The Undercover Adventist

To justify more illegal immigrants coming to the USA, some people are pulling the Jesus-as-a-refugee card. Claiming His flight to Egypt gave Him refugee status. Not quite. Now in the history of the Jews, they did settle in the land of Egypt. But they were invited there when Joseph was in charge. Then what happened? Within 400 years, they were slaves. None of this would ever make one a refugee. After leaving, they plundered the Egyptians, raided the land of Canaan, and took it over as God promised. Nothing there would even remotely be refugee status. The aliens they allowed to live there, were required to embrace the Jewish culture and be ruled by God. But people seem to think that Joseph and Mary fleeing to Egypt made them refugees when threatened by Herod. Not quite. They simply moved from one region of the Roman Empire to another. The area we call Egypt was completely Roman. As a side note, the Romans named the capital city, Babylon. So in reality, Jesus was not a refugee....

Look at the Adventist church. There is enough Babylon to go around. We think we have the answers. We think we are safe because we, "belong" to the true church. The church of the end. Hardly. And people had better wake up to this. The Adventist church is no better than any other. Oh sure, we toss around phrases like, "more truth," "best there is," closest to perfect," "best doctrines." Complete foolishness. No matter how short a church is, it's still short. Way short. After the William Miller debacle, (and yes it was a major error so where is our truth?), Ellen White and others got together. They thought they were not going to start a new church. But al true believers coming out of other churches and being the one true church. It did not happen. When people claim Ellen G. White said something about how this church will stand until the end, she could not have been talking about the Adventist church as we know it. First of all, th...

From William Miller, to present day charlatans who claim they know it all, Adventist have fallen for false prophets. You see them on youtube. You see them on the Hope Channel. You see them on 3ABN. Yes, they show up everywhere, including your local church. Why? Why do Adventists relish falsehoods? Maybe it's in our DNA....after all, we came out of a false prophet. Any way you slice it, Miller was a false prophet. We won't name names, but the continuing onslaught of predictions of this, and a prophecy of that, just seem to flow forth in present day. Maybe it's the evil of the internet. Maybe people are just not as smart as before. Any time you hear anyone say something that you know is NOT Biblically correct, tune them out and turn them off. Like it or not, our founding members did not have everything right. They debated lots of things. They changed on many points. They even told us to be searching, always, for more light. More truth. But not from snake oil...

Where all of this "unity" nonsense started, is when people who lead the church no longer considered it a calling. It is now a career choice. It is a job. And jobs are where the world starts to tell you that you need benefits, high wages, recognition, compensation, and above all....your rights! Since when are Adventist church workers just employees? They are demanding their rights. Not Christian rights, but worldly rights. Pastors it seems have more time off, less work hours, more pay, and it seems to have become just another job. So if young people going into the ministry are choosing a career instead of a calling, darn straight they will want the perks of a career. Does your pastor turn off his or her phone? Do they visit less? Do they lead church activities less? Do they seem to take more vacation time? Hmmmmm. Something behind the scenes is going on. Perhaps our pastors are now getting comp time. Or feel that if it's not a paid part of the job, then they won...

Just like we reported last year when stewardship as slipped in to up the giving, this quarter is another subtle dig into the political parts of the church. While there's nothing wrong with the substance, maybe, on its own, but slipping it into a Sabbath School quarter, is a tad underhanded. Hmmmm. Heavy handed? Make no mistake about it. This unity is the leaders' idea of untiy. Not yours. Not mine. Not ours. But theirs. Fall in line, or else. Some have even started to say that we have become militant. That we are now coming up with rules and regulations that a member MUST follow or else....excommunicated. (for lack of a better word). The people at the tower of babel were united. Apparently that was not a good thing. Unity for unity's sake, is a farce. So what do we think the real issue is in unity? Perhaps more than one: Ordination of women. Get in line with U N I T Y. Perhaps we can toss in gay marriage, 6 day creation, and other things. You would think...

For Adventists, their beliefs and Ellen G White go hand in hand. Or so it seems for many members. They can't seem to do anything without scraping up what she said about whatever is in question. However, we should always remember our first and foremost fundamental belief: " The Holy Scriptures are the infallible revelation of His will. They are the standard of character, the test of experience, the authoritative revealer of doctrines, and the trustworthy record of God's acts in history." But is that true? Do we really read The Bible as infallible and where we get our doctrines? It seems we do not. We change words. We cut out things. We talk about symbolism, other times, present truth, translations. Just about everything we can to slice and dice parts of The Bible that we do not follow. But we NEVER do that with Ellen G White. If she said it, well, it must be gospel. We must follow everything she said word for word, especially in certain books. That is what m...

The Adventists' second fundamental belief is as follows: "There is one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a unity of three coeternal Persons. God is immortal, all-powerful, all-knowing, above all, and ever present. He is infinite and beyond human comprehension, yet known through His self-revelation. God, who is love, is forever worthy of worship, adoration, and service by the whole creation. (Gen. 1:26; Deut. 6:4; Isa. 6:8; Matt. 28:19; John 3:16 2 Cor. 1:21, 22; 13:14; Eph. 4:4-6; 1 Peter 1:2.)" So, right off the bat, Adventists affirm that there is but one God. They carefully chose the word, capitalized, "Persons," to describe Jesus, The Father, and The Holy Spirit. They did not choose to describe it as three deities. To be more exact, it is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Three coeternal Persons. It is not a God, then another God, then yet another God. They are all one God. One reference puts it this way: " This mo...

So you just finished a great series on "Stewardship." You are now pumped up for the cause. Adventists are feeling recharged and ready to open their pocketbooks. Well, at least that was the goal. Back in 2015, the good people that run the Adventist Church, decided we needed a reboot. That giving was not up to snuff, and by golly, they were bound and determined to do something about it. They created stewardship directors for each division. Thirteen in all. They were given salary, benefits, and travel to shepherd the masses. They wanted to teach every man, woman, and child in the church about stewardship. In other words, you gotta spend money to make money. Of course it fell flat. Local churches and pastors were not really on board. It was a perfect storm, really. The GC had troubles with the strong dollar, less tithe money coming in, and a few questionable business practices. Something had to be done. We need to get people on board to start tithing! In the Fall o...

If by Easter, one means the death and resurrection of Jesus, most certainly we should observe and celebrate Easter. Celebrations were part of ancient Jewish life, even commanded by God. The celebration of Purim was started in the book of Esther. Of course bunnies, eggs, chicks, and other things are not to be promoted in the church. Easter does not really have pagan beginnings. It is called Pascha in both Greek and Latin. It is named after the month it occurs in. Don't be caught up in the falsehoods that are generated each time during Easter. It is just a name. The name came from a book, and from the name of a month in that book. Nothing more, nothing less. Easter is no more pagan than modern weddings. Yes modern weddings have their origin in pagan beliefs. So you would sound quite foolish by telling people about the paganism they are doing when they celebrate Easter, as you condone wedding cakes, veils, dresses, flowers, rings, rice, and more. They all have pagan origin...

This quarter the church is studying about being good stewards. The first thing we think about is money. We must indeed be good stewards with money. We are also being instructed to save your money, think about the future, and not waste things. We need to save and worry about retirement, kid's college, new car, etc. But won't the Earth be destroyed, and everything in it? Why does The Bible, Jesus, Bible Authors, and Apostles warn us to NOT think about the future? That is, our monetary future? We are not supposed to worry about such and such when we don't even know what will happen today. Did Jesus tell us that the lily has no worries about its clothes and so should we be? What then, does one make about the parables of Jesus about money. These parables apparently teach us about saving and investing money. Or do they.... Jesus told parables about sheep. We readily agree the parables are NOT about sheep keeping. Jesus tells us parables on sowing seeds. Of course ...

As Adventists, you have heard that having a medical job is sacred. That somehow you can work on The Sabbath because you are a healer. Ditto with other "emergency" jobs that someone else has deemed sacred. So, why is this? If you happen to work at a department store, and called to work on Saturday, we become militant. We tell them in no uncertain terms that they MUST get off. That they must trust God to somehow come to their rescue. However, if you have the privilege of being a doctor, we give you a pass. Or a nurse. We tell them they are doing some sort of God's work, so that is okay. Of course this makes us look foolish. Oh sure, some people say to give the money you earn on Sabbath back to the church, and you are pure.  But you still worked your regular job! Working on Sabbath seems to be okay so long as you : A) Have a medical or emergency job. And, perhaps.... B) Give the money back to the church. Of course this violates Sabbath keeping, does it not? Is one job sacred...

Adventists have long been accused of many things. How do you answer false accusations about Adventist beliefs? First of all, be ready. If you have not already, you will be questioned. And probably in a hostile way. Be prepared to not get hostile in return. Three major issues for Adventists Ellen G. White. Many members of other denominations think that whatever this woman  said, did, published, or otherwise construed, is the basis of our salvation. It is not. And it never has been. We can blame this big one on ourselves. We have done a poor job of promoting our message and truths. If the first thing out of your mouth when evangelizing is Ellen White, you won't win many friends. You must first be firm that our salvation is based on Jesus and The Bible. After that, you can begin to attempt to turn the conversation around. Ask them what authors they like. Have they read books by Rick Warren, like The Purpose Driven Life? Do they know and read Max Lucado? Does their pasto...