| Author | Message | ||
| Raven Registered user Username: Raven Post Number: 61 Registered: 7-2004 |
We (Ric_b and I) just got back from a 3+ hour Revelation Seminar put on by the Methodist church. This is my first non-SDA Revelation seminar, and it was so refreshing to see Jesus the central theme! And it was refreshing to not have "fear" a part of it at all! I can't say that I agreed with everything presented, but it certainly helped to clear out many of the cobwebs of SDA theology that have remained in my brain! The summary of Revelation, according to this seminar is "being faithful New Jerusalem citizens in a Fallen Babylon world." The Catholic church and pope were not mentioned once. It made me realize that perhaps the 3 angels messages to come out of Babylon were a message about the finished work of the cross and we're called to be New Jerusalem citizens instead of part of the fallen world. | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 648 Registered: 3-2004 |
Ptaise God and Hallelujah. God is awesome. Diana | ||
| Nate Registered user Username: Nate Post Number: 1 Registered: 5-2001 |
Greetings to the forum. It has been ages since I have logged on. Life has been so busy. We are neck deep in ministry in the church where we are serving. God is leading and growing us in new ways each day. We are so blessed to be part of a dynamic prayer ministry and to be seeing real life changes in our own understanding of God's faithfulness and His promises. There is hardly a day that goes by that we do not thank God for leading us out of the SDA system. It was a challenging journey. When we resigned our nearly 20 year pastorate in the SDA church we had no idea what God was going to do or how we would even survive. But God took care of us in ways we could not have imagined. You can read a bit more about it in the next "Proclamation" that will be out in a few days/weeks. We also have written a book now about our theological journey and we are praying that God will use it to touch many lives with the good news. Again I want to thank each of you who were there for us when we were in the process of trying to hear God regarding our convictions. Your prayers and support meant so much to us. It was not safe to talk with people about our discoveries in the Word of God because of our position in the SDA church. With the exception of a couple of elders and our associzate pastor, no one in our churh knew of our study. It was not safe nor would it have been responsible to talk about these things until we were sure for ourselves. Much like Nicodemus we had to come to Jesus by night to see for ourselves what the New Covenant was all about. But the time came when we began to share our convictions and of course were asked to resign. Those difficult months leading up to that final decision were made so easier having this forum to come to and talk under a code name. Your prayers and encouragement were so important. Thanks again. God bless you all! In Christ, Greg Taylor (Nate) www.oneflockministries.org | ||
| Cindy Registered user Username: Cindy Post Number: 702 Registered: 7-2000 |
Greg, It is good to hear an update. I've heard your book is excellent; haven't got a copy of it yet. My husband and I are also very grateful to not live any longer under the Old Covenental legality and oftentimes downright nonsense of Adventism! It is a refreshing view outside of the veil, living in Christ alone, being "merely Christian". Continued blessings to you and your family. grace always, cindy | ||
| Dennis Registered user Username: Dennis Post Number: 193 Registered: 4-2000 |
Welcome back, Greg! It is good to hear from you again. We have missed you here. Dennis Fischer | ||
| Susan_2 Registered user Username: Susan_2 Post Number: 1022 Registered: 11-2002 |
Several years ago I took a class in Revelations from a retired religion professor who had taught the minister students to become Lutheran pastors. At first I was very apprhensive about going into the class. I was apprhensive because I remembered all those scary SDA Revelation Seminars my parnts dragged me to as a kid. But, I decided to take the class and I am so thankful that I did. We had the option of paying a lot of money and getting college credit or paying very little money and buying the textbook and taking the class for our own learning. I did it for the learning. I learned so much. I found out Revelations is really not scary. Never was a Sunday law mentioned, never was Sabbath-keepers (i.e. SDA's) mentioned that they would have to flee from the dreaded Sunday-keepers, never was it mentioned that people were without Jesus as our intercessor. Not long after I took that class the SDA church here had a Revelation Seminar that I was invited to attend by a SDA lady. I told her I'd just finished an eight week college level course in Revelations given by a theology professor so I would not be interested. She asked what college the professor was affiliated with. I told her. She told me satan was influencing me to open myself up to perscuting the Commandment-keepers (i.e., SDA's) in the last days. I told her that was stupid, that I'd never heard of such a thing except within the SDA church and the topic of Revelations has never come up between us again. I am glad you have attended the class. I'm happy to hear, Raven and Ric that you went to the class. It is good meeting you, Greg. I am hoping yet to get your book. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 815 Registered: 12-2003 |
Greg, it's good to hear from you here again! Yes, your article is the front cover story on the Proclamation that has already been mailed. You all should be getting it in the next few days. (You'll also meet another forum member, Thomas, in this issue.) I'm sorry that this issue is so late. It's actually been done for a few weeks, but Dale and we agreed that we needed to update and make corrections on the mailing list before we sent out another issue. The process took longer than I'd hoped--there are close to 10,000 names, and we ended up going through each individual name and standardizing all the entries. We also made several hundred address corrections and added many new names. BTW, if any of you aren't getting Proclamation and want to, send your name and mailing address to LifeAssurance@AOL.com. Greg, thank you for writing your book. It's wonderful! Colleen | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 653 Registered: 3-2004 |
Greg, I read your story here and will be getting your book. God has taken care of you and your wife in an awesome, wonderful way. I did not rejoin the church because I found out that EGW plagiarized and was not inspired by God. Since then I have studied SDA doctrine and found out what the Sabbath rest is, what to do about tithes and offerings and am learning about the covenants and many other things. Once the EGW filters came off, God put everything else in proper perspective. Thank Him for that. I look forward to getting your book and sharing it with my family and friends. God is truly awesome. Diana | ||
| Nate Registered user Username: Nate Post Number: 2 Registered: 5-2001 |
Thanks for the kind words all! We have such a growing heart for our friends and family in the SDA church. Sometimes the compassion we feel for them moves us to deep groans and tears. The more Paula and I reflect on the process of leaving the SDA church the more we are conviced that the system is the modern day version of the Galtians heresy. The heresy essentially taught that people were saved by faith but in order to maintain their salvation they had to be circumcized, keep the food laws (the issue in Galatians 2 when Peter withdrew from the gentile believers and Paul had to rebuke him) and keep the sabbath laws (Gal 4:10) This essentially took away all the joy of the gospel and caused them to miss the blessing of Isaac (Gal 4). Paul called it a bewitching influence. He called it a yoke of bondage. The fear of losing salvation over these things caused the Galatians to lose their joy and to become law led rather than Spirit led. We have such a sense of urgency to pray that the veil will be pulled away from the eyes of those still caught inder old covenant religion. (2 Cor 3) We also realize now that much of our understanding of the Bible came filtered through the eyes of Ellen White. Galatians tells us that we are to see things through the eyes of the Spirit. The Gospel of John tells us that the Spirit will guide us into all truth. The Spirit is to help us interpert the Word of God. Even though we were sincere in our love of the Lord in the SDA system, we were missing so much because we were indadvertantly seeing things through the EGW filter rather than through the eyes of the Spirit. Please join us in continued prayer for the veil to lifted for those still caught in the bewitching systenm that steals joy and truth from sincere seekers of God's heart. May He set His people free! Love to you all In Christ, Greg Taylor | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 820 Registered: 12-2003 |
Greg, maybe you already know (or saw Diana's weekly reminder!) about our FAF prayer chain every Saturday at 1:00 P.M. Pacific time. Whatever time it is where you live (3:00?) at 1:00 pm Saturday, join us in praying for our Adventist friends, loved ones, the church, etc, that they will come to know Jesus without the blinders of Adventism. Thank you for you consistency and integrity! Colleen | ||
| Pw Registered user Username: Pw Post Number: 161 Registered: 6-2004 |
I like the concept of the Bible being "filtered by EGW". How true. Revelation Seminars really takes me back to 1985 when I first became exposed to the SDA. I only stayed on for about a year and a half, but it was more than enough. | ||
| Tracey Registered user Username: Tracey Post Number: 68 Registered: 9-2004 |
I would like to join in the prayer chain definitely!! I wasn't aware of it. Greg, I read your book and am reading Dale's Sabbath in Christ. And as I thanked Dale, I thank you for writing the book, that book and this web of friends give me hope for the one I love. I had no idea how deep this religion was, I didn't know what i was getting into falling in love with a person in this group. | ||
| Nate Registered user Username: Nate Post Number: 3 Registered: 5-2001 |
Thanks for the info about the prayer team, Colleen. That is great! So good to know about the opportunity. Prayer is such a powerful thing. We believed in prayer before, but have become so passionate about it since we stopped trying to pray and let the Holy Spirit pray through us. We ask for his desire to be ours and the prayers just flow. I used to think praying was a nice icing on the cake of the Christian life. Now I see it as the cake. The Holy Spirit is the power not us. Tracey, our prayers are with you as you pray for your loved one. We will pray that God will break down the strongholds of resistance to grace that have been established in his mind. God is more than able to do this. God bless! Greg | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 663 Registered: 3-2004 |
Greg, We pray at sundown on Fridays in our own time zones for the SDAs. So each time zone has a different time to pray. On Saturday afternoon at 1 PM PT, 3 PM CT, 4 PM ET all formers and friends on this forum pray for all SDAs from the GC president to the smallest SDA church in the world. We ask God to open their eyes, ears and take the veil off their minds so they can see Jesus. We also pray for unchurched formers, who left Adventism and are not anything right now. I look forward to every Friday at sundown and 1 PM on Saturday. They are my favorite time of the week, because we are all united in our prayers for our SDA friends and relatives. Look under "A prayer chain" for how it started. I am glad you and your wife are joining us. God is so good. Can you imagine what He is doing and what we will see as people start finding Him and leaving the SDA church??? It will be awesome. Diana | ||
| Susan_2 Registered user Username: Susan_2 Post Number: 1028 Registered: 11-2002 |
The new Review was in the mail today. In one article is referencing to all the anti SDA propaganda going out. The article even mentions all the anti Internet web sites. Does not mention any by name, just in general. Then in the article it says even though there is all this hostility against the truth the people are not to get discouraged as the SDA denomination is growing in membership rapidly. Says there are officially 14,000,000 SDA's now but the actual # is closer to 25,000,000 if you go by how many consider themselves to be SDA but are not actually members. I guess that would be people who like my son consider themselves to be SDA but have never applied for membership. I looked on my sons dogtags one day and under religion it says Seventh-day Adventist. So even though my son considers himself SDA and even though the author of the article seems to include my son in that 25,000,000 number he (my son) sure has to pay a whopping more for his child to attend the SDA school than the bonified, on the books members. But, back to the article in the Review-the article seems to imply, that's imply, it does not come right out and say so, but the article implys that the anti SDA websites and magazines and other anti SDA stuff is put out by people who are anti truth, anti Christian, anti Jesus. My opinion is that these websites such as this one, Dirks, Janet Browns, the others and magazines such as Proclamation and the books available through the Proclamation website are very pro Christian, pro gosple, pro Jesus. The article seems to come across in desperation to let the readers know all is well within the denomination. | ||
| Susan_2 Registered user Username: Susan_2 Post Number: 1029 Registered: 11-2002 |
Colleen, This same Review makes mention of the SDA bumping up recruitment of SDA's in Romania. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 836 Registered: 12-2003 |
Interesting. I wonder if this issue is one of the "freebie" mailings we get from the Review, or if it is one which only goes to subscribers? I'll have to see... | ||
| Susan_2 Registered user Username: Susan_2 Post Number: 1030 Registered: 11-2002 |
It's the one that says World Edition on the top of the front cover. I think the Review is available on the Internet. | ||
| Doc Registered user Username: Doc Post Number: 144 Registered: 2-2003 |
Susan, Does it say anything specific about Romania? Next country to me, you know. Sort of relevant. I have friends (from Wales) doing Christian work there. Thanks, Adrian | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 712 Registered: 3-2004 |
I was just wondering, if you who get the Review would write a letter to the editor and tell him/her that the websites are pro Jesus Christ and why. My first thought is that it would not get printed in the letters to the editor. Just a thought, but it would really be a witness for our awesome God. Diana |
