Cultish: Ellen G. White & The Millerites Pt. 2

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to cultish entering the kingdom of the cults. My name is

Jeremiah Roberts One of the co -hosts here. I know you all have been chomping at the bit having to wait an entire week

We left it on a little bit of a cliffhanger Andrew thank you for joining us from your brand new super secret headquarters just for a couple days

Appreciate joining back man. Oh Absolutely. I was just traveling around, you know that last episode had me floating through Orion's belt and the plating system and I'm back here now

I'm sorry. Yeah, we're joined back from with a Colleen and Nikki. How are you all doing?

Thanks for joining us Thanks for having us back. Okay. All right. So the cliffhanger and you're probably wondering to like what am

I gonna talk about this picture? it's interesting you brought up some things in part one about the relationship between Ellen and James and Given that James was the promoter for her and a lot of What was going on and there it was just very interesting so the picture when

I look at it, it's Well, it's very 1800s ask with how they look and even though she's very wearing a very traditional 1800s dress

She seems to be the person wearing the pants in the picture Yeah, and that might be a little of a serrated edge, but that was in my immediate gut instinct when

I saw that picture What do you think that's an accurate assessment, why do you think I went there when I saw that just curious my view of things as just reading her stuff over the years and Seeing how it progressed from the beginning when

James had a very big doctrinal voice to the end After he died where she could destroy men with a single dream or a testimony from the

Lord It appears to me that over the years she became quite

Enamored with her own power with her own visionary power And she did reprimand

James and correct him and instruct him. But as I said, he was older than she and he died you know,

I don't remember the exact year, but I believe it was in the 1860 like 1868 ish and And He had a stroke and apparently he had a stroke before the stroke that actually killed him right so he became less

Strong and she became stronger. She had to carry on and push through and she did and she

Kept those power reins in her hand and as James weakened and died She had them firmly and the men in the in the in the organization didn't quite know what to do with her

Yeah, he controlled a lot of things. They had ideas of their own, but she managed them with her testimonies.

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Enjoy the podcast. What about you Nikki? Well, I when you mentioned the picture it makes me actually think about my daughter my 13 year old we went to Michigan for a former

Adventist Fellowship Conference And they have this little village there with all of these school houses and homes that prominent

Adventist lived in their printing presses there And we walked through this tour and we went into Ellen White's home by far the nicest home of all of the homes there and as we went up the stairs the tour guide said look to your right and you'll see

James White's room and We turn and we look and it is the size of a closet and Then we go around the corner and we enter this large room with windows all the way around a bed a rocker all of these

Really nice things. This was Ellen White's room and my daughter to this day says yeah,

Ellen White kept her husband in the closet because He had this tiny little space and it was just kind of pushed off away while she had all of this luxury

Around her and her writing desk and it was where she would apparently meet her handsome young man

But I do have to say really quickly Richard is here our tech person on the side just making sure we're like Yeah, the right thing and he just looked it up and James White died in 1881.

I was way off. Mm -hmm Okay, FYI Yeah And sometimes when you're only a podcaster just found off the top of the thing and sometimes people go

Matt microanalyze That's just sometimes what's happened. So I appreciate you correcting that It's interesting because Again, when you look at a lot of similar religious movements

During around the same time frame Usually, it's very patriarchal where you have the man the man who is leading someone who's very charismatic like Joseph Smith Brigham Young Charles Taze Russell and usually at the same time you'll also have

Women who are viewed as almost secondary or they're used as a means to their end

It seems like in this case, it's almost a reversal of those roles that that's kind of what fascinates me about that What are your thoughts?

Well, I think at the beginning that kind of was the role she was the visionary the one that he needed in order to have the

The imprimatur from God to make the declarations and get the following but as time went on I absolutely agree the power reversed and by the time he died.

I mean she didn't die till 1915 so she ran that organization

With a lot of tumult, but with an iron hand and it started it's I do believe that started to shift before he died

Yeah, a Phil Johnson in his lecture. You can look this up on YouTube. You've listened to the lecture

He said something as I was prepping Just a couple hours ago is that if you can if you look at a lot of the photos of Ellen G White she is usually not looking directly into the camera.

She's kind of looking off She kind of has I don't know. It's a little some of the pictures are a little creepy to be honest, but it seems

Yeah, it does seem there seems to be an overall aesthetic like I I am in the know

I have a special secret knowledge that no one else has and I think I would agree with Phil Johnson's assessment

What do we know about her like as a person like well in just in day -to -day life?

I know she had these times where she's having these grand visions and and Seeing these apocalyptic visions and kind of making up this there that we mentioned the syncretism

Theologically, which makes the whole language very very complex and nuanced which we're going to decipher

What do we know about just her but what she was like day in and day out like what a typical day look like for Ellen Well, you know,

I couldn't say day -to -day, but I do know that in general She was portrayed as very sickly.

She was sick a lot. She she when she was a child third grade, I believe she was hit in the head with a rock from a fellow schoolmate our friend

Cheryl Granger who Sometimes writes for a proclamation has always said I would love to know what she did

To incite that much anger out of a fellow schoolmate to hit her in the head with the rock Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question to be honest, but it hit her

Hit her in the nose apparently broke her nose and she was unconscious for three weeks. So She probably had head damage brain damage of some sort and she was very upset when she came to because she didn't look like herself anymore and So she was sickly and the the myth the internal myth is that she had to drop out of school

She never went past the third grade and really couldn't read or write The fact is that apparently she could read and write quite well even though she might have been sickly and might have had trouble concentrating because Remember when we went to Andrews University Nikki and in the study library and the

James Wyatt Library They have it's a in their special study library that you can only go into with permission

They have a large a large wall Covered with glass and wood bookcases that are under lock and key and they are her private collection of books

Hundreds of books on every subject imaginable including the occult So she was clearly reading.

Yeah, but the myth inside is that she was sickly so she did have apparently fits and faintings and and Nikki talk about her relationship with her children.

Oh so She actually said that even the letters that she writes are inspired by God everything

She writes and As I was kind of looking at Adventism and trying to figure out is this is this right?

Is it wrong? I found these letters. She wrote to her son and she told her son God does not love naughty children and As I read that and I I worked my way through some of these other letters.

I forget what she she had a dream She wrote to him about of him in hell suffering

Which is interesting because they don't believe in hell right, but she was very Manipulative very

I I don't know. I always think that if we could we would find a diagnosis for this woman

I think so too borderline Narcissistic, I'm not sure but she was she was highly controlling and manipulative and used her visions to control not only

These people who were establishing doctrines, but children Neighbors anyone of influence so I Think she was a very nosy woman

She has books that she wrote Fleshing out people's secret sins that she sees in vision and calling them out on it and destroying them publishing them print

She was a very mean woman Also those children those letters to her children

Were necessary because she traveled so much and I find this to be interesting too, especially since she wrote

Child guidance and education and all these books on councils for teachers but she herself would be gone weeks to even months at a time when her children were very young and She would leave them in the care of people.

She knew not necessarily relatives I don't even know who really but they would be in her care and then she'd hear reports about them and then she'd write them these manipulative letters when she'd hear that they would be

Disobedient. Mm -hmm And then and then you have this whole other aspect that's always so uncomfortable to talk about and I guess

I'd want to give a Warning here in case anyone's listening with their kids. Sure she would give strong advice to parents about what to do with their children and She would suggest that they tie their hands to their beds and tie them up to prevent them from masturbating because that will cause mental illness tuberculosis a

Variety of things she had a lot of guidance on the sexual relationship in a marriage

Women were not to undress in front of their husbands because it would excite animal passions Which and and she believed in the vital force so you're only allowed so much energy in your lifetime and you have to spend it carefully and things like Marital sex will deplete your vital force and you won't have as much energy to serve

God So so in her masturbation for children would do that too so in her in her day -to -day she was very preoccupied with controlling and and I Wouldn't want to know her in her day to day either and she was also deceptive you know the the health message and all of the advice that she left a strong legacy of non meat -eating and no

Nothing like tea and coffee or stimulants, you know and yet Good people with you know, who knew her well and traveled with her have written about later in her life

How she would be on a trip and she would ask for oysters Or they find her eating her oysters behind a screen where nobody could see her

She would write about having you know, butchered a pig when she had already said pigs shouldn't be eaten

So there was this duplicity about her and I think also there was a lot of Obsessive guilt and shame attached to that because she would write about Agonizing over her problems.

I mean she wrote about her addiction to get this vinegar and I want to say wait a minute It had to be wine.

Yeah, you know vinegar is the next step after one Yeah, but you would talk about trying to give it up and having hallucinations if she gave it up now

I don't believe she's addicted to vinegar That sounds like alcohol, yeah Yeah, just real quick I have a question just that'll compliment what you're talking about right now and Andrew all that you jump in with questions you have in Just a moment as soon as you're talking about, you know those graphic depictions as far as the rigid restrictions on sexual behavior both with Children and also with chrome nuts between wives and husbands

My brain immediately went to David Koresh. Oh, yes. He He's directly he was directly influenced and again, this is not about David Koresh But I think we can just bring it up for a moment

The reason why I immediately thought of him if anyone knows this whole story of Waco is that in Mount Carmel?

Even prior to the standoff in Waco David Koresh had implemented very rigid restrictions at the time of the raid if I'm not mistaken is

That he had a policy that he was the only person in the compound who was allowed to have sex

No one even husbands and wives couldn't and he would use that what just off really quickly

Like what do you know about Koresh and sort of the influences that white would have had on him?

Because I know he did come from a branch of Seventh -day Advent and but it was a spin -off just real quickly before he'd go back to LNG white

You know, I don't know a lot about him personally He was a branch Davidian.

Yes, and he He actually I I I know

Personally a couple who had been the pastor and the pastor's wife of an Adventist Church in Hawaii That David Koresh was a member of and that was before he became

David Koresh. He was actually Vernon Howell or whatever his name was how was his name, correct?

And when he was Vernon Howell, he was he wasn't completely. Okay mentally apparently he was a little unstable in his personality, but he was very much devoted to Ellen White and her a scatological visions and Predictions and they had actually asked him this couple that I knew to leave that church because he was so disruptive and it was after that that he formed his you know his con his community up at Mount Carmel and Actually, I had a student in Idaho in the in the late 70s or early 80s who

I learned later died in that fire at Waco, so Yeah, he was he was an

Adventist Adventist want to distance themselves from that He was a branch Davidian but branch

Davidians will tell you they are definitely related to Adventism and they and they honor Ellen They follow

Ellen White So he was related to that and he didn't practice his whole thing with he was the only one who could

Have sex with the women in the convent. That is not in the in the community. That was not an Adventist teaching

That was his own perversion of everything but he was related to Adventism and I did follow

Ellen White and I Believe this is actually true. I've heard it from several places that there was a an

Adventist PR director who helped the government Understand how to get rid of him at Waco.

Well, they knew how he thought fascinating fascinating Yeah, so just I appreciate you sharing that.

I just thought of that immediately. I just jumping back to Ellen G white Andrew What what thoughts and questions do you have right now?

What's on your mind? Yeah, so I was wondering as the Seventh day

Adventism. I believe it started in March of 1863 Let's say even like yeah a little officially exactly like even a little bit before then and after it's official

What was her role you said she traveled right? Did she travel as this like? Apostle or something like was she the end -all be -all of these general conferences when they'd have doctrinal disagreements

Like what what did she do exactly? It was her visions. And yes in the beginning she was

James's traveling companion and prior to the Organization of the of the denom of the I don't want to call it a nomination prior to its organization she provided the inspiration that gave

James credibility during the Millerite movement and just after the Millerite movement, so he would use her visions as a way of controlling the people that he was trying to coalesce into an organization because He could control he if he could control a church and have access to their tithe

Which was a mandate, you know He could make money if he could if he could publish her visions, which he did he could make money

It was a money -making thing. In fact Dudley Kenwright who had who was a

Contemporary of the whites and actually worked with them and lived in their home as a young man

He actually ultimately left Seventh -day Adventism, but he writes about them and he says that when she died in 1915 the year she died

She earned a hundred thousand dollars in royalties from her books now that was 1915

So she was she was the Prophet and as the Prophet or the messenger

She had the authority from God So she gave authority to the Adventist doctrines and after the denomination or after the organization formulated itself officially

She continued to have those Testimonies and visions and guided them. So she was the source of God's will for them when you um

When you I appreciate that when you look at a different cult for example Joseph Smith Mormonism early 1800s

Mormonism both with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young There was always chaos specifically a

Joseph Smith wherever he went. There is always batting back and forth of the state Joseph Smith his death ended in a very violent way towards people radically opposed to him

With Ellen G. White. I mean her controversies seem to be more Internally within people following her maybe having doubts being jaded by these end times visions that didn't come to fruition

What was she was there any sort of? controversy great controversies outside of her

Apocalyptic visions just with Society with the state anything similar to early

Mormon history or would she kind of a person to kind of go along to get along What was that like? It's a good question.

Actually, unlike Joseph Smith. She didn't have political controversy with the state that I am aware of what she did have was a lot of internal controversy and she

She had within Adventism. There was controversy between her and for example,

John Harvey Kellogg Who began as an Adventist began working for the Whites and they considered him like a protege a brilliant young doctor

Who eventually built a Battle Creek sanitarium and the health? reconditioning center that he made famous and He ultimately was pushed out of Adventism because of theological disagreements with Ellen White Which actually people who have studied that believe there was probably

Theology was the cover story for the fact that he was a financial Threat to her.

She wanted control of that Battle Creek sanitarium and he said no I've founded this

So they parted ways, you know based on Theological things over the

Trinity how ironic that these people who didn't believe in the classic Christian Trinity were arguing over the

Trinity But there were other men to in fact on in our proclamation Emails, we've just been sending out the chapters of the book cast out for the cross of Christ by Albion Ballinger Now he wrote and lived his father was a founding

Adventist and he grew up in Adventism and knew Ellen White as a young man when she was an old woman, but he grew up and she

Had a vision finally that he had to leave Adventism or else go to England and get out of the way of the general conference because he didn't believe in her visions

And so she would destroy people through her visions through her Testimonies if they didn't agree with her or if they threatened her or if they threatened her financially

She her grip was very tight and there was a lot of internal conflict, but it wasn't with the state.

Mm -hmm It's interesting that it really wasn't with her But but the overall feeling of Seventh -day

Adventist throughout I think the entire history of the organization is to fear the government right because the government is

What's going to come ultimately in the last days during Jacob's time of trouble?

It's really that the church and the government are gonna turn on Seventh -day Adventists Yeah and we are going to have to flee and run to the hills and They are going to be given legal permission to come and kill us because we keep the

Sabbath, right? And so we're raised with this and we believe this is true And so you do everything you can to keep peace and make nice with the government and this is why they're very committed to They've got a lot of representation in DC to maintain the separation of church and state

Because they really don't want to see these laws pass that they're promoting these Sunday laws That are gonna get people killed and remember they they're always throughout their history thinking that Jesus is gonna come in my lifetime

So every Adventist that ever lived is waiting for the laws to turn against them

You can imagine this the talk of Sunday laws that has burgeoned in the last two years

Yeah, so so what what was like a the kovat in 2020 like within the

SDA world? Like all of a sudden there's churches where some some are closing down and stuff like that.

What was going on? Hard to speak from the inside. No, this is not great

But I can tell you this during 2020 we started our former Adventist podcast in October of 2019

When kovat hit in March of 2020 the lockdowns we started getting

Emails from people who said I haven't been going to church and I finally had time to look around and ask some questions

We've had so many people who found our podcast and have been writing to us and have actually left

Adventism because they've started to study their own questions Yeah, yeah, I don't know about the church about it.

I don't either we it's nice to know what the Lord's doing in the sad Isn't it it is but I will say that in Adventism anything that happens whether it's a tsunami a hurricane a political upset anything is the last great event before Something's gonna happen.

I remember in on September 11 when the towers fell There was a lot of talk because in Ellen White's books.

Is it testimonies to the church? I think he has volume 9 page 11. All right

She tells a vision of two buildings falling to the ground and so everybody thought to see everybody thought if this is it

This is it Sunday laws coming and the Sunday law, you know, that means

Mark of the Beast if you go to church on Sunday, that means you get the mark of the beast That is the sign of the mark of the beast and that is that LMG White's teachings or is that something that's an involvement?

That's a part of the great controversy worldview Sabbath keeping seventh -day

Sabbath is the seal of God Going to church on Sunday is the mark of the beast come out of her my people leave

Babylon That means come out of all of apostate Protestantism which has taken on the

Catholic mark of the beast and you get back to the true church Nikki how long were you in the seventh -day

Adventist Church for again? 30 years 30 years. Yeah, I was I was born into it on my mom's side fifth generation

They went all the way back to Ellen in Maine. Okay I'm assuming we're roughly the same age.

We're roughly probably around the same age What what were like major events that you live through as a seven -day

Adventist world events? You mentioned 9 -11 you think of like why 2k when everyone thought that all the air all your thing was gonna shut off There, you know on the verge of the year 2000

There's all these like millennial cults and just a lot of uncertainty with a year 2000 like where are some events that you live through as a seven -day

Adventist like people world events of people know You know, I lived on the

East Coast during Hurricane Hugo. I don't know if you remember that and I remember thinking this was it

It was in Florida, but I was in New England and it spun off tornadoes And so we had a tornado come through our town and then that happens really quickly

I don't know if you've been in a tornado, but you can have blue skies and all of the sudden you you know You've got this storm swirling around you and I thought here we go.

I live in Arizona So one thing we've had are the dust storms Okay, we had to pull to the side of the freeway for a little bit and then

I've only seen the movie Twister That's as much as I know about tornadoes Yeah, it's the only one I ever went through because I think

I've spent most of my life in, California I bounce back and forth. Yeah Yeah, it's hard to think of a lot of of the political things that went on, you know

We had the the war in Iraq and just about anything though Could set it off and get people wondering, you know

You hear about laws that are gonna be passed that Sunday law has been floating around DC forever

And I don't know if it really has been but even anything that the Pope does Oh, yeah, or if an important person goes to visit the

Pope Just about anything can set that off Yeah Well just because the reason why yeah

Cuz just the reason why I asked is that if you look at like the awake magazine from the Watchtower Bible and track

Society They'll usually will be articulating a current event or they'll have these this imagery of like stuff

Meteorites falling from the sky and buildings falling down and people running away looking horrified and they'll view current

Yeah, they'll view current events in that light I think we'll be good maybe but the both you can tag team together

Because again, you're this whole Movement organization took from today to its origins has always been these syncretistic apocalyptic visions that also affect

Soteriology Christology all those things. I'm just wondering maybe you could take us inside the mind of somebody who is a

Seventh -day Adventist How do they view current events through the lens of the end times when event like September 11th happens or even like 2020 with all the uncertainty, you know

How do they view that and how does that affect their worldview and you probably there's probably still ways in which he's probably still think

That way today I'm not sure. I I do and maybe

I'm maybe I'm there could be There's some who maybe there's some who do you know some some? Oh, yeah

Yeah, what I mean is some ex -cult members will have sort of this. You know, I might be like a PTSD We're all the sudden like immediately like it's something triggers them and there may have been people that you minister to Where all of a sudden something happens and they see an event or they see something to do with that Maybe this is end times and immediately go back into how you're growing up and indoctrinated

You know related to that We are like Nikki said we're all taught that Christians are going to come and hunt and kill us as Adventists in the time of trouble

Because we refuse to honor Sunday so we're going to be running to the hills and hiding in caves and trying to escape and That the

Sunday law will come in two phases first It will be national here in the United States and then international and it will be legal for people to take their guns and hunt and kill when we left

Adventism in 1998 9 Richard's parents well back up.

They were very conservative historic Adventists who remained that way until they died But very right.

I mean they were not like I refuse to look I don't want to know they would argue with him They they knew why they believed what they believed his mother

Especially chapter and verse for everything she believed and when we left she said to him one night in dead seriousness

Are you gonna kill me now? Because Ellen said those who leave will be the worst

Persecutors those who once kept the Sabbath and don't no longer do will be the worst persecutors.

Will you kill me now? so That's common. In fact

That camp at us. Yeah, that's what I was thinking about So they they prepare

People from a very young age for this Sunday law that's going to come They have something called

Pathfinders, I don't know if you've heard of it It's kind of like a Girl Scout Boy Scout kind of thing. Yeah, and we had by the way and they teach these kids

What they can eat in the woods They take them out there and they teach them what edible plants are and how to survive when it's time to run

Well, there's a camp called camp a salvo. I'll saw but I can never say it correctly either but it's in Michigan Michigan Yeah, and a few years back

They had a Sabbath afternoon activity where the kids broke off into different groups and the adults and the camp counselors were play actors

They were soldiers They had guns and the kids had to run through the woods and try to stay away from these soldiers and if they got captured they had to determine if they were going to die for the

Sabbath or not and there was a photographer there named Alan Ho I think and He photographed this and there are images of children on Their knees in the field with their hands over their head and adults pointing guns at them at their heads

And and so this kind of thing goes on all over the place there are people who when these pictures came out in a lot of our former

Adventist forums and on Facebook chat groups would talk about Oh when I was a kid, they had Soldiers storm our church on a

Sabbath morning and we didn't know it was fake and we were terrified So there's a lot of traumatizing that goes on there was required reading for your generation

Published by actually a 17 year old girl named Mary Kay silver who it was an assignment for her

Bible class and she wrote a story fictional story of fleeing during the time of trouble and Being accosted with people with guns and the parents didn't go with her.

And I mean it was a terrifying book. We all And My husband Richard says that in his

Bible class, they were given an assignment to write a similar thing using Mary Kay as a model Wow Is this this kind?

Oh So this interpretation of thinking that Christians are going to go after them because their view of the

Sabbath Because you're saying fleet of the mountains in the all of it discourse I mean Christian people depending on your view of eschatology

You'll have different variations of the timing and what Jesus meant by that But specifically the passage when

Jesus says when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies flee to the mountains Is that the passage that they kind of pull from to derive that sort of eschatological interpretation?

That's how I was taught that and and it was also a support for the Sabbath because Jesus says pray that it's not in the

Winter or on the Sabbath. Yes So yeah And when I left Adventism and started reading the

Bible and believing the words it became clear that I would have to flee to the mountains of Judea Right.

It didn't work for everybody everywhere in all time No, and and that I also understood that passage to mean when that Sunday laws passed.

That's when you flee Hmm. Okay, you had asked how different events Can trigger this it's anything that goes on Has everybody wanting to be five steps ahead of the

Sunday law? Yeah, so they may not actually be talking about a Sunday law But when the towers fell or I had a sibling when bird flu came

She was getting ready to sell her tent trailer and decided bird flu is here. So we have plagues I'm gonna keep that in case we have to run to the hills it informs everything about that traumatizing early on Okay What questions do you have?

Yeah, so is there a need by people that are as Seventh -day

Adventist to want to be included in the mainstream Christian Church because it sounds to me like There they wouldn't want to right so it's the mainstream

Christian Church that is gonna kill them hunt them down with the government Why is there this weird blurring of distinctions that is going on?

Why is there this weird? Christian language that is being used to make them seem like they are

Christian, you know, like why is that a good question? You know The way it looks to me.

I think a lot of this began literally and I know we'll talk about this more later but that it literally began back in the 50s with Walter Martin and There really has been within Adventism some

Who are more educated and who know the biblical languages and who have said wait a minute These Ellen White things and you know, this has actually been true all through Adventism even before Ellen White died

People who said wait a minute. These visions don't quite line up with Scripture The Bible doesn't exactly say this is going to happen.

So there are some Adventists who want to say let's get rid of these embarrassing Interpretations and let's frame ourselves as more

Christian and we'll believe in Jesus and salvation by grace But we'll keep that fourth commandment and we'll do the health message and we'll be better than everybody else because we're gonna be so much healthier and live so much longer and we're gonna have that Sabbath rest that everybody will envy and Then there are the others who go.

No Ellen White was the prophet. We have to go with her We can't we can't use her just the way we want to we have to take her word to be so there's always been this kind of push -pull and Geographically, wouldn't you say

Nikki Adventism differs? Geographically around the world And I'd add generationally absolutely, because you had people like Desmond Ford who came out and exposed the issues with the investigative judgment and you had

You had people like Vendin who would come out and teach with did he call it righteousness by righteousness by faith?

Yeah, which still isn't quite right and call it justification by faith But yeah, but so you had people who would start using

Christian language to the younger generations and we would hear okay It's all by faith.

It's all you know, but what about and it was very crazy making actually it was less honest

But you had these ministers who were trying to integrate Ellen White Seventh -day

Adventism and their concept of grace Which I think came out of their own dissonance not out of good

Bible teaching for Christian pastors and They would they'd syncretize all of this stuff up and you would have young people saying oh, you know what?

I don't believe Ellen White But I but I'm a Seventh -day Adventist and I love my church and then they don't know

What how much of what they believe comes from Ellen from the top to the bottom from from who

God is? Who man is what the sin problem is what the answer is? They'll use

Christian language because they're getting this mash -up and they don't even know their need and there we have the worldview

This is the thing that I have found Over the last 20 some years that we've been doing this ministry with Life Assurance Ministries We are located in Southern California where Adventism tends to be much more

Evangelical or progressive, you know quite liberal If you go back to Andrews where the seminary is you'll find much more

Historic Adventism and this all coexists and even in our Inland Empire here

We have whole congregations that are very historic very Ellen White centered and others that are like we'll just use her as a

Inspired writer and we're just gonna partner with everybody in the community to do social to meet social needs

Mm -hmm Any and I know there's a an attraction to Christians because Christians have joy that does not make sense to us

It did not make sense. It didn't make sense to me either and I would go to Christian concerts and be a part of Interdenominational like women's conferences.

I remember one time in particular I left and was handed a Sunday law book by an Adventist Cole Porter I didn't know

I was an Adventist but You're drawn to that and you think you know what they're talking about because it's been redefined to you by these grace

Adventist pastors and I loved the music and and I loved the Bible but it was all so confusing to me and when

I was Saved all of the sudden all of these songs all of these Christian songs

Made sense in a way that they never did until the gospel were some of the Christian concerts

She went to like any well -known artists like DC talk charge the clay Avalon point of grace Yeah, I listened to air one out here in Southern California and so whatever was on the radio

I I Can't recall all of them. I went to some women of faith conferences

And so they had like Natalie Grant come out and people like that. So That was all influencing me and then in our local church we have a guy who he's a doctor and doctors usually have the most influence and power and he would bring in people like Chris Rice and I can't think of everybody

Yeah Glad yeah, so you really get the idea that we're just like you we just have this app

We just have more truth than you do. We're not gonna say that to you So come join us cuz you'll be happier with us But the worldview the worldview is the same whether you're a historic

Adventist or a progressive one And that's what I to be really honest I really think that was what

Walter Martin failed to understand it in you know Just talking watching rewatching those talks with William Johnson Adventists have a physicalist worldview and that is true across the board.

They actively teach We do not have an immaterial spirit that separate from the body that affects

Jesus He doesn't have an immaterial spirit separate from so that be reformed. Is that like reverse

Gnosticism Gnosticism? That's what I often call it. I do. It's like the reverse of Gnosticism Physicalness so that even heaven is physical even

Orion, you know, Jesus gonna come through Orion There's a pyramid up in the middle of Orion somewhere

How would that affect their view when it comes to their diet? How they eat a big portion of what they're known for and I don't know if it's as a whole

I mean as a whole are they vegetarian is that is that an Ellen G Weiss teaching or what is that? What did Ellen G white teach when it came to diet and how that how that relate to?

spirituality from Ellen G Weiss perspective Super good question because it's everything. Yeah she said that She didn't say you can't go to heaven if you eat meat

But she said that nobody eating flush foods will be translated and in Adventist speak

Translated is be taken to heaven without dying first But she did say you can't eat any of the unclean meats as defined by the

Levitical food laws so what she also said not to expect God to answer your prayers if there's butter on your table butter or eggs and Don't expect your children to be able to you know, you can't pray for your children if you're feeding them eggs and butter

So there were there was there was the double speak there was to be no Stimulants which included cinnamon anything anything

I knew about black pepper coffee tea chocolate Well, no

Yeah, so like no just real quickly and Andrew let you jump into if you have questions Let's a

Gnosticism mean people even even in the New Age. They have an underlying Gnostic worldview

So a lot of times when you look at ideas that they have when it comes to diet They'll look at things that are real in regards to cleansing like your your body like clinical like clearing out doing a cleanse or Helping, you know your gut or having probiotics

But they'll view through the worldview of aligning your chakras and they'll have pre commitments to the lens of things

They're real nutritional the world that God created to help us, but it's done through that underlying worldview

What's interesting is that now if you look at Adventism from your perspective of a worldview where it's?

There's an emphasis where we're not in material spirits We're just physical like the it seems to me that there's probably some sort of syncretistic aspect within there is yeah within the

My mind's running drawing a blank here But within the food within your your health and overall well -being and how you eat that affects who you are

Spiritually elaborated on that if you could Well, here's the thing Ellen taught and they still actively teach this today

I have heard their current general conference president say this in a video that at a at a meeting in Switzerland They teach that because we don't have spirits.

The Holy Spirit is perceived through the neurons of the frontal lobe so in order to access the knowledge of the

Holy Spirit and the wisdom from the Holy Spirit and the insight from the Holy Spirit you have to be Healthy you have to eat right?

You have to not eat food. That is unclean Including the stimulants.

You can't you know, this will improve your spiritual perception and It will also make it so that you can understand

Adventism better. It's cool. It's connected with you know Educate your children in Adventist schools give them the vegetarian diet so that they will expose themselves

Their minds will be built up to receive the Holy Spirit's information And this is the only way to do it and this is related to being saved

You can't be saved if you don't have the knowledge It's not being born again

It's having the knowledge so that you can believe the right things and I have to say this is all related

I'm sorry. Just that's right. This is all related to Ellen White's belief that the gospel is

Cognitively not spiritually perceived. So for example when she was writing

These are things that they don't talk about very much anymore, but they're still in print She said back in the before the

Civil War That slaves, you know Those poor slaves would not be saved because they didn't have the mental capacity to understand the gospel

So God would mercifully make it so as if they had never existed when they died They would just they would not be punished

They would just go completely out of existence because they lacked the mental capability of understanding the gospel

So when I was growing up, and I think this is still true If a person is born

Developmentally disabled for example It was common knowledge that those people could not be saved because they didn't have the mental capacity to be saved

They couldn't be mentally healthy It was a shock to me and to my husband when we first joined a

Christian Church and they actually had a ministry for Adult developmentally disabled people and those people couldn't even always talk but they were in church on Sunday Singing worshiping praising and they loved

Jesus and it was clear. They loved Jesus They knew him and they didn't have the mental capacity to know him.

They knew him. That was amazing me Andrew what questions you have what's in your mind?

Yeah, can you clarify something for me? So I'm just a little confused myself. So they're pure they believe in things that are purely physical you said the

Holy Spirit perceived through the frontal lobe is the Holy Spirit a Spirit is the

Father Spirit because if there's if it's purely physical and it sounds to me like as well that The gospel itself or all of this knowledge.

It sounds like is innate within us in our physical Brain, it just needs to be unlocked somehow by you the way you eat the things that you're taught in order to give you this

I guess the word I you know in a way would be like a mental salvation or like in a

Ascension in a way from like the normal person is is God's Spirit like the scriptures say question

How can you have? One or the other especially if heaven is some actual physical location.

Yeah Yeah, and here's the deal from the beginning they believed

God the Father was not spirit James White wrote a pamphlet in 1861 and notice that's two years before the official organization.

So it was a well -formed group. It just hadn't you know Made a corporation of itself yet.

He wrote a pamphlet called the personality of God in which he argued that God in fact, this is a quote from it the sectarian

Meaning those Sunday those sects of Christians that call themselves Christians The sectarian has a

God without body or parts who can define the difference for our part We do not perceive a difference of a single hair.

They both claim to be the negative of all things which exist. He says God is material

Organized intelligence Possessing both body and parts man is in his image

I was taught that being created in God's image was involved how I looked having eyes nose mouth hands and Ellen White was not as clear as James But she wrote that she saw the lovely

Jesus when she was taken to heaven and she asked him Does your father have a body like you and he said you cannot see my father because there is this

You know this glory around him, but he has a form just as I do Mm -hmm Did you understand that too?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, we all thought God had a body for sure and and the Holy Spirit That's an interesting question.

I never really knew what to do about that. I Thought of the Holy Spirit as a spirit

But I didn't understand the simplicity of God. I did not understand that and so I think

I think and this is kind of embarrassing to admit I thought of it kind of like God the Father the

Holy Spirit being more of a feminine side of God and then Jesus the Son and Right, in fact the original

Adventists including James White including by the way Jn. Andrews for whom their flagship seminary is named died a staunch anti -trinitarian

Just by the way So they they taught that the Spirit was like a force emanating from God and from Jesus Some of them would say from Jesus Yeah, they taught that Jesus had some sort of a beginning back before the beginning of time, but did not possess

After becoming incarnate did not possess Omnipresence, which of course means you lose an attribute of God, right?

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When you come when it comes to Christology Maybe this would be good because we one of the things that Walter Martin said what

I always appreciate so much He says I urge you not to become an expert on the cults

Become an expert on who the person of Jesus Christ is and you'll never be fooled by anyone

It's the people who are uninformed who gets sucked into the cults So Christology 101

Jesus Christ God come in the flesh John 1 1 in the beginning was the word what the word was with God the word was

God John 1 14 The word became flesh and dwelt among us Given given the nature the general nature of Christology of what

Christians historically have believed through all Christian creeds How do how do seventh -day Adventism view that did they believe that she has pre -existed prior to the incarnation you have other?

Groups that who are modalists in nature like the UPC I who are who deny the

Trinity as well, too Like how do they view Christ like when like for example going forward from the logos to when

Christ? Gave up the spirit after he was when he was crucified Like what happened there?

I mean narcissism have their own views as well, too Given that it sounds like you're saying is the reverse of it.

How do they view Christology? Well, they have really done a great job of cleaning up their language because they know it's a problem

So publicly their fundamental belief on Christ if you just read the fundamental belief you might go

It's not a strong statement, but it's believable But here's the actual fact

Ellen White Late into the 1900s long after James died after her great controversy book was written.

She was still writing That God was the heavenly trio or the three worthies of heaven

Who condescend to help us if we need his help to overcome sin? So the three worthies the heavenly trio in 2006 and I think this is so important.

It's just when I discovered this it was like shocking to me There is a professor who I believe is still there at Andrews University named

Jerry Moon And he wrote a document on The heavenly trio compared with the classic

Christian Trinity and he very accurately Explains that there's a difference

The heavenly trio of Ellen White is not the same as the classic Christian Trinity They do not believe that the persons of the

Trinity share substance They Adventists will not affirm shared substance

But he concludes his document by saying it is the heavenly trio That is the true biblical

Trinity not the classic Christian Trinity so Adventists in general don't even know it was

My goodness I want to say five six years after we left Adventism before I really started to understand that I'd been taught something really wrong

About the Trinity because I was taught Jesus was all God the Holy Spirit's all God. Well, they say it they say it

Yeah, but to me that was like if I have a third of a pie and I take a third of the pie That's Jesus. That's all pie.

Hmm, you know I didn't know that it meant if there's a little seed and a little piece of brown sugar and a little peck of peel in That pie all of the

Trinity has to have those attributes all the same ones I didn't understand that that changed everything for me

And as far as Christology goes we're told that Jesus was

Michael the Archangel right and so he was an angel up there and he got elevated promoted

I guess is how I would describe it up to sonship. And so And you know there continues to be a big discussion about the nature of Christ That's true.

My father -in -law believes he's arian. He doesn't believe that Jesus is God and he's an Adventist pastor

Yeah, he's he was let go but yeah self -styled so So then there's this also this very typical argument in Saturday morning

Sabbath school class could Jesus have sinned. Yeah was Jesus Did he have a fallen nature because everything's physical and so you have him?

Yes He took a body but but the big question for them isn't what was he beforehand because they figured that out

That's Michael the Archangel What he was after he took his body is the big discussion. Yeah, did he have a fallen nature?

Could he have sinned and the the book that we showed you that in the last?

Discussion we had the fundamental beliefs book when they get to the nature of Christ They actually say that it wouldn't have been fair if Jesus couldn't have sinned.

That's a ridiculous thought. Of course, he could sin That's what made him our

Savior. He could have but he didn't I was taught that I remember Being taught he couldn't be our

Savior unless he could sin It takes away the impeccability of God, but um quick question.

So what in the world is even an angel are they UFOs? Like oh, well, you know, they actually address that in this book they say

For example, I mean, you know an angel can't appear they can't appear in a body I mean, it's not like they they are always invisible and You know, what if God can appear as as having a body so they actually speculate

But they use the appearances in the Old Testament of the angel of the Lord and the various You know angelic appearances like that and say well, you know

There's body there somewhere. I Think I believed that they were spirits as an

Adventist personally I can't tell you where I got that idea from but I also believe that they were spirits I also believe that every single person had an assigned angel that was walking with them through life

And so there's a lot of prayer in Adventism for God to bring angels to us to protect us with angels there's a lot of angel stories in Adventism and and if you get to the root of Ellen White and the

Things that she says I really think there's a lot of angel worship and Adventism I agree not at the at the level where you're gonna talk to an

Adventist and they're gonna tell you they worship angels But there's an elevation a glorifying of angels in that organization

Yeah, here here's a quick quote that I think will be informative from this book in their chapter the nature of humanity

Yeah Could could it be that a spiritual being may have a spiritual body with a form and features?

These passages seem to indicate that God is a personal being and has a personal form

This should come as no surprise for man is created in the image of God now again That's not in the actual public fundamental belief.

That's in the book that explains to the members how to understand the fundamental belief Okay, what about um

Ellen G white I mean just making a quick deterrent to Joseph Smith James White not not

Ellen Joy's husband, but our elder James White quite familiar with him He made a statement one of the sermons that apology a church that he was talking specifically about Joseph Smith He said that if Joseph Smith had lived and didn't die at Carthage Jail Mormonism in his opinion wouldn't have existed because Smith's beliefs were evolving so quickly

It just it wouldn't be it would have basically canceled itself out when it comes to Ellen G white throughout her

Linear timeline and her involvement of her theology and it's all based off these syncretistic end times apocalyptic revelations

Was there any involvement of her theology were it were there any current revelations that contradicted previous?

Revelations because with Joseph like in the Book of Mormon, for example, you'll see examples where there's passages that are very

Trinitarian But then as you look at additional scriptures like the Doctrine and Covenants and the

Pearl of Great Price and even his own teachings That's where you start to see the plurality of gods or the idea of God having a body of flesh and bones

What did that look like with Ellen G white? well, she she did evolve and they are very fond of saying she she had progressive revelation that the things that she said at the beginning she corrected as she got older and understood by the

Bible better But the fact is there's two things that I want to say about that the fact the facts are that in the beginning she was highly influenced by the anti -trinitarian overt anti -trinitarian teachings of James As time went on they had

Christian input and they realized that they couldn't necessarily Present themselves as just a part of the

Christian community if they didn't get better doctrines what concurrently went on was

Ellen white began to plagiarize and They've proven that she plagiarized she plagiarized

Like 80 % of her famous book on the life of Christ the desire of ages Which people say is just such an amazingly beautiful book

Now the fact is if you really read the desire of ages, she's not Orthodox, but she has a lot of Orthodox sounding phrases

Walter Ray in 1982 this was published. It was he was promised by the Adventist organization that this would be

Publicized to the church after he turned in his research He did a word -for -word comparison because he loved

Ellen white He was an Adventist minister who memorized her and one day in a used bookstore He came across a book and he's reading it and he's thinking

I memorized these words out of the desire of ages And he took the book home I think it was

Edersheim's life of Paul and he took it home and he began to realize that she did copy

Often word -for -word often idea for idea phrase for phrase from that book and he published his research

He presented it to the church leaders and they said they would they gave him a time frame

It was it seems like it was a period of months or years and they would then announce this

Fact of her having plagiarized which was not acknowledged by her to the church and they didn't do it

So, you know what he did he put he gave the information to the Los Angeles Times and they broke the story It was a huge scandal

Yeah But the fact is then the Adventist hired their own internal investigator who said yes

Yes, there is there is plagiarized material here They found also that her great book the great controversy was plagiarized a lot some of it from her own husband.

Mm -hmm, and in fact Her ideas didn't all come from her visions

She claimed her visions She did copy work from true

Christian writers and that made the whole matter more confusing but then we get past those books where she did all that copying into the late later part of her life like 1904 1905 1908 and seven where she's still writing about the heavenly trio and the three worthies of heaven

Yeah, and she's and she's still denying the absolute

Impeccability of Christ and his full sharing of substance with the

Father in the spirit Mm -hmm. So in fact, no, she didn't change

She just her words changed, but you know, the fact is that woman was not born again

She didn't believe he had a spirit. She didn't understand born dead. She didn't believe in original sin and Adventists are taught not to believe in original sin.

That's a Catholic doctrine So, you know the fact is doesn't matter what she wrote in practice

Adventist are still taught the same things yeah No, that's that's interesting

So 2020 you mentioned you started the podcast around then we all know 2020 was a very very interesting year

He was very cultish if you think about it one thing that was really emphasized was

The Politicians who are practicing rules for thee, but not for me

Right you think about Gavin you like in your in your in your state Gavin Newsom I mean, he would make all these insane restrictions

They're like I went one time to Oakland, California for work, and it was insane Like I had to get my temperature checked

I mean it seemed like the people were cooking Thai food for us But they were acting like they were in an

ER as far as sanitation goes. It was wild and crazy Yeah, but yeah, you know there are these crazy restrictions

But Gavin Newsom got busted because he was pictured with a bunch of people all together like without a mask

Regardless of how you feel about the whole situation. Well, you shouldn't shouldn't do everyone knew He was telling everyone to do one thing, but he wasn't doing it himself

When it comes to Ellen G white and how she interacted how she dictated things setting you up for this

Did you is are there any parallels was a parallels in her ministry when it came and how she conduct herself when it came to How you should eat what you should and shouldn't do what would be some examples if there are some of rules for thee

But not for me Well the oysters is one that comes to my mind and it's like like with Gavin Newsom It's a matter of being caught so it wasn't like she could

Publicly do whatever she wanted and then tell everyone else what to do she she was Right.

It was secret. It was secret with the exception of the vinegar issue. Well, I was even a little secret you know, she did write about it eventually, but Even even leaving her kids for the long periods of time that she did her advice to families and in child guidance

Wouldn't permit something like that for anybody else And so yeah, so the the food she ate the way she raised her family the way she was with her husband.

Yes You know This isn't exactly the same but it's an interesting little episode and Dudley Kenwright again the contemporary of that lived with them and wrote about his interactions and work with them he writes about Being a young married man himself and this was

I'm you know, I want to say I don't remember the years it was I Don't remember the years this happened

But Ellen White came up with this idea of reformed dress and it was very popular in a lot of the health conditioning institutions at the time and reformed dress consisted of a

Shorter dress like, you know, maybe mid -calf, but then with bloomers that went down to the ankles

So it was like a little looser a little less draggy in the muddy

So that it was a little more practical, but it was so unstylish and it was it was

It was like only the extreme fanatics would wear it but she

Liked it and she made a mandate that all Adventist women had to wear reformed dress

But not just reformed dress it had to be the pattern that she made available So through the official church paper the

Adventist review She had a pattern that they could buy for one dollar and you know I believe this was before the turn of the century but before 1900 that was an exorbitant price for a pattern back then

Okay and so so Dudley Kenwright writes about his wife dutifully wearing these things and the boys and along the street throwing things at her and Teasing her and shouting catcall, you know really being rude to her in public because it was so funny looking and then mrs.

White just up and moved to California and She quit wearing this thing and she didn't say anything

She just quit wearing it so people who noticed her to thought well I guess that's over and gradually it filtered back to the

East and was never heard of again. Yeah Now I've understood the question quick real quickly and then

Andrew I'll let you take the next question. So going to We kind of have an idea of Ellen G white the impact that she made throughout

Her lifetime and how how she evolved from the Millerites now to having her own

Organization really seeing as seeing as a head person Most of the time when you look at different cults or just cultish movements when the leader dies

There's usually a fragmentation and severance was the question, but who's going to be the successor? You had a lot of controversy in Scientology between L Ron Hubbard David Miscavige.

You think about the severance between after Joseph Smith died Between the FLDS and also not the

FLDS, but the reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints The Mormon Church, how did that affect there?

What you said? There wasn't a successor to Ellen G white What happened after when she passed?

How did she pass away? And then how did what happened right after the church? How did they evolve and handle her passing from your perspective?

Well, I think she died of quotes natural causes She was it was 1915

There's an interesting story about her burial. Nobody can exactly explain it, but they waited 30 days to bury her and It appears that it was because she had said things that's that indicated she would be alive when

Jesus came So the whole group is like expecting she's going to be resurrected and they finally couldn't hang on to the body any longer

And there was never a good explanation So, but what was really interesting was that four years later in 1919

The man who was the general conference president then? Hosted a what they called a

Bible conference and one of the primary discussions at that Bible conference was

Do we uphold Ellen White's visions that the leaders were not all in agreement about her?

In fact, there was a lot of disagreement, but by then they had a really rather well organized

System going they had conference presidents. They had organizations. They had they had officers

They had a tithing system. They were developing schools by then and To To discredit her visions would shatter this organization that they were already beginning to profit from So in the 1919

Bible conference, even the president Daniels Admitted that they had problems with her

With her reliability as a prophet, but they decided that they would be too hard to tell the brethren it would be too disruptive to their faith and they decided to just you know continue to uphold her and They sealed the records of that Bible conference and they they said they were not to be open for 50 years

They were found in the very early 70s in a like a paper package tied with string in back office in the general

Conference and they've since been you know published online and we can read them now But we learned that from the beginning they had these questions, but by then they had an organization

They were already profiting from and you were gonna say something about her successor Well, I just found this book

Titled will there be another special messenger? You can find it on egw writings org and in it they talk about Whether or not there's even a need for a successor or another messenger and they explain that in Bible times the

Prophets spoke orally and over time that would be forgotten and and so God would need to bring up another prophet and But Ellen White has a lot of writings that she's given us and that's timeless.

That's gonna stick We don't need new prophets coming up to remind us of this stuff.

And so so they have this This discussion on on whether or not, you know, what if somebody comes and says that they have the gift of prophecy?

You know, how do you test them? And they said that they have to agree fully They have to pass the test of Scripture and they have to agree fully with everything

Ellen White taught in the spirit of prophecy Like like in the in the 28 articles one of them is the gift of prophecy and then it says you must test them according to the tests in Scripture, but Deuteronomy 18 clearly says if there's one false prophecy, then they're not of God So Are they actually being faithful in that manner?

Right. No, it's doublespeak. It's and that's why so many Adventists feel Confused and cognitively dissonant.

Yeah So heartbreaking. Yeah, in fact Ellen White has a statement.

We were just talking about this this morning they put on the on on the Ellen G white org site where you can find her writings online as The as the page is loading this quote comes up where she says my writings will speak

I'm trying to pull it up. Yeah, we're trying to find it Right here. Here it is Abundant light has been given to our people

My writings will constantly speak and their work will go forward as long as time shall last

My writings are kept on file in the office and even though I should not live these words that have been given to me by the

Lord will still have life and Will speak to the people so she called her words living.

Yeah, Nikki I have a question for you and and also Colleen I'll let you about I think you should

I want to have you answer the question to after Nikki You mean growing up in Adventism for 30 years most people you grow up kind of even hearing like from your childhood stories about Ellen G white and really looking to her in a reverential state like I had classmates for example her

LDS who had Books like child books about the Mormon pioneers and talking about Joseph Smith and understanding that How did you view

Ellen white? Growing up and then as you left started having doubts about Seventh -day

Adventism and left What were some of the challenges and how did you shift in regards to how you viewed her versus how you view her now?

What literally for you personally? What did that look like for you? Well as a child growing up I just believed she was our prophet and that she had truth and that God chose her to lead us through the last days

So I just believed at middle school. I Started asking questions. I think a lot of teenagers do you know?

How did I get so lucky to be born into the remnant Church the one true Church? I don't have that kind of luck in life.

So how did I fall on that luck here? And so I questioned it and About that time

I ended up going to Adventism has a lot of boarding academies for kids and so I came out to California and went to a boarding academy for a while and experienced a different version of Adventism and it had more of the grace talk involved and then and then

I wanted to know this God and So then there was interest in him, but I didn't

I didn't feel like I needed to know Ellen white That was kind of for the older folks. And so that was sort of my rebellion,

I guess as a teenager Had kind of a rough time for it from about 16 to 19 and I would say that I wasn't

I wasn't interested in Adventism at all and I just pretty much felt like God didn't want me and I so I had a stint just in the world, yeah, and At 19

I decided all right, this isn't good I have to I have to do better and the only thing I knew was

Adventism and I went back and I gave it my all I met my husband and We were both ordained elders at the

Adventist organization in Southern, California They will ordain women and I didn't know I we weren't biblical.

Yeah, and so So we threw ourselves into that and it wasn't until I had my son

That we started really trying to figure out what are we gonna do because there's a lot here that we don't agree with There's a lot of Adventism that doesn't stick that we just don't see as true

But are we gonna raise our kids here and then just tell them what we don't believe this they teach it

But we just you know Just kind of filter that out at some point we knew they were gonna become teenagers and they were gonna question everything we taught them and the people that we allowed to influence them would have a greater voice than we would and there were our people in the

Adventist organization who are Going after the youth and bringing them into these ministries these call

Porter ministries where instead of going to college they go I think it's in Arizona. There's one and they teach them how to sell and pass out

Adventist books and literature in various communities and then they bus them all over the country and and they're out selling literature and we didn't want that kind of thing for our kids and so we really felt like we needed to dig in and figure this out and Long story short,

I found Dale Ratzlaff's book my mother -in -law actually gave it to me truth led me out and it's his story of leaving as an

Adventist pastor and coming to the gospel and As my husband and I fleshed out our beliefs.

I said to him what if we are wrong? What if we're being deceived like they told us and Ellen White was right and we're a part of the great shakening

That's gonna happen right before the Sunday law where people fall away and apostatize And he said well Ellen White said that that everything she believed came from the

Bible so if we read the Bible and we only trust the Bible then it's either going to prove

Ellen White as a false prophet or It's gonna lead us back to Ellen White So we can't go wrong if we just read the

Bible and that was the end of Adventism for us Wow Colleen what about you?

I Actually had an odd situation about Ellen White and that was that my mother never fully believed in the investigative judgment she had a brother who was an

Adventist pastor who was actually of taken out of being a pastor in the 1950s because he refused to teach the investigative judgment and So I grew up in a family that was staunchly

Adventist believed all the stuff Except we weren't sure because it didn't make sense that God wouldn't know his own.

So I grew up with this idea that she might be a prophet and In other things she could have been right so I couldn't dismiss her in case she was right so it was a kind of a bifurcated thing in my head, but I was staunchly

Adventist went all the way through Adventist schools Adventist College taught in an

Adventist school and in 1980 I got a hold of Desmond Ford's defense

Against the investigative judgment and I read it and I read it along with the book of Daniel Which I'd never read before and I thought okay, he's right.

It's not here, but I think I can still believe in Ellen White so fast forward to To the early 90s

Richard and I Moved into the house where we live now in some interestingly enough And we noticed that our neighbors had a sign out that said

Bible study every Wednesday night. So we thought okay, they're Christians Well, we were Adventist, but we were at this point

Cognitively dissonant Adventist if you want to put it that way so Richard invited them to a Bible study and he

Believed we might be able to make them Adventist and they'd probably be good evidence I in my head wasn't so sure that would happen, but we did decide we'd study with them

So, you know, that was that was the thing God used for us. They finally said yes, it took him four months to say

Yes, they knew we were Adventists, but they started coming over every Tuesday night and we started doing something we had never done before we started reading through books of the

New Testament in context one chapter a week and Talking about the chapters and we started bumping into our proof texts

But they were in context and they didn't say the same thing and one night We talked about what we thought passages meant and one night, you know after Mel said for the umpteenth time

Well, where do you find that in the Bible? I looked at Richard and said you suppose we ought to tell him and he said yeah and Richard said

Adventists have a prophet and the look on their faces They had lived in this area all this time But didn't know that and so that was kind of a beginning of the end for three years

We met and did that Bible study we went through almost the entire New Testament We did the book of Daniel one chapter at a time and I remember the night the morning after one of our

Bible studies Richard looked at me and said do you feel like you've become a Christian for the first time? I said, yes

It's like the gospel isn't what we were told it was that was it and then we just had to unpack some of the details about Ellen and That was the end

We knew we couldn't go back and it was and it was our kids that made us finally leave

We stood in the kitchen one day and said, you know, we can't keep pretending We can't go to Adventism and teach them truth and change them from the inside They're not going to change because if we do that We're professing not to believe

Adventism but we're acting like we are Adventist in the Adventist lies and I and I remember we looked at each other and said we can

Never expect our boys to tell us the truth if we do that and we have to leave Yeah, Andrew, what a no.

Thank you so much for sharing that Andrew. What questions do you have? What are your thoughts? Right now

I'm just speechless. I think that's amazing I love the fact that both of you sisters have pointed out that the Bible is enough

The Bible is and was enough like that's God's Word. That's what we have

To train us in righteousness to know For certain that Jesus was the

Christ and that he is coming again But according to his standard not Ellen's standard not anyone else's standard

But according to the Word of God and anyone who claims to be a mouthpiece for God or speak for God We have the ability through God's Word to cross -check them to scripture just like Paul tells the

Bereans that they're More noble than those in Thessalonica than those in Thessalonica and that when he went and preached to them the gospel

They cross -checked him with scripture to see with what he was saying was so and guess what?

It was so because it was about Jesus being the Messiah just as the Gospels had clearly spoken of as well that Jesus was the

Messiah and he came in a he was God the flesh did a perfect work like it's just it's just beautiful the Bible is enough

Ellen we don't need that We don't need any of that stuff all of those visions. They're relevant, right?

I have a completed. Yeah context I have a completed vision through the inspired word of the

Holy Spirit where I don't have to dance around people's prophecies I can say without a doubt that the

Bible is the Word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit I don't have to dance around failed prophecies or anything like that.

I've got it. I rest in that, you know, I love that I love that the Lord did that in your guys's life.

It's just it blows my mind praise God for that God is so good. Yeah So I have a question and I appreciate that commentary

Andrew so time was linearly I think we've covered a lot of LNG white and our passing we're gonna be we're gonna tell you all in a minute where this is going so this is sort of the sort of the ending segment of Chapter one of seventh -day

Adventism our look our investigation into it our conversation about it. So time wise

There what happened so Walter Martin, we'll just we'll kind of head head there

Kingdom of the cults We've talked about that book from day one and the influence that Walter Martin has had on our ministry and even apologia my relationship with Jeff Durbin and just it goes we have stories for days when it comes to Listening to him and all that.

So so in Kingdom of the cults, there are all these different chapters seventh -day

Adventism Did show didn't show up in a definitive category like Mormonism or Jehovah's Witnesses showed up in an appendix

We're not going to talk about that until part three But what happened maybe linearly?

Could you all explain? What do you know about the time frame in between? seventh -day Adventism up until LMG whites passing up until Walter Martin did what he did that we'll talk about in part three when he met with The representatives from seventh -day

Adventism, what did the church look like? What was the perception from LMG white up until the time frame when

Walter Martin was writing his book? well from what

I know and it's not exhausted by any means because you know It was very

Historic for the most part and for the most part the Christian community considered Adventism to be a cult until Kingdom of the cults came out they

Christianity understood that Adventism had a prophet and they had a different system of soteriology

It's soteriology was not biblical and that was actually understood so Looking back.

I know that The books that were printed then were very historic

Adventism very works oriented The hymns that Adventist saying there was a hymnal that was published in the 1940s that was used through my childhood until 1984 and The Trinity was written out of a lot of the

Trinitarian songs like for example Holy holy holy wrote the Trinity out instead of God in three persons blessed

Trinity. We saying God over all who reigns eternally There there were things written out of a lot of the hymns including a lot of the blood of Christ anything having to do with Saints being in glory

So it was very much Like Ellen White had designed it but with Walter Martin things there was like a bomb went off actually inside Adventism and outside Okay, so with that being said this is

The finale of chapter 2 it's a bit of a cliffhanger again because we are gonna talk about that atomic bomb that a

Great controversy another one that Walter Martin was part of back in the day so in chapter 2 we are going to begin looking at seventh -day

Adventism through the linear timeline of Walter Martin's relationship to when he wrote the appendix to kingdom of the cults the controversy that surrounded it

But also the evolvement of Walter Martin's views towards the end of his ministry when he appeared on the

John Ankerberg show and if anyone is Chomping at the bit and they're like, oh I have to wait a week

Well, what you can do is you can take a look We'll probably share links when this podcast comes out of that classic interview.

That's on YouTube. How long is that interview? It's a it's a like was it two and a half hours two hours. Yes two hours

Five segments, I believe okay. Yeah so what we're gonna be doing is that we are going to be looking at that specifically and also we're gonna be looking at What Walter Martin wrote and even the story behind what he wrote in?

the kingdom of the cults appendix on seven -day Adventism, so Stay tuned chapter 2 will commence next week.

So that being said, thank you all so much for listening This is long awaited. We don't even need to tell you head of the comment section.

Let us know what you thought Let us know you with with what you agree If you passionately disagree if you think this is wrong if you think this is incorrect

The comment section is yours. Let us know that being said real quickly Thank you so much for both for you both for coming on Again, where can people find you if they want to find out more about you and the ministry that you do?

You can go to proclamation magazine .com and you'll find links to the weekly blogs the emails

Transcripts to our podcast links to our podcast. There's a lot of material there a YouTube channel

Okay Excellent. All right. We'll talk to you all next week where we enter. We're on cultures where we enter into the kingdom of the cults and explore chapter 2 of This very important conversation.