The Cult of Seventh Day Adventism (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle

Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

This is your host, Pastor Mike Abendroth, and today is Friday, and Fridays we have

Mystery Friday. Basically, I get to pick anything I like to talk about, and I try to talk about things in a biblical fashion, in a provocative fashion, and in that order, we're gonna talk about how to stand up for the truth, which means you have to say no to error.

You have to embrace truth. You have to be something more than a postmodern who's still out there trying to find truth.

You can't just be in a philosophy class because when you find the answer to philosophy class, class is over.

You have to propagate the class, and so we don't wanna do any of those things. We want to just hold onto the truth.

We want to clutch the truth. We want to cling to the truth, and that's exactly what happens when you think of the

Bereans in Acts 17. They were commended for discerning, and in 1 Thessalonians 5, they were commanded to examine everything carefully.

So today's going to be a controversial topic. It's gonna probably be very touchy, but that's just the way it goes.

We're going to look at Seventh -day Adventism today. Seventh -day Adventism, is it biblical? Is it not biblical?

What parts are biblical? Which parts aren't? Of course, Lancaster, Massachusetts, there's lots of things going on there in Seventh -day

Adventism. You have Atlantic Union College, all kinds of big conferences there. I think it's the New England headquarters, and we want to examine

Seventh -day Adventism. Of course, it goes without saying to the very beginning that this is not a critique of people per se, and people are mean and gross and all kinds of other things, but we can examine truth.

We can examine truth. These days, you can't sit down and talk about things without people taking it personally.

Oh, I'm offended by that. That's just a trick to get out of things. We should be able to sit down and examine things like grownups, and so today we want to look at Seventh -day

Adventism. Quite a few people, such as Donald Gray Barnhouse and Walter Martin, have talked about the evangelical nature of Seventh -day

Adventism. Others have said, no, it's more outside the norm. Now, of course, you could tell me there are some people in Seventh -day

Adventism who are truly Christians. There are some people in Roman Catholic churches who are truly Christians.

I don't deny that at all. There can be Baptists in churches and Presbyterians in churches that aren't saved, but we're talking about what the leadership teaches.

We're not talking about exceptions. You can prove anything you want with an exception, although it doesn't prove the rule, and we go to any organization, any institution, and we look at what do the leaders teach, and that's what we want to do today.

Is the Seventh -day Adventism group, we're gonna have to probably look at this for two Fridays, within the pale of Christian orthodoxy, or is it a cult?

It is not really an easy answer, nor is it a short answer, but everything relates to Ellen G.

White. She is the one that pretty much in all Seventh -day

Adventism, everything holds together with what she says, and so we have to look at Ellen G.

White and some of her teachings, some of her early writings. Ellen G. White, for instance, just to start the show off, said you have to be saved, you must leave a certain church and go to the

Seventh -day Adventism churches. I saw that God has honest children among the nominal

Adventist and fallen churches, and before the plague shall be poured out, ministers and people will be called out from these churches and will gladly receive the truth, but the light will shine and all who are honest will leave the fallen churches and take their stand with the remnant.

Early writings, page 261. She also says on the same page, I saw that as the

Jews crucified Jesus, so the nominal churches have crucified these messages. She's talking about the investigative judgment, more on that later.

And therefore they have no knowledge of the way into the most holy, and they cannot be benefited by the intercession of Jesus there.

Like the Jews who offered their useless sacrifices, they offer up their useless prayers to the apartment which

Jesus has left, and Satan, pleased with the deception, assumes a religious character and leads the minds of these professed

Christians to himself. End quote. Early writings, page 261.

And so this is not necessarily us picking on them. I don't have any writings at all that I've written that say

Seventh -day Adventists are not Christians if they believe in what the organization teaches them. But you can find that in L.

N. G. White's writings. And so we wanna examine what happens with L. N. G. White and should you believe in such a thing.

If you're in Seventh -day Adventism, I'll just tell you right from the very get -go, you ought to get out. You ought not to be falling for their

Sabbath worship, their food laws, health issues. You need to ask yourself the question.

And with all kind of looking at different organizations, you ought to ask first, what is their source of authority?

It's the first S. Source, Savior, salvation. And we're gonna look at those three

S's as time allows. What is the source of their authority? And you're going to find out that for Seventh -day

Adventism, specifically L. N. G. White, it is more than the Bible. Friends, if the

Seventh -day Adventists want to say that L. N. G. White was loony and crazy and not always true, then

I think I would much more be willing to sit down and discuss with them. The official church gives her and her writings unproper due.

And so we want to be very careful when we look at these things and we just don't say, well, I have a friend and they're really born again and everything's fine.

No, I want to know what the church teaches. And so we want to be careful to look into this today and find out what she says.

One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is prophecy. This gift is an identifying mark of the remnant church and was manifest, according to some, in the ministry of L.

N. G. White. As the Lord's messenger, her writings are a continuing and authoritative source of truth and provide for the church comfort, guidance, instruction, and correction.

They also make clear that the Bible is the standard by which all teachings and experiences must be tested.

Statement 17, General Conference Session, the Dallas Statement. That is false.

That is not true. Her writings should not be a continuing and authoritative source of truth. We have one

Bible and one Bible alone. Listen to the L. N. G. White writings,

L. N. G. White writings, page 15. This is by Arthur White, grandson of L. N. G. White.

And for years, he was the head of her estate. What is more rather than having in our possession only relatively few chapters of a handful of letters, as is the case of the extant records of the

Bible? We have the full range of L. N. G. White's writings penned throughout a period of 70 years.

She wrote in the English language, so we are not confronted with the problems of translation. In other words, we've only got bits and pieces of the

Bible, don't trust it, but we've got everything that L. N. G. White wrote and we've got it in English.

Who needs Hebrew and Greek and all that stuff? Friends, something should be going on with your spidey senses right now, saying this is not right, this is not good.

For years, Seventh -day Adventists called Mrs. White's writings inspired commentary of the

Bible. That was a quote, an inspired commentary of the Bible. End quote. In 1980, the church published

The Pillars, a book defending their denominational doctrines.

In that book, Adventist pastor Morris Vendin invited his readers to study 15 facts.

Here is fact 14. I quote, there is hope for every remnant believer today who sometimes feels confused at all the differing views taken by scholars and commentaries.

We have an inspired commentary that was given for the purpose of settling the disagreements among the uninspired commentaries.

What do you do when scholars disagree? Do you have to become a better scholar than the best in order to settle the disagreement in your own mind?

No, let me repeat. God has given to our church an inspired commentary.

Friends, that's just wrong. You don't be trapped into thinking, well, they've got really good health rules when they have extra biblical things.

It's no different than the Roman Catholics with the magisterium and the tradition. They are not believing in sola scriptura.

They do not believe in the Bible alone. When she starts talking about she's got a divine authority in her writings in the book called,

The White Truth, published in 1981 by the Adventist church as they were trying to defend some of Mrs.

White's plagiarism. It says here, the influence of the spirit of prophecy that Ellen G.

White had is woven into the warp and woof of Adventist faith and life and organization. What we are as a church is a reflection of our faith in the divine authority evident in the writings of Ellen G.

White. Do I need to say anything more? Show me a group that comes along and says the Bible plus and I'll show you a group that you need to run from, that you need to proselytize people who are in that group.

Does that mean everyone in there is damned? No, but it means you can't trust that organization.

And if somebody is saved, it's the exception to the rule. Ellen G. White, it's not just people saying things about her writings.

She herself said, what I write is not of human origin. Can you believe that?

She said that. I am just as dependent upon the spirit of the Lord in relating or writing a vision as in having the vision.

It is impossible for me to call up things which have been shown me unless the Lord brings them before me at the time that he is pleased to have me relate or write them.

Spiritual gifts, volume two, page 293. That is scary. That is Halloween scary.

Let me give you another quote in letter H339, December 26, 1904. Quote, Sister Hall has just read me your letter to her.

I am glad that you are having success in selling my books for thus you are giving to the world the light that God has given me.

These books contain clear, straight, unalterable truth and they should certainly be appreciated.

The instruction they contain is not of human production. Friends, I say again, that is kooky, that is wrong.

You would not believe that at all unless you have some friend that is a Seventh -day Adventist and then you read that doctrine in light of your friend or you read your friend in light of the doctrine.

Be careful. Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Truth, Church, volume three, page 257.

Those who are reproved by the spirit of God should not rise up against the humble instrument. It is God and not an erring mortal who has spoken to save them from ruin.

Ellen G. White is not right when she says that. No sound Christian should believe such truth.

We believe in the Bible alone that the spirit of God wrote through the apostles.

And in these last days, Hebrews 1, it was through the apostles because it was through Jesus. That is exactly right.

When Ellen G. White says in Selected Messages, book three, page 31 to 32, the power of God would come upon me and I was enabled clearly to define what is truth and what is error.

She goes on to say, I would be taken off in vision and explanations would be given to me.

So she claims, first of all, the church claims that she is writing inspired commentaries.

Second of all, she says, I have doctrinal authority and I don't write from human origin.

So I've got a question. Since that, if that is true, then everything she writes ought to be correct or she's going to be labeled, according to the

Bible, as a false prophet. Here comes one of her things that, how many false prophecies does it take to make someone a false prophet?

Answer in the Pentateuch, one, because then you would be killed. But now in this day and age of being very gracious,

God did not kill her right away, nor did Israel because she wasn't part of Israel. But listen to what happens here. Early writings, page 75.

I was pointed to some who are in great error of believing that it is their duty to go to old Jerusalem and think that they have a work to do there before the

Lord comes. I saw that Satan had greatly deceived some in this thing. I also saw that old

Jerusalem never would be built up and that Satan was doing his utmost to lead the minds of the children of the

Lord into these things now in the gathering time. Early writings, page 75.

Note to Ellen G. White, Israel was reborn in 1948 and it has been greatly built up.

Ellen G. White is a false prophet. She goes on to say early writings, page 15 and 16.

Soon our eyes will be drawn to the east for a small black cloud has appeared about half as large as a man's hand, which we all knew was the sign of the son of man.

Then there was a mighty earthquake. The graves opened and the dead came up clothed with immortality.

The 144 ,000 shouted hallelujah as they recognized their friends who had been torn from them by death.

And in the same moment we were changed and caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air.

Did you know that Ellen G. White died at her home near St. Helena, California on July 16th, 1915.

She was buried beside her husband James White in Oak Hill Cemetery, Battle Creek, Michigan.

She was not caught up in the air to meet the Lord at some kind of rapture. How many false prophecies does it take to make a false prophet?

Item three, Ellen G. White said, testimonies for the church, volume one, page 259.

When England does declare war against the North during the civil war, all nations will have interest of their own to serve and there will be general war, general confusion.

The result will be that this nation, the United States, will be humbled into the dust. No, American history has shown that England did not declare war against the

U .S. and the U .S. was not humbled into the dust. How many false prophecies does it take to make someone a false prophet?

My big thing with the Seventh -day Adventist leadership is just admit this and then

I think we can move on. Say that you're just believing in the scriptures now and Ellen G.

White was not true in everything and we'll move on. Item four, May 1856.

Here's a prophecy. She declared that some of those who were in the meeting in Battle Creek, Michigan would die and become food for worms.

Some would live on and become, quote, subject of the seven last plagues, unquote, while others would remain until being translated.

Testimonies of Church, volume one, page 131. We know that didn't happen. How about Deuteronomy 18?

But the prophet who shall speak a word presumptuously in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he shall speak in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.

And you may say in your heart, how shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the

Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken.

The prophet has spoken it presumptually. If the prophet has spoken it presumptuously, you shall not be afraid of him.

And so, we wanna be careful when Ellen G. White says, quote, there is one straight chain of truth without one heretical sentence in which

I have written, selected messages, book three, page 52. We know that's not true.

When she writes in early writings, page 39 to 40, the Lord has given me a view of other worlds.

Wings were given me and an angel attended me from the city to a place that was bright and glorious. The grass of the place was living green and the birds there warbled a sweet song.

The inhabitants of the place were of all sizes. They were noble, majestic, and lovely. I asked one of them why they were so more lovely than those on earth.

Then I was taken to a world which had seven moons. There I saw good old

Enoch who had been translated. Early writings, page 39 to 40. That is a lunacy. That is howling at the moon.

That is some kind of vision or trance. That is not correct. She taught that the

Holy Spirit can leave the believer. Selected messages, book one, page 126. Oh my brethren, will you grieve the

Holy Spirit and cause it to depart? We know that's not true. The Spirit of God is with us forever.

He abides with us. That's the promise that Jesus gave the disciples even as early back as John 14.

Did you know this about God? He had a plan B, according to Ellen G. White, that he planned salvation after man had fallen.

It was kind of plan B, flow chart, quick moving, because he was taken off guard.

Sorrow filled heaven, she said in early writings, page 149 to 151. And as it was realized that man was lost,

I saw the lovely Jesus and beheld an expression of sympathy and sorrow upon his countenance. Soon I saw him approaching the exceeding bright light which enshrouded his father.

Said my accompanying angel, he is in close converse with the father. Three times he was shut in by the glorious light about the father.

And the third time he came from the father, his person could be seen. He then made known from the father his person could be seen.

He then made known to the angelic host that the way of escape has been made for lost man.

He told them that he had been pleading with his father and that it offered to give his life a ransom, to take the sentence of death upon himself.

Jesus bade the heavenly host be reconciled to the plan that his father had accepted. We don't want to get involved with every single quote because I could be here all day and basically

I've just done the whole show on just a few quotes. But we believe 1 Peter 1 .20,

that Jesus was ordained before the foundation of the world. Matthew 25, come you who are blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

Ephesians 1, just as he chose us in him to be ordained before the foundation of the world. Revelation 13, all who dwell on earth will worship him.

Everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world. How many false prophecies does it take to make someone a false prophet?

Did you know L. N. G. White taught that the serpent deceived Eve, had wings, that that serpent had wings.

The serpent was very beautiful creature with wings and while flying through the air, his appearance was very bright, resembling the color of burnished gold.

He did not go upon the ground, but went from place to place through the air and ate fruit like man. Spiritual gifts, volume three, page 39 to 40.

Friends, why do we accept such nonsense? Why do we accept in spiritual gifts, volume three, page 64, that some races are a mixture of man and beast?

That is just ludicrous. But if there was one sin above another, which called for the destruction of the race by the flood, it wasn't a crime, base crime of amalgamation of man and beast, which defaced the image of God and caused confusion everywhere.

She goes on to say, page 75, every species of animal which God had created were preserved in the ark.

The confused species which God did not create, which were the result of the amalgamation, was destroyed by the flood.

Since the flood, there has been an amalgamation of man and beast as may be seen in the almost endless varieties of species of animals and in certain races of men.

Now, that should make you mad. You ought not to be in a group that has that person as your figurehead.

Her writings are inspired. Her writings are with the Bible. God's sending an angel to talk to Cain, spiritual gifts, volume three, page 48.

God spoke to Cain in Genesis chapter four. Did you know she teaches in the great controversy, page 495 to 496, that Satan was offered a pardon in heaven?

Quote, God in his great mercy bore long with Lucifer. He was not immediately degraded from his exalted station when he first indulged the spirit of discontent, nor even when he began to present his false claims before loyal angels.

Long was he retained in heaven. Again and again, he was offered pardon on condition of repentance and submission.

Well, I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but that is just crazy.

It's crazy when an angel told Ellen G. White in early writings, page 127, quote, angels were so interested for man's salvation that there could be found among them those who would yield their glory and give their life for perishing man.

Did you know if angels could, they were gonna die for man? Do you know that Ellen G. White taught that Jesus died for angels?

To the angels in the unfallen worlds, the cry, it is finished, had a deep significance.

It was for them as well as for us that the great work of redemption had been accomplished.

They, the angels with us, share the fruits of Christ's victory. The desire of the ages, page 758.

That is false. That is a lie. Ellen G. White was a liar and a false teacher and a false prophet.

And if you wanna be a Seventh -day Adventist because you like certain food laws and you like to worship on the Sabbath, I don't think that's as bad, although I would disagree.

But what I do think is bad is when you say that she is an inspired commentary writer, that she was a true prophet.

She was not a true prophet. Did you know she said it takes seven days to get to heaven? Early writings, page 16.

We all entered the cloud together and were seven days ascending to the sea of glass when Jesus brought the crowns and with his own right hand placed them on our heads.

And so, once you say you have a prophetic gift, Pandora's box is opened. She should've just said, you know,

I had eaten some peyote at night, I had some hot salsa, went to bed and had some funny dreams and this is what

I come up with. And it's just kind of my vain imaginations. But once you say, thus saith the

Lord, once you say it's an inspired commentary, once you say she is our prophet and this is held up to the

Bible, equal to or just a hair below or maybe above, you are in big trouble.

My Seventh -day Adventist friends, you might not think I'm your friend, but I'm just telling you the truth. Show me these writings that are wrong,

I'll be glad to listen. Why don't you abandon your allegiance to Ellen G. White? Let's make that the first step.

Abandon allegiance to Ellen G. White and her false prophecies. We do that for any other false prophets.

Again, back in the Old Testament, she wouldn't be alive long enough to be a false prophet to say all the stuff she did because she would be dead.

So, when someone says, thus saith the Lord, I'm on par with or close to on par with speaking for God, we know that's not right.

Seventh -day Adventist, do they do good things in society? Have they contributed? Are there some fine people there civically?

We know the answers to all that, but today we're dealing with the truth. Do they continue to accept

Ellen G. White as a prophet and a leader of the organization? Of course they do. I just want them to say, go out of their way to say,

Ellen G. White, you're right. She said a lot of loony things. She said a lot of good things, but she said lots of loony things, lots of unbiblical things, lots of blasphemous things, lots of lying things, and we just as a group need to put her aside.

And we need to say, forgive us because she is not right. Forgive us, Lord, I mean not forgive us.

Well, it's No Compromise Radio. We're gonna look at this again next Friday about what Ellen G. White thinks of God, the

Savior, and then salvation. NoCompromiseRadio .com, NoCompromiseRadio .com.

God bless you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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