The Remnant?

Well, greetings. Thank you for being here. Whether you are a regular or the algorithm brought you our way and an especially warm welcome if this is your first time with us Adventist or otherwise. So my question of the night, maybe.

According to scripture, what is the mission of the Christian church? According to scripture, what is the mission of the Christian church? If you are new to this platform, you might be wondering what answering Adventism is all about and why does such a thing need to even exist?

You don't see answering Baptists, answering Presbyterians, et cetera. And these are great questions. Central to the mission of this platform is to equip as many Christians as possible to reach as many Seventh-day Adventists as possible with the gospel.

In order to do such, one must understand that Seventh-day Adventism brings with it a novel worldview, a worldview that is not shared by Christians. I talk about this a lot around here and for good reason.

As I've shown many times, it is their unique worldview that informs all of Seventh-day Adventist theology. That would include their theology around the church, what is called ecclesiology, which is what we're gonna be getting into tonight.

If you are a Christian and you interact with the Seventh-day Adventist, there's a good chance that you will be treated charitably, including them putting out the vibe that you're both Christians on the same team, et cetera.

However, what must be understood is that while the majority of Adventists are sincere, well-meaning people, the claims made by individual Adventists do not always reflect the organization's official claims, statements, and beliefs.

This platform is about examining organizational matters, not every individual Adventist in the world, which is why tonight we're gonna be exploring whether or not Seventh-day Adventism as a church is united with the Christian church, sharing in the same mission and message, or if there's actually a fundamental divide on these core issues.

With me to discuss tonight is my friend and pastor, Jeremiah Nortier from 12 .5 Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Also, we're gonna be assisted by SDA president, Ted Wilson, as he shares with us some Adventist distinctives when it comes to their proposed identity as God's last day remnant.

But before getting into it, if you like what we are doing here, please consider partnering with us at answeringadventism .com. This ministry is a viewer-supported effort that is only made possible by the generosity and support of our YouTube members, as well as our website partners.

It is you who makes it possible for us to have the impact that we are seeing, which is more and more Christians are getting equipped and more and more Adventists are being reached with the true Christ and his gospel.

So if you'd like to take part in that and see it grow, please consider joining us. The link to do so is in the description box down below. Thank you so much for your support. Brother, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me on again.

Is this number three? I know we talked about the Heavenly Trio maybe a year or so ago.

That's correct. This is actually number four. We talked about the parallels between Adventism and the Church of Christ. We talked about the Heavenly Trio, and then you were here with Dr. Boyce to talk about Restorationism versus Reformation, the difference between the two.

That was an excellent episode. I always learn something from Dr. Boyce every time I listen to him.

I know, I love him. He caused so many Adventists to melt down because of his Anglo-Catholicism, which was rather interesting. We've seen a lot of feedback regarding him and his handling of scripture.

But nevertheless, I'll be curious tonight to hear your pastoral insight as we look at some claims from the SDA Church and listen to their president talk about their fundamental beliefs, specifically fundamental belief number 13.

I'll be curious to hear your pastoral insights, but along the way, I also hope to be able to leave not just the audience with a better understanding on this issue, but also you as a pastor. So I will be connecting some dots along the way, helping to put some skin on the bones, if you will.

Sound good?

Yes, absolutely.

The Church’s Mission Is to Make Disciples of Jesus Christ

All right, so to start though, let's do a couple of icebreakers here to set the stage. What is your answer as a pastor to the question of the night? According to scripture, what is the mission of the Christian Church?

So there's two passages in mine, Ephesians 4 and Matthew 28. The primary mission for the ecclesia, the church, is to equip the saints for the good work of ministry. So that's primary. Saints or a church are for the saints, not the aints.

Okay, people don't understand that. They gear their services and their liturgy, really their lack thereof, for goats. And it's like, look, this is for the saints. This is for the edification. We get a taste of heaven.

Do people get saved in the midst? Absolutely, but the mission of the church is to equip the saints for the good work so that the saints can be sent out into the world to fulfill the great commission, to go and baptize in the sovereign triune name and to learn all of what Christ has told us to do.

So that would answer it that way, Myles.

Amen. One thing here, sorry, I'm trying to get one thing set up that is broken on my end. There we go. I love Baptists and you guys have the best sort of like, I don't know what that's formally called, but the like you said, it's for the saints, not the aints.

I love that.

That's a

That's a love to our Baptist world over here.

For sure. We're gonna talk a little bit about, we're gonna talk a little bit about, well, the differences between Baptists, Presbyterians, et cetera, a little bit later. But one other thing that I wanna point out here is specifically Luke chapter 24.

You mentioned Matthew 28, and this is somewhat of a parallel, but there's a lot we could look at on this, obviously, but my mind goes to the tail end of Luke 24. After his resurrection, the Lord Jesus is with his disciples.

He's about to ascend and take his throne. But before doing so, he leaves them with the Christian mission. Notice folks, he says, then he said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them, thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer on the third day, rise from the dead, or end on the third day, rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in the name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things, and behold, I'm sending the promise of my father upon you, but stay in the city until you're clothed with power from on high, and thus the reading of God's holy word.

So Jeremiah, like I said, you are a Baptist, I am a Presbyterian, yet despite our differences, we are united in the same mission that Jesus left the apostles with. As the Old Testament foretold of the person and work of Jesus, which is what the gospel most specifically is, the good news about the person and work of Jesus, who he is and what he accomplished, followed by how you as a sinner can turn to him and receive him for the forgiveness of your sins.

And the mission of Christ followers is to take this message to all nations, tribes, tongues, peoples, et cetera. Same thing we see in Matthew 28 with the Great Commission, take the gospel to the nations, baptizing them in the name of the triune God, teaching them to obey all that Christ commanded.

Ultimately, the church exists to one, spread the gospel, two, equip believers, and three, glorify God in all things. All of that is summed up in the singular mission Jesus gave the church. Now I have a second question.

Did Jesus leave the church with multiple missions or just a single mission?

The Great Commission sums it up. And I look at it as two parts. People think that discipleship is getting somebody in the church to be baptized and all right, we got to rinse and repeat. And it's like the second half is to teach them to obey all that is commanded.

So maybe you can teach me something here, but I mean, there's a single mindedness in the Great Commission, but that covers a multitude of things that the New Testament tells us to do.

So my reason for asking this is gonna become more apparent as we get further into tonight. You're gonna see why I'm asking this, because there's a little bit of nuance here and I wanna clarify. So folks, the church has one primary mission to glorify God by making disciples of Jesus Christ, Matthew 28, 18 through 20.

However, this mission expresses itself in multiple ways. Including one, evangelism. So sharing the gospel with unbelievers, Matthew 16, 15. Two, discipleship, teaching and equipping believers to grow in faith, Colossians 1, 28.

Third, worship, honoring and glorifying the triune God in all aspects of life. So John 4, 23 through 24. Four, service and compassion, mercy, if you will, meeting physical and spiritual needs. So Matthew 25, 35 through 40.

Five, fellowship and community. So encouraging and strengthening the body of Christ, Hebrews 10, 24 through 25 as an example. And then six, defending the faith, apologetics, upholding biblical truth against false teachings, 1 Peter 3, 15, Jude 3, et cetera.

So these are not separate missions, but different facets of the one mission Christ gave to his church. Everything the church does should ultimately be in harmony with this. So Jesus did not leave the church with multiple missions.

He left one mission and that single mission expresses itself in multiple ways. Might be a small nuance, but it's an important one and we're gonna see why shortly. Anything you'd like to add to that?

Yeah, you had me sweating. I was like, did I forget another second mission that Jesus gave?

Well, I'm glad that you said that because we're gonna transition here now to listening to our clips. I know that that was a very short laying of the foundation, but that's important before we get into this.

I wanna listen to Ted Wilson explain the SDA church's 13th fundamental belief, which is titled the remnant and its mission, okay? And we're gonna get into this and we're gonna test what he says against what we just talked about to examine our question of the night, if you will.

So with that said, let's get into it.

Noah, the Remnant, and the Days of the Son of Man

The remnant appears throughout the Bible and probably one of the most well-known stories is that of Noah and the ark. It was during a time of great wickedness as described in Genesis 6, verse five and verse 11.

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The earth also was corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence.

But we are told in verse eight, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. God told Noah of his plan to destroy the earth with a flood and explained there would be a way of escape for everyone who chose to accept God's grace through faith and obedience.

Noah was to build an enormous ark, inviting all to come inside where they would be safe from the coming storm. For 120 years, Noah preached, but in the end, only eight people chose to be saved, Noah and his family.

They were the remnant. In the last days, right before Jesus returns to earth to take his followers to heaven, a similar situation will happen again. Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 24, verse 37, but as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the son of man be.

The world will be filled with wickedness, but those who trust and believe God will remain strong amidst the world's influence, rejecting its self-serving ways and embracing God's ways.

All right, so Jeremiah, the SDA church loves making Noah a type or a picture of all sorts of things. Noah is supposed to be a picture of the end times regarding the remnant and salvation because Jesus says, as it was in the days of Noah, so also will the coming of the son of man be.

What are your thoughts on what he said? And was that what Jesus was saying in Matthew 24, 37?

So I was thinking about this earlier and it's wild that I'm learning from you that this is such a huge emphasis with the Adventist. So I wanna say when we look at the Olivet Discourse, yes, at the coming of the son of man, there's going to be swift judgment.

I think that is really what we're supposed to glean from the times of Noah. I mean, a lot of people look at this as a proof text for people are gonna be snatched, one left at the mill. It's like, whoa, people are gonna be smited at the second coming of Christ.

And so that's what's going on here in the Olivet Discourse as it relates to Noah. To go beyond that is more than what the text is actually telling us. And so as we're gonna continue to hear him talk about the word remnant, right, remainder, essentially those that are called out or distinguished, I want us to talk about the scripture has a very pointed definition of what the remnant actually looked like.

Yeah, like I said, they love to use the story of Noah for all sorts of things. We're gonna see the story of Noah mentioned later in a source that I'm gonna bring up. But I find it somewhat ironic that the same Ted Wilson, like I've shown numerous times before, loves saying that the only approved hermeneutic of the SDA church is the historical grammatical method.

Yet they constantly allegorize historical events like Noah basically engaging in the same allegorical hermeneutic that became widespread during the middle ages. It was obviously around before then with the likes of expositors like Origen and Cyril of Alexandria, like the Eastern fathers.

But I just find it somewhat comical that the SDA church is basically using the story of Noah the same way they are only, they aren't talking about the Orthodox church or even the Roman Catholic church for that matter, who they use the ark as an example of.

If you're outside the ark, you're drowning in the water, you need to join their church because their church is symbolized by the ark and those sorts of things. So, all right, let's continue listening to what he says.

This end time remnant is often what is being referred to when you hear about the remnant. And it is described in our 13th fundamental belief, the remnant and its mission. The universal church is composed of all who truly believe in Christ.

But in the last days, a time of widespread apostasy, a remnant has been called out to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. This remnant announces the arrival of the judgment hour, proclaim salvation through Christ and heralds the approach of his second advent.

This proclamation is symbolized by the three angels of Revelation 14. It coincides with the work of judgment in heaven and results in a work of repentance and reform on earth. Every believer is called to have a personal part in this worldwide witness.

You see, this fundamental belief is based solidly on the Bible. And you can read the Bible passages and more about it at the URL shown below.

Okay, so by based on the Bible, Jeremiah, you can think of that in the same way that a movie is based on a true story. It isn't an exact representation of the history, but it uses real historical events, landmarks, names, et cetera, to then present an adaptation of that where they take liberty to dramatize things and spice it up for film, et cetera.

Because what he's really getting at is they point to proof texts in the Bible and then they plug in Ellen G. White's dogmatic assertions about those texts, along with all the fanciful elaborate extra details that she brings that are not found in the Bible.

But before I break some things down here, he read and gave a small overview of their 13th fundamental belief titled the remnant and its mission. As an outsider looking in, what all did you hear him saying?

Yeah, so the word remnant is what I'm starting to hear. I'm starting to piece the pieces together. I'm starting to see them come together and saying like the Seventh-day Adventist Church, they are the remnant.

I'm sure he's gonna say, we gotta join them. They're the true remnant. And we are the ones that maybe have apostatized and all the other things. And so this sounds real similar, like you were saying earlier, for those cult-like groups that are saying, hey, you gotta join our church.

We are the one true church. Myles, I engage a lot with the Church of Christ. It's a similar mindset as you gotta be baptized in the one true Church of Christ, Romans 16, 16, the Churches of Christ. And then they don't probably greet one another with the holy kiss, like the verse goes on to say.

But the word remnant, I would not go to revelation to build that doctrine. I do wanna do a quick book plug. Our God Reigns by Sam Storms, just a good resource. As we're looking at the book of Revelation with the grammatical historical method of interpretation, with the historic redemptive understanding that the clearer text give more light than the unclear text.

And one of the places we point to first is saying, look, revelation, prophetic, apocalyptic literature, okay. We're gonna take that genre into account. And so we're talking about the word remnant. I know in the clip, he does give a general understanding of the definition of the word remnant as remainder or kind of a part of the whole, but maybe this is a good time.

I would say rather than going to revelation, that's very symbolic. And there's some wonderful truths that exalts Christ as King. I would say in the book of Romans, which is very clear didactic teaching, we see how the Apostle Paul uses the word remnant on a couple of different occasions.

And I wanna say there is a way to know who the remnant, who the elect in the true church of God actually is, true saints. And so the verse that you have pulled up here,.

Quoting the Old Testament.

So this is true Old Testament. This is just as true then as it is today. Isaiah cries out concerning Israel. And I just wanna pause. Earlier in Romans chapter nine, not all Israel, physical nationalistic Israel is of the true Israel of God.

So Isaiah cries out concerning Israel. Though the Israelites have been like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved. And so we have to say timeout. The Apostle Paul has already been talking about what salvation looks like.

Justification is by faith apart from works. And so if you do wanna scroll down on the passage, look with me at verse 30. What shall we say? That the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it.

That is a righteousness that is by faith. Paul is echoing the groundwork that he's already laid earlier in the book of Romans. So verse 32, why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were on the, it was based on works.

He continues to talk about the true remnant of God are those that are justified by faith alone. But it's a real faith. It's a heart that trust in Christ alone, all to the glory of God alone. And so what I'm hearing with the Seventh Adventist, because I've looked into them before, is there is a strong emphasis on keeping the Sabbath.

And I say, timeout, that is a law. And so if you're saying that you are the one true church by your Sabbath keeping and rules, I'm like, that is echoing the old covenant, which is a covenant of works and is a covenant of condemnation and a covenant of death.

We are a part of a better covenant that saves to the uttermost. And it is like we would have some shared commonality here. We are saved by a covenant of grace, not a covenant of works. And so I do wanna just point out one more verse as we're looking at Romans.

Look with me at Romans 11, starting in verse five. So to at the present time, there is a remnant, okay? But they are chosen by grace, not by your Sabbath law keeping. But if it is by grace, it is no longer miles on the basis of works.

Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. And so it's an odd way to say, we're the remnant. We gotta go to Revelation to build that case when Paul has been echoing Old Testament passages showing us that God is justified by faith alone in Christ alone.

And then they live to the glory of God.

Amen, bro. And you pointed out something super important there. Shout out to Sam Storms. I love Sam Storms. You pointed out just kind of a fundamental hermeneutics 101 type thing, which is that the unclear passages do not trump when it comes to sound hermeneutics, the clear passages.

We interpret the unclear in light of the clear, not the other way around. Now, what you're gonna find in Seventh-day Adventism is they think the unclear is crystal clear because as the remnant, they claim that God has given them special prophetic insight that no one else has.

So it's crystal clear to them. But then you'll find that the clear passages are actually obscure. They're really hard to understand. Like when Paul says in Galatians one, there's only one gospel. Any other gospels cursed by God.

I've heard all sorts of answers to that. Well, Paul was trained in a legal sort of context. And so to understand him is really difficult because of his training and his background and these sorts of things.

Well, I wanted to code here what all was said by Ted Wilson because there was a lot. And if you were not trained in the SDA dictionary, you're not gonna catch it. They mentioned universal church, a remnant, keeping the commandments, et cetera.

Now, you aren't gonna get the gist of that in the clip because the wording of the fundamental belief is loaded. The investigative judgment was weaseled in there. Their unlawful use and handling of the law gets a nod.

Ellen White gets nestled in there and a bunch of other things. But folks, let's read this again. The universal church is composed of all who truly believe in Christ, but in the last days, a time of widespread apostasy, a remnant has been called out to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

This remnant announces the arrival of the judgment hour, proclaim salvation through Christ and heralds the approach of his second advent. This proclamation is symbolized by the three angels of Revelation 14.

It coincides with the work of judgment in heaven and results in a work of repentance and reform on the earth. Every believer is called to have a personal part in this worldwide witness. And then you get all their proof texts.

So I wanna point out a couple of things. Highlighted are buzzwords or phrases that are loaded in their system. Interestingly, they almost have an adaptation of the visible, invisible church distinction going on here.

The universal church is composed of people like Jeremiah and I. But the Bible allegedly teaches that there is an end times remnant called out from the universal church, which is an apostasy, AKA we are spiritual Babylon.

How is this you might ask? Because we allegedly don't keep the 10 commandments and have the faith of Jesus. By the phrase faith of Jesus, they mean the teachings of Jesus, which they assert to be their entire system of theology, as I'm gonna show in a little bit.

Secondly, nestled into the word remnant is Ellen White. As we will see in a moment regarding their interpretation of Revelation 12, 17. But then we also see the quote announcement of his judgment hour, which is coming from Revelation 14, as well as the work of judgment in heaven, AKA the investigative judgment.

And then the final sentence, every believer is called to come join them and share this restored faith of Jesus, which includes the investigative judgment. But without even understanding what all is nestled underneath the buzzwords, we can clearly see that the mission of the SDA movement is different than that of the Christian church.

The Christian church is supposedly apostate and rejected by God. We need to come out from where we are and join them as the remnant in their unique proclamation of a special message that only they have.

In fact, like we're gonna see, part of this unique message includes the call for Christians to leave their church and join them as the remnant. That's supposedly there in Revelation 14. John was telling his original audience about Protestantism being apostate and needing to leave your apostate Protestant church and come join them.

Now, we're gonna look at this more fully in a little bit, but I just wanted to highlight how much is actually being said that the average person on the surface is not gonna catch all the nuances of. Any other thoughts after hearing that, my brother, before we keep listening?

No, that was very good. I know, Ming, you've talked about the investigative judgment before, and I just wanna remind our audience what we're hearing in keeping the commandments. This is totally going against the law gospel distinction.

We keep the commandments of God not to be a part of the remnant or to be saved, but because we are justified by faith alone and Christ alone, we desire to obey all of what Christ has commanded for us in our sanctification as we long to be glorified one day.

Yeah, and they're gonna obviously take umbrage with the way you worded that, because they're gonna try and say, well, no, no, we don't keep the law to be saved. And a little bit of a spoiler alert here for folks who have not seen, I just got done recording this past week three long discussions with the guys over at Cultish, and the investigative judgment is one of the things that we ended up talking about.

And I explained this in more detail in that discussion, but they affirm what is called covenantal gnomism, which was a really popular in the sort of NT right new perspective on Paul discussion.

Yes, is that just by faith, but where we maintain our right standing by our works.

Once we're saved.

Bingo, bingo, you're in the covenant by grace through faith. It's all by grace, it's all by grace. You're in by grace through faith, but then you're kept by obedience. And they'll tell you, well, it's just the fruit of being saved.

No, this is just a slippery way. You'll hear some SDA theologians use the language of, you have to meet the conditions of the gospel. Jesus made something a possibility because they're not just synergists.

They're like synergists on steroids. Ellen White said, for example, Jesus opened the door to salvation, but now it made salvation a possibility, but he can really only be a savior if you empower him to be a savior.

If you come to him and you labor alongside him and do your part and these sorts of things. So yeah, covenantal gnomism, folks, is the teaching that you're in by grace, kept by obedience. And that's ultimately what they're teaching here.

And like you're noticing, I could show you a mountain of quotes where they essentially say the remnant is identified by those who keep the commandments. And that's what they're going to point to in the next verse that we're going to look at in the next clip we're going to play here.

The Remnant, the Law, and the Faith of Jesus

Throughout history, God has always had a remnant of faithful ones. Down through the centuries, thousands of martyrs have sealed their faith with their blood, especially during the prophetic 1 ,260 year period known as the dark ages.

Prophecy tells us the same persecuting power of the dark ages will rise again as a combined religious and political power in the last days. And will once again persecute those who will not bow to its demands.

But God has raised up a faithful last day remnant people who are identified in Revelation 12, verse 17, a fantastic verse. I love this verse. As those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

This faithful last day remnant is not some exclusive club. Everyone who loves the Lord, accepts the truth as found in his word and by God's grace is willing to follow it fully is welcome to join God's remnant people.

Okay, so Jeremiah, little bit of a lead up here and then I'm going to have a question for you.

Okay.

The claim here is that Revelation 12, 17, this is one of their favorite proof texts. You're just going to hear this beat into the ground in Adventism. That it's supposedly foretelling of the time just before the second coming where God will have a remnant people like he did in various ages past, you know, with Noah and Elisha, et cetera.

They then state that this remnant can be identified as those who are keeping the 10 commandments and have the testimony of Jesus. Therefore, since the end times began in 1798 and we live past then, that means we're in the last days.

So we can identify this remnant of people if we find the institution that has those two things. I just want to remind people that the SDA church claims that Ellen White's writings are divinely inspired and that they correct inaccurate interpretations of the Bible, aka she is supposedly an infallible interpreter.

This looks a lot like paragraph 100 of the Roman Catholic catechism, which in substance says the same thing. So Ellen White is functionally though, the sole Adventist magisterium. Hence why I have Photoshopped a papal tiara on her head.

One of the many things she said regarding Revelation 12, 17, quote, and the dragon was wroth with the woman and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus, Revelation 12, 17.

This prophecy points out clearly that the remnant church will acknowledge God in his law and will have the prophetic gift. Obedience to the law of God and the spirit of prophecy has always distinguished the true people of God and the test is usually given on present manifestations.

Close quote. In other words, according to her interpretation or rather application, this end times remnant can be objectively identified as the group who one, keeps the 10 commandments and two, possesses the gift of prophecy.

More specifically on that second point, they possess a special prophetic word from Jesus himself, where he is speaking to their movement through an individual who has the gift of prophecy. This they claim was manifested in Ellen G. White in her writings, Jesus is supposedly speaking there and they also keep the 10 commandments supposedly since they uphold the fourth commandment that everyone else allegedly has abandoned.

So my question for you, what is your response going to be to the Adventist that knocks on your door and shares this with you in hopes of compelling you to come join the SDA church?

Well, I will find a way to talk to them about the gospel of grace, but when they say the grammatical historical method of interpretation, I'm gonna say, oh, so context matters, right? Oh yes, we love context, I'm sure.

I mean, that's what I hear from the church of Christ until we explore these proof texts a little bit more and then it's usually we gotta go somewhere else. And so revelation number one, apocalyptic prophetic literature, hey, we got to interpret it as such.

But I will say earlier in chapter 12, I believe it's around verse nine, where we read about this great dragon that was thrown down, the ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.

As we keep going back up, he was cast out of heaven. So Satan has been persecuting the people of God for a long time. It didn't just start with L and G wide and those who remember to keep the Sabbath holy because I guess we just all forgot.

No, this is a context of spiritual warfare that the saints have always been under persecution. So my first thought, if someone knocks on the door is we're gonna have to explore context.

Yeah, and so here's the route I always go just because I don't like getting into like, well, I don't agree with historicism and your sort of school of prophetic interpretation, which is a whole discussion in and of itself.

I just go along with them and explain, you guys don't keep the commandments. They have tunnel vision on the fourth commandment, yet they failed the test before even getting there. Because as you saw, when you were with me before, they have a false God.

The present day movement, while it has shifted on their semi-Aryan roots of the pioneers, they still have an idol, even if it's a different one than the pioneers. So the two groups in Adventism, the pro-heavenly trio and the anti-heavenly trio crowd, they're just bickering back and forth over two idols.

So they don't even make it through the first commandment, but even that should give cause for concern. They're allegedly the remnant God raised up to restore his church, yet he used heretics that didn't even believe in him to do so, giving a woman in the 19th century, all sorts of visions on stuff that was in harmony with the semi-Aryanism of the movement at the time, only to eventually give her visions later on that would contradict those earlier visions, presenting a different understanding of God that's in focus.

Point being, even if we grant their theory and interpretation, they don't fit the bill for their own qualification. But a second question for you, what would you argue the correct interpretation and application of Revelation 12, 17 is?