HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2009 / FALL / LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

FALL 2009
VOLUME 10, ISSUE 4

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D E P A R T M E N T S

LETTERS to the Editor

 

Thanks for integrity

I just want to take a moment to tell you how impressed I am with the integrity of you and your publication. I am amazed every time I look through your magazine that you are so willing to be candid and open by publishing letters that are both in support of what you are doing and those that speak against your ministry. I believe it displays an openness that many ministries and organizations could learn from. While your detractors speak of what they perceive as mean-spirited attacks, it seems to me that you show the same love and concern for those who disagree with you that Christ did. Thank you for radically demonstrating God's love, compassion and truth to all who are open to receive it. You are a blessing.

Pastor

Crestline, CA

 

LAM kept me grounded

Thank you for your ministry. I'm 63, saved since age 11, and I've had many struggles through disobedience to God's word.

Now I live close to Him and am secure in His love. I live in the mercies of Christ as a retired widow with income. Praise God. Nothing is secure, however, but Christ.

Without your ministry, I might have gotten caught up in the snare of Adventism. When perusing an online [Sabbath School] quarterly recently, I read the guilt trip put on Adventists for not being able to convince people like me to cross over. Thank God Life Assurance Ministries kept me grounded during my two years of research!

Upland, CA

 

You will burn

I would hate to be you at the Second Coming. You will burn.

North Bay, CA

 

Discarding negativity

Having perused a few issues of Proclamation! I wonder if you shouldn't add #2 to your mission: Adventist Bashing.

I find no biblical command to criticize and condemn others, yet this is apparent throughout your magazine. Author bios and writings are apparently uniquely Ratzlaffic—i.e. they aren't so much about what the person has done and is doing for Christ, but rather about the fact that they once were Adventist.

Is the message of Jesus Christ not sufficient to fill your pages and your ministry? I don't read where the converted Paul Jew-bashed his former associates, but rather prayed for them and desired that they come to understand Jesus—crucified, risen, friend and Savior.

You folks must harbor serious grudges and resentments. Maybe I'm not well-read, but I don't know of another group of people claiming to know the "truth about Jesus Christ" who make a continual point in their publications to criticize and condemn another specific church group as you do.

If you have the truth about Jesus, give it! If your message is overtly or covertly only that "Adventists are wrong," you haven't much of a redeeming message, do you?

You have, however, piqued my interest in Adventists! Having decided to discard negativity, I ask that you take my name off your mailing list.

Positively living for Jesus

McMinnville, TN

 

Gaining new insights

We praise the Lord for you and the work you are doing, praying daily for all of you and for Life Assurance Ministries. We look forward to every issue of Proclamation! and continue to gain new insights from God's word, even though we left the Adventist church 38 years ago and have attended churches where the real truth of the Bible is taught. Through your ministry we are blessed by the testimonies of others…

Some of the scathing letters you print are shocking, yet they graphically reveal the gross blindness because of the teachings of that church—while trying to convince people they are Christians!

I still remember how angry and hurt I became while reading, for the first time, an article against Ellen G. White; yet I was prompted to ask myself, "I wonder if there is any truth to this?" That was the beginning of my turning away from Adventism.

We pray for those who are having struggles, and we thank God that you are there for them!

Elk Grove, CA

 

Life is rough—the devil is real

For years I thought how much easier it would be not to be an Adventist. It was not easy being different. I tried in my own way to play down my Adventist roots, but they kept coming back to me. Memories such as singing, "Side by side we stand, awaiting God's command..." come to mind. Life is rough—the devil is real. I cannot discount the Adventist message. I cannot believe the Sabbath was changed; Christ would have said He was giving a new commandment before he rose into heaven. There is no way He would leave without instructing the disciples regarding His "new commandment(s)". I cannot believe my six-year-old daughter went right to heaven; what kind of a God would take her from me—only to have her wondering why I am not there with her? I am far from perfect. I praise God that He loves me and is working on my heart. I am praying for everyone: my relatives who left when their California church left, my Walla Walla University acquaintances who have gone this way. Adventists are far from perfect—I am far from perfect. This is why I believe fully in the saving grace of Christ. Praise God, He loves me enough to have kept me in His hands. I praise God that He loves me enough to want "little old me" in His kingdom. Some people hate their Adventist roots—but I wonder...

"Meet me in heaven, we'll join hands together, meet me by the Savior's side, I'll meet you in heaven, we'll sing songs together, brothers and sisters, I'll be there."

Via email

 

Editor's response: I am overwhelmed by the pain and grief you have endured, losing your six-year-old daughter and having so many who are close to you move away from your spiritual base. I understand from experience how tightly we grip the reassuring foundation of our roots when we experience great loss.

I want to stand beside you and say, I agree: the Sabbath was never changed. You are absolutely right. Rather, it was fulfilled by the singular work of the Lord Jesus (Matt. 5:17). Now it is He, not a day, where we find rest. "Come to Me," He says, "all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28). The writer of Hebrews says, "[God] again fixes a certain day, 'Today,' saying through David… 'Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts…' So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works as God did from His" (Heb. 4:7-10).

Moreover, Jesus did give us a new commandment before He went to heaven. In fact, shortly before He went to the cross he articulated it: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another even as I have loved you, that you also love one another" (John 13:34). God had always commanded His people to love their neighbors, but the new requirement was loving as Jesus loved. In other words, Jesus' new commandment was that we love sacrificially to the point of giving our lives for the sake of the salvation of another if necessary. This command is impossible for us—unless we are born of the Spirit (John 3:3-5) and are filled with the literal presence of God.

Finally, when God receives the spirit of a child into His presence, that child would never be sad or fearful. Romans 8:38-39 explains that nothing, not even death, can separate God's people from the love of Christ. In Christ is the safest, most secure and hopeful place in all of reality. Paul said to depart and be with the Lord is "very much better" than remaining in the flesh (Phil 1:23).

Jesus is all we need. In Him we have forgiveness, and we are counted as completely righteous because His own personal righteousness is imputed to us (2 Cor 5:21, Phil. 3:9). In Him we have eternal security, and we can rejoice in everything, because He "causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28).

 

In my prayers

Life Assurance Ministries is in my prayers. Your ministry is much needed, and it was there for me. God bless.

Esparto, CA

 

Speaking truth

Keep up the good work. Continue your faith in speaking the truth; I'm praying for all of you.

Mountain Home, AR

 

Ellen White false prophet

Please still send Proclamation!. I grew up in the church and schools of Seventh-day Adventists. I believe Sister White is a false prophet, and I don't like to hear her preached. I no longer go to the Adventist church.

Merlin, OR

 

Anger and hurt

I am a 20 year old Christian college student about to start my senior year as a psychology major. I also live in Lincoln, NE where you held a weekend seminar concerning the Adventist church a few weeks ago. I find the material you write not only to be theologically inaccurate, but the information in Proclamation! to contradict the spirit of Christ and the goals of Christianity completely. This, more than your theology, is what is completely repulsive to me. Everything I have found in the Proclamation! magazines that I have read as well as what I find online about your group has been completely negative and all about what you consider to be "faults" in Adventism.…

As a psychology major, I can tell you that anyone who knows anything about the human mind can spot anger and hurt a mile away, and that is all that I find from your presentations and your magazine. Your attacks on a fellow Christian church [do] nothing to reflect Christ, or His new covenant that you so intently claim to "defend". I have found, to my extreme disappointment, your group to reflect Satan and his wishes, not those of our Father in Heaven. Anyone who has experienced or has even witnessed TRUE worship will tell you that it is incredibly attractive, incredibly addictive, and brings you to a place where criticism isn't something you can dwell on—even if you try. You can't be hateful while worshiping Our Christ…If you were truly "dwelling in Him" you would not be able to have a captive audience (like the people who attend your seminars or read your Proclamation! magazine) without completely focussing on Christ, His word, His love, and his unbelievable acceptance. I find none of this presented to the audiences you have. That shows me that your true intent isn't to dwell in Christ.

My heart hurts for all of you, you are all in my prayers because His love is bigger than your anger, hurt, negativity, criticism and hateful spirit. I will pray that the anger and hurt that your writings and seminars display so blatantly will be healed. I pray that you will find the real Christ, fall in love with who He really is and lose sight of this anger and rage that you hold in your heart. There is no room for any of that in Christ's presence.

Via email

 

Psychological and spiritual leap

I should tell you that Life Assurance Ministries and Proclamation! were a huge blessing to me when I found you in late 2006. You helped me make the final psychological/spiritual leap I needed to make to finally exit the Adventist church. I knew that you understood my conflicts and my thinking, and all your reading materials were such a tremendous help to me.

Since then I have become a much more diligent student of God's word. I find I can't get enough and really hunger for it. In the summer of 2008 I was re-baptized when I realized I had no idea what I was doing when my Adventist pastor baptized me at age eight. I now realize what it means to come to repentance, place my trust in Jesus, and live as a follower of my Lord and Savior. What a difference!

Praise God for his amazing patience with me. I pray for you and the work you are doing Your work makes a difference and changes lives. May God continue to bless you.

San Clemente, CA

 

 

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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

I find the material you write in not only to be theologically inaccurate but the information in Proclamation! to contradict the spirit of Christ and the goals of Christianity completely. This, more than your theology, is what is completely repulsive to me.

You helped me make the final psychological/spiritual leap I needed to make to finally exit the Adventist church. I knew that you understood my conflicts and my thinking, and all your reading materials were such a tremendous help to me.