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HOME / PROCLAMATION MAGAZINE / 2007 / NOVEMBER/DECEMBER / RIVER
NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2007
VOLUME 8, ISSUE 6
A R T I C L E S
An apeal to Adventists:
Are you submitting to the plumbline?
Joseph River*
I have spent several years in a careful, fair, and non-judgmental study of Seventh-day Adventism without the benefit of outside help or advice. I commenced this study because I have daily association with a fairly large number of Adventists whom I have come to love, and I dared not be persuaded what to think about their beliefs by anyone, lest I do an injustice to my associates and to their church.
I studied each phase of Adventist doctrine using the Bible alone as my guide with the Holy Spirit as my teacher.
I studied the investigative judgment, soul sleep, the Sabbath, the health message, and other lesser facets of Adventism. I painstakingly searched the Scriptures, spending time on this task daily, seven days a week. I wanted to know whether or not their doctrines were correct; if they were biblical, I would have to accept them.
At the end of four years of this intensive study, I submitted my final analysis to someone whom I considered an expert on the teachings of Adventism. I wanted an honest evaluation of my conclusions because I did not want to risk being unfair and unjust to the Adventists I knew.
The response from the man who read my paper was that my analysis was both correct and graced with the Holy Spirit.
After receiving affirmation of my analysis, I delved even deeper into the lives and experiences of Adventists and former Adventists, spending many hours over the past year-and-a-half in conversations, both in person and on line via the internet, with a wide variety of people who are or have been Adventists. I have concluded that the Adventist road is paved with outright heresy as its base and its covering.
I am not a formal theologian, but I am an avid student of Scripture and am involved both in teaching and in writing about the Bible and the Christian life. My peers might even say I can become quite passionate in some areas of my basic beliefs and will rise to defend truth and the Lord Jesus and the sufficiency of His word.
A plumbline
That aside, one morning as is my habit, I opened my Bible to read. Anguished over the state of my Adventist friends in the light of what the Bible actually teaches, I said, "Lord, surely You will somehow accept those people?" My eyes lit on a Scripture, and my heart was pulled to it. It seemed to jump off the page as I read it:
"Thus he showed me: and, behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand.
"And the LORD said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more"(Amos 7:7-8, KJV).
The Holy Spirit came upon me as I read this passage, and He said "River, what do you see in my word?" And I answered with tears, "Lord I see a plumbline."
Weeping overtook me as I realized what God was speaking into my spirit. We must take His word seriously regardless of how we feel about individual human beings. We must look into His word with all seriousness and accept it as the truth regardless of what any church's doctrines may be. God's plumbline is His word, not a person's sincerity.
Known by God
One morning I was thinking about the different beliefs flourishing in the world, and the Lord led me to this Scripture verse: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish; neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one" (John 10:27-30, KJV).
I thought about this passage a while, and I said, "And what about those that do not hear You because their church teachings obscure Your word?"
God immediately led me to this Scripture, "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity" (Matthew 7:22-23, KJV).
Another time I was thinking about the word of God and I came to this text, "And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day" (John 12:47-48, KJV).
His word that He has already spoken will judge heresy; it will divide heresy from truth. His Word is truth, and heresy will not stand in the Day of Judgment. Even if people sincerely believe heresy, thinking it is supported by the word of God because their church teaches that it is, their sincerity will not justify them. The truth God has already spoken in His word will judge them.
I make my appeal to my Adventist friends and their families; I realize that many of you are third and fourth—even fifth—generation Adventists, and most of you have been raised in Adventism from childhood. I appeal to you to set aside your teachings and to look into the word of God, and it alone. Don't just "read the Bible from cover to cover". Instead, set aside all your E.G. White books and ask God to direct your reading and to teach you what the Bible really says without your Adventist interpretations coloring your understanding. I set aside my teachings of 35 years for your sakes to study your doctrine; surely you can set aside your own doctrine for your own sake and that of your families to seriously study the plumbline of God's word. God's word that He has already spoken will finally judge us all.
My desire is for you and your families to be saved and to have full confidence in the finished work of our Lord on the cross for our righteousness and our salvation. †
Copyright 2008 Life Assurance Ministries, Inc., Glendale, Arizona, USA. All rights reserved. Revised September 24, 2008. Contact email: proclamation@gmail.com
*Joseph River is a pseudonym. He has been a Christian for about 35 years, and attends an Assemblies of God church. He is 66 years old and a father of five children: 4 boys and a girl. His wife and he were saved at the same time and have been married 45 years. River is involved in ministry to Seventh-day Adventists in his home town and on the internet.
