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Another_Carol (Another_Carol)
Posted on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 8:51 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Pheeki, I just want to share my discussions of sleep of the dead with my son-in-law. I told him I am not concerned with what happens to me after I am dead because my Lord and Saviour has told me that He goes to prepare a place for me and when He comes again He will recieve me. I said I am leaving the details to Him. My son-in-law says but it's the truth. That is really a thorn in my side because as I have professed thru this whole thing the truth is Jesus and Jesus and Jesus. Now they try and tell you that this is the truth making it seem like SDA knows it all. I would like for any SDA to tell me that they know for sure what happens after they die? If they can say they do then I would have to say they are setting themselves up as God. I don't know of anyone who has died and come back to earth to tell about it, except for one,Jesus Christ. I say it is a mute point only to again try and get the focus off THE TRUTH ABOUT JESUS. There are scriptures such as Acts 2: 29 jump to 34 which they use to confuse anyone who does not understand how to read properly and/or someone who is lazy and wants someone else to do their study for them. They take totally out of context and misrepresent what the verses left out are saying. Then when you conforn them on it they try to tell you it is someway pointing to the fact that David was a type of Jesus but now Christ is alive and I'm lost. They will agree with you to a point such as this was speaking of the prophecy of Jesus resurrection from the dead but then they go off in some other direction, I believe only to confuse. I would like to add this came to me by way of a tape my daughter happened upon when she wanted to tape something and realized her husband had previously taped something, so she listened to it and shared with me that they (Doug Batchelor) were saying in a very subtle way that you must keep the commandments to be saved. Well I listened and listened to it several times. One day as I was listening something else just grabbed me and it was this portion of scripture and I said I must go and check that out for myself. I did and came to the conclusion it is nothing more than a smoke screen and what I want to make clear is I was lead to this by some other power than myself or my daughter and therein is the reality. It still makes no difference to me when I go to Heaven, but is does make a difference to me when someone tries to use a portion of scripture taken out of context to prove their point. I am told so many times it has to be in context. Another thing I see when I listen to thier sermons is scripture upon scripture (I counted in 1 sermon 20 some scriptures ) is used to try and make a point thus if a person does not go back and check it out for themselves then they believe only what the person reading scripture believes and my Bible tells me to not be deceicved and the only way that can happen is if I find out for myself and PRAISE GOD I know I have, because I do not listen to what the organizer of my Church says except that it was founded upon 1 Cor.3:11 Other foundation can No man lay than that which is laid is of Jesus Christ. That verse is used not because he said it should be but because it was found scrawled in all his writtings.I know it is of vital importance to me because I belive the same way not because he told me too or my church told me too but because thru my experiences I have totally come to believe it.
Susan_2 (Susan_2)
Posted on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 12:27 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

A few comments-first tell you daughter not to be so sure that EGW will even be in heaven. About after we die-it says we will see Jesus in the twinkling of an eye. Therefore, if that's a hundred million years ftom now or if that's the same day I die it really doesn't matter as for me it will be in the twinkling of an eye either way. When I was 11 years old and in the 5th grade in SDA school my teacher had us memorize John 3:16. As you all know that verse says, "...that whoso ever believes on Him WILL NOT DIE BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE". Wel that same year that same stupid teacher tried to convince my class that the SDA church and only the SDA church had the truth about the state of the dead and the tried to get us to believe the SDA version of that doctrine. I then kept bugging my teacher with John 3:16 and telling her what she was teaching us was not what John3:16 said happens when one dies. Finilly she told me, in private, to stop disagreeing with her when it come to Bible truth or she would take away my recesses. I stopped. Oh, how I did not like that woman at all. Then my mom told me that that teacher hd NO teaching training at all and that she had not even gone to college. She just happened to be a very devoted SDA/EGW member of the local church. Private schools, at least back then were exempt from having to have credentialed teachers which seems wrong to me if thy are state accediated schools. I thought it was just me but then I recently attended a memoria service at the Lutheran church and the minister read John3:16 as the min text on the state of the dead for those who believe on Jesus.
Pheeki (Pheeki)
Posted on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 2:22 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

What started all of this was my son brought home a 3x5 card with that all time favorite Ecclesiates verse that they use to prove the dead know nothing (why do they want to cling to that so desperately? why don't they cling to what Paul says or when Jesus tells the thief on the cross he will be with him in paradise today! They want to argue over comma placement in that verse so it fits their pessimistic EGW theology, I don't get it). Anyway, the card was carefully copied word for word in cursive, which takes a long time to do when you are young, and takes a lot of thought and he probably spent 30-40 min. on it and it is the most depressing verse!!!! For some reason it went all over me.

Carol, I know you have the right idea because the Holy Spirit has just confirmed to me by you speaking my nearly exact words. I said nearly the exact thing to my husband and mother. Almost verbatim.
I told them that I trusted God/Jesus enough that he could do whatever he wanted with me when I die. I don't believe it is for us to know or worry about.

Or here is another thought...
Perhaps you get what you believe? Perhaps SDA's will sleep and Baptist's etc. won't. (just playing devil's advocate). No offense to anyone.

My husband just called me and asked what I was doing and I told him we were discussing the state of the dead and I told him what Carol had written which were my thoughts exactly and he insisted on bringing up Ecclisiates (didn't I say a SDA favorite?) and wanting to argue about it. I told him I had read somewhere that some scholars aren't sure who wrote Ecclesiastes and if it should have been included in the Bible because it is so different in tone etc. than other books. I probably shouldn't have said that because I am sure the Bible is just as God wanted it to be, but I was a little miffed. Here is a question...What about the Apocrypha? What do you all think about those books. I think EGW quotes a little from it. Is it valid?
Thomas1 (Thomas1)
Posted on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 4:17 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The next time an SDA quotes their favorite verse in Ecclisiastes, ask them why they don't quote the WHOLE verse. Make them look it up and read the last half of their "favorite" verse, then ask them if they really want to leave their future at that? You might even want them to read through verse 9.

Read it and see if you would really want to build YOUR entire belief in your future on the entire verse of Ecc. 9:5?

Somehow, I really don't think that many Adventists have really ever read that text from the Bible. But OH HOW the love to quote the "first half" of it!

So Happy that I'm

In HIS Grip!

<><
Thomas
Colleentinker (Colleentinker)
Posted on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 4:38 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

That text in Ecclesiastes (9:5, to be exact), is not a text even remotely discussing the state of the dead. The book of Ecclesiastes was written to show how life looked to a person who had no saving faith in God. Without God, all is vanity and life is meaningless, as it says over and over in this book. (Check out chapters 1-2) These are not statements of truth for believers but for unbelievers.

Ecclesiastes 9:5 also reflects the hopeless view of death which a Godless life ultimately leads to: "For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten."

We know this hopeless condition cannot be the situation of Christ-followers, because John wrote in Revelation 14:13, "Blessed [happy] are the dead who die in the Lord from now on." "Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them." Notice, their deeds will follow them? There are rewards for those who have lived for Christ. (see 1 Corinthians 3)

Read 2 Corinthians 5:6-8. Paul, who was taken to heaven and saw reality from a perspective we have never seen it (2 Corinthians 12:1-4), said without hesitation, "As long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord."

And again in Philippians 1:22-24 Paul says, "I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body."

The reason Adventists downplay Paul is that he is so clear that Jesus fulfilled the law and the new covenant is a new dispensation in which we live by grace and by faith in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit instead of living under the law. Paul is absolutely clear on this point. (Read Galatians and 2 Corinthians 3 and Colossians 2 and Romans 7:4-2!)

You can actually do your own inductive Bible study on death, if you wish, by using a concordance that lists all the references to death, and looking them up in context. It becomes clear that in the Old Testament people were not clear on the state of man in death, but in the New Testament there is no doubt that those who accept Jesus will never be separated from his love, even by death!

The belief that man has a spirit which is NOT the breath in the lungs is a crucial part of the reason we know that Jesus was not just our example. If humans have only body plus breath, as I was taught, then sin must be genetic and in the mind. If, however, man has a spirit that is the avenue through which God communicates to us, then the new birth makes sense. When we accept Jesus, the Holy Spirit indwells us and communicates with our spirits. That indwelling reconnects us to God, and we become born again. Further, that spirit in us, when it is made alive in Christ, is how we understand spiritual things. Spiritual things are spiritually understood. (see 1 Corinthians 1 and 2) That spirit, that part of us that knows God, is the part of us that is never separated from God once it has come to life.

I am so grateful for eternal life!

Colleen
Another_Carol (Another_Carol)
Posted on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 7:14 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Pheeki,Colleen, Thomas1, Susan2 THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. You know I have come to believe that if the Adventists who want to try and push this stuff down our throats would just step back and use the dictionary(like I do if I don't understand a word fully) we certainly would not have ever had a Seventh Day Adventist Church. I researched some of these words and applied them to Bible verses and her is what I find.
In light of the definition of 'perish and everlasting' lets look at scripture to see if sleep of the dead can be supported.
Perish: to suffer death, or lose life, to pass away decay, and disappear to suffer destruction, to suffer spiritual death Syn is die
everlasting: lasting forever; eternal, lasting or continuing indefinetly, incessant constantly recurring, wearisome, eternal duration, the everlasting eternal being; God
Now with these definitions in mind let us go to the scripture.
John 3:15 That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
according to the definition then we can replace perish with die and likewise since everlasting means eternal we could replace eternal with everlasting life.
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Let the scripture for itself remembering these are Jesus own words.
Question: When will this everlasting life begin, keeping in mind the definition; continuing
1 John 5:12 He that hath the Son hath life (present tense not sometime in the furure-hath life-now) and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
Pheeki, it is so glorious to share thoughts when we don't even know what continent we are on. This happens to my daughter and I all the time and it is such a marvelous feeling of YES, we know that we know that we know.
Enjoying these posts so much because Jesus is here Carol
Derrell (Derrell)
Posted on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 7:25 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

A devout Adventist lady who read some shocking E.G. White quotes, that I directed her to on the White Estates web site, defended Ellen White by stating that the White Estates must have been infiltrated by some perfidious Jesuits who inserted outlandish statments into the Prophet's writings in order to slander, mislead, and confuse.

That one floored me. I had no response beyond a gaping mouth and bulging eyes.
Colleentinker (Colleentinker)
Posted on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 8:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Now that is a new one! (Though why it surprises me, I don't know!)

My eyes are also bulging.

Colleen
Susan_2 (Susan_2)
Posted on Thursday, January 09, 2003 - 7:26 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

What's with their obsession with the Jesuits? My Catholi friends tell me there are four orders of clergy in the Catholic church. There four are-the Jesuits, the Beneictines, the Franciscians and the is is Paulines?, I'm not sure about the last one. Why do the SDA's always mention the Jesuits, whih by the way, the word Jesuits means "the ociety of Jesus". I have a sinister streek of humor when SDA's ask me how come I don't come to church much (meaning the SDA churech) and I tell them I've become a Jesuit and I now attend somewhere else.
Pheeki (Pheeki)
Posted on Thursday, January 09, 2003 - 10:20 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I am in ______ Another Carol, we think we are another continent!;)

There is so much to reply to I don't know where to start.
I read 1 Corinthians 3 and there is something curious there...verse 22 says "...he has given you the whole world to use, and life and even death are your servants..."
How is it that death is our servant? If you read on to the next chapter (4) it says..."Now the most important thing about a servant is that he does exactly what his master tells him to."
If death is our servant...what could this mean???
Veeeerrry interesting.
Could it mean we get what we believe? I posed that question earlier jokingly but could it be possible that if we don't have faith that Jesus will take us to heaven when we die, we will sleep?
Shove me in the shallow water before I get too deep!

Here is the SDA answer to 2 Corinthians 5:6-8, I know because I recently asked my husband what he thought it meant. He said that soul sleep will be only a millisecond and the next thing we will see is Jesus. The dead don't know they are sleeping, they know nothing so they have no sense of time.


I have heard entire tapes on the Jesuit conspiracy. A lot of the SDA offshoot ministries really believe some strange things. It keeps the focus off of what is important. Also, SDA ism breeds paranoia. They are fearful of Catholics, worldly influences, meat eaters, jewelry wearers, sinners, Sunday keepers, non-soul sleepers (might lead to spiritualism), public schools, movie theatres, the list goes on...

I had the misfortune of getting to church early a few Sat.'s after I was saved out of SDAism and sat through a couple of their SS classes. I was so nauseated by what I heard...Pompous doctor leading the class tells a story about a conference he went to and they called ahead to ask what he wanted to eat (meat wise) he told them he would take a salad because he was a vegetarian. So at the conference he was the only one with no meat and he really stood out. He was so proud that he was able to share the glory of vegetarianism with those other doctors. The subject of the ss class was Christian witnessing. Not food witnessing! But they equate that with witnessing for Christ.
Then the next time I went it was about keeping a day holy and the same man was leading the class and he started cutting down Sunday keepers because they don't even keep sunday holy. He said he was driving through town and there was a sign out front of a local sunday church that said...Church will be held after the football game. He was flabbergasted that they would put football before the Lord.
Needless to say, I purposely do not get to church early. In fact I wish the Lord would hurry up and convict my husband to leave it so we could go somewhere else. but that is God's decision.
I am going to attend a homeless church this sunday on my lunch break, it is around the corner from where I work. It is called the Healing Balm church and my friend has been going there so I am going to check it out. They help get people off the streets, etc. Sounds like "remembering the poor" as Paul talked about a church should.

Something just came to mind as I typed that. When our pastor first came to our church (sda) a few years back. We were having a pot luck to welcome him. the phone rang and it was someone looking for help with food and money. He refused to come to the phone saying "we get those calls all the time." I couldn't believe it. He missed a great chance to help and to witness. Typical SDA/Pharisee "I'm a Levite, don't defile me!" type of attitude. (And the money goes for church debt reduction!)
Colleentinker (Colleentinker)
Posted on Thursday, January 09, 2003 - 12:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Pheeki, yes, I know that Adventist answer to 2 Cor. 5:6-9. The amazing thing is that I used to believe it, too. I could not explain it, and I couldn't PROVE it, but I believed it.

The problem, I've discovered, is two-fold. One: Adventist read the Bible through EGW/denominational eyes and usually without openness to the Holy Spirit's revelation of what it really says.

Two: Adventist do not believe the words of the Bible are inspired. They believe the Bibleóand espcially Paulóhave to be interpreted becuase those poor Bible writers didn't really know how to explain the concepts they were being inspired with. They see much of the Bible as metaphorical, not actual. Hence, "absent from the body is present with the Lord" is a metaphor for "You won't even know any time passed from the time you die to the time Jesus raises you from the grave."

Of course, who determines how the text is to be understood is the big question. For Adventists, it's EGW. She has explained it, so that's it! We can't just take the Bible at its word.

I am so thankful for the security of knowing not only that I have eternal life but also that death is not nothingness! The Adventist belief about death is certainly unsettling for those left after someone dies, even if it's no longer unsettling for the dead.

Colleen
Susan_2 (Susan_2)
Posted on Thursday, January 09, 2003 - 12:58 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I will share a favrite story among SDA's
around here. Some SDA preacher told it at the one day campmeeting for the VOP in Simi Valley several years back. Here is the story and this story was told as proof that the SDA church is the chosen church of God. Here goes (remember I was there I heard this with my own two ears): When the Soviet Union fell and the Russian people were given the freedom of religion a Russian man whgo ad been raised athiest but had always had a deep longing in his heart for a religion ecided to search for the true religion. He decided if there was one true religion then that would be the religion that God has most blessed the church as well as its members. He soon eliminated the non-Christian religion and narrowed his search to Christian denominations. So on Sunday mornings he would go all ocver to check out the churches in his large city. He saw many poor people attwending services and very few cars n the church parking lots and of those cars that were in the parking lots very few were nice, new, pretty cars. He figured those churches had to be not of God because God would be blessing the church and its people if they were of the truth. Then he bagan noticing that the 7th-day Adventist church on Saturday mornings was filled with lots of pretty nd new cars in the parking lot and he watched and noticed the people when they came out were dressed very well. So, he began attrending there and now he too is quite wealthy so he knows he found the one true church. The preacher at this one day VOP campmeeting stressed that that is true and God will take care of His own. I have heard this told to me by numerous SDA kin, that they know the SDA church is the TRUE church because just look at the prosperity within its membership as well as the denominational holdings; hospitals, universities, etc. So much for the story of the widow and her mite!
Pheeki (Pheeki)
Posted on Thursday, January 09, 2003 - 1:24 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Or so much for the arguement for the Sabbath the SDA use of following Jesus' example. He had no home to call his own, nor did he own posessions!
Dennisrainwater (Dennisrainwater)
Posted on Thursday, January 09, 2003 - 3:32 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I guess the Latter-day Saints (what's with these "-day" cults??) didn't get into Russia fast enough... As I understand it, they impose all of the same tithing/offering expectations upon their members as Adventists do -- but they don't pay their clergy!

It is commonly known that they are truly rolling in the cash! Hmmmmmm...

Pheeki, what an excellent point!! As SDAs, I'm sadly pretty sure that many (perhaps most?) of us would have completely missed Jesus -- just as the Pharisees did.

Still stuggling to comprehend Calvary,
Den <><
Sabra (Sabra)
Posted on Thursday, January 09, 2003 - 5:49 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

They must not have had TBN there in Russia or he'd surely have been a charismatic!!

Funny, most of the SDA's I knew were always broke, us especially! Tuition, red books, campmeetings, we had all that and powdered milk and hand-me-down clothes!
Susan_2 (Susan_2)
Posted on Thursday, January 09, 2003 - 8:33 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Dennis, I still am waiting for your family to cntact me. I think we all knew each other in Fresno. Didn't your family attend Valley Community Church? My e-mail is: susan1555@webtv.net,you all have it now if you want to ever have personal discussion about anything. There is no comma after the word "net".
Susan_2 (Susan_2)
Posted on Friday, January 10, 2003 - 9:08 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I think it was on this thread that someone mentioned The Apocrpha. Yes, EGW did make one comment that those books were to be used. As you all know, my church home is now Lutheran. Some Lutheran churches have the Apocrpha right in as part of their pew Bibles and some don't. But, it seems to me all Lutheran churchs (ELCA) read much of their scripture readings and refer to the Apocrpha in their Bible studies often. Back years ago Martin Luther went to the Counsil and at the Counsil was a meeting on what books to include and what ones to exclude in the Bible. Martin Luther voted to include the Apocrpha and to exclude Reveltions and one other book (James?). As we can all observe, Martin got voted down. I think I'm right about this bit of church history. Please, if I'm wrong then someone correct me because I want to know the facts on this. My Bible has the Apocrpha and I refer to it often. It is easy to understand most of the Catholic doctrines when using the Apocrpha. The Apocrpha is the 70 year period between the end of the OP.T. and the beginning of the N.T.
Pheeki (Pheeki)
Posted on Saturday, January 11, 2003 - 7:01 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Apocrypha. There has to be a reason it wasn't included in the body of the Bible. Who are the authors? For some reason I am suspicious of the Apocrypha books. I guess because it reminds me of the book of Mormon (they claim it should be included in the Bible). Does anyone have any research on this?
Susan_2 (Susan_2)
Posted on Saturday, January 11, 2003 - 7:59 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The Apocrpha is a history of the 70 year period between the o.t. and the n.t. The n.t. books way back when they were chosen to be part of the n.t. had a strict criteria for acceptance. The criteria was that the author had to have known Jesus himself and had to be a first person wittness to at least one miracle preformed by Jesus. You can go to the official Catholic website. They have the entire Bible available through their website, including the Apocrpha. It is The New American translation. I just love reading the book of Sirach.
Colleentinker (Colleentinker)
Posted on Saturday, January 11, 2003 - 5:42 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

According to the New Bible Dictionary by Inter-Varsity Press, the apocrypha is made up of twelve books which are either additions to books already in the Bible, specifically Esther, Daniel, Jeremiah, and Chronicles, or other books of legends, history, or theology. Many of these books were originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic. During what was known as the "patristic period" (the first two or three centuries or so after Christ), Christians were uncertain whether or not the Apocrypha was inspired or not although it was included in the Greek and Latin Bibles.

Differences of opinion about the Apocrypha lasted until the Reformation when the church of Rome insisted that it was part of the Old Testament while Protestant churches denied its authenticity. Some Protestants (especially the Church of England) still said the apocrypha was good for inspirational reading but not for the formation of doctrine, but all Protestants agreed that the Old Testament Canon truly consisted only of the books acknowledged by the Jews and "endorsed in the teaching of the NT." (p. 165)

Colleen

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