HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2008 / SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER / LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2008
VOLUME 9, ISSUE 5

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D E P A R T M E N T S

LETTERS to the Editor

 

Excellent!

I found your last issue of Proclamation!—"What happens when we die?"—to be absolutely excellent! My mother and I left the SDA church about six and seven years ago. We have been rejoicing in our freedom ever since! My mother still believes in the Adventist version of death.

When I was in my 20's I came to realize that we had a spirit, although I didn't know exactly what that meant. Later when I was thoroughly investigating the doctrines I was raised in, I took the Strong's Exhaustive Concordance and looked up every word I could think of in relation to death: death, sleep, kill, die, heaven, Hades, sheol, and so on. Absolutely everything! It was truly an exhaustive study—unfortunately I didn't keep it. But for me it was inconclusive. I saw arguments on both sides.

Your articles gave me fresh ideas to ponder. I loved Chris Lee having Jesus say (in illustration), "Not only is my illustration false, but it's a satanic lie!" I loved it!! What a ridiculous notion that Jesus would use anything satanic to confuse us!

My mom's head was really spinning after she read this issue. (She amazes me, though, because she's 82 and still open minded enough to ponder fresh ideas—she's a wonder!)

Anyway, thank you for tickling the gray matter…it stimulated plenty of conversation between my mother and me, and she's keeping this issue!

Via email

 

Wonderful magazine

The latest edition that we received is one that my husband and I both said we have to reread often! Over the years, reading my Bible became confusing because there was a difference in what I was reading from what I was taught in Adventist schools about death. We loved every article, but in particular, Chris Badenhorst's "A letter to my friend concerning the spirit".

We appreciate this wonderful magazine.

Boise, ID

 

I feel violated

When your publications come to my house I feel so very violated by them. That woman, Colleen Tinker, oh my. And the whole magazine—oh my. Words escape me. Please, if you know anything at all about mercy, please exercise it and please don't send me any more of your magazines.

Milton, WV

 

Former third generation Adventist

The July/August issue came at a wonderful time for me. My wife died on August 23 after a two-year fight with inflammatory breast cancer.

All the articles were very good; however, Colleen Tinker's touched me the most. Keep up the good work you are doing.

I was a third-generation Adventist. In 1982 we became aware it was a cult and bowed out and have never had any regrets.

CHINO VALLEY, AZ

 

Add me to your list

I would like to be on your list for sending Proclamation! magazine. I have read it several times and love it. I am a former Adventist of 20 years now, but I love the articles that are written. I also have had the revelation of the good news of the gospel. Praise God for our wonderful Savior!

I have read several other issues; each article is a Bible study in itself. Do you send any back issues? I am really interested in the last two issues so I can share them with others.

God Bless you and this ministry.

San Antonio, TX

 

God have mercy

No more mail from you.I mean it. Get me OFF now. I don't want anything to do with your lies in my mailbox. What is a former Adventist, anyway? All Christians that believe in the second coming are Adventists. You people must not believe Jesus is coming back again. Everyone that gets your magazine at my church trashes it. We are not to be fooled by you; we know what you are all about. May the blinders be removed from your eyes, and may God have mercy on you. It is so sad.

Rocky Mount, NC

 

I will never be the same

After many years of struggling and failing to know Jesus personally and intimately as an Adventist, I gave it up. Then Proclamation! entered my life in 2001. What a joy! However, I continued to struggle.

I read all the books and digested all the internet info on the issues but couldn't seem to shake seeing things through my Adventist (EGW) eyes.

And then the miracle occurred. Reading through 2 Corinthians 3, I reached the section "Lifting the Veil" in The Message Bible, and this is what happened. After years of searching (and suffering for things I had brought on myself), the Holy Spirit was able to lift my veil. It all became clear.

There really was nothing I could do or had to do but trust Jesus. He had done it all.

It was like a great light appeared in my mind—and peace which doesn't seem to leave. This happened on August 22, 2008, and my life will never be the same.

With Christian love and thanks,

Newaygo, MI

 

 Deluded people

Dale, I'm sure God has sent you message after message to warn you and your wife. But just like Lucifer, you reject all of God's efforts to show you that you are fighting against God. You enjoy the glory you feel from all your followers. You are doing Satan's bidding; you are one of his best disciples…

I stand firmly on the Word of God and the Spirit of Prophecy. Sister White is not in any remote way a cult leader. You hate God that you profess to serve. And you have been working for years to destroy the faith of God's people. You hate sister White. Many hated God's prophets in Bible times…

Be honest. Don't call your [organization] "ministries". Call it what it is—Satan's Ministries. People that are deceived and follow you will one day wake up and know they were deceived. There will be no Life Assurance—only the wrath of God, and they will see just where their feet turned off the path to God. And they will be lost. There is no Life Assurance, only the second death that awaits them.

You and your wife gloat that you are persecuted…It amazes me how far people will go when they refuse the truth of God's word. They will attack every truth of God's word.

I don't want your Proclamation! It makes good trash. You have your supporters that praise you and love your papers. You are receiving the praise you want.

Keene, TX

 

I had to get out of the boat

"In my case, I had no idea that Adventism was wrong. In all the places where the Bible didn't seem to agree with the doctrines, I just thought I didn't understand the Bible right. I was absolutely sure that Ellen White was a true prophet and certain that she explained the Bible. I believed that the Bible and her (sic) agreed completely." (Quoted from previous letter to the editor.)

I fell under the same spell. It took me a while after I left before I realized that while people are still inside Adventism, it is almost impossible to shake them out of their mesmerism. I usually now suggest that they put the Spirit of Prophecy [EGW] down and take six months off from church and church associates and spend that time going over Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Titus repeatedly and let the Holy Spirit bring them the true gospel. That's how God helped me.

It's as if, like Peter, I had to get out of the boat of Adventism and walk to Jesus, and once there, I could look back, while standing next to Jesus, and see what Adventism really was: the epitome of deception. How clever Satan was to have EGW say we should never go where error is being preached, and that leaving the Adventist church is like jumping off the ark. We need to continue in prayer for those still caught up in that deception.

Azariah (God helps)

Via email

 

The gospel of keeping the commandments

I'm not sure how I got on your mail list, but I do enjoy (no, not really "enjoy") getting your magazine. As an elder in my local Adventist congregation I view it as a sad commentary on what our church could be if we had learned to preach the gospel. If we had I do not believe you would be where you are. Don't misunderstand me; what you and I believe are poles apart. It's clear that you misunderstand the covenants, the nature of sin and atonement, the humanity of the Savior, and other vital points; but, it grieves me to see the tone of so many of your critics as published in your letters to the editor. Though well-meaning, most of their complaints are unchristian and only serve to drive you farther into your corner.

Yes, I believe your faith is misdirected, but I also believe that you, and I, will each come to judgment with only one question to answer: What did I do with that one talent, that gift of grace, that was so freely bestowed upon me? Did I rebel and resist grace, or was I compliant? Did I bury it or did I allow it to grow and blossom in my life in development of a true Christian character? Did that Gift of grace manifest itself in me in obedience to all the commandments of God?…

As I read Greg Taylor's article (May/June 2008) my heart ached for him and his family. No, they did not choose "the easier way", for all along the way he met nothing but briars and pricks from his "friends." However, regardless of what he and others like him may today think, he is in fact kicking against the Acts 9 gospel pricks, and that is definitely a hard way to go. What he says is true, he has not chosen the easier way, but the hard way: no, not hard, impossible.

I keep you and yours in my prayers that we may all come "in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Character perfection? Obeying the commandments of God (including keeping the seventh-day Sabbath)? I know you don't like the notion, but that's what the gospel's all about.

Lancaster, TN

 

Two sides to Adventism?

Today your May-June 2008 issue of Proclamation! arrived and I immediately sat down in a quiet corner and read it from cover to cover.

This letter will be a test of your fairness and willingness to expose both sides of Adventism. Let me first identify myself.

I am a retired Adventist pastor, and former seminary New Testament Greek classmate of Desmond Ford. It always seemed to me that Dr. Loasby was always teaching Desmond, the rest of us were allowed to listen in! No question Desmond was a good student. One of your published letters mentioned him, leading to this comment.

I too am a third-generation Adventist, and noticed what appeared to be a clear bias toward printing letters from discourteous and acid-tongued Church members. Such responses to you and your staff raise a valid question as to their relationship with our Saviour Jesus Christ. I'm so sorry, and apologize for them.

The tenor of your articles seem always to be how glad former Adventists are to now be "free in Jesus", free from legalism, free from non-biblical bondage. This makes no sense to me. The Lord Jesus gave His life for all of us, it is a free gift, and no amount of works, Sunday or Sabbath-keeping, tithing, witnessing, etc. can merit the wonderful gift of salvation paid for by His blood.

We spent most of our ministry in South American jungles under General Conference assignment as Pastor-Pilot-RN. We reared our four children there. Two sons took medicine at Loma Linda, the rest of us settled for being RNs. I have thoughtfully concluded that both sons left the Loma Linda environment spiritually damaged.

Observations made there during long years and repeated visits to local Churches convinced me that many members had religious priorities that were not correct.

Your readers and article writers express understandable hurt at less than Christ-like attitudes toward them during their Adventist experience. This spiritual weakness is spreading and should not surprise us, since Satan is still alive and well. Their expressed complaints about un-Christian attitudes encountered are quite believable.

To escape such pressure would be a relief, though not the wisest solution.

You would probably agree with me that there is a preference in modern Christianity for Christ's free grace without the concomitant responsibility to obey God. It is attractive to be "once saved, always saved", and avoid detailed obedience. This is not advocating salvation by works! I'm trusting your readers to understand what I mean.

Doctrinal doubts expressed by your writers seem to revolve around the concept of God's judgment, the lesson taught by the introduction in the Sanctuary Service of a "scapegoat", and whether God still has the option to communicate special instructions to His end-time people since men closed the Canon of Scripture several hundred years ago.

We all ought to study out these things.

I question how deeply your writers have actually delved into these matters. It's too easy to read what others say about a subject and then adopt a position. That is not the route we can safely take.

May God lead you and prepare you and your staff for the crisis that lies close at hand.

I'll be watching for a non-edited copy of this letter in your next edition, or shortly thereafter.

 

Editor's response

First, I want to say that we normally don't print long letters like yours because of our limited space. But you have raised some issues we are happy to address.

We understand the disappointment and even sadness that you carry as a result of some of your experiences within Adventism. Second, we reiterate the fact that we did not leave Adventism because of hurts or disappointments. We all studied independently. Further, we did not only leave historic Adventism; we also left liberal Adventism that demeans the law, the atonement of Christ, the complete reliability of Scripture, and the sovereign authority of God including His wrath.

You are correct that there have always been people within Christian circles who deny the Lordship of Jesus in their lives. Grace is never free. Salvation is a free gift, but the grace that gives it was purchased at a cost beyond measure. The cross is the only way to see or understand grace. Jesus' death was not a down payment on salvation. It was not one component of salvation, nor was it an example to reveal God's forgiving character. Jesus' blood IS the source of salvation. When we believe in Jesus—Almighty God who could not fail in His mission and who shed human blood as our substitute—we are counted righteous just as Abraham was, and we are saved forever (Acts 16:31; Romans 4:16-17; John 5:24). Without Jesus' shedding sinless human blood, there could not be any salvation (Hebrews 9:22).

When we receive the free gift of salvation, we must remember that God purchased His own grace with the blood of His own Son. He demanded the shedding of blood, and He personally took responsibility for dying. Our free salvation comes at the price of another Person's life. It is a debt we cannot repay, and it demands our full surrender.

When we believe in Jesus, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14), and our spirits are thus born again with the resurrection life of Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-5; Romans 8:9-11). This new birth is the essence of salvation (John 3:5-6) without which we cannot see the kingdom of heaven.

We do not obey to maintain this grace or to stay saved. God completes our sanctification (Philippians 1:6), and we are completely hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3). The Holy Spirit in us convicts us of sin and the need to repent. This ongoing struggle with and surrender of our "flesh" does not cause us to lose our salvation (Romans 6 through 8). Our spirits are eternally alive, rescued from sin and death.

Because Adventism requires obedience to the law as the sign of being a Christian, it eclipses the eternal sufficiency of Jesus' death and resurrection and teaches what Galatians calls "another gospel". The evidence of belief is not law-keeping but the indwelling Holy Spirit and our consequent new birth and submission to Jesus.

The cross is the secret to our joy. Jesus is all we need. We contribute absolutely nothing. We can only bow in worship and unspeakable gratitude.
 

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Send letters to the editor to:

Editor, Proclamation! Magazine
P.O. Box 7776
Redlands, CA 92375

Or email editor: proclamation@gmail.com

Life Assurance Ministries

Mission

To proclaim the good news of the new covenant gospel of grace in Christ and to combat the errors of legalism and false religion.

 

Motto

Truth needs no other foundation than honest investigation under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and a willingness to follow truth when it is revealed.

 

Message

"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God; not of works, that no one should boast." Ephesians 2:8,9