baptist, His Son and the apostles, in order for it to become pure. It was the hierarchy, the leaders, who prevented the people from accepting Jesus. They had such a strong hold on the people that the only way they could receive the straight testimony was for the power of the hierarchy to be broken.

Ellen White said, “Through their reverence for tradition and their blind faith in a corrupt priesthood, the people were enslaved. These chains Christ must break. The character of the priests, rulers, and Pharisees must be more fully exposed.” The Desire of Ages, 611, 612. “For a time it had seemed that the people of Galilee would receive Jesus as the Messiah, and that the power of the hierarchy in that region would be broken.” Ibid., 395. It was impossible to accept Jesus as the Messiah unless first, the power of the hierarchy was broken.

This same experience was repeated during the Dark Ages. Never before or since has the church assumed more control, resulting in greater persecution. The more the church exercised control through its leadership, the more it sank into apostasy. In 1414, a church council was called to eradicate apostasy and bring in reformation. It was decided to depose one of the popes who was corrupt and also to burn John Huss at the stake. Persecution was the council’s favorite way in their attempt to purify the church.

During the Protestant Reformation the reformers sought to break the power of the hierarchy over the people in the same way that Jesus did in His ministry, but those who blindly yielded reverence to the church leadership rejected the Protestant Reformation. Ellen White wrote concerning Wycliffe, the morning star of the reformation, “He fearlessly arraigned the hierarchy before the national council and demanded a reform of the enormous abuses sanctioned by the church.” The Great Controversy, 89. She goes on to say, “The fears of the hierarchy were roused, and persecution was opened against the disciples of the gospel.” Ibid., 97. That happened in England. The same thing happened in Germany. The church sought to intimidate with threats and cajole the Protestant leaders to once again accept the hierarchy with promises, but they realized that, “The re-establishment of the Romish hierarchy … would infallibly bring back the ancient abuses.” The Great Controversy, 199.

Concerning the future, Ellen White writes, “When the leading churches of the United States, … will have formed an image of the Roman hierarchy, and the infliction of civil penalties upon dissenters will inevitably result.” Ibid., 445. During the Dark Ages the church controlled the state and therefore anything done against the church became a civil crime. The image will do the same. One of the chief differences between the Protestants and the Romanists was the way in which the church was structured, but things are changing.

“There is an increasing indifference concerning the doctrines that separate the reformed churches from the papal hierarchy. … The time was when Protestants placed a high value upon liberty of conscience which has been so dearly purchased.” The Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 4, 380.

Hierarchicalism always leads to religious persecution and a curtailment of religious liberty, because it denies the Lordship of Jesus Christ in practice. By profession the church acknowledges it, but in practice, it is denied. God ordained that there should be judicious administration and shepherd-like leadership for the furtherance of the gospel, but never at any time were lines of control given to human authority.

The Bible says, “He [Jesus Christ] is the head of the body.” Colossians 1:18. The body is the church. Jesus Christ is the head of the body, the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have preeminence. Whenever a person assumes undue authority in the church, which authority belongs only to Christ, the church is automatically brought into apostasy because Christ is always the head.

The usurping of authority is the sin of the beast power. “Let no one deceive you by any means; for that day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God [hierarchy] in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” II Thessalonians 2:3.

This is also a danger within the Seventh-day Adventist church as well as in other churches and we need to learn the lessons of history. The Lord foresaw this developing in our own church and sent faithful warnings through Ellen White to our church leaders.

“The spirit of domination is extending to the presidents of our conferences. …

“They are following in the track of Romanism.”

This was being done by exerting a spirit of domination, putting a man or a group of men in the place of God.

“If a man … seeks to exercise dominion over his brethren, feeling that he is invested with authority to make his will the ruling power, the best and only safe course is to remove him, lest great harm be done and he lose his own soul and imperil the souls of others.” Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 362.

The New Testament church had a simple organization that was efficient, but not hierarchical in nature. There was cooperation, but not control. For example, the apostle Paul tried to cooperate with his brethren, but did not ask permission from the church in Jerusalem to speak or raise up churches in Corinth or Philippi or the other towns that he visited. One of his greatest concerns and sternest warnings was concerning the possibility of undue control being exerted over the local members of the church by some outside force, in fact, the leadership from Jerusalem. Notice, Paul called the elders (plural) of the church at Ephesus and said, “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.” Acts 20:28–31.

Paul’s concern, over which he stressed with great emotional appeal for three years, was that there would arise leaders in this church who would seek to draw attention to themselves and become a controlling power. He told the elders that they, not he, singular, but they, plural, were to be shepherds of the flock, not set above the flock and to keep this from happening. They were to guard the church from the wolves in sheep’s clothing, the wolves from outside and the wolves from the local congregation, and those who were visiting from a conference or some other church.

This had already been demonstrated in the churches that Paul had established in Galatia. Elders had been selected in the local churches (Acts 14:23). These churches were not independent of the body, but they were highly self-directed and self-sustained and locally organized. A situation arose when leading brethren came from the headquarters church in Jerusalem, namely Peter and some other brethren came from James, the two principal leaders at the headquarters, to minister to these churches in Galatia. Now remember, these people in Galatia had been pagan idolaters and had recently converted to the truth of Christianity. Peter and the other men who came had grown up being taught the Scriptures and had never been involved in worshiping idols.

The Galatians had a tremendous amount of respect for these leaders who had come to them from Jerusalem and it had a terrible effect on the whole congregation. Paul was unsparing in his denunciation of the Galatian leaders for allowing the leaders from Jerusalem to bring apostasy into that church. He said to them, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth?” Galatians 3:1. Notice he does not say, “What has bewitched you?” He says, “Who has bewitched you?” referring to the people who had this influence over them. Paul’s concern was what would happen in the future if the leaders of this church did not protect the church, if they were so weak as to be influenced by these outside forces, by these people from the headquarters church.

Have you ever wondered what Paul would say if he visited our churches today? Is it possible that he would say, “O you foolish churches? Who has influenced you to yield the high standard of truth and practice that was once manifested in your movement?” Paul told the Galatians to, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” Galatians 5:1. That yoke of bondage he referred to was not just circumcision and the law. If you look at the context of this question in Galatians 3:1 you will see that the yoke of bondage was bondage to leadership that had caused them to waver on a point of doctrine and teaching. He goes on to say, “This persuasion does not come from He who called you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. But he who troubles you … [the leadership from Jerusalem] shall bear his judgment. For you, brethren, have been called to liberty.” Galatians 5:8–10, 13. Paul was concerned about the influence that caused them to apostatize. He was very, very fearful of hierarchal forms of church government that would cause people to look to church councils and leaders for direction rather than the Holy Spirit.

The churches were to be grafted to Jesus Christ, cooperating with each other, and not to develop a human organization, a hierarchy.

This is the kind of organizational purity that has to come back into the church in order for the pentecostal blessings to return. Organizational purity and doctrinal purity go hand in hand and cannot be separated. It is not possible to have doctrinal purity with impure organization. Simple organization and church order are set forth in the New Testament Scriptures, ordained for the unity and perfection of the church.

“The man who holds office in the church should stand as a leader, as an advisor and a counselor and helper in carrying the burdens of the work. He should be a leader in offering thanksgiving to God. But he is not appointed to order and command the Lord’s laborers. The Lord is over His heritage. He will lead His people if they will be led of the Lord in the place of assuming a power God has not given them.” Loma Linda Messages, 464.

Ellen White then said to study I Corinthians 12 and 13 and Acts 15 and learn how the church is to be managed and operated. Again, she continued to write and say that many of the great difficulties that have come into our work are because of this very problem, people wanting to control and rule God’s work. As the church began to grow in the latter part of the 19th century, Ellen White began to warn, over and over, against the kingly power that was coming into the Seventh-day Adventist church. She wrote,

“The high-handed power that has been developed, as though position has made men gods, makes me afraid, and ought to cause fear. It is a curse wherever and by whomsoever it is exercised.” Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 361.

Many people, when beginning to run or operate churches, had very good motives, desiring to do what was right. But, as time went on, they thought that they should be in control and rule so that the church could have prosperity and grow faster. Ellen White said,

“Rule, rule has been their course of action. Satan has had an opportunity of representing himself.” Ibid., 363. “Let me entreat our state conferences and our churches to cease putting their dependence upon men and making flesh their arm. … Our churches are weak because the members are educated to look to and depend upon human resources.” Ibid., 380.

Hierarchicalism leads directly into apostasy and ultimately persecution. How does that happen? When somebody stands up and proclaims a message from God like John the Baptist or one of the prophets or one of the reformers in the 16th century, the hierarchy persecutes the one who protests. It led to the burning of martyrs during the Dark Ages and the imprisonment and death of God’s prophets and messengers throughout history. It also led to the crucifixion of Christ. This very same thing will lead to persecution in any church, including the Seventh-day Adventist church. Initially, the scribes and Pharisees would never have thought they were capable of putting someone to death, but the time came when they reasoned that they had to crucify Jesus in order to preserve the integrity of the church. Caiaphas actually said that if they did not get rid of Jesus they would be wiped out (John 11:47–50). The cross was a last resort after they had tried everything else to stop His ministry. “They regarded themselves as patriots, who were seeking the nation’s salvation.” The Desire of Ages, 541.

Today, we are Protestants and have the heritage of both the Bible and the New Testament church, the Protestant Reformation, and in America, the rich heritage of religious liberty. Concerning this heritage, Ellen White wrote, “This principle we in our day are firmly to maintain. The banner of truth and religious liberty held aloft by the founders of the gospel church and by God’s witnesses during the centuries that have passed since then, has, in this last conflict, been committed to our hands. The responsibility for this great gift rests with those whom God has blessed with a knowledge of His Word. We are to receive this word as supreme authority. We are to recognize human government as an ordinance of divine appointment, and teach obedience to it as a sacred duty, within its legitimate sphere. But when its claims conflict with the claims of God, we must obey God rather than men. God’s word must be recognized as above all human legislation. A ‘Thus saith the Lord’ is not to be set aside for a ‘Thus saith the church’ or a ‘Thus saith the state.’ The crown of Christ is to be lifted above the diadems of earthly potentates.” The Acts of the Apostles, 68, 69.

As standard bearers of the concept of the heritage of religious liberty, we cannot imagine that the Adventist church would ever become persecutors. But if hierarchicalism develops in a church, we have seen what always happens. We think that we could never do anything like the Jewish leaders did or like the Catholic hierarchy did during the Dark Ages, but we have already done it. In one situation a disfellowshiped preacher was first fined, then thrown into prison. What was his crime? He had a sign erected that said, “This is a Seventh Day Adventist church.” Because it was not under the control of the church hierarchy, he was put in prison. This happened in the United States, the land of the free, and this man was only set free after a prolonged court battle.

This proceeding was perpetrated by the General Conference in union with the state and it was financed, by the way, with the tithe money of the members of the church. Whether that man was theologically right or wrong is not the point. The church appealed to the strong arm of the state to enforce its will—its decree. When the authority will be employed by the church to accomplish her own ends, then the church has made an image to the beast. See The Great Controversy, 443.

This may be difficult to hear, but the Seventh-day Adventist church structure has been in the process of building an image to the beast for over twenty years. There have been other people, especially in communist countries, who have found themselves first disfellowshiped and then persecuted by the state in coordination with the church.

This is a testimony by Marshall when giving this sermon: “I personally have traveled to Hungary on several occasions and met with hundreds of disfellowshiped and persecuted brethren of that country. These dear brothers and sisters are true Seventh-day Adventists but simply gave the straight testimony of the involvement of the church in state politics and interdenominational ecumenicalism. Their message was given directly to the church leaders by ordained pastors and committed laymen and the response was, they were all disfellowshiped without a trial—over a thousand of them. Although the review acknowledged that the whole process was illegal, nevertheless, by the total silence of our leaders to even reprimand the offenders of this case, and by the continued barring of all the disfellowshiped members from all official church functions or activities, and by the admitting of the perpetrators of this persecution into the official activities of the General Conference, they have fully condoned their actions as a corporate entity. Now Hungary,” he says, “is just an example. The same thing has happened in Africa and other places. We have been traveling down the same dark road as was traveled by the church in the time of Christ and again during the Dark Ages, disfellowshiping and firing pastors here and there to give many examples, not just in the United States but in Europe, and other countries.”

It was this road—hierarchicalism, leading to persecution—that caused Ellen White to tremble. She said,

“My heart trembles in me when I think what a foe we have to meet, and how poorly we are prepared to meet him. The trials of the children of Israel, and their attitude just before the first coming of Christ, have been presented before me again and again to illustrate the position of the people of God in their experience before the second coming of Christ.” Selected Messages, Book 1, 406.

“At the time of the first advent of Christ to our world, the men who composed the Sanhedrin exercised their authority in controlling men according to their will. Thus the souls whom Christ had given his life to free from the bondage to Satan were brought under bondage to him in another form.” Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 361.

The very people that Christ had died to deliver from the bondage of Satan were brought under bondage to him in another form, through the church. That is what will happen just before the Second Coming. It has already happened!

For many years Ellen and James White fought to establish church organization. She stated, “Without some form of organization there would be great confusion, and the work would not be carried forward successfully.” Ibid., 26. Heaven is a place of order and God cannot bless disorganization. However, organization was never intended to become controlling in nature and hinder the preaching of the straight testimony or to persecute those who gave it and dictate how God should direct the work. Organization was never intended for the purpose of wresting the local churches out of the hands of the local members so that they became mere pawns in the hands of the leadership and the ministry. The leadership was to lead by example, prayer and faith, but not by commanding. The organization was not to restrict and control, but only to coordinate and promote the work, the preaching of the gospel and the straight testimony.

The devil fought so hard when James and Ellen White were trying to establish order and organization in the Adventist church that it took about twenty years before they could even become organized. Finally, when it did become organized in 1863 and the devil lost that battle, he switched his tactics to try to make them over-organized so that within four years of organization Ellen White wrote, “I dreamed I was in Battle Creek looking out from the side glass at the door and saw a company marching up to the house, two and two. They looked stern and determined. I knew them well and turned to open the parlor door to receive them, but thought I would look again. The scene was changed. The company now presented the appearance of a Catholic procession. One bore in his hand a cross [ceremonialism], another a reed [the scepter of a king]. And as they approached, the one carrying a reed made a circle around the house, saying three times: ‘this house is proscribed. The goods must be confiscated. They have spoken against our holy order.’ ” Testimonies, vol. 1, 578. She saw in that vision that the order of church organization had become controlling and persecuting in nature. From that time on she was fought constantly by church officials. Just like all the other prophets who were persecuted during their lifetime, now that she is dead she is revered, but the persecution continues against those who repeat her concerns.

In 1888, God gave the church a message through two young ministers, E. J. Waggoner and A. T. Jones, but the brethren thought that they should not be allowed to give it until they first had their permission. The issue was Christ our Righteousness. Ellen White’s main concern at that time was not about the doctrine, but the issue of organization and control by church organization which was also contained in that message. Referring to Christ our Righteousness, she said, “God designs that men shall use their minds and consciences for themselves. He never designed that one man should become the shadow of another, and utter only another’s sentiments. But this error has been coming in among us, that a very few are to be mind, conscience, and judgment for all God’s workers. The foundation of Christianity is ‘Christ our Righteousness.’ Men are individually responsible to God and must act as God acts upon them, not as another human mind acts upon their mind; for if this method of indirect influence is kept up, souls can not be impressed and directed by the great I AM. They will, on the other hand, have their experience blended with another, and will be kept under a moral restraint, which allows no freedom of action or of choice.” The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, 112.

“The Lord will never sanction the exercise of arbitrary authority. … Yet these things have been manifest in the management of the affairs in connection with the work in Battle Creek. Words cannot express too strongly the offensive character of the disposition to rule or ruin which has for years been revealed, and which has been strengthening by exercise. …

“Plans are set on foot for restricting the liberty of workers. Through these oppressive plans, men who should stand free in God are trammeled by restrictions from those who are only their fellow-laborers. …

“Our people, who talk of religious liberty, have lessons to learn as to what liberty in Christ really is. The Lord has marked the oppression that has been practiced.” The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, 1357, 1358.

Here in the United States of America, we are privileged to be living in a country that has been made strong and prosperous because of the principles of religious liberty. The Christian exiles who first fled to America and sought an asylum here from royal oppression and priestly intolerance decided that they were going to found a government in this country upon the broad foundation of civil and religious liberty. It was these principles of civil and religious liberty that are the secret of the prosperit and power of the United States of America. It is these same principles that are the secret for prosperity and peace within the church. In fact, the church is the place where religious liberty needs to start. This liberty is not a license to bring false doctrines into the pulpit or to bring in disorderly elements within the congregation, but religious liberty does give freedom of speech, freedom to dissent, freedom of the press without recourse to the law or defamation of character. When there are doctrinal differences, we need to be able to get together and talk those over, frankly and fairly. Error needs to be called by its right name. The problem is, when any kind of error can be taught within a system, if you tell the truth and you are not in the system, it will be rejected. That is how it was in the days of Jesus, so God chose a different channel through which to work. As it was when Jesus was here the first time, it will be again, right at the end of the world.

In the last days, God is going to work apart from those who have tried to control His work and persecute those whom they could not control. Ellen White described it this way:

“The Lord will work in this last work in a manner very much out of the common order of things, and in a way that will be contrary to any human planning. There will be those among us who will always want to control the work of God, to dictate even what movements shall be made when the work goes forward under the direction of the angel who joins the third angel in the message to be given to the world. God will use ways and means by which it will be seen that He is taking the reigns in His own hands. The workers will be surprised by the simple means that He will use to bring about and perfect His work of righteousness.” Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 300.

God’s church is going to be purified and perfected again, just like it was in the early church, but it is going to happen through God’s methods. It is not going to happen through the control of ecclesiastical power curtailing religious freedom.

It is predicted in Isaiah 4 that there is coming a time when everyone who is listed among the living in Jerusalem will be holy. You may think yourself too much of a sinner to be part of that group, but there is a way out. Jesus died to take away the guilt of your sins, to take away the power of sin in your life, to deliver you from your old ways and cover you with His robe of righteousness. But, you can only have it in God’s appointed way. When we try to do God’s work in our own way, we end up ruining it. We must learn the lesson of religious liberty if we are going to have a part in God’s final work.

Pastor John Grosboll is Director of Steps to Life and pastors the Prairie Meadows Church in Wichita, Kansas. He may be contacted by e-mail at: historic@stepstolife.org, or by telephone at: 316–788–5559.

Is it Alright to Skip Church?

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While preaching in Texas about 20 years ago, I was approached by a man who told me about his grandfather whose desire it had been to see Jesus return in his lifetime, but he had died and Jesus still had not returned. The man then told me about his father who had also wanted to see Jesus come, but he died. He also thought that he would live to see Jesus come, but he was 70 years of age, and that was in 1987.

There have been millions of people who, expecting to see Jesus come during their lifetime, prepared to meet Him. They accepted the Three Angels’ Messages, the truths concerning the hour of God’s judgment, faithfully kept God’s commandments and expected to be ready to see Jesus when He comes, but in their time they have died. We are told that these faithful ones who accepted the truth of the Three Angels’ Messages and died before Jesus returns will see Him come. Before the general resurrection that happens when Jesus comes, there is to be a special resurrection for these people to see the final events and Jesus coming in the clouds. “All who have died in the faith of the third angel’s message come forth from the tomb glorified, to hear God’s covenant of peace with those who have kept His law.” The Great Controversy, 637.

“In the time of trouble we all fled from the cities and villages, but were pursued by the wicked, who entered the houses of the saints with a sword. They raised the sword to kill us, but it broke, and fell as powerless as a straw. Then we all cried day and night for deliverance, and the cry came up before God. The sun came up, and the moon stood still. The streams ceased to flow. Dark, heavy clouds came up and clashed against each other. But there was one clear place of settled glory, whence came the voice of God like many waters, which shook the heavens and the earth. The sky opened and shut and was in commotion. The mountains shook like a reed in the wind, and cast out ragged rocks all around. The sea boiled like a pot and cast out stones upon the land. And as God spoke the day and the hour of Jesus’ coming and delivered the everlasting covenant to His people, He spoke one sentence, and then paused, while the words were rolling through the earth.” Early Writings, 34. It is at that time that the everlasting covenant will be delivered to His people.

Ellen White wrote, in 1913, that if we had done our work, Christ could have already come. “Had the church of Christ done her appointed work as the Lord ordained, the whole world would before this have been warned, and the Lord Jesus would have come to the earth in power and great glory.” The Review and Herald, November 13, 1913. Jesus wants more than anything else to come back to this world that has been so corrupted and save His people. He is “waiting till His enemies are made His footstool.” Hebrews 10:13.

For Him to stop waiting, something needs to happen! “For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before, ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,’ then He adds, ‘Their sins and their lawless deeds I remember no more.’ Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.” Verses 14–18.

Once the new covenant has been received, sin is taken away, bringing an end to the plan of salvation. When Jesus comes to this world the second time, He is going to announce that there is no more offering for sin. Those who retain sin at that time will be lost. Those who are saved will be without sin (Revelation 22:11, 12). The plan of salvation is all over before Jesus returns the second time. We cannot look forward to that time with rejoicing unless the Holy Spirit is working in us a work of overcoming sin, because when Jesus leaves the Most Holy Place, there is no more forgiveness (Hebrews 10:18; 9:28). Since this is the way it is going to be, Paul says that we need to hold fast our confession (Hebrews 10:23), and, “having boldness to enter the Holiest” or Holy Places (verse 19). Different versions of the Bible use different language, but the Greek word is hagios, which should correctly be translated as “holy places.”

In the plan of salvation, as illustrated in the sanctuary, there are three stages, and it is necessary to go through all three stages to be saved. The first is to enter the courtyard where the sacrifice is offered. The courtyard of the heavenly sanctuary is this world. It was in this world where Jesus, represented by the lamb without blemish, offered His life on the cross to save man from sin. That sacrifice must be accepted by faith in order to receive the benefits that are provided. Paul explains in Hebrews 13 how by His blood we are sanctified, made holy, and therefore able to enter into the Holy Place. This is the first apartment of the sanctuary, which involves learning holy living. Before entering into the Holy Place it is necessary to be washed clean. That cleansing, represented by the laver, is located just outside the entrance to the Holy Place. However, it is not enough to just reach there in order to be saved. Let me illustrate:

When playing the game of baseball, even if you have run to the third base, you are not really safe and can still be put out until you get home. There are many people who think that if you just get to the courtyard and accept the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross that is all it takes to be saved. That is a deception, and it is just the first step in the Christian walk. In fact, Paul discusses that in detail in the book of Hebrews. He said that we need to not just lay down the foundation, but we need to go on to perfection (Hebrews 6:1), describing the experience of the Holy Place. The experience in the courtyard is the preparation to go into the Holy Place and the experience in the Holy Place is preparation for entry into the Most Holy Place.

In the Jewish service under the Old Covenant, opposite things happened in the Holy Place and in the Most Holy Place when throughout the year the amount of sin that accumulated in the sanctuary increased in the Holy Place. When the people confessed their sins, though the real record is in the heavenly sanctuary, the earthly record, the blood of the offering, was in type taken into the Holy Place where it stayed until the Day of Atonement. On the Day of Atonement all the sin was removed in type, and it was gone. That is what happens in reality in the heavenly sanctuary. When the sins are removed, the Lord will come.

There is coming a time, if you are a Christian, when there will be no more temptations. No more will you be tempted to be discouraged or to break God’s law in any way. At present, the devil has access to God’s people 24 hours a day every day of the week, so it is hard to even imagine not being tempted, but that time is coming. It is exciting to know that soon life will be experienced the way God intended.

Ellen White wrote, “He [God] created man for happiness.” Christ’s Object Lessons, 290. Today, that is not very obvious because of sin and all of the trouble caused by the devil’s temptations. David wrote, “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Psalm 16:11. That will be the experience of life in heaven.

Paul said we have this hope, so we are waiting for this to happen. Jesus also is waiting for this to happen, so do not let loose, hold on, do not turn away, do not turn back and do not give up your faith. When a prophet or apostle, inspired by the Holy Spirit, gives us a warning, it is because there is a danger looming. The danger is that by becoming impatient we will give up, as many others have given up waiting. Paul cautions and counsels and exhorts us to not give up. He says, “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holy Places by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.” Hebrews 10:19–23. Paul is here writing about entering by faith into the Holy Places of the heavenly sanctuary, but in that same context, he says, “Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” Verses 24, 25.

When I was a student about 19 or 20 years old, I was in a Christian institution that held regular religious services. There was prayer meeting at midweek, a religious service on Friday evenings and services on Sabbath morning, which included Sabbath School and church. I was a bookish sort of person and thought that I did not need to go to all of those religious services because I could read. I had a Bible and Spirit of Prophecy books, and I probably read more than any other student in the school at that time. I was content to just stay in my room and read on my own. Since becoming a pastor, I have met lots of other people like me.

At that same time, I became acquainted with an elderly man in his eighties who had been a Christian for many decades, and he was at the institution. After a short time, this man approached me and said, “I want to talk to you. What were you doing last Friday night? You were in your room studying your Bible, were you not?” I was in my room reading. I knew he could not get me in trouble, because I was not doing anything wrong. But then he continued, “You know, it is good that you are studying your Bible, and it is good that you are praying, but God’s will for His people is not only to study and pray, but for them to assemble together to study and to worship Him.” I thought about what he said. I actually checked things out in the Bible and found that the Bible supported what he told me.

Elder Ralph Larson, a Bible teacher, also spoke about this to our Bible worker training school students about 20 years ago. He said, “I have always told ministerial students that if you do not pray at least 30 minutes a day, your ministry will not amount to much.” We all need to have a prayer life. We all need to study. But he was talking to me: “Study is good, prayer is good but do not forget to assemble together with others to study and worship Him.” Paul emphasizes this same thing.

There are many churches where someone is assigned to note who is present and who is not present so that those who are missing can be visited; there is nothing wrong with doing that. God also keeps a record of which people assemble to worship Him and which people are not there.

“Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard them, so a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and who meditate on His name.” Malachi 3:16. These were God’s people, the ones who feared Him, those who assembled to speak to one another. God heard it, and He wrote a book of remembrance. “ ‘They shall be Mine,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘On the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.’ Then you shall again discern between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.” Verses 17, 18.

The Lord looked down and saw the people who were assembled and talking about Him. The Lord said, “Get the book. Put it in the book.” The Lord keeps a record.

After that elderly gentleman, who was about sixty years older than I was and deserving of my respect, had a talk with me giving his wise counsel, I decided I would go to the Friday evening services and not spend all that time reading my Bible alone in my room.

Right after the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit had filled the church, “They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.” Acts 2:42. One of the things that made the early church so powerful was that the people had fellowship. They were just like a family. It is going to be that way again among His people just before Jesus comes. It is exciting to think that we could be part of that group. I did not understand the importance of fellowship until after that elderly gentleman talked to me. I could never develop a close relationship with the other members of the church if I stayed in my room and never talked to them.

I am still bookish, but I try to fellowship with God’s people and not spend all my time just reading and praying on my own. Part of God’s plan is for His people to worship and fellowship together. I meet people who have told me they believe the Three Angels’ Messages, but for one reason or another, they cannot go to church. Some people have legitimate reasons, and others have all sorts of reasons for not going to church.

“But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” 1 John 1:7. If we are really walking in the light, we are going to have fellowship with one another. As I travel about, I see too many people like me, staying in their rooms, studying and praying. They are often on their own with not much fellowship; everybody doing their own thing.

The Lord specifically said what His ancient people were to do on the Sabbath: “Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings. These are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations. …” Leviticus 23:3, 4. The Sabbath is a holy convocation, a place where people assemble to worship the Lord.

Paul said, “How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.” 1 Corinthians 14:26. The word edification means to build something up. Edification takes a lot longer than destruction. A house can be destroyed in one day.

I remember when I was a senior in college the administration and the board of the college decided that they were going to destroy the old dormitory, a three-story wooden frame building that was considered a fire hazard to the surrounding buildings. A crane was brought in with a leaden bob, which was dropped onto the top two stories, causing them to collapse. When there was only one story left, they decided to burn the rest. The heat was so intense from that fire that it was felt a quarter of a block away. The fire was over in 30 minutes, and the building was destroyed very quickly. A church, a family, a marriage, an institution, can be destroyed very quickly, much faster than it can be built up.

Building something up takes time. A house can take months and lots of work. It is the same way in a church, in a marriage, in a family, in an institution; if you want to build something up, it takes time and much work. It takes time, often many months or even years to build relationships, and church is one of the places where God wants to build a fellowship, bringing many different people together to build a relationship among those who are getting ready to go to heaven. It takes work. Many people know that and use it as a reason and often an excuse for not going to church, because they are too tired and they know that it takes work. It takes even more work if you are among the members of a small church rather than if you are in a large church. That is also one of the reasons why many people gravitate toward large churches where they can sit in the pew without any responsibilities.

There is a special group of people, however, who have legitimate reason not to go to church.

Ellen White says, “There will always be duties which have to be performed on the Sabbath for the relief of suffering humanity. This is right, and in accordance with the law of Him who says, ‘I will have mercy, and not sacrifice’ [Matthew 12:7]. But there is danger of falling into carelessness on this point, and of doing that which it is not positively essential to do on the Sabbath.” Medical Ministry, 50.

Much care is needed in these cases not to be doing things on the Sabbath that could be done at other times. She also says, “Often physicians are called upon on the Sabbath to minister to the sick, and it is impossible for them to take time for rest and devotion. The Saviour has shown us by His example that it is right to relieve suffering on this day; but physicians and nurses should do no unnecessary work. Ordinary treatment, and operations that can wait, should be deferred till the next day. Let the patients know that physicians must have one day for rest.” Ibid., 214.

A physician relative told me, “I am struggling in order to study my Sabbath School lesson 15 minutes a day.” He was busy from morning till night. Mrs. White, writing to a physician, said, “Your work being always urgent, it is difficult for you to secure time for meditation and prayer; but this you must not fail to do. The blessing of Heaven, obtained by daily supplication, will be as the bread of life to your soul and will cause you to increase in spiritual and moral strength, like a tree planted by the river of waters, whose leaf will be always green, and whose fruit will appear in due time.

“Your neglect to attend the public worship of God is a serious error. The privileges of divine service will be as beneficial to you as to others and are fully as essential. You may be unable to avail yourself of these privileges as often as do many others. You will frequently be called, upon the Sabbath, to visit the sick, and may be obliged to make it a day of exhausting labor. Such labor to relieve the suffering was pronounced by our Saviour a work of mercy and no violation of the Sabbath. But when you regularly devote your Sabbaths to writing or labor, making no special change, you harm your own soul, give to others an example that is not worthy of imitation, and do not honor God.

“You have failed to see the real importance, not only of attending religious meetings, but also of bearing testimony for Christ and the truth. If you do not obtain spiritual strength by the faithful performance of every Christian duty, thus coming into a closer and more sacred relation to your Redeemer, you will become weak in moral power.” Counsels on Health, 368. This counsel was not just to attend meetings, but to take an active part in them.

The danger for this physician was that he would become weak in moral power because he could not attend church regularly. That is too high a price to pay. I have friends who have not been to church for years and when we do not listen to Divine counsel, we become weak in moral power.

I know that temptation. I succumbed to it when I was a young man and decided I did not need to go to church because I read my Bible and studied and prayed on my own. Fortunately, God spoke to me through that elderly gentleman who, without criticism or jumping on me with a tongue-lashing, simply explained to me the need of fellowship with like believers for the edification of the church.

The apostle Paul says we must exhort one another, “and so much the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25). “The Day,” the day that Jesus will come again, that is fast approaching. Someday, if you are in prison for your faith, it will be impossible to attend church because you will be behind iron bars. So take advantage of the spiritual opportunities that God places within your reach while they are available.

Someone may say, “But you do not know how tired I am.” Still, meet with God’s people on Sabbath, or you will miss the special blessing that He has for His people on His holy day. You cannot afford to continually miss it without eventually becoming weak in moral power and running the risk of losing your soul.

[Bible texts are NKJV translation.]

Pastor John J. Grosboll is Director of Steps to Life and pastors the Prairie Meadows Church in Wichita, Kansas. He may be contacted by email at: historic@stepstolife.org, or by telephone at: 316-788-5559.

A Lesson From Australia

by

In 1888 our church leaders and a large proportion of the Seventh-day Adventist church rejected the message that God sent to us through A.T. Jones and E.J. Waggoner at the Minneapolis General Conference. Ellen White, A.T. Jones, and E.J. Waggoner traveled all over the United States preaching and teaching our people, attempting to reverse the tide that had been set in motion by our leaders, but it did not work. The majority of Adventists flessonsdid not accept the message of righteousness by faith. The General Conference leaders decided they needed to get Ellen White out of the way, so they suggested that she go to Australia. She had no light from the Lord that she should go, but she said at one time when she had no light from the Lord, she followed the counsel of the brethren (see appendix part A). This statement has been quoted all over the world, but she made another statement later that she believed that she had made a mistake in going to Australia. Later the General Conference brethren wanted to get her even farther out of the way so they suggested that she go to Africa, but she would not go (see appendix part B).

She came back to the United States in 1900, just in time for the greatest crisis that the Seventh-day Adventist church would go through, up to that time. It is reported that Ellen White said in Australia in 1896, that if we had accepted the message in 1888, we would have been in the Kingdom by then. It was during the 1890s, after we had rejected the message of righteousness by faith, that we started on the long way home to the Kingdom. The long way involved the building up of many institutions.

If you look at the history of Adventist institutions, you will find that most of our colleges started in the 1890s. The college at Keene started in the 1890s; the one at Lincoln and Walla Walla started in the 1890s too. Shortly afterwards, we had two crisis General Conferences in 1901 and 1903. After the 1903 General Conference, which Ellen White said was one of the deepest disappointments of her life, the Lord chose to institute another plan for finishing His work.

Ellen White, through Divine inspiration, authorized Dr. Sutherland and Magan to begin Madison College, a self-supporting institution which she said was not to be under the control of the conference (see appendix part C). God authorized self-supporting work, work that was not under the control of the conference, and it has been under attack by the devil ever since. When Ellen White was in Australia, she was instrumental in helping them start a model school. There were two schools that were established in Ellen White’s lifetime which she spoke of as model schools. One of them was the college at Avondale; the other one was Madison College.

I recently visited Avondale College with Elder O. K. Anderson. His father was very well acquainted with Ellen White. Elder Anderson showed us around the college and showed us the place where Ellen White saw a furrow in vision and knew that this was the sight that they needed to purchase. Elder Anderson’s father was contacted and he went and investigated this property. People thought that it would not grow anything, but it became a very fertile farmland in just a few years.

Ellen White directed them to plant an apple orchard, where today they have a ball field. They had a high-producing apple and persimmon orchard on this farm. Ellen White lived at Cooranbong, just a stone’s throw from where this college was established, from 1896 to 1900. Under her direction this college was established, and the Austral-Asian Division became a flagship division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

The work progressed very rapidly; Ellen White visited both Australia and New Zealand and taught them that they had the responsibility of taking the Gospel to all of that region of the world. From Australia and New Zealand we sent missionaries to Fiji, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and to New Guinea. In addition to that, there are many small islands scattered throughout the Pacific. Before World War II, we had mission boats and our missionaries would travel from island to island.

The work was established in these islands at great sacrifice. Many of the missionaries that first went there lost their lives. We lost one of our missionaries in 1920 from Blackwater Fever. In 1966 there was a new convert to Adventism who wanted to take the Gospel to the islands, so he and his wife went to the islands. He was there for only eleven days when he was speared and lost his life. In 1988 we had a missionary who was shot and lost his life. Taking the gospel to these islands has not been without cost.

As the work progressed in these islands, everyone looked to Austral-Asia as a flagship division—a place where the Adventist work was progressing rapidly in purity. We had no idea what was going to happen, that this would be the division that would be the first to come under a tremendous attack through the new theology.

At the General Conference Session in 1980, H. M. S. Richards, Sr. referred to the possibility of losing a whole division. This attack began when Desmond Ford began to teach our ministers and theology students at Avondale College. A fight developed between Desmond Ford and many of our leading evangelists and pastors in Australia. These pastors and evangelists in Australia said that Desmond Ford was preaching heresy and something needed to be done about it. The interesting thing was that our organization would not do anything about it. Anyone in the Austral-Asian division that went to school after about 1960 was trained in this new theology. Ministers that were experienced said, “This is heresy!” But the church would not listen to them. However, it finally got so bad that something had to be done, so this is what was done:

People said, “He is just a big fish in a little pond over here in Australia. We’ll just ship him off to the United States and then he’ll be a little fish in a big pond and he won’t cause so much trouble.” So they transported the problem to the United States, and within a matter of months it became a worldwide problem. At that time Desmond Ford was “defrocked.” However, it was a situation in which outwardly he was defrocked, but actually instead he got control of a large portion of the Adventist church. New theology had already taken hold—it had taken hold in the 1940s and 1950s among some of the leading men in our seminary. In the mid 1950s we published the book Questions on Doctrine, and by the 1960s it was starting to take hold of the men who were teaching our ministers in the United States. By the 1980s it was everywhere, not just with the ministers, but all through the ranks of Adventism.

Let me just mention a few of the cardinal teachings of the new theology. The first and the main one is the teaching that you cannot keep the law of God perfectly. You can keep it, but you cannot keep it perfectly. Desmond Ford was grilled on this by his opponents; he would say, “Yes, I believe that you can keep the law of God.” So he was finally asked, “Do you believe that you can keep the law of God perfectly?” He said, “No, I don’t believe that you can keep the law of God perfectly.” That understanding is based on a certain understanding of the nature of Christ, original sin, what happened at the cross, and the meaning of the sanctuary. New theologists do not think that the Adventist doctrine concerning the sanctuary has any real relevance.

In 1979 Desmond Ford made the statement that he did not think that 1844 was relevant. If 1844 is not relevant, then our Sanctuary teaching from Daniel 8 and 9 and the book of Hebrews is not relevant. If that is not relevant, then you do not have any rational reason to be a Seventh-day Adventist, you might as well be a Seventh-day Baptist or something else. Of course, Ellen White would be a false prophet. Desmond Ford was forced to take a position on all of those things. He said that he did not believe that Ellen White had canonical authority (whatever that is)! He said that she had pastoral authority. That’s the same as denying the prophetic gift! A prophet has Divine authority!

This controversy exploded all over the United States, and we had a tremendous shaking in which we lost members from all of our large churches in the early 1980s. The effects of this liberal theology are still being felt in our conferences, institutions, and in the structure of the Seventh-day Adventist church today.

But this attack came first in Australia, and it has been there longer than any other place. The very same thing that happened there could happen in the United States if we are not thinking correctly. In Australia, as this fight between Historic Adventism and the new theology went throughout the churches, there were many ministers and laymen who were concerned, so they began to fight this liberal theology.

Colin Standish, Ron Spear, Marshall Grosboll and a number of other Historic Adventist preachers went throughout Australia preaching against this new theology. They preached about things like the nature of Christ, the Sanctuary, the Spirit of Prophecy, and all of these things that pointed out the difference between Historic Adventism and the new theology. They would get crowds of people—over a thousand—at these different meetings. By the time I was there in 1988 you were not getting crowds of over a thousand, but you could get crowds of several hundred sincere, Christian people.

But a terrible thing happened in Australia. I want to describe to you as briefly as I can, without mentioning any names, what happened. Preachers went around Australia preaching about this terrible apostasy. They preached the doctrines of Historic Adventism, and the people believed it. But there was one fatal flaw, and if we do not learn our lesson, the same thing that is happening there will happen in other places. Here is what many preachers were telling the people: “In spite of all this apostasy, in spite of this new theology, the church is the church.” Have you ever heard that expression? “The church is the church.”

What do people mean when they say that “the church is the church?” This organized church, this conference structure—that is the church, and you have to stay in there and fight it out. Let us just think this through a little bit. Suppose that you are in a mental and a spiritual battle with the forces of darkness. You are supposed to fight it out, but when you go to fight it out, all you can do is sit in the pew—you cannot say anything! The other side has the pulpit and control of who speaks all the time. Who do you think is going to win?

In Revelation 3, what is the big problem among the people of God in the last days? They think they are all right! People got the idea, “I’m not part of the new theology, I believe the Historic Adventist doctrines, but I’m going to stay here.” So they stayed; they kept going to church. And over a period of time their convictions, their fervor, their zeal, their burden for lost souls just seemed to disappear. Why? Because of the preaching they were listening to. Don’t you ever let anybody tell you that where you go to church and what kind of preaching you listen to has no affect on your soul’s salvation. It does!! If you go listen to people that are preaching the new theology or easy-going sermons, it is going to have an affect on you. God is not going to work a miracle to cover up or take away the effect of your presumption, when you go and listen to that kind of preaching.

Do you know what has happened in Australia today? I have talked to some very concerned people who have been there and watched this whole thing develop, some have even lost their own children! They decided that they needed to keep going to these churches. The new theology people had control of the pulpit, and as they kept going there year after year after year, finally they got calmed down. And at the same time they got calmed down, the apostasy got worse.

There are still some today who are trying to tell the people that they need to stay in the conference churches. They have had evangelists come in from the United States who have had evangelistic meetings, and they have had twenty to twenty-five people get ready for baptism. But they said, “We’ve got to keep these people in the church structure; take them to a conference church.” And after a few months, they do not have anything to show for. Either the people leave the church, or what is even worse, they become Laodicean, they get calmed down. There is almost no protest going against the apostasy.

I spoke at three different places in Australia, and in every place that I spoke, it was a place that just happened to have a home church, and so people came. These people were still alive spiritually, they were not totally asleep. The places that are still alive are the places where there are home churches. We need to pray for a miracle in Australia; it used to be one of the strongest divisions in Adventism, and, at the present time, it is one of the weakest.

I do not want to see what happened in Australia happen here in the United States. We are going to have to tell everyone, “You cannot keep going where the new theology is being preached and people say, Just believe in the Lord, trust Him! Everything will be all right.” If you go and listen to that, you will get calmed down and will go to sleep. Jude 3 says that we are to contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered to the saints. The word contend literally means fight. There is a time to fight; there is a worldwide battle going on in Adventism. If you just sit and get calmed down, the devil will put you to sleep and the end result will be that you will lose your soul.

Here is what has developed in the Austral-Asian Division. Eight years ago, when all this was going on in Australia that I described, I was over there for the first time. I was told that all of these awful things that are going on in Australia and New Zealand had not gotten out to the islands. How long do you think that would last if things keep getting worse in Australia, which calls the shots in the islands? It should not be impossible to figure out that the time is coming when the same thing that is going on in Australia and New Zealand is going to start up in the islands; it did in the early 1990s. The same thing that has happened in Australia and New Zealand is now taking place in the islands.

But there is one difference: Evan Sadler has been up to these islands and they have figured out that they have to stay together as a church. You have to have a church of people that believe the same way, you have to meet together, exhort one another, and help one another get to Heaven. You cannot stay in an apostate church! We are hoping that we will have a completely different outcome in the islands. There has been an effort to crush the revival and reformation movement in all the islands, but it has not been possible. God has raised up people to proclaim the Adventist message in Fiji, Vanuatu, in the Solomon Islands, and in Papua New Guinea.

In Papua New Guinea, when Livingston Kul was raised up by the Lord to preach, he did not intend to be a preacher. He already had a very good job, a nice home and was better off than most of the people on the island. He left his good job and went to get trained to be a minister. Not too long ago, Livingston Kul got in trouble with the conference because he was preaching the Three Angels’ Messages on the street. There were so many Roman Catholics that were listening to him that one of the Catholic clergy went and talked to one of the leaders of the Adventist mission. The president of the Adventist mission called Pastor Kul into his office and told him, “We want you to quit preaching on the street.” Livingston Kul was convicted that he was doing what the Lord wanted him to do, so he said, “I will never, never, never quit!” A short time afterwards the Adventist mission did not have any money to pay him anymore.

Now he was without a job and he did not know what to do, so he started praying. The Lord led him to start teaching laymen how to be street preachers, and he has organized a force of street evangelists. Seventeen people were disfellowshipped because they were supporting Livingstone Kul and all these street preachers. When they were disfellowshipped, eight churches said, “We’re going with them.” Now the revival and reformation movement has about twenty churches. These lay preachers are going out and they are shaking Papua New Guinea.

Right now they are going through a similar experience to what Australia went through fifteen years ago. I hope that the outcome will be much different. What is it that will make the outcome different? You must gather all the people that want to do the Lord’s will and organize. You need to have regular meetings and organize for evangelism.

One of the things I learned when I visited Australia was that if I want my religious experience to stay hot, I have something to do. I need to be part of a church that has regular meetings, that is organized and has discipline, where we help each other get to heaven.

The purpose of the church is two-fold. 1. We are to send out a warning message to a lost world in an organized way. 2. We are to help those inside the church get ready for heaven. Where you are going to church is either helping you get ready for heaven or for hell—one or the other. It would be better to be in a little home church with six or eight people and be helping each other get ready for heaven, than to be in a great big church and just sit down and warm the pew and lose your Christian experience. Ellen White said that it was difficult to maintain a high level of Christian experience in large churches. The small churches are where the action has always been.

It is the little home church where people meet together regularly to pray and to study the word, to encourage and help each other get ready for heaven, to send out the warning message to the world—that is the places where people are going to be ready for heaven. I want to be in a place like that, do you? I want to take advantage of all the spiritual opportunities the Lord gives us, to help each other to have discipline and order, and to be ready for heaven.

 

Appendix

PART A – Australia

I have not, I think, revealed the entire workings that led me here to Australia. Perhaps you may never fully understand the matter. The Lord was not in our leaving America. He did not reveal that it was His will that I should leave Battle Creek. The Lord would have had W.C. White, his mother, and her workers remain in America. . . There was so great a willingness to have us leave, that the Lord permitted this thing to take place. Those who were weary of the testimonies borne were left without the persons who bore them. Our separation from Battle Creek was to let men have their own will and way, which they thought superior to the way of the Lord. . . . It was not the Lord who devised this matter. I could not get one ray of light to leave America. 1888 Materials, 1622, 1623

PART B – Africa

Elder Olsen, I wish to say to you, You must not make any calculation for me to go to Africa, I see no light and consistency in such a move. . . . I have not the slightest inclination to go to Europe or to visit Africa, and I have not one ray of light that I should go. I am willing to go where ever the Lord indicates my duty, but I am not willing to go at the voice of the Conference unless I see my own way closer to do so. 1888 Materials, 1263

PART C – Madison

The Lord has instructed me that, from the first, the work in Huntsville and Madison should have received adequate help. But instead of this help being rendered promptly there has been long delay. And in the matter of the Madison school, there has been a standing off from them because they were not under the ownership and control of some Conference. This is a question that should sometimes be considered, but it is not the Lord’s plan that means should be withheld from Madison, because they are not bound to the conference. The attitude which some of our brethren have assumed toward this enterprise shows that it is not wise for every working agency to be under the dictation of conference officers. There are some enterprises under certain conditions, that will produce better results if standing alone. Manuscript Releases, vol. 8, 202

The Lord does not set limits about His workers in some lines as men are wont to set. In their work, Brethren Magan and Sutherland have been hindered unnecessarily. Means have been withheld form them because in the organization and management of the Madison school, it was not placed under the control of the conference. But the reasons why this school was not owned and controlled by the conference have not been duly considered. Madison School, 31, 32

The Need for Union Conferences

There is need of a most earnest, thorough work to be carried forward now in all our churches. We are now to understand whether all our printing plants and all our sanitariums are to be under the control of the General Conference. I answer, Nay. It has been a necessity to organize union conferences, that the General Conference shall not exercise dictation over all the separate conferences. The power vested in the Conference is not to be centered in one man, or two men, or six men; there is to be a council of men over the separate divisions. Manuscript Releases, vol. 14, 279

The End

Editorial – Separation, Necessary or Just Advice?

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The Scripture says, “what participation has righteousness with lawlessness?” 2 Corinthians 6:14. The lawless are those who break one or more of God’s commandments and teach others to do so. We are to love these people enough to tell them the truth of the Three Angel’s Messages. But as long as they have heard and not accepted the Three Angels’ Messages in entirety and are not living by them, they are described in the scripture as the “unclean,” (those who break God’s law are described throughout scripture as defiled or unclean) the “children of the world,” the “children of darkness,” the “world,” and unbelievers,” etc. This does not mean that they are not professed Christians, but they are still part of what the book of Revelation calls “Babylon” and are called to come out. Revelation 14:8-12. As long as they remain in Babylon in their lawbreaking condition, God’s faithful children must be separate from them. 2 Corinthians 6:14-18. Notice how clear the counsel of God is: “Those who join themselves to worldly men, that they may carry out their unsanctified purposes, make a fearful mistake; for they forfeit the favor and blessing of God.” This Day With God, 354.

“You are not to unite with unbelievers in medical work.” Medical Ministry, 45.

“Let not God’s people in any of our institutions sign a truce with the enemy of God and man. The duty of the church to the world is not to come down to their ideas and accept their opinions, their suggestions, but to heed the words of Christ through His servant Paul. (2 Corinthians 6:14, 15 quoted.) This means in a special sense marriage with unbelievers, but it covers more ground than this: it means in our instrumentalities ordained of God, in our institutions for health, in our colleges, in our publishing houses.” Testimonies to Ministers, 271.

“The children of the world are called the children of darkness. They are blinded by the god of this world, and are led by the spirit of the prince of darkness. They cannot enjoy heavenly things. The children of light have their affections set on things above. They leave behind them the things of this world. They fulfill the command, ‘Come out from among them and be ye separate.’ Here is the conditional promise, ‘I will receive you.’ Christ from the beginning has chosen his people out of the world, and required them to be separate, having no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. If they love God and keep his commandments, they will be far from having the friendship, and loving the pleasures, of the world. There is no concord between Christ and Belial.” Review and Herald, June 25, 1861.

“’Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean.’ This means that the children of God are in no case to be contaminated with the spirit of the world, to receive its evil suggestions, nor to come under its influence. Be afraid of uniting with the world in secret societies, or of being bound in bundles with them. Be afraid of communicating to the world that which concerns the cause of God; for they would have no sympathy with those who love the truth of God.” Review and Herald, July 31, 1894

“Satan is constantly seeking to strengthen his power over the people of God by inducing them to enter into alliance with the hosts of darkness. And to accomplish this he endeavors to arouse unsanctified passions in the heart which is naturally prone to evil. It is not safe for Christians to imitate the example of the ungodly, or to yield to their influence. The wisest counsels of the wicked are not to be relied upon.” Signs of the Times, October 6, 1881.

“May the Lord bless his people with spiritual eyesight, to see that the children of God and the world can never be in copartnership. Whosoever will be the friend of the world is the enemy of God…Let us not form unholy bonds of union, with the friends of the world; for God has pronounced his curse upon all such unions…Let not the world’s direction and propositions be given to God’s people to control them. Woe be unto him whose wisdom is not from above but from beneath! Men of superficial piety, by their desire to receive patronage, to obtain fame, betray the most sacred interests into the hands of unbelievers. Let not money be obtained by touching or sanctioning any unclean practices.” Testimonies to Ministers, 276, 277.

The End

Wheat and Tares

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The parable of the wheat and the tares found in Matthew 13 is one of the few parables that Jesus explained right after it was told. A review of this parable is found in Christ’s Object Lessons, 70–74.

“Another parable He put forth unto them, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, “Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?” He said to them, “An enemy has done this.” The servants said to him, “Do you want us then to go and gather them up?” But he said, “No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at [or during] the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, ‘First gather together tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ ” Matthew 13:24–30. NKJV.

The harvest is the little period of time just before the end of the year. Jesus explains this beginning in verses 36–43: “Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, ‘Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.’ He answered and said to them: ‘He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of [or during] this age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!’ ” (NKJV)

Notice it says in verse 41 that He is going to send His angels and they are going to gather out of His kingdom. What is His kingdom? This is a parable, not just about the natural world but more specifically the spiritual world. When Jesus says that the field is the world, He is talking about the spiritual world—the church. The angels are going to gather out of the church, out of His kingdom, all things that offend and those who practice lawlessness.

Everybody is going to be bound in a bundle, one that will be burned up or one that will be taken to heaven. Right now we are living in this harvest time. It is during this time that the tares and the wheat are separated by the angels.

Some think that we just have to put up with or endure anything in the church because the wheat and the tares have to grow together. That is not what Jesus said.

“Christ has plainly taught that those who persist in open sin must be separated from the church, but He has not committed to us the work of judging character and motive.” Christ’s Object Lessons, 71.

The parable of the tares cannot be used to tolerate open sin. The person who persists in open sin is to be separated from the church. A tare is a person who has sin in the heart but is not in open sin.

Another misunderstanding of this parable is that the righteous and the wicked will be together until Jesus comes and then the angels will do the separating. But let’s read what is going to happen before that time. Before Jesus comes the tares will have been bound in bundles, even though they may not be separated from the wheat or have been burned.

“The evil servant says in his heart, ‘My lord delayeth his coming’ [Matthew 24:48]. He does not say that Christ will not come. He does not scoff at the idea of His second coming. But in his heart and by his actions and words he declares that the Lord’s coming is delayed. He banishes from the minds of others the conviction that the Lord is coming quickly. His influence leads men to presumptuous, careless delay. They are confirmed in their worldliness and stupor. Earthly passions, corrupt thoughts, take possession of the mind. The evil servant eats and drinks with the drunken, unites with the world in pleasure seeking.” The Desire of Ages, 635.

A study of the book of Revelation reveals a great harlot that is drunk causing the rest of the world to also be drunk. To eat and drink with the drunken is to get involved with the ecumenical movement. The people who call themselves Seventh-day Adventists and get involved with the ecumenical movement are eating and drinking with the drunken. The evil servant who eats and drinks with the drunken will smite his fellow servants (Matthew 24:49). Those who eat and drink with the drunken will also smite their fellow servants. This has happened in some countries where fellow church members have burned houses. Here in the United States of America some have been smitten by being taken to court and sued with an attempt made to put them in prison. Those same people who are involved in the ecumenical movement are smiting their fellow servants. “He smites his fellow servants, accusing and condemning those who are faithful to their Master. He mingles with the world. Like grows with like in transgression. It is a fearful assimilation. With the world he is taken in the snare.” Ibid., 635.

“There is One who said that the tares were not to be plucked up by human hands lest the wheat be rooted up also. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then the Lord sends forth His reapers to gather out the tares and bind them in bundles to burn, while the wheat is gathered into the heavenly garner. The time of the judgment is a most solemn period, when the Lord gathers His own from among the tares. Those who have been members of the same family are separated. A mark is placed upon the righteous.” Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 234. One is taken and one is left.

“The tares and wheat are now commingled, but then the one hand that alone can separate them will give to everyone his true position. … Those who have sought an excuse to avoid the cross of separation from the world will, with the world, be taken in the snare. They mingled with the tares from choice.” Ibid., 235.

If you attend a church where the preacher is not preaching the Three Angels’ Messages but something else, then you have a preacher who is a tare. If you attend a church like that, then you are mingling with the tares by choice.

“Like drew to like in transgression.” Ibid. Those who mingle with the tares by choice will become like them.

We are not referring here to mingling with somebody who is outwardly keeping the commandments but have some secret sin in their heart, but a tare that has gone to seed; a tare because the sin has become open. “Like drew to like in transgression. It is a fearful assimilation. Men choose to stand with the first rebel, who tempted Adam and Eve in Eden to disobey God. The tares multiply themselves, for they sow tares, and they have their part with the root of all sin—the devil.” Ibid.

This parable of the wheat and tares is really serious and one that we need to study asking the Lord to help us to understand, because it has to do with people who think they are going to be saved, but when they come to the end they find out they are in the wrong bundle.

When Ellen White wrote the following statement; it was prophetic, but I do not think it is a prophecy today—it is happening right before our eyes. “There are to be but two classes in our world, the obedient and the disobedient. …

“I see perplexities on every side. As character develops, man and woman will take their position, for varied circumstances brought to bear upon them will cause them to reveal the spirit which prompts them to action. Every one will reveal the character of the bundle with which he is binding himself. The wheat is being bound up for the heavenly garner. The true people of God are now bound up for the heavenly garner. The true people of God are now pulling apart, and the tares are being bound in bundles ready to burn.” The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, 995.

“The true people of God are pulling apart from the tares—there is a separation that is taking place. Decided positions will be taken. Satan will move upon minds that have been indulged, upon men who have always had their own way, and anything presented to them in counsel or reproof to change their objectionable traits of character is considered faultfinding, binding them, restraining them, that they cannot have liberty to act themselves. The Lord in great mercy has sent messages of warning to them, but they would not listen to reproof. Like the enemy who rebelled in heaven, they do not like to hear, do not correct the wrong they have done but become accusers, declaring themselves misused and unappreciated.”

“Now is the time of trial, of test, of proving. Those who, like Saul, will persist in having their own way will suffer, as he did, loss of honor and finally the loss of the soul. God has a people, and they will be a tried people, but the people will be humble. They are under the guidance of the Holy One in thought, in word, in deed.” Ibid., 995, 996.

“Dark hours of trial are before the church because they have not obeyed the warnings and reproofs and counsel of God. What a bewitching power comes upon human minds to do contrary to the oft repeated will of God, and close the eyes and stop the ears, when Jesus is calling to them to hear His voice. He says, ‘My sheep hear My voice’ [John 10:27].

“That night in that boat was to the disciples a school where they were to receive their education for the great work which was to be done afterwards. The dark hours of trial are to come to every one as a part of his education for higher work, for more devoted, consecrated effort. The storm was not sent upon the disciples to shipwreck them, but to test and prove them individually. Before the great trouble shall come upon the world such as has never been since there was a nation, those who have faltered and who would ignorantly lead in unsafe paths will reveal this before the real vital test, the last proving, comes, so that whatsoever they may say will not be regarded as voicing the True Shepherd. The time of our educating will soon be over. We have no time to lose in walking through clouds of doubt and uncertainty because of uncertain voices.” Ibid., 1002.

Ellen White says the people who “would ignorantly lead in unsafe paths will reveal this before the real vital test.” They will reveal that human weakness before the great time of trouble comes so that God’s people will know not to listen to what they have to say. That has been going on for several years already. We need to know to whom we are listening. If you persistently listen to a preacher who is preaching error, the time will come when you will believe it. That is how the mind works—Adolf Hitler understood that if you tell something often enough, people eventually believe it. The Communists also understood that principle and many soldiers were brainwashed in the concentration camps during the Korean War by being subjected to being told on the loudspeaker over and over again, day and night, the same lies. We need to know to whom we are listening. Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice.”

We have been told, “The time of our educating will soon be over. We have no time to lose in walking through clouds of doubt and uncertainty because of uncertain voices.” Ibid.

“Can we not discern the signs of the times? Can we not see how earnestly Satan is at work binding the tares in bundles, uniting the elements of his kingdom, that he may gain control of the world? This work of binding up the tares is going forward far more rapidly than we imagine. Satan is opposing every obstacle to the advancement of the truth. He is seeking to create diversity of opinion and to encourage worldliness and avarice. He works with the subtlety of the serpent and, when he sees it will do, with the ferocity of the lion. The ruin of souls is his only delight, their destruction his only employment; and shall we act as though we were paralyzed?” Testimonies, vol. 5, 383, 384.

Prior to World War 11, several hundred or almost 1,000 non-Adventists would attend evangelistic meetings when they were advertised. Today very few will attend. The time will come where it will appear impossible in places like Europe and the United States to save souls. But the message must keep going forward. God is working things out, and near the end there will be an influx of people who were before prevented from hearing the truth.

The hearts of men today are becoming very hardened in the United States so that we cannot even get the response in evangelism that we had 25 years ago.

“The time will come when the sensual, the proud, the careless in heart, those who are opposed to the truth, will have to be separated from the Office. Darkness will close about them, and soon, very soon the cry will come from unfeigned lips, ‘The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved’ [Jeremiah 8:20]. They are gathering in bundles with the tares, to be consumed by the fires of the last day.” The Bible Echo, September 18, 1899.

This refers to God’s people who are working in God’s institutions. They will be bound in bundles with the tares so that eventually they will have to be separated. In which bundle will you be?

“ ‘The end of time is close upon us. The world’s inhabitants are being bound in bundles to be burned. Shall you be bound up with the tares?’ ‘Do you realize that every year thousands and thousands and ten times ten thousand souls are perishing, dying in their sins? The plagues and judgments of God are already doing their work, and souls are going to ruin because the light of truth has not been flashed upon their pathway.’ ” The General Conference Bulletin, April 1, 1897. [Emphasis author’s.]

It is one thing when we do not know when there are wheat and tares in the church, but if the tares go to seed, into open sin, the church has the responsibility to deal with it. This does not mean those persons cannot come to church—it may be that the Lord may convert their hearts, but they cannot be accepted as church members while still in open sin. “Christ requires personal faithfulness of his servants, and we are to show that we have no fellowship with the secret, hidden things of darkness. The wheat is not to sow itself among the tares; for although we may not practice the works of some of the members of the secret orders, in joining them we are registered in heaven as partakers of their evil deeds, responsible for their works of evil, and bound up in bundles with them as tares.” The Review and Herald, January 10, 1893.

That is a very interesting statement. There was a person who came to me requesting baptism after attending a prophecy seminar. He said he was a Mason and could not understand why he could not be a Seventh-day Adventist and at the same time be a Mason. He said whatever they did wrong he was not doing it. We need to understand how the Lord sees things and makes His decision on where our names are. According to this statement, if we join these secret orders, then in heaven we are accounted as partakers with them in their evil deeds. We are bound up with them as bundles to be burned.

According to this statement if we join these secret orders, then in heaven we are accounted as partakers with them in their evil deeds. We are bound up with them as bundles to be burned.

The secret societies are involved in open sin. Some of the highest officials in many of these secret societies are Luciferians—they worship Lucifer and break the first commandment. You may think you are a commandment keeper and keep the Sabbath, but in the books of heaven it is recorded that you are a partaker of those people in the society.

Some of the most prominent secret societies in the world are associated with the ecumenical movement. Soon the ecumenical movement is going to be responsible for enforcing the worship of the beast and causing most of the world to receive the mark of the beast. If you are a member of the organization doing that, you will be held responsible for supporting them. Remember, “In joining them we are registered in heaven as partakers of their evil deeds, responsible for their works of evil, and bound up in bundles with them as tares.” Ibid.In the revival and reformation movement today there has been a necessity worldwide to organize churches that are independent from conferences that are part of the ecumenical movement. This is not just happening in the United States; it is happening in Germany, Australia and all over the world; it is very serious. I firmly believe from studying these types of statements that the people who are involved in this ecumenical movement will not only have to get out but will need to confess and forsake their sins in that regard or they will lose their souls.

Mrs. White wrote to Elder and Mrs. J. A. Burden who were involved in the establishment of Loma Linda [University Medical Center, Loma Linda, California, United States]. She said, “In the time of the harvest the Lord will say to His reapers, ‘Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into My barn’ [Matthew 13:30]. God has a people on the earth who will see the evil of every phase of oppression, and will refuse to unite with the enemy in carrying out his plan.” Manuscript Releases, vol. 7, 58.

I would like to be one of those people who sees the evil and refuses to unite with the enemy. God is going to have a people who will discern every phase of oppression and refuse to cooperate in working out His plan. What about those who don’t see this? She wrote:

“There is little wisdom in binding about the work in any line. God has not given His sanction to any branch of His work’s being bound about. But unbelief has strengthened, and those who have not been sanctified through the truth will be subjects of Satan’s temptations. They will be his most successful allies to criticize, speak evil, and work unrighteousness. There are now those who will show just what they will do under temptation and in an emergency. They cannot be depended upon. [She is talking about Seventh-day Adventists.] The Lord has given them great light but they choose Barabbas rather than Christ. This is being enacted in our very midst. They crucify afresh the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame. But the unsetting Sun of Righteousness is to shine forth, and those who have worked to counterwork what God has appointed will be gathered in bundles with the tares.” Ibid., vol. 19, 383, 384.

We must separate from the bundles that are being bound with tares. If we have been involved with any of these things, preaching or teaching publicly something that we find out is wrong, it will need to be confessed. If we have been involved in a secret society or the ecumenical movement, a confession is needed. Public sins are to be publicly confessed. Secret sins are not to be confessed publicly but to the Lord alone.

There is a good example of this in the last chapter of the gospel of John. Peter publicly denied his Lord three times. The disciples had known what Peter had done. So when Jesus and the disciples were all together, Jesus asked Peter three times, “Do you really love me?” Peter confessed and said he was truly sorry, but he had to affirm his faith and trust in God the same number of times he denied Him. (See John 21:15–17.)

“Every open sin should be as openly confessed. Wrong done to a fellow being should be made right with the one who has been offended. If any who are seeking health have been guilty of evilspeaking, if they have sowed discord in the home, the neighborhood, or the church, and have stirred up alienation and dissension, if by any wrong practice they have led others into sin, these things should be confessed before God and before those who have been offended.” The Ministry of Healing, 229.

Speaking of Peter’s experience, Ellen White said, “The gospel makes no compromise with evil. It cannot excuse sin. Secret sins are to be confessed in secret to God; but, for open sin, open confession is required.” The Desire of Ages, 811.

This topic is very serious. We cannot go on thinking that it will go away if we ignore it. Public sin must be confessed publicly, not simply spoken to the Lord in private.

If we want to be ready for Jesus to come, we need to go to the Lord and say, “Lord, have I been involved in open sin that I need to publicly make right?” An open sin that is flagrant among Seventh-day Adventists today is that they have taken their fellow Christians to court and sued them. “These men cast aside the counsel God has given, and do the very things He has bidden them not to do. They show that they have chosen the world as their judge, and in heaven their names are registered as one with unbelievers.” Selected Messages, Book 3, 299.

Do you want God to not hear your prayers because you are suing your fellow believers? “They insult His holy name, and He will leave them to the buffetings of Satan until they shall see their folly and seek the Lord by confession of their sin.” Ibid.

I am not concerned about the lawsuit, really, but I am concerned that there is no confession, no repentance, no making things right, and if that does not happen, they will be written in the books of heaven as unbelievers, and God will not hear their prayers until they confess this sin—this is not a private sin. When you go to court that is a matter of public record. We are living in a very serious time.

The tares are being bound in bundles, and when Jesus comes they will be burned. The good news is that while probation is still open you can be set free; confess your sins and tell the Lord you will have no part of that anymore. You can be free—you can be with the wheat. But don’t deceive yourself. There are a lot of people today who call themselves Seventh-day Adventists who are directly linked up with church organizations or secret societies that are bound up with tares.

My dear friends, if you do not want to be bound with the bundles of tares and burned with the tares when Jesus comes, you have to take heed to these statements and understand what is involved with being bound with the tares, being a member of an organization that is in open sin.

“For years I [Ellen White] have been given special light that we are not to center our work in the cities. The turmoil and confusion that fill these cities, the conditions brought about by the labor unions and the strikes, would prove a great hindrance to our work. Men are seeking to bring those engaged in the different trades under bondage to certain unions. This is not God’s planning, but the planning of a power that we should in no wise acknowledge. God’s word is fulfilling; the wicked are binding themselves up in bundles ready to be burned.” Maranatha, 180.

How are they doing this? They are part of the labor unions. I hear people say that they will not be able to make a living if they leave the labor union. It would be better for every one of us, even if we could not make a living, to be poor our whole lives than to be bound up with the tares. When you follow the Lord, He will open up the way so you will have what you need.

“These unions are one of the signs of the last days. Men are binding up in bundles ready to be burned. They may be church members [Seventh-day Adventists], but while they belong to these unions, they cannot possibly keep the commandments of God; for to belong to these unions means to disregard the entire Decalogue.

“ ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself’ (Luke 10:27). These words sum up the whole duty of man. They mean the consecration of the whole being, body, soul, and spirit, to God’s service. How can men obey these words, and at the same time pledge themselves to support that which deprives their neighbors of freedom of action? And how can men obey these words, and form combinations that rob the poorer classes of the advantages which justly belong to them, preventing them from buying or selling, except under certain conditions?” Selected Messages, Book 2, 143.

If you are a member of an organization that is in open sin and you are supporting that organization with your money, time and influence, it is written in the books of heaven that you are a partaker of their evil deeds.

When Jesus comes, we will all be bound with one bundle or the other. We have been counseled that we should not even be going to honest people in the world for advice about God’s work, because even if they are honest, but not under the control of heavenly angels, they are under the control of the devil though they are unaware. (See Selected Messages, Book 3, 300.) The last message to go to the world, the third angel’s message, separates every last person into one bundle or the other. “Fearful is his work. Awful is his mission. He is the angel that is to select the wheat from the tares, and seal, or bind, the wheat for the heavenly garner.” Early Writings, 118.

It is interesting that as apostasy has developed in Adventism, we find ministers in churches who do not want to preach the Three Angels’ Messages anymore. That should be a warning sign. There is no middle ground, only two classes. Right now there are people whom the Bible describes as being in the valley of decision. In the end there will be only two classes.

Study this parable, because it reveals that we are all going to be in one bundle or the other. Every decision being made, in thoughts, feelings, and actions, is preparing us to be bound in one bundle or the other. Day by day our destiny is being determined and our characters weighed in heaven to see in which bundle we belong.

Pastor John J. Grosboll is Director of Steps to Life and pastors the Prairie Meadows Free Seventh-day Adventist Church in Wichita, Kansas. He may be contacted by email at: historic@stepstolife.org, or by telephone at: 316-788-5559.

Call to Prayer – Why is there a Historic Adventist Movement Today

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Some may not even know that there is such a movement. Still others may have heard of it, but do not know what or why it exists. In this brief article, we would like to share with you what could be a life saving history of our church and where it is today.

Early in the church’s history, and after the Great Disappointment in 1844, several of the people and many “Millerites” (followers of the teachings of William Miller) were convinced that “the mistake had not been in the reckoning of the prophetic periods, but in the event to take place at the end of the 2300 days [Daniel 8:14].” The Great Controversy, 425. Their study of the prophecies was correct, but the event was wrong. It was during this time that Ellen G. White discovered that the event “pointed to Christ’s ministration in the most holy place, to the investigative judgment, and not to the coming of Christ for the redemption of His people and the destruction of the wicked.” Ibid.

It was also during this time that, through prayer, study, and visions, the fundamental doctrines of the second-advent movement were further developed. The Sabbath, the heavenly sanctuary revealing the spiritual condition necessary to be ready for the second coming of Christ and many other subjects including the state of the dead, the health reform, the gift of prophecy in the remnant church, etc., were brought forward and adopted. So why is there such confusion in the church today about these and other subjects? Have we forgotten the way we were led into truth?

Historic Adventist is an informal designation for conservative individuals and organizations that seek to preserve certain fundamental beliefs and practices of the church. As a general rule, Historic Adventists feel that the church leadership has shifted or departed from key doctrinal “pillars” ever since the middle of the 20th century. Historic Adventists have tended to promote the message through independent ministries, some of which have a strained relationship with the official church.

Historic Adventist theology differs from mainstream Adventist theology in the areas of sin, salvation and end times. Mainstream Adventist theology often uses the term “new theology” as a pejorative term for perceived doctrinal shifts in the church. Much of the confusion started with a misunderstanding of Righteousness by Faith and the belief that we can be saved in our sins. Instead of preaching the Three Angels’ Messages, the Sanctuary message, and overcoming sin, the church has fallen into the popular topics of the day.

In the late years of the 1980s and early part of the 1990s, several ministers had been studying and preaching the gospel as it was understood at the inception of the church. The Reformation and Revival message of the time of the end and the fact that there will be a people living without sin just before Jesus comes are salvational messages. As their reward, many such ministers and laity were disfellowshiped from organized conference churches for doing what the Bible tells us to do—preach the Word.

Pastor Marshall Grosboll, founder of Steps to Life; Elder Ron Spear, founder of Hope International; Dr. Ralph Larson, evangelist, teacher and college administrator; and others were instrumental in forming a network of independent historic ministries and home churches. Unity meetings were held during the 1990s in an attempt to draw the work of the historic churches and ministries together.

Today, many of the historic churches and ministries have joined together in the International Association of Free Seventh-day Adventists. This movement is an international body consisting of a multiracial network of Seventh-day Adventist believers who desire to maintain and advance the original beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist faith at a time when many of the original beliefs, worship style, and practices are being compromised by the established Seventh-day Adventist Church.

The Bible sums it up best in Ephesians 5:23–27: “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”

Let us pray together for God to prepare His people for the events that are just before us. Teachings on Christian perfection and personal holiness were present in the religious revival of the Great Awakening in America and were evident in early Adventist movements. Pray that these teachings be brought back to life and sin is separated from sinners. As we are told in the Bible, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:48.

Jän C. Schultz is an elder of Renaissance Church of Free Seventh-day Adventists, Sedalia, Colorado. He may be contacted at: RenChurch@aol.com.

Renaissance Church

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Founded as a haven for true and faithful Seventh-day Adventist believers in need of a place to worship together untainted by false teachings and celebration services, Renaissance Church opened its doors for its first Sabbath service on July 4, 1992. Nestled in the foothills southwest of Denver in a quiet country setting near Sedalia, Colorado, the members of Renaissance Church take seriously Ellen White’s counsel that “as wickedness increases in the great cities, we shall have to work them from outpost centers.” Review and Herald, July 5, 1906. Renaissance Church serves as an outpost to the Denver metropolitan area but most specifically to the smaller “bedroom communities” of Sedalia, Castle Rock, and Louviers.

Pastor John Grosboll with Steps to Life broke the Bread of Life for the special communion service held that first Sabbath, serving almost 200 attendees. Believing the number in attendance that day was an indication of the hungering so many Seventh-day Adventist believers have to hear the Three Angels’ Messages taught from the pulpit, Renaissance Church sponsors a guest speaker each month who presents Historic Seventh-day Adventist teachings. Many of our fellow believers who may not otherwise have the opportunity to hear historic doctrine are being fed through these spiritually uplifting weekends.

In the book Education, 191, Mrs. White tells us that “when a real love for the Bible is awakened, and the student begins to realize how vast is the field and how precious its treasure, he will desire to seize upon every opportunity for acquainting himself with God’s word.” So it is for the individuals attending Renaissance Church. In addition to the mid-week prayer meetings, one Sabbath afternoon each month is devoted to Bible marking sessions and another to doctrinal studies. These activities provide a treasured time of fellowship, and also strengthen our faith, giving us a deep desire to share that faith, and encourages us to be bold in our outreach endeavors. As a result of our group studies, God has blessed with several baptisms. Others are currently studying in anticipation of being baptized at our summer convocation in August.

To “soften the community,” a twelve part doctrinal tract series has been distributed to 5,000 homes near our church. Each Christmas season, special gifts from the church are delivered to homes and businesses in Sedalia. The first year we provided a freshly baked loaf of bread to each home and business. The last two years we have given packages of trail mix. We also adopted a two-mile stretch of highway near Sedalia and volunteer time to keep the roadside clean of litter. A sign at both ends of the two miles acknowledges our group by name for the clean-up. One Seventh-day Adventist family who recently moved to the Denver area is worshipping with us because they saw the signs!

Through these humble beginnings we have learned indeed that “he who begins with a little knowledge, and tells what he knows, at the same time seeking for more knowledge, will become qualified to do a larger work. The more light he gathers to his own soul, the more of heavenly illumination will he be able to impart to others.” Gospel Workers, 98.

As we gained name recognition within the community, we decided in 1994 it was time to use the “entering wedge” and introduce healthful living alternatives through vegetarian cooking classes. Each series of four classes has had members of the community in attendance who are thrilled with the information being provided. We have been especially grateful to see several of the attendees join us for Sabbath services when Danny Vierra of Modern Manna Ministries was our guest speaker, addressing health issues.

Renaissance Church sponsored a booth at the Douglas County Fair in August, 1995. Our theme, “Vegetarian Advantage,” provided a positive view of eliminating meat from the diet and lowering cholesterol for general health improvement. Often lines of people were waiting for the free samples of bulgur burger taco filling (a hamburger substitute made from bulgur wheat) and the children especially enjoyed the healthy, sugarless cookies. Some visitors told us they were sent to our booth from the Colorado State University Extension Agent’s booth to learn more about wholesome vegetarian cooking. Free literature, books, and recipes were available, and we obtained many names of individuals interested in attending the vegetarian cooking classes we sponsor six times a year. Booth space is already reserved for the 1996 county fair when we will be giving away the book Steps to Christ as well as other truth-filled literature.

Another avenue of outreach to families in the community will be provided through a before and after school care program beginning this fall. The curriculum of activities will include morning worship with the children before they are taken to school. Renaissance Academy will open to the community this fall, offering full-time classes as well as subject specific classes for homeschooled students (one out of five families in the county homeschool). Principles of truth will be presented in the classroom, and it is our prayer that families will be reached through the children and the lessons they learn at school.

On March 3, 1996, we prayerfully began featuring Steps to Life Sunday television programming on Channel 41, KRMT-TV in Denver. Considering the cost and competition for air time in the Denver market, this is quite an undertaking for a church our size. Such topics as “The Origin of the Bible,” “Attacks on the Bible,” “War in Heaven,” and “The Great Controversy” have begun what we pray will be a six-month to one-year airing of historic Seventh-day Adventist doctrines to the two million plus inhabitants of the Denver metroplex. One goal of our television outreach is to give everyone within the viewing area the opportunity to hear the Three Angels’ Messages. Several dozen requests for Bible lesson studies and free books have already been received. Another goal of our television outreach is to awaken the Laodicean Adventists in the Denver area to the nearness of Christ’s coming.

With God’s help we plan to follow up the television series with a Revelation Seminar. It is our constant prayer that God will continue to use the Renaissance Church as a light upon the hill.

Reporting from Zaire, Central Africa – A Spiritual Revival Movement

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A Specific Case of a Spiritual Revival Movement with the Zaire Union Mission of Seventh-day Adventist Church Full Member of Historic Seventh-day Adventist Family.

How the SDA General Conference Church in Zaire Central Africa Contributes Greatly to Delay the Second Coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

As Historic Seventh-day Adventists, we believe in the holiness of the Good News contained in the Holy Bible. We truly trust in the Spirit of Prophecy and we are proclaiming the message of the Three Angels. We humbly think that any ecclesiastical movement which does not confess such a goal should change its name instead of claiming to be Seventh-day Adventists.

In 1972 the General Conference Church of SDA joined a national ecumenical movement called “The Church of Christ in Zaire” (L’eglise du Christ au Zaire) as the forty-second member.

We will never forget this year during which we, as former members and/or workers of the GC church in Zaire, were informed about the affiliation of the church to the ecumenical movement.

This national movement, created as a reaction to the Catholic denomination is composed of sixty-eight, Protestant churches. These churches no longer have individual names, but are part of a “Community.” The GC Church of Zaire is now called: “The Forty-Second Community of the Church of Christ in Zaire.”

This affiliation was not free, nor under the local church initiative for it was duly accepted and sponsored by the General Conference which paid the duties of affiliation, by sending the required amount to the Union which paid it to the Ecumenical corporation.

We were also very concerned and disappointed with the management of the SDA Church because it does not reflect the Spirit of Prophecy. Tribalism, underhanded dealings, vote catching, private and informal committees instead of official ones, lack of punishment of guilty persons because of their close relationship with some officials of the Union, lack of true social projects of development such as schools for the churches sake, led us to leave the ecumenical church of the GC. In short, we saw we must stay by the old land marks and organize our group based on the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy and the Message of the Three Angels.

We could not figure out how we could preach against the Beast if we made connection with those who are worshipping it. We realized that we could not spread the Three Angels’ Messages while being involved in a fellowship with Sunday Protestant Churches. And last, we could not imagine that it is possible to observe the Law of God in its wholeness while being in connection with an ecumenical movement who are law breakers, especially disregarding the fourth commandment, the sign of God’s people from the beginning to the end of time.

From this evidence, we arrived at the conclusion that we must be self-governing as well as self-supporting. But, we are not yet self-sufficient.Consequently we have to restrain our outreach for lack of funds. May you find here our origin, Seventh-day Adventist Independent Church. Thanks to God’s blessings we have friends and brothers all over the world. We also have partners who contribute to lighten the task we have to spread the warning message to our part of the world.

Organization, of Main Objectives, and Things that Handicap the Way

The Zaire Union Missions of Seventh-day Adventist Independent Church has existed since 1990. At the very beginning, it had only 5,000 members. Today we have 16,000 members out of a population of 45,000,000 people in Zaire. We have a lot of work to do, but we cannot do it without the Holy Spirit is guidance or the benefactors assistance and the prayers of our fellow believers.

We are active in the Kinshasa, Bandundu, and East-Kasai regions. The work in the Shaba and Kivu regions will be organized in the near future.

Evangelism

We are currently using the door-to-door method in our evangelism. We lack very much the French translations of the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy, and Hymnals, as well as Bible literature for witnessing. We would like to start a Bible Correspondence School as soon as we have means to print the lessons.

Communication

The problem of communication is one of the serious problems we are facing in our ministry. In a car it can take more than a day to travel thirty kilometers during the rainy season, because of the bad condition of the roads. On these roads bicycles are faster than cars!

We have 259 workers, that includes Pastors, Evangelists, Bible Workers, Teachers, Gardeners, etc., all work without salary,trusting that God will provide. We need assistance in this area.

We need a private ham radio in order to establish a regular link between Kinshasa, the headquarters of the mission in the country. The official Post Office in Zaire as well as the telephone system are unreliable. Only cellular phones can link the country to Europe and the USA. Here again is a big problem to resolve.

We would also like to broadcast our distinct message by public radio. May the Lord help us in this project. This is the way we can reach a lot of people who we can not reach personally. There are local Sunday churches and ministries that already have broadcasts.

We think we have the best message all over the country—the message of warning given by the Three Angels. Give us a hand so that we might be the co-labourers with the angels in our country and in all the French speaking countries in Africa. God bless all of our benefactors, and may we together hasten the glorious second coming of our King and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The End

Conservative Adventists and the Shaking

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In the 1960’s and the 1970’s Adventism went through a shaking—many so-called “liberal” Adventists were shaken out by the new theology—they may still be attending an Adventist church today but they were shaken out of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15—the church is the pillar and ground of the truth so when you are shaken out of the truth you are shaken out of the church even if you go to “church.”) This new theology affected and is affecting the Advent movement in all parts of the world.

Conservative Adventists felt secure, but shouldn’t have, because the Bible predicted that everything that could be shaken would be shaken. In the middle 1980’s conservative Adventists, who had no question about the inspiration of the writings of Ellen White, or about the meaning of 1844 or the doctrine of the sanctuary, or the Three Angels’ Messages were shaken. This shaking has intensified. We must go through the purging process because God is sifting His people and will continue to do so until He has a holy church. See Testimonies, vol. 1, 99.

This shaking is now everywhere, through families, special or independent ministries, everything that can be shaken will be shaken and the shaking has become discouraged. They have heard so much evil speech about almost everybody that they do not know who to trust or even what to believe. They have heard ministers and leaders denouncing other ministers and leaders so much that they have believed that part of it must be true and they have lost confidence in anything or anybody. Soon the devil hopes to overwhelm their faith entirely and cause them to give up and go to perdition. But Jesus is going to have a people who endure all these troubles that Historic Adventism is presently going through, a people that will overcome all inclinations to backbite with the tongue and to take up a reproach against his neighbor. They will be a people who will strictly oppose sin in any garb and at the same time will be “slow to censure, quick to discern penitence, ready to forgive, to encourage, to set the wanderer in the path of holiness, and to stay his feet therein.” Desire of Ages, 462. We are praying that we may be a part of that remnant. In this magazine are reports from others who are praying and striving to be part of that remnant and we hope that this is your continual prayer and striving also.

“Satan has gained many victories over the professed followers of Jesus through their unchristlike spirit and behavior toward their brethren who do not agree with them, and toward unbelievers. The discussion of doctrines has not resulted in bringing union, but variance. A bitter spirit has been cherished, bitter words have been spoken. The words of the True Witness should be carefully studied by all “‘I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left they first love,’—grown cold, unsympathetic; hardness of heart has taken the place of brotherly, Christlike love. ‘Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent,’ This warning should be heeded by every church in our ranks. New elements of Christian life must be brought into the church. Love for Christ means a broad, extended love for one another, that love which is now so sadly wanting. The lack of love leads to the lack of respect for each other, and the neglect of true courtesy. There is criticizing, faultfinding, reporting words spoken in confidence, and using these to second the accusations of Satan, who is ever busy in sowing distrust, jealousy, and bitterness. Why do the members of the church run so readily into this evil work, overlooking the precious things? Why do they not speak words of approval and encouragement to one another, and thus water the precious plant of love, that it may not die out of the heart?” Review and Herald, February 9, 1892.

My Work in Historic Adventism

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What we do is closely related to what we are. It is said of Christ that His nature and His work are inseparably intertwined and interwoven with each other, and the same is true to a lesser degree of all of us. We are what we do and we do what we are. Consider my life span. I became a Seventh-day Adventist in the year 1936, when I was sixteen years old. Although I did not realize it at the time, I was a very fortunate and privileged person, because being baptized at this particular time gave me the privilege of living some thirty years during the Golden Age of Adventism, from 1936 to 1966. The tragic book Questions On Doctrine, which brought the Golden Age of Adventism to an end, was published in l956. It took about ten years for it to really have much influence upon the church. But by 1966 the dire influence of that fateful volume had become widespread, the precious unity and harmony of the church had been destroyed, and the Dark Ages of Adventism had begun, and have continued for thirty years (until 1996.) Thus my Christian life has consisted of thirty years in the Golden Age of Adventism and thirty years in the Dark Ages of Adventism. I am able to make comparisons.

What were the characteristics of the Golden Age of Adventism that I experienced from 1936 until 1966? Not the absence of problems. We had our share of them. Not the favor of the world. The world and the worldly churches cordially hated us and maliciously lied about us. Not wealth. The depression was still in force. But we had something far more precious than any of these things. We had unity and harmony throughout the entire church. We were one in faith and doctrine.

During those years you could travel to any foreign country, find the local Seventh-day Adventist church, walk in through the front door and say, “I am home. I have never seen these people before, but I know them. I know their beliefs and I know their life style. On all of the important matters of life, their hearts beat as mine.” This was especially true of church workers. When two of them met, anywhere, there was an instant bonding and a fullness of fellowship. How precious were those days, now known only as they are held in sweet remembrance. We would have treasured them even more had we known what was ahead.

Fidelity to the Bible and to the Spirit of Prophecy was taken for granted. Infidelity was neither glossed over nor excused. Not long after my baptism in 1936 I enrolled as a freshman at Walla Walla College. By the time a few weeks of the school year had passed, it had become apparent that three of the Bible teachers, including the chairman of the Bible department, were undercutting the Spirit of Prophecy. Careful investigations were conducted, and by the end of the first quarter, all three of these teachers were gone from the campus. Two quickly found their places in Sunday keeping churches, where they belonged, and the third retired to his hog ranch. Yes, his hog ranch. But none of the three were undercutting the Spirit of Prophecy nearly as much as is being done in many of our college Bible classes today, while church administrators look on indifferently or benignly.

Our week of prayer speakers ministered to our needs in a careful and conscientious way, always teaching us the joys of victorious Christian living. If any of them had announced to us that it is impossible to stop sinning, we would have heard him no further. And the administration would have replaced him, even before the week was over.

So that is where I am coming from, and that is who I am. I listen in astonishment to earnest young Calvinists among us describing those years as the “age of legalism.” They can’t kid me. I was there.

I was taught our faith and doctrines by dedicated men who were one hundred per-cent Seventh-day Adventists. I spent fifteen years of my ministry in full-time evangelism. (The other years were divided between pastoring and teaching in college and seminary classrooms.)In my evangelistic work I was required to closely examine the false reasoning, the sophistry, and the casuistry in the writings of the “Evangelical” ministers who were desperately opposing our message, and show their tricks to the new converts. You can imagine the pain I feel when I see the same sort of material being set forth by some Seventh-day Adventist ministers now. When they proclaim that “We are Evangelicals!” my response is, “You really didn’t need to tell me. I knew that already. The methodology of your writings makes it abundantly clear.”

So my present work is preaching to and teaching the historic Seventh-day Adventists in camp meetings and seminars. I am in the pulpit virtually every Sabbath, either near my place of abode, or in some other state. I answer innumerable theological questions, by mail or by telephone. For want of a better place to go, ministry leaders often come to me for counsel. And in between these activities, I try to find time for writing. I feel guilty because I am not writing more, but I run out of time.

But in it all, I am happy. I know that I am defending God’s pure and holy truth, and I have no moments of anxious foreboding such as the Calvinists among us must certainly have. The shaking time is moving in on us. By God’s grace, I will survive it, and live again in the happy fellowship of a purified church.