There is only one reason to leave

If leaving Adventism should not be about changing one’s ­worship practices, but if there is danger of complacently sliding into unbelief if one stays, for what reason should one leave?

GEOFFREY V. DREW | Proclamation! Contributor |

Why should I leave the Adventist church?” a friend asks. “I love the Sabbath. I love our Sabbath traditions. The Sabbath has preserved my sanity in a stressful world.” 

 Let me say immediately that one would not leave the Seventh-day Adventist Church in order to change one’s day of worship. As Adventists, we usually did not understand that Sabbath is not about a day; it’s about a Person. That Person is Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, the One who is Lord of our lives and worthy to be worshipped on any day of the week, but especially by those who love His appearing. 

There is a great danger in complacency. The wise proverbian has said, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death” (Pr 14:12). Even though one is a Sabbath-keeping, tithe paying, health reforming Adventist, he may be on the road to destruction. Remember, the people who killed Jesus were that kind of observant Jews. (I remember hearing this comparison between the Pharisees and Adventists from Dr. Graham Maxwell in his Sabbath School classes at Loma Linda University Church in 1974.) Yet Jesus called those Pharisees hypocrites, evil workers, and a wicked generation. They were ones who would die in their sins and be consigned to everlasting punishment in the flames of hell. 

If leaving Adventism should not be about changing one’s worship practices, but if there is danger of complacently sliding into unbelief if one stays, for what reason should one leave?

The best and most profound reason to leave Adventism is Jesus Christ. The reason any of us should leave the Adventist church is to run towards Jesus. Everything inside Adventism confounds and confuses our walk with Christ. This statement is not merely an argument; it is a fact. It was the task of the apostle Paul to the churches at Galatia, Philippi, Colosse, Ephesus, and everywhere in between to lead believers to Jesus and away from old covenant Judaistic things. Like it or not, the Sabbath and food restrictions belonged to the old covenant and were coming to an end. 

In the new covenant we have nothing but Jesus Christ. “Jesus” was the cry of the Reformation: Sola Christus. We need to run towards Jesus. We need to run the race without hindrances—drop the baggage; run free; run fast. It is the race for your life—not just for here and now but forever. The inspired writer of Hebrews 12:1-2 says, “…lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

We get the same thoughts from the book of Colossians—run toward Jesus Christ. He is our only Savior, the only One who can save us from this fallen, cursed, sin-sick world. He is the only One who can save us from our desperately wicked selves and the self-deception to which we are doomed. “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete and He is the only head over all rule and authority; and in Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.” 

The walk with Christ is a radical thing. He is the reason we are here. He made us. He is our Creator. He is our breath and our life, and He has plans for us. 

How do we learn to follow Jesus?

But how do we walk, run, eat, and breath Jesus Christ in this world that tugs all of our senses in every direction, erecting many idols of the heart causing us to worship things other than the God we love? The hymn writer has said, “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, Oh take and seal it. Seal it for Thy courts above.” Living for Jesus alone requires that we learn to fear God correctly, and as we learn to fear God, we learn how to live for Jesus and to follow Him out of bondage into freedom.

What does it mean to fear God? Scripture explains by revealing God and His will. After all, the Bible is our only objective source of information about Him. The Bible reveals that fearing God involves what we know, what we believe, and what we do.

Knowing God includes more than knowing biblical facts about Him. To know God also means to experience Him—His goodness, mercy, and love showered on us in Christ Jesus. As a result of experiencing the mercy and love of Christ, we learn to express our admiration and respect in worshipful veneration of Him, knowing that His grace includes His discipline of us as well as our inheritance of His kingdom (Heb 12:28, 29).  

As a child of God I know that He disciplines me. I know that if I suffer, He is disciplining me to trust Him. If I disobey the Lord Jesus, he will reprove, discipline, and “scourge” me (Heb 12:3-6). Yet this discipline is part of His grace that transforms me when I am His son. My experience of knowing God and experiencing Jesus includes realizing that He loves me and disciplines me as a true Father, and these two things are both parts of His grace to me. My knowing God and experiencing Him as my Father are part of what it means to fear God.

Believing God involves understanding the Biblical data about God through the work of His grace and of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. He gives us understanding so we know and believe that the fear of God involves justice and fairness (Lev 25:17). It also means walking in His statutes and loving and serving Him (Dt 10:12). It involves departing from evil (Job 28:28) and rejoicing with trembling in deference to His high holiness. (Ps 2:11).  We rest entirely in His mercy, (Ps 33:18). When I was a Seventh-day Adventist, I did not know how exquisitely I needed to REST entirely in God’s mercy. This resting is the fulfillment of the fourth commandment. It can and must happen every day of the week, and it is our only hope. Therefore, paying careful attention to what the Bible actually says about the fourth commandment is important. The fourth commandment is the sign of the Mosaic Covenant which we now know is obsolete in the new covenant (2 Co 3:7-18; Heb 8:13).

The fear of God also involves doing. It is not enough merely to be a moralist and “do” the Ten Commandments. People who speak glibly of doing and keeping usually fall short very quickly. We are not really able to do anything righteously when we try to please God by obedience. Instead, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we faithfully do the commandments of Jesus, including those concerning our loving the saints in fellowship. For example, Hebrews 13:5 says, “let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have.” When we allow the Holy Spirit to make our hearts content and share one another’s joy and grief without envy or arrogance, He fulfills in us the new commandment to love one another. Fearing God involves actively doing the will of God as He reveals it in every circumstance of our lives.

What keeps us from fearing God?

I understand the commands to fear God by knowing, believing, and doing, and I am committed to performing them by the power of the Holy Spirit. I always bear in mind, however, Romans 7:18, “for I know that in me (that is in my flesh) nothing good dwells. For to will is present with me but how to perform what is good I do not find.” This is the struggle: the daily battle between my flesh and my desire to obey Jesus. Since I was saved seventeen years ago, I found that this battle is much easier because God has broken the power of sin in my life by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross where He paid sin’s price and broke its power. He has given me His freedom—the greatest freedom of all, freedom from the power and bondage of sin. 

How strange it is, then, for a system of religion to bring men again into another bondage, the bondage of rules and regulations, “advocating the abstaining from foods” (1Timothy 4:3-4), and the diligent application of sunset tables on Friday and Saturday nights. (How in the world do you apply such a thing in Alaska in the summer?)  “You have greater freedom than this” (Gal. 5:1). 

If we are hesitant to leave the Seventh-day Adventist Church, it could be because we fear men rather than God. Peer pressure and the influence of our contemporaries are simply other terms for the fear of men. We are not to be taking our cues from our friends but from the Word of God alone. 

We may be over-committed, being afraid to say no in order to please others. One of the faces of the fear of man is the feeling of neediness in relation to one’s spouse or other people. If we live in a state of constantly desiring what other people can give, these people will become the ones we fear. Only the Lord Jesus can give us the approval we crave.

Another face of the fear of man is the notion of “self-esteem” which hinges upon other people’s responses to us. Our natural inclination is to think we need other people to buttress our sense of well-being and identity. We need them to fulfill us, we think.  This is patently not true; such notions must be rejected and surrendered to Jesus.

If we ever feel that we might be exposed as imposters, pretenders, hypocrites—people who are not quite what we have trumped ourselves up to be, the antidote is to rest more in Christ. We must fall back on Him and cry, “I am not able! I am helpless, but You are supreme and mighty, Lord; save my soul.”

Choose you this day

Do you second guess decisions because of what other people might think, or are you resolute, firm, and confident in your decision-making? 

Many an Adventist has made his decision by walking down the sawdust trail, giving his heart to Jesus—only later to come up defeated and even shipwrecked in his faith. As long as a person remains committed to a religion that puts one into bondage to rules made obsolete by Christ Jesus, he/she is fearing men rather than God. He asks us to run toward Jesus. Only in Christ alone is there freedom and victory. 

Choose you today whom you will serve—God or a system contrived by mere men. †