Ministry Making a Difference
I recently started listening to your YouTube channel and podcasts, and I wanted to take a moment to thank you for the incredible work you are doing. Your content has been both eye-opening and encouraging, and it has had a profound impact on my faith journey.
I grew up in the Washington, D.C. area in a Hispanic family. My parents were born and raised Seventh-day Adventists, and I attended church with my family throughout my childhood. However, even at a young age, something never felt quite right to me. I often felt judged, watched, and uncomfortable in the church environment, which made it difficult for me to connect with my faith in a meaningful way.
After graduating high school, I stopped attending church altogether, although I carried a sense of guilt about that decision. In December 2000, I joined the United States Air Force. Less than a year later, the events of 9/11 changed everything. Over the next 22 years, I served around the world, deployed 11 times, and spent significant time in hostile and challenging environments supporting the Global War on Terror. I retired from the Air Force in 2023.
Throughout my military career, my parents often encouraged me to return to the Adventist church whenever I left the service. However, during those years of deployment and service, I learned something that forever changed my perspective. No matter where I was in the world—whether in remote locations or dangerous regions—my faith in the Lord continued to grow. I read the Bible multiple times, developed a personal relationship with God, and came to understand that salvation is found through faith in Jesus Christ, not through membership in any particular denomination.
Along the way, I met countless sincere and faithful Christians from many different backgrounds. Their love for Christ, combined with my own study of Scripture, reinforced the truth that our hope and salvation are found in Jesus alone.
Since discovering your YouTube channel and podcasts, my understanding of the gospel has deepened even further. Through your teachings, I have truly embraced the message of Jesus Christ. His death on the cross for our sins, His resurrection, and the gift of salvation by grace through faith. I can honestly say that my relationship with Christ has grown tremendously, and I feel more spiritually alive than ever before.
Now that I am retired, I spend a great deal of time talking with my parents about Adventism and sharing what I have learned. While those conversations are often challenging, I continue to pray that they will be open to seeing another perspective. One of the difficulties I face is that they have spent their entire lives studying Adventist teachings and often know far more about Adventist doctrine than I do. At times, I struggle to answer their questions or respond to their arguments effectively.
That is why I am so grateful for your ministry. Through your videos and podcasts, I am learning something new every day and gaining a deeper understanding of Scripture and the gospel. Your work is equipping people like me to grow in faith and engage in meaningful conversations with loved ones.
Please continue doing what you are doing. Your ministry is making a difference, and I know I am not the only one whose life has been impacted by it.
May God richly bless you and your entire team. Thank you again for your faithfulness, dedication, and service to Christ.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Thank you so much for writing! Your email is encouraging, and I am praising God for using what He is teaching us about His word and Himself to help others know Him better! Thank you for letting us know that our material has been helpful!
How God Led Me To Himself
Thank you for keeping alive the facts about Seventh-day adventists. They have downplayed their distinct doctrines to make the organization appear more biblical. They only preach the love of God without the wrath of God and thereby vitiate the gospel and the substitutionary atonement for us sinners.
Yesterday I watched Pastor Ratzlaff’s YouTube video entitled “Three Adventist Doctrines that Compromise the Gospel”. It was eye opening. A better verb would be “Deny”. He said that all his references were footnoted.I would love to get those because I believe that some Adventists would leave the organization and learn the Truth if they saw those. I am suspicious that the passages that he found have been removed by the White Estate, but maybe not.
My story is that I am at least a fourth generation Adventist. Both sets of grandparents were missionaries in China and Korea. My parents were devoted Adventists. We were lifelong vegetarians. We ate potatoes and peas and such things for breakfast because Ellen White said it was the most important meal of the day. I went to Adventist schools all my life. I graduated from LLU in medicine in 1976. Like many Adventists I was haunted by the doctrine that we must be perfect. If there was any unremembered sin we would be lost. Finally, in 1978 I came to the conclusion that the effort was useless, and one Sabbath morning I told my wife, “Why don’t we give up? The judgement wouldn’t take long, and we would be burned up, but at least we wouldn’t miss this life.” We went out and bought a stereo receiver that Saturday.
After residency at Glendale Adventist we decided to move someplace near a ski area. We got a job in Layton, Utah. Knowing it was Mormon, I found a Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin. The book changed my life because he has a section called “What about Seventh-day Adventists?”. In it I discovered that Bible-believing Christians had other beliefs, and their beliefs were more in line with the Scripture. I never knew that from all 14 years of Adventist “Bible” classes.
After a year in Utah, we moved back to California in 1981 because the weather in Utah was so bleak. We had 60 days of dense fog with one 10 minute respite! At Paradise we went to the Adventist Church because it was comfortable, and I practiced at the Adventist hospital.There were a group of people there who knew the Adventist doctrine was wrong, and we started going to their Sabbath School class. They were studying Galatians. Desmond Ford came to give a lecture at a local restaurant, and we went.
My cousin and her husband came down from Shasta City to hear, and we had them over. In the conversation he pointed out Romans 2:4. “Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance”. I was instantly saved. I like to know other peoples’ texts that saved them—I have never heard of Romans 2:4.
We joined Paradise Gospel Fellowship, which was a group of “formers”. I read a book by Chuck Colson. He said he had checked his theology with two men I had never heard of, R.C. Sproul and J.I. Packer. I started reading their books and going to R.C. Sproul’s conferences where we found many other orthodox preachers and teachers like John MacArthur and John Piper. I have spent the last 40 years engrossed in Bible Study led by these men.
We now go to Visalia URC which is a conservative offshoot of the Christian Reformed Church. We are reformed Baptists although the church is paedo-baptist. I don’t think I can find everything I believe in any one church. In a side note we found a local Baptist church which was a 1689 church. They adhere to the Westminster Standards except tips regarding paedo-baptism. When I discovered they were sabbatarians, we went back to the paedobaptists.
I’d like to list some of the books that have been most helpful in my life:
1. God’s Passion for his Glory, which is a commentary on Jonathan Edwards’ The End for which God created the World by John Piper
2. From Sabbath to Lord’s Day D.A. Carson, editor. Excellent sections by Richard Bauckam
3. The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God D.A. Carson
4. 40 questions about Christians and Biblical Law by Tom Schreiner. Dr. Schreiner teaches at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary where Kaspar Ozolins teaches.
5. The Cross of Christ by John Stott
6. Providence John Piper
7. I am currently reading Martin Lloyd-Jones’ 13 volume commentary on Romans. It is truly God’s gift to the church.
8. Atonement by Leon Morris. The more technical version, The Apostolic Teaching of the Gospel is the foundation of Dale Ratzlaffs’ Gospel Transformation.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Thank you so much for writing! It is incredibly encouraging to hear that our materials have been useful in helping to plant someone in a biblical worldview! The Lord is faithful. Thank you for letting us know. And thank you for your book list. You have been reading some great authors! †
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