HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2014 / SPRING / LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
S P R I N G • 2 0 1 4
VOLUME 15, ISSUE 1
D E P A R T M E N T S
LETTERS to the Editor
Excellent article
Even though I subscribe to your magazine, I somehow lost the issue that has Martin Carey's article “Contemplating Prayer” (Spring 2013). Is there any way you could send this to me? By the way, his last article on spiritual formation was excellent.
Middletown, CT
Judgmental, contemptuous, and hateful
I have read your articles and readers’ letters in the Winter, 2013, edition of your magazine. I’m writing in response to a few issues raised.
1. The Law in Galatians: it is quite evident that Paul is referring to the Levitical law that the Jews used to put a burden on Gentiles, such as, you have to be circumcised before you become a good Christian.…
2. In Romans (mostly chapters 3-8) Paul is talking about the Law given to Moses at Sinai, also known as the Ten Commandments. These laws, though keeping them does not save or justify us, are still relevant to the Christian in revealing and reminding us of God’s will. Paul states that “The law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good” (Rom. 7:12).…
3. God expects us to abide by His commandments; all of them. He has never changed His mind since giving them at Sinai.…We cannot honestly claim to be saved by grace and have faith when we commit adultery, steal, murder, etc. and still expect that we will be justified and escape God’s judgment. And the same God who said, “Thou shalt not commit adultery…” is the one who said “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy…” and also said to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” These are not Adventist statements; rather, they are directly from the Bible, and it’d be interesting to know if your Bible says something different.
I do not believe it is legalism to respond to God’s grace and love in obedience as He requires. Otherwise, we are preaching the doctrine of predestination, where God is responsible for saving those who get saved and for the loss of those who don’t.
4. It is a pity that Mr. and Mrs. Hosillos of Prineville, Oregon, should spend 108 years in the church and not understand what the Bible says about the Sabbath.…
Your magazine Proclamation! is overly judgmental and contemptuous of Adventists. It appears like your organization exists only for that purpose, and if there were no Seventh-day Adventists, you’d cease to be; you would never have existed to begin with. If you do have a great Christian message to share, then share it in a more Christ-like way. More people may accept it better that way. As it is now, you are too hateful to appeal to a majority of reasonable people.
Riverside, CA
Thank you for your ministry
Please add me to your mailing list. I found your magazine in my (Adventist) mother’s home and ended up reading it cover to cover. I am three years out of the Adventist church, but there are days I still consider myself “in transition” and appreciate the reminders that the view of the gospel that I grew up with is not compatible with Scripture. I was neither angry nor hurt by the actions of anyone within the Adventist church but was an active member for many years, teaching in the Sabbath Schools and participating in the worship programs. It was the ache in my heart that could never seem to be soothed by the teachings of the church, though, that brought me to question everything and led me to beg God to show me Himself without any “religious” influence. During the six months I spent reading nothing but Scripture and praying for the Holy Spirit to show me His truth, I came to see Jesus and the gospel in a new light. Praise The Lord! I have never felt more joy or peace in my life. Thank you for your ministry to those of us who have dared to question “the church”.
Crestline, CA
Not appreciative
I have been a baptized Adventist for 58 years. As an adult, many organizations, including yours, have sent me anti-Adventist literature. I am not appreciative of this unsolicited material. My Jesus is everything to me, and I believe He has raised up the Seventh-day Adventist church for a specific mission. It is my great privilege to be a member of this movement.
Thank you for removing me from your subscription list.
Columbia, MD
Dead bones to live
Thank you for all the work you are doing in proclaiming the truth. When I started reading the Bible about 30 years ago (I am now in my late 60’s), I knew something was wrong with the teachings of my youth in the Adventist church and school I attended. The dead bones of the Adventist church will hopefully become alive with the Proclamation! you folks are providing.
via email
Apologize for the blasphemy
Once you let self go, you will apologize to God for the blasphemy you have caused. God have mercy on you. And may you awaken before it’s too late.
via email
Saved every Proclamation!
I was so angered by the narrow-mindedness of some of the letters to the editor in the last issue that I had to send a check and tell you that the truth will get to those who are seeking with all their hearts. Keep up the good work. We have saved every Proclamation! that we have ever received and enjoy reading them over and over.
Paradise, CA
Adventists fully accept Paul
I appreciate LAM sending me Proclamation! It is very interesting to read your perspective on the Adventist beliefs and practice. Much of what is presented in Proclamation! as Adventist belief and teachings I have not heard taught in my 60 years of attending Adventist churches and schools. I wonder if you check with knowledgeable leaders in the church to make sure the doctrines that are being rejected are even believed by mainstream Adventists.…
It is not just Adventists who accept the New Testament’s teaching that we are drawn to the gospel by the work of the Holy Spirit, and we receive God’s gracious gift by accepting it (see Jn. 3:16). It was not clarified, but I’m wondering whether all Life Assurance Ministries followers are Calvinists. I hardly think that the only choice we have is 1) no choice in the matter at all—we are predestined to eternal life or eternal damnation or 2) a faith and works theology. And may I hasten to add that Adventists fully accept Paul’s teaching that we are saved by faith alone without works of the law [any law]. Adventists do not believe that human works play any role in our justification or sanctification. Adventists do believe that those who are “in Christ” will allow Christ to live out His life within them. I do not believe Adventists would have any opposition at all to Barker’s “Recapitulation” (p. 21, vol. 14:4). It seems Rick Barker sets up a straw man theology (that Adventists don’t believe) and attacks it, and then thinks he has refuted Adventist doctrines. Adventists do not believe that anyone is saved by works of the law. We are saved by grace alone.
Tucson, AZ
Editor’s response: Would you risk losing your salvation if you gave up the Sabbath? Would you risk opening yourself to demonic deception and ultimately to loss of your salvation if you believed people have an immaterial spirit that survives the body at death?
If the answer to those questions is “yes”, or even if it is uncertain, then you do not believe that salvation is entirely the work of God without any human participation. One cannot be saved by grace alone through faith but lost by wrong beliefs or practices. One is either spiritually dead, in the domain of darkness, or spiritually alive, having passed already from death to life by believing in the Lord Jesus (Jn. 5:24; 3:18).
Salvation is not about maintaining obedience; it is about being alive. Adventists simply do not believe this biblical fact. Jesus said to Nicodemus that one must be born of the Spirit to enter the kingdom of heaven. There is no other requirement. When you begin to unpack the underpinnings of Adventist theology, it becomes clear that the words Adventists say publicly have different definitions than those words have within Scripture. Adventists do believe that their Sabbath-keeping will be the mark of their readiness for salvation. They do believe that sin is behavior that can be overcome by the help of the Holy Spirit—or at least it can be progressively eliminated. They do believe man does not possess an immaterial spirit. These beliefs stem from a profound misunderstanding of Scripture.
I know that many denominations hold a synergistic view of justification and/or sanctification, and this fact does not make them heretics. Nevertheless, the Adventist and the Catholic views are not the same as Protestant synergistic views. Adventism and Catholicism both believe that a person must continue to do the things that they deem to be the evidence of salvation in order to be truly saved. For Adventists, the Sabbath is the primary evidence of salvation, and the belief in annihilation is a close second.
We are saved only when we repent of our intrinsic, natural spiritual death. We cannot avoid sin by prayer and persistence. We can only be made alive by repenting and receiving the blood of Jesus as the propitiation for our natural identity as a child of wrath (Eph 2:3; Rom. 3:21-27).
What a blessing!
I just received your last issue, and what a blessing it is to read a magazine that is so well balanced, well-prepared, and well-prayed. The letter from Fred and Rochelle Hosillos was concentrated and to the point. Yes, the truth hurts sometimes, but, we must put our own feelings aside and “obey God before men” when lovingly exposed to truth. Love you guys; this kind of truth set me free! Praise God!
via email
So much hatred
Please terminate the Proclamation! magazines being delivered to my home. I’m not interested in reading them anymore. I would normally just sign my name now and send this letter off; however, someone needs to know how this magazine came off to me. I have never read any magazine filled with so much hatred. Even Adventists don’t slam, condemn, or accuse other beliefs. I’m probably right to say that not any other religious group does either to the extent Proclamation! does. It’s rude and not out of love. A lot of the articles I read were critical and mean. Most times the magazine just made me mad or angry. I mean, really—if someone wants to convince another of who’s right or wrong, he doesn’t start shooting them down with accusations. That’s not nice, right?…
In all honesty, I’m not in my heart an Adventist. I’m not mad. I’m not vegetarian. I don’t believe EGW. However, this congregation is the closest I’ve found to my current beliefs.
I understand that many people have left Adventism. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s not. I don’t know. What I do know is that everyone must believe what they feel and know is right for them. Adventists don’t have all the truth, and neither does anyone else.
I do believe in Saturday as being the Lord’s appointed holy day. Satan has been attacking God’s special day forever! Think about it. Why would Satan be so concerned if it no longer matters? And if you don’t think it matters, why devote so much energy into making a point of it? If we all love and are worshiping Him, then we are where we need to be.
See you in heaven.
Manchester, MI
Editor’s note: Jesus identified Himself as “the Truth”: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (Jn. 14:6). There is one work of God that we are commanded to do: “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (Jn. 6:29).
We are saved, not by deciding what is right for us, but by believing in the Lord Jesus and trusting His shed blood as the payment for our depravity. No day will be credited to our account if we keep it. Only Jesus’ righteousness will be credited to our account—and that only if we repent and believe, trusting in His death, burial, and resurrection as the completed requirement for atonement and for our reconciliation with God.
When we believe, we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who is a guarantee of our eternal life (Eph. 1:13-14). At that moment we pass from death to life (Jn. 5:24).
The energy we spend at Life Assurance Ministries is not for the sake of tearing down a day or a church. Rather, we desire that our Adventist friends and loved ones will not miss Jesus because of a day. We want them to be saved.
What about Isaiah 66?
I am a former Adventist and would like to know if there is an explanation of the text of Isa. 66:23 where it states that from one Sabbath to another we will come to worship.
via email
Response from Dale Ratzlaff’s Sabbath in Christ, p. 360-361: “First, if it is to be argued that the Sabbath should be kept today because in an Old Testament prophetic description of the new earth the inhabitants are said to bow down before the Lord from Sabbath to Sabbath, then it must also be argued that new moon celebrations should be observed today for they too are said to be observed in the new earth. It is not a valid method of interpretation to use only half of the data in a text while ignoring the other half…the fact that Sabbath and the new moon celebrations are mentioned together in Isaiah only reinforces the fact that old covenant prophets described the age to come using old covenant terminology.
“Second, if the activities described in these verses [Is. 66:17-25] are to be observed now, then we could argue that the Levitical priesthood should also be observed now.…
“Third, even if a certain practice may be observed in the new earth it does not, in and of itself, mean that it should be practiced now…it is not a currently recommended practice to pasture wolves and sheep together! Nor would we advise zookeepers to feed their lions straw!”
Dishonest to stay
My husband and I are facing the reality that it is dishonest for us to remain in the Adventist church. We no longer believe in Ellen White, the Adventist interpretation of Daniel 8:14, the Adventist interpretation of the Scripture about alcohol and meat, the perpetuity of the law, or the covenants, among other things. We are still studying about the Sabbath (definitely don’t believe it is any kind of end time test) and have many other things we need to learn. We are life-long Adventists educated in Adventist schools through university, did all the Adventist things like Pathfinders, mission trips, summer camps, camp meetings, literature evangelism—you name it. Our families include Adventist pastors, former conference officials, missionaries and university professors, and many very active laypeople. We are very active in our local church. We have always given 20%. All of our close friends are Adventist.…
We have young children, and a major reason this is weighing on me so heavily is that I know the longer we stay, the harder it will be for our kids when we leave. I know we can’t put them in Adventist schools where they will be taught a legalistic, works-based false religion. There have been a lot of tears and sleepless nights here. Sometimes I am scared, and sometimes I am angry. I feel like I somehow tripped and fell into a strange alternate universe. Sometimes I wish I could go back and forget all this information and go back to being the perfect Adventist family.
I know that Jesus is leading us out of Adventism. I have a greater love for the beautiful pure Bible and a deep sense of gratitude for God’s free gift of salvation! I know that this pain is for our spiritual good. I want my kids to grow up free of legalism and safe in the knowledge that they are saved! I believe good will come out of this in the end, but I’m still grieving the loss of my “perfect” life… I have watched all the YouTube videos and hope you will be posting last weekend’s conference soon.
via email
Note: They are all online here: FormerAdventist.com.
Copyright 2014 Life Assurance Ministries, Inc., Camp Verde, Arizona, USA. All rights reserved. Revised May 5, 2014. Contact email: proclamation@gmail.com
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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
