| Author |
Message |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 247
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, July 15, 2004 - 4:58 pm: |     |
How the SDAs are going about winning Muslims is not teaching them the gospel of Jesus. Oops, forgot, they do not know it themselves. How can one teach what one does not have?? That is very sad. I almost want to cry over it.
Diana |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 700
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, July 15, 2004 - 10:45 pm: | |
Maybe some of you out there can read this article, too and comment furthr on it. It is written rather deceptively. For instance the author referrs to incorperating all this non-Christian religious belief and pracetice into the service as being "accepting of their culture". I've got enough common sense to know these are not culture but is the religion. Culture would be like I said about the Jesus and the Mary statues at the little Catholic church I went to in Hawaii having leis around their necks. Reading a Koran in a Christian church does not make the Koran Christian, it is not the cultrue either. It is the Moslem religion being taught within a Christian church. It is a form of an anti-Christ, if I may be so bold. Awhile back in a Review artcle it said the SDA's hook so many Indians because rather then tell them the saving gosple message, they know most Indians are Hindu's so they first hook them with their (meaning the Hindu's) understanding that truth embrases vegertariansm. It just seems so wrong and so deceteful and is underhanded. I would like to have the opportunity of asking a sda if when they get converts from other Christian demoninations if these converts can now recite the creeds and practice other Christian culture wihin the SDA church walls. |
Melissa
Registered user
Username: Melissa
Post Number: 388
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 16, 2004 - 6:56 am: | |
...or are allowed to worship on Sunday. It seems a double standards to say one religion's "traditions" are acceptable to God, and another man's "traditions" are condemning. But that is adventism... |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 710
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, July 18, 2004 - 5:06 pm: | |
Colleen, Did you get the next little booklet I sent to you? Now about your comment about the Moslems not praying to the same God as he Christians because the Moslems don't have Jesus. The SDA's I'm close to seem to like to stress that the Jews, the Christians and the Moslems all stem from Abraham, thus have the same roots, the same God, etc. I will generally stop them in their tracks when I come out with the line that tey are wrong. Really only the Jews and the Moslems stem from Abraham and then up through the generations from Abraham to David comes Jesus, hence Christianity. Then I tell them that Christians acknowledge the Triune God and they pray to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Jews and the Moslems do not pray to the same God as the Christians. I have never had a SDA continue this discussion with me. The subject will then get onto a different topic. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 424
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 19, 2004 - 12:36 pm: | |
Yes, Susan--I got the book. It's a gem; is copyright date, though, is 1987, so I'm sure some would say it's out-of-date. It does, though, teach true Adventism. It's quite appalling. I began reading it, and then, somehow, just fell asleep and never quite got back to it! (It's called, "Let's Get Acquainted! Your friends, the Seventh-day Adventists.")
Colleen |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 713
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Monday, July 19, 2004 - 6:52 pm: | |
"The Sabbathn is a celebration of Gods power to deliver us from sin." Colleen and others, I am not taking this statement out of context. Christianity holds Jesus as having the power to deliver us from our sins. If this is a statement that the SDA church will stand behind then I would say the SDA church is not Christian. There are some other really offbeat statements in that booklet. I assume the SDA's still accept what is in that book because I just picked it up in the SDA church lobby in the literature rack less than two weeks ago. |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 747
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - 9:35 am: | |
Doug Botchler has a new Annoying Fiction book out. It's called, "Hidden Truths". It's intended as a wittnessing book to be handed to the vunerable. Frankly, the title alone would scoot me away. When it coems to my salvation I want the info right out front, in my face. I don't want to have to lurk for the hidden truth. |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 300
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - 12:30 pm: | |
From my understanding of the Bible the only hidden truths are because a person's mind is closed and their eyes and ears are closed. Other then that I understand what God has been showing to me. If I do not understand it I ask again and say why I do not understand it.
Besides, everything important to salvation is right out in the open for those who want it.
Diana |
Melissa
Registered user
Username: Melissa
Post Number: 404
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - 2:20 pm: | |
So, do they believe in Bible Codes? Da Vinci, et al? What's more hidden then that. |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 751
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - 2:27 pm: | |
You can go to the Amazing Facts website and read about the book. You also can sigh up for the Hidden Truths Bible studies. One of my favorite stories by Doug Botchler (and I'm giving my interpertation here. No quotes.) is when some lady says to hom, So why do you obsere the Sabbath? Are you Jewish?" And, he proceded to tell her that yes, he is Jewish and then tell her of the SDA truth. Now that is just plain weird. Almost makes the Hare Krishnas seem normal! |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 760
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - 1:52 pm: | |
I have another book here. It is copyrighted in 1986 and is put out by Pacific Press. The author is George Vandeman. The Title is,"What I Like About... The Lutherans, The Baptists, The Methodists, The Charismatics, The Catholics, Our Jewish Friends, The Adventists". First off I want to say that I knew Pastor Vandeman personaly and I truly grew to love the man and have a lot of respect for him. However, he was SDA and his committment to the SDA was total. This book though is just something else. First he interviews a bishop of the Lutheran church and then tells about how Martin Luther was given new light for that time to get the Chrstians out of the bondage they were in. He then gets to the Baptists and talks about how Roger Williams, the funder of the Baptists had even further light from God than did the Lutherans and this light was given to Christianity at just he right time that God saw fit to give it. He goes on with this format with the Charismatics and then for the topic, "The Catholics" he interviews Samuele Bacchiocchi, which I think is really super strange considering that with the other churchs he actually intervied people from their own denomination. With the Jewish he mostly gets into the persucation they have suffered and their perserverance. Then he gets to The Adventists, which God has apparently given the continuing and final light of truth to the world through the Millerite Movement and especially EGW. I would like to be able to tell my SDA loved ones that now we are in the information age and with such websites as this one and Dirks and the others God is giving the SDA's further light so the truth can be made available to them. |
Freeatlast
Registered user
Username: Freeatlast
Post Number: 202
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - 2:44 pm: | |
Melissa, my father was a well-respected Bible teacher in SDA schools for over 30 years and he fell HARD for the Bible Codes. It just goes to show you the lack of true discernment that a lifetime of following EGW and SDA "truth" will produce. I have noticed that, over the years, my folks have fallen for alot of deceptions like the whole Y2K fiasco, the theory that the first 6,000 years were equal to 6 days of creation and that the earth's 1,000 year Sabbath was going to begin in 2002. I think that following a "prophet" and denomination instead of the Holy Spirit leaves many SDA's vulnerable to further deception. Breaks my heart... |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 479
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - 4:43 pm: | |
Freeatlast, I think you are absolutely right. How can a person grounded on a false prophet be able to discern truth from error?
With prayers for your parents,
Colleen |
Dd
Registered user
Username: Dd
Post Number: 43
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - 7:27 pm: | |
Maybe this is one of those questions that has no answer...or maybe there is a Biblical one but I haven't found it...
If a person is so grounded on a false prophet and is unable to discern the truth from error, where do they stand in light of salvation?
We all have loved ones who are holding on tightly. Bless their hearts, we all can understand why...remember believing that all those who questioned the authority of SDA doctrines was to listening to the devil himself...that was my last hurdle to jump to finally shut the door behind me.
|
Ric_b
Registered user
Username: Ric_b
Post Number: 7
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, July 29, 2004 - 4:21 am: | |
IMO one of the big legacies that holds over from SDA teaching is the importance of correct doctrine. The idea that God chooses His people based on who has the most ideas from Scripture right. Or that we need to find the church with the least error in their doctrine. That said, I personally worry about people who have replaced reading Scripture with reading the SOP. They have removed an avenue for understanding and knowing God. This is why, in my mind, the Clear Word is such a dangerous book. It encourages people to believe that they are still reading the Bible. I am just glad to know that God is awesome and powerful and full of Grace. Because of Him, I have hope for my SDA friends.
I think it is another story entirely for those who know the problems and continue to teach them to others. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 486
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 29, 2004 - 11:05 am: | |
I've wondered the same thing, Dd. I've conlcuded that God allows each person in the world to have some way to choose to respond to truth or not. Romans 1 says that even before God revealed Himself to Israel and gave the law, that the sovereign and invisible qualities of God were seen through what had been made, and all men are without excuse.
People who are bound by the teachings of a false prophet do have a lot of baggage in their way. (Don't I know!) Yet God does put things into everyone's life that requires them to choose to know God, to pursue Truth, to embrace Jesus, or to stand for integrity.
In his book "The Road Less Travelled" Scott Peck says that laziness is the foundation of human evil. When people refuse to "know" or to discover or pursue answers or to grow, etc., they are paving a path for themselves that leads away from truth.
We can't know where people in such cirucmstances stand in terms of salvation. They usually don't know, either. But we can pray that they will be willing to KNOW, be willing to desire truth, be willing to desire Jesus more than what's familiar. Sometimes God leads people into great despair so they'll be desperate enough to look for relief. But God's in charge. Our intercession, however, is important. The most powerful thing we can do for one another is to pray.
Praise God for giving us Himself!
Colleen |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 337
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, July 29, 2004 - 5:04 pm: | |
Ric_b, I agree with your last sentence above "I think it is another story entirely for those who know the problems and continue to teach them to others". I was thinking that last night as I wrote an email to the Amazing Facts web site. I am so glad God got me out and I pray I will be the example and witness to my patients,family and friends that God wants me to bel
God is Awesome.
Diana |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 769
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, July 29, 2004 - 8:39 pm: | |
Colleen, What you wrote above is interesting. As a teacher you are aware of limitations regarding learning and understanding. Seeing that there is a lot of learning disabilities in my kin and I have a son who absoutely cannot seem to understand anything that is not tangable, as for me, I put up a real wall when it come to wondering about this or wondering about that regarding salvation. I just know I believe in a fair and a just God and justness and fairness will come about. I also believe some people have such a need for a lot of rules, the structure of groups like the SDA, JW and LDS keeps them disaplined. Without the external disaplin of the organization many people would not know how to have self control with their lusts, desires and wants. Only our Heavenly Father knows our hearts and this is where it truly is at. |
Dd
Registered user
Username: Dd
Post Number: 51
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Friday, July 30, 2004 - 9:43 am: | |
Colleen, I always enjoy reading your thoughts. Thanks for sharing.
When I first started my search for truth (Bible only) a few years ago, I realized pretty quickly that there are many, many, many Christians dedicated to listening and following the Holy Spirit's prompting. I knew then that there was something I was missing regarding worship on Saturday...if the Holy Spirit were to lead everyone to follow the Sabbath as SDAs do, I am confident there would be many Christian Saturday-worship churches.
Jesus, Himself encountered many people that understood His teachings (even if just a twitching or a tweak) and ignored the still small voice of reasoning.
Thanks for the Scott Peck quote. It is excellent. |
Sheryl
Registered user
Username: Sheryl
Post Number: 3
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - 6:22 pm: | |
When I was growing up I can remember crusades being done by Joe Crews of Amazing facts. What really amazes me is if Doug Batchelor has really read his Bible, how can he not see the errors of EGW? A lot of the books that are written by George Vandeman, and by Mark Finley have lots of EGW in them too. I haven't looked at any new ones since I try to stay away from SDA sites, I did check on Amazing facts last night though, I was curious if anything has been written about last days events or not |
