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Tealeaves
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Username: Tealeaves

Post Number: 211
Registered: 5-2004
Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 4:07 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Did you guys hear about that SDA doc here in Portland OR a few years ago that hit a parking attendant with his luxury car while she was writing him a parking ticket? He was yelling at her, got into his car, and actually hit and injured her. She sued, and won a bunch of money, and he lost his privileges at the SDA hospital.
Then there was the SDA doc last year (also here in Portland) that lost his medical license and got a huge fine and suspended sentence when he pled guilty to charging his patients money (repeatedly) to have sex with him. One patient said that he claimed it would help her with some chronic pelvic pain he was having.
The SDA hospital here has had better years in the Public Relations arena.
Flyinglady
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Username: Flyinglady

Post Number: 1045
Registered: 3-2004


Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 4:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

This just goes to show me that unless we have Jesus Christ embedded in our hearts we are going to do all kinds of things that are not what God wants. We are human. Only God can take those human hearts and turn them around.
Being SDA does not make our hearts any better or worse. Only accepting Jesus Christ into our hearts will make the difference. Thank you God for dwelling in mine. You are awesome.
Diana
Tracey
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Username: Tracey

Post Number: 179
Registered: 9-2004
Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 9:08 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Rob,

Don't you make me come to Huntsville for you typing the P----k word! How is Devonna doing anyway??


Tracey
Tracey
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Username: Tracey

Post Number: 180
Registered: 9-2004
Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 9:13 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Question:

Can someone elaborate on a comment where someone on this thread said something similar to the following?

" 'People always say that SDA is really nice', but they never really get to know them, only superficially."

I ask because that is exactly how C is and what people at work say about him.

How is this "whatever it is" SDA related?? I just thought it was b/c he was shy. Now it seems it's yet another oddball thing related to the environment of being in a cult.

Please explain.
Thanks!
Tracey
Tealeaves
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Username: Tealeaves

Post Number: 212
Registered: 5-2004
Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 9:57 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Tracey,
I think that many times people who are in an exclusive group, such as Adventism,appear polite yet distant to people who are "outsiders". They don't pursue relationships outside their own group. That would explain why people outside the SDA church would feel that Adventists are nice in general, but not know them personally.

For instance, I grew up in a town where there was a large contingent of SDAs, and the SDA church and school were just down the street from my church. But I never knew an Adventist person even so much as by name, until I enrolled at Wall Walla College. I didn't even know their beliefs, for that matter.
Once I got to WWC, i met several people who had also grown up in my hometown, even some in the same general neighbourhood, but our paths just never crossed.
My husband, who grew up SDA, had only one friend that he could remember in his life who was not SDA. His parents worked for the church, his extended family did as well. And their family friends were all SDA. I was the first non-SDA that he really got to know well since his childhood playmate,(when he was in 3rd and 4th grade) a neighbor, who had been a Lutheran.

So opposite of the picture the New Testament paints for the model of the Christian church! Where does the New Testament tell us to be "polite but distant from other people, not getting involved with those outside our sect unless absolutely necessary".
I seem to remember more of a "go ye into all the world," with love, spreading the Good News... sort of theme.
Colleentinker
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Username: Colleentinker

Post Number: 1401
Registered: 12-2003


Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 10:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I agree, Tanya. You paint an accurate picture of Adventists. I think, Tracey, that one of the reason for the phenomenon you mention is that Adventists don't really have a "core" except for their Adventism. They can't really share THAT with unbelievers at work, so they remain aloof and distant.

If they happen to be born again, they may be more accessible. If they're conflicted or just outright not born again, they don't really have anything to communicate with others. I remember how aloof and "set apart" I felt from non-SDAs when I was Adventist. I really didn't feel that I could be unguarded with them. After all, I had The Truth. They didn't.

It's really quite a pathetic state. It's also one we
Chris
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Username: Chris

Post Number: 641
Registered: 7-2003


Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 10:20 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The first time I ever really had any significant exposure to non-Adventist was when I started my first job out of grad school at the age of 24. Working for a non-profit Catholic hospital I found myself surrounded by Catholics and various protestants who believed in the mission of the hospital.

It put a real chink in my SDA armor when I started to realize that these people didn't have horns growing out of their head and that many of them had a more real Christian walk than I did. Although the reality of their Christian experience created a certain amount of cognitive disonance for me, I still managed to hold myself aloof and feel very superior because of my knowledge of "TRUTH".

I even went so far as to take the opportunity to witness about the Sabbath and about unclean foods to the few friends I actually made during that period.

Looking back, I cringe everytime I think of it. It's very embarrassing. In answer to your question Tracey, the reason no one knew me more than superficially was because I saw others, not so much as people, but as either potential converts or hopeless Babylonians.

Chris
Colleentinker
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Username: Colleentinker

Post Number: 1402
Registered: 12-2003


Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 10:29 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Oops--I didn't get the end of my thought posted above! I was starting to say that I realize I'm prone to feel "superior" now because I've been called out of Adventism. I think the tendency to arrogance is a continuing concern for me.

I need God's power to be made perfect in my weakness.

Colleen
Loneviking
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Username: Loneviking

Post Number: 318
Registered: 7-2000
Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 11:08 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Well, J.W'.s, Mormons, and SDA's are all into this isolation business. Life centers around their culture, their church, and having the right friends and right job. SDA's especially are prone to this as you can be born in an SDA hospital, be raised in an SDA neighborhood attending an SDA church, attend SDA schools and summer camps, get married in an SDA church, work in an SDA institution or business and die SDA.

That's why so many of these cults go door to door. They don't have any other way to meet the folks around them! Their neighbors are going to have to join them---not the other way around!
Goldenbear
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Username: Goldenbear

Post Number: 55
Registered: 12-2004
Posted on Sunday, February 13, 2005 - 7:52 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

When leaving Adventism, there seems to be feelings of anger, relief, and thanksgiving that surrounds you. I want to tell people how cultic it is and that no matter what those in the church say when they talk about the church, there is still a web of deceit surrounding the sda church. With that in mind, the pastor of the current church we are attending invited my wife and I to supper with he and his wife. They had been missionaries to Papua, NG and in Germany. As we were relating our story, and maybe laying on the concern about the cultic nature of the SDA church a little strong, he made a wonderful statement that made me pause...There are still some wonderful Christians in the SDA church. God will call them in His due time.

Oh yeah, we were at a bible study with some SDA friends. The local pastor showed up and went on about how many people have (it seemed like he counted 4-6 off in the western part of our state) come to the adventist church and have a Messiah complex or some other Kooky belief. It seems like the Adventist church just really attracts these types of people.
Jan
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Username: Jan

Post Number: 4
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Sunday, February 13, 2005 - 2:24 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Goldenbear: Your post made me laugh.

Here's one story to tell: Last summer at a Mid-West campmeeting I saw an odd-looking (earthy, bearded and homespun!) couple standing next to their truck bearing a big sign: FRUITS AND NUTS! And I remember thinking: "Well, yeah. . . "

Now before someone tells me to go slap my proud little face. . . I already did!
Goldenbear
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Username: Goldenbear

Post Number: 56
Registered: 12-2004
Posted on Sunday, February 13, 2005 - 2:31 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Jan,
I find it really amazing that in church today, our pastor preached 1 Corinthians 8. Freedom in Christ. He talked about how when we focus on things we become arrogant and legalistic dogma takes over. All too often, when I was a practicing SDA, I would drive by Sunday churches and just shake my head at the futility of their worship. I know now that those feelings, which seem to pervade the church, kept me from seeing unity in the body of Christ.

After the service, a friend who knows the walk I have been out of Adventism came up and asked if I would ever hear a sermon in the Adventist Church on that subject. LOL I had to say now, I didn't think I would. In fact I don't know if I ever heard expository preaching in an adventist church.

Jeannette
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Username: Jeannette

Post Number: 83
Registered: 3-2003
Posted on Sunday, February 13, 2005 - 2:53 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I just wanted to share with you my joy. My husband went to church with me this morning. When we first found out about the lies of the SDA church he wanted nothing to do with any church and still felt that the sabbath was the correct day. Slowly he has come around and finally took the big step of going to church on a Sunday. Please continue to pray for him that he will continue to heal from his hurt and continue to go to church and develop a relationship with our saviour. I didn't want to start another thread, I just wanted to share my happiness with you all, my brothers and sisters in Christ.
Flyinglady
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Username: Flyinglady

Post Number: 1051
Registered: 3-2004


Posted on Sunday, February 13, 2005 - 3:48 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Jeannette,
Hallelujah, Praise God.
I have put the both of you in my prayer book. God is working on you husband and is holding him in His arms while He is. God is so awesome.
Diana
Carol_2
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Username: Carol_2

Post Number: 257
Registered: 2-2002


Posted on Sunday, February 13, 2005 - 5:04 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Oh Jeannette! That's wonderful! You and your family will be in our prayers. Love, Carol
Bob
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Username: Bob

Post Number: 54
Registered: 7-2000


Posted on Sunday, February 13, 2005 - 6:56 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Each of us former SDAs continually grieves over the hardness of mind and heart that we so often encounter in our attempts to have a Biblical exchange of ideas with our SDA friends and relatives.

I received the following brief essay in an email, and I thought I would share it with you. In our efforts to convince others of truth, we must also pray that God will keep us, too, from spiritual hardness of heart.
Bob

Becoming a Fool, by Os Hillman

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. ~ Proverbs 1:7


Marvin Wilson, author of Our Father Abraham, has written incisively about the various meanings for our word ìfoolî:

In Biblical wisdom literature, the pupils of the sages and mentors are the unwise, often termed "fools" (Prov. 1:7) or "simple one" (1:22). In wisdom literature, the different levels of fools - both young and old - are the raw material on which the sages had to work, and they represent the varying degrees of rawness. Perhaps as much as anything else, the term fool is descriptive of an attitude, bent of mind, or direction in life, which needs correcting. The various Hebrew words for fool occur more than a hundred times in the book of Proverbs. [Marvin Wilson, Our Father Abraham (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), 284-286.]

The reference to someone being a fool was not necessarily a negative term. A simple fool, or peti, was a person who made mistakes, but quickly righted them and was restored to fellowship with God and with others. King David was a simple fool, one who made mistakes, but kept a repentant heart toward God. This is why God did not turn away from him for his many sins.

The hardened fool, kesil and ewil, makes mistakes, but never learns from them and will not listen to others. Such people can expect God's reproof to continue and will eat the fruit of their own way (see Prov. 1:31-32). The hardened fool "returns to his own vomit." King Saul was a hardened fool, one who made mistakes and continued in them even after realizing he was wrong. We're going to err in our ways. The question is, once we know we have made a mistake before God, do we make the necessary adjustments that will allow Him to intervene on our behalf? And will we avoid the same course of action in the future? God says that if we do, He will pour out His Spirit on us (see Prov. 1:23). He will make known His words to us.

The third level of fool mentioned in Proverbs is the mocking fool or letz. The mocking fool mocks the things of God. This word means "scoffer" or "scorner." When you encounter cynical people who disregard the things of God, you know these people are "mocking fools."

The fourth level of fool is the God-denying fool or nabal. This term relates to the morally wicked person who ignores the disgrace he brings on his family and who despises holiness (see Prov. 17:21). This person says, "There is no God." By failing to acknowledge God for who He is, the nabal declares himself to be a "God-denying" fool.

I have found that it is helpful to try to understand if people are teachable. Are they simple fools, those who make mistakes but seek to learn from them? I can work with those people. But if I sense I am working with a hardened fool, I know I should not spend much time on that person. Jesus did not spend much time trying to convince the rich young ruler. He presented truth, and let him make his decision. Some people must get broken before they can become simple fools. Sometimes it is simply better to let Satan chew on people until the ground is fertile enough to present truth to them.

Prayer:

Lord, let me be a simple fool, not a hardened fool. Though I make many mistakes in life, I want to learn from those mistakes. I want to improve; to do what is right. As the Bible says, to be a "simple fool." Please never let me become a hardened fool who does not listen or learn from mistakes. I pray for your guidance, direction, and wisdom each and every day. Thank you for hearing me. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.



Flyinglady
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Username: Flyinglady

Post Number: 1053
Registered: 3-2004


Posted on Sunday, February 13, 2005 - 7:05 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Bob,
Thanks for sharing about what a fool is. I, too, want to be a simple fool, teachable and willing to acknowledge my mistakes at all times.
God is awesome.
Diana
Susan_2
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Username: Susan_2

Post Number: 1502
Registered: 11-2002
Posted on Sunday, February 13, 2005 - 8:26 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

What does the term "messiah complex" mean?
Colleentinker
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Username: Colleentinker

Post Number: 1407
Registered: 12-2003


Posted on Sunday, February 13, 2005 - 9:03 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Thanks for sharing that essay of "fool", Bob.

Jeannette, I am SO HAPPY about your husband! I have been praying for him, and I will continue to pray for him and you. What a wonderful thing! God truly is awesome!

Colleen
Seekr777
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Username: Seekr777

Post Number: 46
Registered: 1-2003


Posted on Monday, February 14, 2005 - 2:07 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Colleen - "Oops--I didn't get the end of my thought posted above! I was starting to say that I realize I'm prone to feel "superior" now because I've been called out of Adventism. I think the tendency to arrogance is a continuing concern for me."

Colleen I was touched by your comment above. I find it a concern as you mentioned that I not have an arrogance or sense of superiority over others that God has revealed more to me than them. That I'm further along the path than my friends or family.

I'm continually reminded I'm on a journey of discovery and a deepening of my relationship with my Savior Jesus Christ.

As some of you know I'm not a former like most here but I love my Jesus passionately. I ask that you not paint everyone with the same brush in your comments. It is important to me to listen to each of your journeys but my journey must be "MY" journey lead by the Holy Spirit and my relationship with my Savior, Jesus Christ.

One book that moved me greatly was the book by Greg Taylor where he shared his journey into a fuller relationship with his Savior. I don't remember a bitterness in what he said in anyway. He did share the pain and confusion but he continually pointed the way to Jesus as his Savior and Lord. I purposefully said "his journey into a fuller relationship with his Savior" and not his journey out of the Adventist church. One journey is looking back at where you have been and the other is looking forward to where God is leading you.

In some ways my journey may be unique and in some ways very simular to others here. I will share more of my journey sometime.

Richard

PS: I would like to meet one on one with others in the Southern California area if possible. I live in the Pomona/Claremont area about 35 miles W. of Loma Linda. I've enjoyed the study group on Friday night a few times with the Tinkers but it is a difficult time for me to spend away from my family.
Susan_2
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Username: Susan_2

Post Number: 1505
Registered: 11-2002
Posted on Monday, February 14, 2005 - 6:30 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Seeker777, are you near Chino? If so, please get my e-mail from Colleen as I would like to contact you. Thanks.
Tracey
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Username: Tracey

Post Number: 181
Registered: 9-2004
Posted on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - 12:14 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Thanks for your explanations..

I am not sure I understand the "core" comment though.

Tracey

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