| Author | Message | ||
| Jeannette Registered user Username: Jeannette Post Number: 27 Registered: 3-2003 |
I was at a wedding this weekend and met some old sda friends. I told them I wasn't sda anymore and my friend looked at me in shock. She told me, "remember what revelation says about the remnant" I looke in my concordance but couldn't find a reference in Revelation about the remnant. How do sdas connect the remnant and Revelation? | ||
| Conniegodenick Registered user Username: Conniegodenick Post Number: 29 Registered: 3-2004 |
It's that text which talks about having the spirit of prophecy (which they interpret as Ellen White) and keeping the Commandments of Jesus (which they interpret as the Decalogue with special emphasis on the Fourth.) SDA's claim to be the ONLY church which "fulfills" that text. | ||
| Loneviking Registered user Username: Loneviking Post Number: 263 Registered: 7-2000 |
The remnant keep the commandments of God and have the Spirit of Prophecy---according to SDA's. So, if you're not keeping ALL of the Ten Commandments and following EGW's writings, you're not part of the remnant and therefore lost. That's the connection.................. Bill | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 339 Registered: 12-2003 |
The "remnant" is the term used throughout the OT to refer to the faithful few Israelites that always resisted apostacy. Since Adventists believe that they have replaced Israel as God's chosen people, they also claim to be the sole fulfillment of every "remnant" prophecy in the New Testament. The modern versions differ somewhat in the use of "remnant"--but what Bill and Connie said above is the way SDAs understand the remnant who will be saved (themselves!). Colleen | ||
| Susan_2 Registered user Username: Susan_2 Post Number: 633 Registered: 11-2002 |
Maybe I should put this under the topic "Humor" but since the discussion is about The Remnant I'll put it here. When I was a little girl my mom did a lot of sewing so I grew up knowing the remnant was the left over, the scraps. Then I would go to Sabbath School and SDA day school and get bonbarded with how wonderful it is that we SDA's were the remnant and I remember wondering my entire childhood how come it was so special to be leftover scraps that that got thrown away. I'm not kidding you, growing up as a child the SDA religion never connected with me, it never made sense. I remember so asking different adults to explain this or that about the religion I was being taught and I'd always get the same answer. The answer was, "Susan, you are young and I know it's hard to understand but when you are a grown up you'll be able to understand it and see that we teach the truth". Well, as I got older I kept waiting for the SDA religion to make sense but instead the older I got the ess sense it made. | ||
| Tealeaves Registered user Username: Tealeaves Post Number: 49 Registered: 5-2004 |
this idea is connected to the "Sunday Law" paranoia, isn't it? - in which everyone is commanded to go to church on Sunday and then the SDAs refuse (thus showing themselves to the be Revelation Remnant) so God rewards them with extra points toward possible salvation. (Or they get an automatic free ticket, and everyone else just perishes. -- that depends on who you talk to.) Concepts resting on the supposition that it is the Sabbath, and not the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, that is the identifying mark of Christians in Revelations.(Of course, it makes no sense that the Sabbath would be the identifier, since Revelations says NOTHING to that effect!) | ||
| Susan_2 Registered user Username: Susan_2 Post Number: 637 Registered: 11-2002 |
It's really the most stupid teaching of the SDA denomination, this Sunday-law teaching. I have growm up with numerous kin who attend Sabbath-keeping denominations but the most prominant is the SDA. The SDA kin folk pretty much do not inlude the Seventh-day Baptists or the Seventh-day Church of God or the Worldwide Church of God Sabbath-keepers in this remnant. So, I have concluded it really is not about being a Sabbath-keeper or not being a Sabbath-keeper but it really is only about being a bonified member of the SDA organization. It is about MEMBERSHIP in the only true chuch, the only church God recognizes as His one true people. These are the thigs that cause me to consider the SDA denomination as a cult. These things even more so than the corny doctrines. | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 177 Registered: 3-2004 |
Susan_2, I like to sew and have had lots of remnants. You are right, that the remnants collect and then are thrown or given away. I never thought of that. When I moved to Nevada from California I cleaned out lots of those remnants. I think it is humorous about the remnants being the scraps that are left and are usually thrown away. These must be a lesson in this somewhere, but I am too tired to see it right now. Diana | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 179 Registered: 3-2004 |
Sorry, I meant to write when I moved from Virginia to Nevada. Diana | ||
| Qweary Registered user Username: Qweary Post Number: 9 Registered: 3-2004 |
Flyinglady, You struck a chord there that I never thought of! You are right! Remnants get thrown away or made into something different entirely! Am glad you and Susan_2 brought that up. Like Flyinglady said, am too tired to think of the LESSON right Now, but I like the analogy! | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 182 Registered: 3-2004 |
I am wide awake now and trying to figure out what that lesson might be. Remnants are used to make beautiful quilts, that can be used to keep people warm or they are hung up so people can admire their beauty. But they have to be sewn together by a master craftsman (quilter) to be worth anything. Jesus is the master craftsman that will bring the remnant together to make a thing of beauty and warmth. Just my thoughts this morning. Diana | ||
| Sharon2 Registered user Username: Sharon2 Post Number: 42 Registered: 6-2004 |
Because of the SDA interpretation of that text in Revelation about the saints, those who are actually saved, observing the law and having the spirit of prophecy, specifically the idea that the spirit of prophecy is EGW, I got the idea that EGW had all the visions, all the words from God that were ever to be spoken to the church. When the Lord spoke to me, I didn't tell anyone because I didn't think he was supposed to talk to me. The idea of personally hearing from the Lord or seeking to hear from the Lord is very foreign to SDA's. It took me quite a while to become comfortable with the fact that from time to time God reveals himself to me and to many others in supernatural dreams, visions, words, etc. Sharon | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 185 Registered: 3-2004 |
I was thinking of the lessons we can learn from the "remnants'. Remnants have to be cut to fit a certain spot. They have to fit a pattern made by the quilter. God refines us as gold in a fire (cut to fit a spot) to be fit to do his will on this earth. Just more of my thoughts on this subject. Diana | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 188 Registered: 3-2004 |
Sharon, When God spoke to me I did not believe it was Him until the thing came to pass. I was living in Texas and wanted to move back to Virginia. I called about several jobs. When I hung up the phone with one of them, I heard a voice say,"that job is yours." I shook my head and told God, I do not know if that is you or me talking to me so I am not going to believe it until it happens. I went to Virginia for the job interviews. At the second one, the one where I heard the voice say it is mine, the man hired me on the spot. When I walked out to my car, I told God thank you for telling me that job was mine. God has not talked so distinctly to me since then, but He does put thoughts in my head. Like the church I am attending. During the week before I went there, the thought kept coming into my head, "go to that church on Russell Road, off 95". When I went Sunday morning, I immediately felt like I was home. Our God is an awesome God. Diana | ||
| Sharon2 Registered user Username: Sharon2 Post Number: 43 Registered: 6-2004 |
Diana, That has been my experience also. A few times, I have heard an almost audible voice. Like when I was praying that God would either provide someone to love me or make me happy to live alone and I hear a voice say,"In two weeks you will meet Don Lindsay." And exactly two weeks from that day, Don Lindsay walked off the elevator and walked over and talked to me. But, most of the time it is more of a persistant thought. Sometimes I have had dreams, or like a mini-vision. Those are usually more metephorical, but the personal appliciation is usually very clear. One time, when I was struggling to put on a big program with the congregation. I asked the Lord, why I was having so many problems and he gave me a dream that told me all about a rift in the congregation and showed me the faces of the primary people causing the difficulty. Now, I stay out of church politics so I didn't know about any of this stuff. When I told the pastor (not SDA) about the dream, he just shook his head and said the Lord had told me accurately. If EGW had had such a dream, we would have made a big deal out of her and the dream. But, God's revelations do not belong to just one person. "I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants both men and women, I will pour out my spirit in those days." Joel 2:28-29 I do not totally discount everything EGW wrote or did, but I do take issue with the way she and her writings have been elevated and manipulated. I also take issue with the idea that everything she said and did was from the Lord. The woman was human, capable of making mistakes, capable of being misled and misused. I know many people who have the gift of prophecy, accept for that moment when God is speaking to them or through them, they are good but normal people. Sharon | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 355 Registered: 12-2003 |
Sharon, I had the same opinion you expressed about EGW for many years. Further, I absolutely believe God gives prophetic knowledge, visions, etc. to His people according to His will for purposes of building up the body of Christ, giving encouragement, insight, etc. The problem I have with seeing EGW in the above category, however--flawed human who receives prophetic insights but not everything she said was from God--is that she claimed more than that, and a false church was built on the authority of her confirming "prophetic" visions. If she had simply been a Christian who received visions which unscrupulous people used to their advantage, I would agree with you. (In fact, that is exactly how I thought of her for many years!) The problem, though, is that she claimed God told her or showed her things which he clearly could not have shown her because they contradict the Bible. God clearly did not instruct her to plagiarize much of her writing and claim it was from Him. God clearly did not instruct her that Christ did not begin his real redemptive ministry until 1844, which she said He did. Further, she herself said that one either had to accept all of her writing as from God, or to accept none of it. She also said the last great deception would be to make the "spirit of peophecy" (meaning her own writings) of "none account". She called herself "more than a prophet", taking for herself the title "messenger". In light of these things and more, including many statements that detractd from the finished work of Christ and led people to doubt their salvation, Christ's importance, and the facts of the gospel, I have to reject her as a false prophet. I do believe she was a prophet, however--I do believe she did have visions and dreams, and she did have an angelic guide during her later years, etc. I simply believe she did not receive her insights from God. God would not give someone false information, then change his mind and update it, thus confusing His followers. I do believe every true gift of God has a deceptive counterfeit. That counterfeit category is the categoriy in which I place EGW. It was not until I was able to call her a "false prophet" instead of simply a msused, well-meaning woman, or even "not a prophet", that I was able to read the Bible without confusion. All the doctrines came up for reveiw after calling her a false prophet, and God began to open Scripture up to me in ways I'd no idea was possible. The cognitive dissonance was gone. I no longer felt as if I were juggling truth, error, and confusion. Now, I have areas of incomplete understanding, but instead of feeling rudderless, I feel confident that what I need to know, God will reveal to me when it's time. Recognizing EGW a false prophet was the single most freeing, reality-disclosing, truth-revealing understanding I had during my years of studying to figure out what I believed. God is faithful to us, though--and He brings us to the understandings we need at the times we need them in order to grow continually deeper in Him. Colleen | ||
| Chris Registered user Username: Chris Post Number: 353 Registered: 7-2003 |
Colleen, I agree completely with you. The more I have researched EGW the more I have come to believe she was not just misguided or even just a charlatan. She was given vision through dark forces and comuned with evil spirits (albeit she saw them as angels of light). That may sound over the top, but it's really the only way to explain some of the things she described and the insidious twisting of truth that has enslaved so many for so long. She was indeed and instrument in powerful hands. Chris | ||
| Cindy Registered user Username: Cindy Post Number: 585 Registered: 7-2000 |
Yes, Colleen and Chris... For me also it was when I could actually realize and call Ellen White a FALSE prophet (not just a misguided, hung up on her own importance at times, godly woman) that a certain peace and clarity about the whole SDA deception became more real to me. And with it a clarity of JESUS as really being enough! (Jesus warned that MANY FALSE PROPHETS would arise and deceive MANY...) grace always, cindy | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 194 Registered: 3-2004 |
I really cannot recall when I began to dislike EGW. It happened over a period of time. I do remember going to church in Manassas, VA where the visiting pastor was only quoting EGW. I got up and walked out. When I found out she was false I had no problem giving her up. All I can say is God has been leading me away from Adventism for more than 20 years. Praise God for that. He is truly AWESOME. Diana | ||
| Mary_jane Registered user Username: Mary_jane Post Number: 17 Registered: 3-2004 |
Flyinglady, I have to agree with you about remnants. When I was a child, my father worked in a textile mill. My mother and I used to go to their salesroom, and buy remnants. I used to make a lot of my own clothes as a teenager and young adult, and I made many beautiful skirts or blouses from remnants from the shop there. They did a lot of brocade, velvet and jacquards. Also they made beautiful pillow covers and curtains. I don't know if it was God, or not, but several times during my life I've had dreams that came true, sometimes years later. Things I probably wouldn't have thought up myself, but came to pass later on. One time I dreamed that a co-worker died, and a few weeks later our supervisor came in and told us that this lady's heart had stopped from a heart attack, but they revived her. So it was true that she had been dead, but brought back. I don't know if these dreams are from God, but it is certainly unnerving when something happens and I remember I had a dream about that. Wierd. Disliking EGW. I think I grew up feeling she was my worst enemy! Mary Jane |
