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Jude the Obscure
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2000 - 9:23 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Colleen,

Bless you for:

1. Moving away from the fear and slavery of memorizing verses to ward off some evil day when you would have to rely on your own mental processes rather than on Christ and His Holy Spirit.

2. Moving into the freedom and confidence of studying God's word because you love to do so and so no longer fear some evil day because you now have Christ and his Holy Spirit to rely on, because they are within you.

"My old fear is obsolete because now I live by the Spirit!" What a precious testimony!

Jude
Lynn W
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2000 - 7:50 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

(playing catch up)
Lori, you brought up a good point that I've often noticed. Ex-Adventists have a much greater grasp of salvation by grace & grace alone than most "Sunday" Christians. When I explain to ex-Adventist types that we live to a higher law (James 2:8, Gal. 6:2, etc.), they have no trouble understanding. Other Christians don't seem to get it, but insist we must keep the 10C. But why trade one bondage for another?

Jude, I sure appreciate you pointing out that Paul consistently preached the Gospel, not the Sabbath. Imagine if that happened in an Adventist church.

Have you ever noticed that in a Sunday church, Sunday or the Lord's Day is hardly ever mentioned? I've never heard a sermon based on the importance of Sunday. In an SDA church, that seems to be the reason they meet - to pat themselves on the back for being in church on the right day. Kinda like a club having meetings to talk about the importance of being a member of the club.

"(Come on now, admit it: Have YOU read FSS?)"
No, but I have it, you bet I will now. Thanks for that eye-opening review.
Jude the Obscure
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2000 - 9:03 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Lynn, you're on a roll!

Everybody, I just returned from Dale Ratzlaff's meeting at Trinity Evangelical Free Church in Redlands. It was really great. Some Sabbatizing, Judaizing, SDAs were there and disgraced themselves with their attitudes, bitter denunciations of former Adventists and attacks on Dale. "They have an ax to grind," one elderly lady told the assembly of some 250-300 people.

After the service was over, I told her that I didn't have an ax to grind and that I loved my SDA friends. You on this website know that's true from what I've said. She came down a peg and said she was referring only to Ratzlaff. I said he didn't have an ax to grind either. Then she cut loose -- we're talking about a woman who looks to be in her eighties, very well dressed, and I was told a wealthy financier of extreme right-wing SDA causes -- with a string of un-Christlike attacks on me. So I guess I hit a nerve in defending Dale. But she was wrong again. Dale showed a consistent, patient, Christ-like spirit thoughout the lecture and "hot" Q&A afterword. Still, I let her "make her point." I just smiled at her and said good night.

But I took notes, friends. And I'll share them with you on this website as soon as I get the time. Not tonight!

Also, tomorrow morning I'm having breakfast with Dale and others from the FAF group at Trinity. I'll take notes there too and share them with you too.

I beg you, do not gentle into SDA night,
Rage against the dying of the gospel light,

Jude
Jude the Obscure
Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2000 - 9:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Dear friends, hereís the report, at least a start, I promised to share with you.

* * * * * * * * * *

Itís Friday night, 7:30 PM in Trinity Evangelical Free Church, Redlands, California. Dale Ratzlaff -- visiting pastor from Life Assurance Ministries in Glendale, Arizona -- stands alone on the platform in front of an audience of about 300 people clustered in the front and center of the sanctuary.

ìIím at home,î he says, referring to the local Tinker family as his relatives and a local lady who had just informed him they had gone to the second grade together in Tucson.

Then, suddenly becoming very serious, he says, ìI believe in God's eternal moral principles, right living, holiness, dedication and doing Godís will.î He says this as though to forestall traditionalist SDA attacks that in fact later, in a sometimes ìhotî Q&A session, were actually made.

He said he had left the Seventh-day Adventist church ìover the doctrine of the investigative judgmentî while pastoring the SDA church in Watsonville, California. But tonight the title of his talk is, ìWhatever Happened to the Law?î

ìThrow out all your presuppositions,î he says in gentle overstatement. ìWe donít know where this is going to end. Take a risk. Take whatever Scripture says.î

Then he pointed out that Scripture (in Galatians 3:16-18) says this:

(1) That the law (Torah = first 5 books of the Bible, including the 10 Commandments) did not come until 430 after God promised Abraham a descendant who was to be Jesus Christ,

(2) That the coming of this law did not disqualify that covenant that God made with Abraham about his descendant Jesus Christ, and

(3) That the inheritance, Jesus Christ, CANNOT depend on the law if it depends on the promise.

Thus Scripture ñ saying that the coming of Jesus Christ depended on the promise and not on the law ñ actually contradicts what he, Ratzlaff, had always been taught in his SDA upbringing and schooling, including seminary training: That the law was given to Adam and that Jesus kept it, thus making the law the final ìtesting truthî mediated by the investigative (pre-Advent) judgment.

In other words, until his awakening and church-leaving experience at Watsonville, he had believed that the law was at the center of ìthe great controversyî and is the final ìtesting truth.î

Oops! Wrong! If you throw out your SDA presuppositions and accept only what Scripture actually says, it is Jesus Christ who is at the center of ìthe great controversyî and is the final ìtesting truth.î

He then showed a slide of a picture of a woman. In it you saw either a young woman or an elderly woman. But you couldnít see both at once. I tried it, and found that to be so. The point: You can only see one: either the law (Old Covenant) or the gospel (New Covenant). They are mutually exclusive. There is no ìboth and.î There is only ìeither or.î

There is no BOTH "salvation by works of the law" AND "salvation by the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ."

There is only EITHER "salvation by works of the law" OR "salvation by the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ."

Like the picture on the slide, ìYou can only see one,î Ratzlaff said.

* * * * * * * * * *

Well, it doesnít look like Iím going to be able to finish this report tonight. Hopefully, I can finish it tomorrow after church.

Till then, go not gentle into SDA night,
Rage against the dying of the gospel light,

Jude
David
Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2000 - 4:18 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Thanks, Jude, for this update. Isn't it amazing how our Teacher can instruct us from His Word when we let go of our understanding of what it supposedly says?
Cas
Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2000 - 8:38 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Jude,
I would like to thank you for taking notes of the Dale Ratzlaff meeting the other night. I am so gratefull you are willing to give us the highlights. I really would like to have been there.
I wondered if he would be met with opposition! Many SDA's take their doctrinal positions very personal.
God Bless You.
Onesimus
Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2000 - 12:37 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Dear Cas: Dale's meeting was taped which we will have copies of. Call the toll-free number if you want a tape. It was a really great evening and well worth listening to the tape.

I will second Jude's witness that Dale's presentation was godly, gentle and loving. In the face of the Judaizers on the front row, that could only have been God!

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