Encountering The Gospel: Why This SDA Pastor LEFT Adventism

And we are live. Thank you for being here and an especially warm welcome if this is your first time with us, Adventist or otherwise. Hope you all are doing well. I am particularly um excited for tonight. I’m also particularly uh just hyped up on the gospel today. Um folks, we we need the gospel daily. The gospel is not just for the lost, but it’s also for the believer needing reminded in that truth daily. And today I am just basking in the goodness of the person and work of Jesus. Tonight I have a particularly special guest with me. He and I have been talking offline for some

Time now. He is a former Seventh Adventist pastor who recently parted ways with the Seventh Adventist Church. Predictably, the SDA damage control narrative has been in full swing. asserting claims and accusations against those who leave, particularly those who once held leadership roles. But here’s the beautiful reality of that, folks. Amidst all of that noise, because that’s all it is. It’s just noise. The triune God is still calling and saving his people. That includes those that are ins snared by the deception of Adventism. And there’s nothing the SDA

Church and her critics of Christianity can do to thwart this. Jesus is making all of his enemies a foottool. That includes false systems of theology, not necessarily all the people, folks. I always clarify with that. Adventists are not our enemies, but the deceptions of darkness, which includes the doctrine of 7th Adventism, are included in those enemies. Now, tonight’s discussion is a token of the effects that this platform is having, and I’m really excited for you all to hear it. We’re going to be talking about his experience and where he’s at now. Along the way, we’ll do a

Little bit of theology, if you will. You might be asking, who is tonight’s guest? Tonight’s uh guest is Chris Mindana. Now, Chris is a friend and former SDA pastor in the New Jersey Conference of Seventh Day Adventists. He holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Rutgers University and a Mdive, Masters of Divinity, from the Seventh Day Adventist Theological Seminary in Berian Springs, Michigan. He is currently a Christian mental health coach that supports people wanting to heal from church hurt, performance anxiety, self-esteem issues, or are simply just

Wanting to understand the Bible and grow in Christ. His greatest passion is sharing the pure gospel that brings healing. Brother, thank you for being here. I’m really looking forward to our discussion. How have you been? I’m well, man. Thank you for that uh that beautiful introduction. Of course. Of course. I love very thorough. Yes, I’m excited for you to be here and I tried to keep it as succinct as possible so we can get right into it, which is exactly what we are going to do. So, Chris, there’s been a lot of arrows fired your way from various

Parties. I know this all too well. I was not a pastor in the Seventh Adventist Church, but obviously being very vocal publicly about uh my opposition to SDA theology, I have experienced all of those same arrows over a long period of time. So I want to break the ice tonight by looking at a statement from DM Canrit’s Seventh Day Adventism Renounced and afterward I’m going to have a question for you. Sure. So for those that do not know DM Canite is an infamous character in the history of 7th Day Adventism as he was the first prominent and vocal critic of the

Movement who held a position specifically of leadership. He was not the first person to leave obviously but the first prominent figure that held a position of leadership that walked away and was publicly and vocally critical. He was one of their leading teachers that was sent around uh to teach and defend the system by the movement itself. Now, in speaking about his experience though, upon departing Adventism, notice what he writes. quote, “It cost me a terrible struggle and a great sacrifice for in doing it, meaning leaving Adventism, I had to leave all my

Lifelong friends, the cherished hopes of my youth, the whole work of my life, all the means of my support, every honorable position I held, and bring upon myself reproach, hatred, and persecution. I had to begin life a new among strangers with untried methods, uncertain where to go and what to do.” No one who has not tried it can never begin to realize the fearful struggle it requires. It is the dread of all of this which holds many with them who are yet dissatisfied where they are. I know that this is so, for many have confessed it to me, and yet

Remain where they are. Anyone of cander and fairness can see readily that self-interest and personal ambition would have held me with them. Yet as soon as I did leave them, though I went out quietly and peaceably and let them entirely alone, and even spoke favorably of them, they immediately attributed to me all sorts of evil motives, base sins, and ambitious designs. They seemed to find it a sacred duty to blast my reputation and destroy my influence if possible. Apostate was the epipett all applied to me. I was compared to Balum, to Kora, Dayan, and

Abram, to Judas, Deeus, and a whole list of other evil characters. Not one honest or worthy motive was granted me. The meanest and wickedest reports were circulated as to what I had done and said, things that I would despise, even to think of. Yet all were eagerly accepted and believed as undoubted truth. But I expect it for it is the way all are treated who dare to leave them and give reason for it. Close quote. So Chris, I wasn’t very familiar with Canrite until many years after leaving Adventism, but when I first read this, it felt as though it had been written in

The 21st century. I to this exactly. So what are your thoughts on his assessment being from the 19th century and has your experience after leaving been similar? Yeah, this is the this is actually my first time reading that quote and that is actually incredible how relevant and accurate that information is even again hundreds of years later. Um it’s the same narrative playing out. It’s the same narrative. It’s uh if you give an explanation that has any sort of reason to it, that has any sort of weight to it. Uh many times the the majority of Adventists at least that I’ve interacted

With that have had a problem with some of the things that I’ve said um rather than really engaging with the content many times not all the time but many times uh they go for your character they go for your mo your motives um and and Ken Wright said it himself it’s not like I gained anything from this I mean I lost my source of income you know I I have a newborn daughter. I have, you know, a wife that’s not working that just gave birth. Like, there’s no there’s no material or tangible gain for me to speak out against this uh you know, against false

Theology. Um, but obviously we do know that the gain we get is from our heavenly father and you know, the souls that will ultimately be saved as a result of understanding the real gospel. Um, but yeah, man. I’m I’m actually shocked at how accurate this is and how this is really the reoccurring narrative uh for many people who have left Adventism. And it’s it’s unfortunate. It’s very unfortunate. Yeah. And it’s never going to change. Um that that’s the thing is um this movement cannot accept that they are theologically wrong anywhere. The only time that they can is when they need to

Pull out what I have branded as the uh the magic wand, the Adventist magic wand, which is present truth. Um, anytime that they’re actually wrong, they’re never actually truly wrong. It’s that, well, no, no, we were right. It was a test or there’s always some sort of backdoor thing to come in to be like, well, we were actually right, but not really. We were kind of off a little bit, but we were still right. And it’s a movement that’s born out of pride. I mean, if you go back to 1844, it’s it’s pride. I’m not saying that the people were not genuine. They didn’t

Genuinely believe these things, but you can be genuinely wrong. And so, it’s just be get more of that sort of thing. And so, typically what you’re going to get is just a lot of these sort of you love your sin, you’re angry, you you you hate Adventists, you hate the truth, u you want to get tattooed. I I mean, I’ve heard it all. It’s been 12 years of just Okay, gotcha. Okay. And then it’s it’s funny, man. Um, there’s been five families that have joined my local church here recently because of answering Adventism. Wow. They just showed up. Just showed up.

They they actually walked uh three of them walked up to me and they asked, you know, “Are you Miles?” I said, “I respond to that name.” He look like him. Yeah. Do I know you? Um Yeah. And they they proceed to then tell me that uh well, we went to the Adventist church down the street from my local church. And we proceed to talk, etc. And so these people oftentimes meet me and it’s just funny to hear some of these accusations that you know these died in the wool you know rabid Adventists will will make about me and then you know tell that to these people. See if they get that vibe.

I’m like a very basic sort of low-key individual if you will. Um they kind of take my demeanor in some of the videos and kind of brush that out to how I must be 247 in every single context. Um but nevertheless I’ve seen some of these same claims that he brought up uh made about you. Um, but probably the most interesting thing about all this, Chris, so he didn’t he didn’t mention it in that quote, but he mentions it elsewhere where he talks about this claim that they made about him that he doesn’t actually know what Adventists teach and believe,

Which has been like the running thing. I don’t know if you what you were told at the seminary, etc., but like the scholarship today, the modern scholarship’s claim about Krite today is, well, he was critiquing an Adventism pre-188. Things changed. He was critiquing an old Adventism that is dead and gone basically to try and make it sound like all his criticisms are invalid because well Adventism has changed since then. But what’s funny is they’ll claim he knew nothing about what Adventism teaches. He completely misrepresents them. Yet at the same time this is the

Man that was paid by the church to travel around preaching, teaching, and defending Adventism just like you. I’ve seen this claim made about you. He he doesn’t actually know what Adventism teaches. He’s misrepresenting what we actually believe and teach. Well, who’d he learn it from? The the seminary. Who’ I learn it from? I I was That just is a is a an assassination on your own teachers and leaders because I learned this from them. I learned this from your professors, from pastors, from Adventists, Adventist sources. So, but it’s sort of this thing. It’s like,

Well, you’re just making all this up. Well, it’s like, okay, well, whatever. Um, now I don’t want to get ahead of myself because we’re going to get into some of this stuff in a little bit. Specifically, the sort of uh defense of like, well, you’re critiquing an outofdate Adventism because that’s a very common charge that I often hear when I point out um a number of things, like I said, that we will look at a little bit later. But in light of what we just said, the typical rhetoric that the Seventh Adventist organization puts out there is that those who leave their movement do

So because they weren’t cared for enough, someone in the church hurt them, or various other excuses along those lines. Because it has to be anything but theological reasons. Let people know what your experience was like in the Adventist church. Not why you left yet, but what was your experience like? Were you loved? Were you hated? Were you you judged? Yeah. What was your experience like? positive, negative. Yeah. So, it’s it’s a really long story, but I’ll just share that once I finally came into the Adventist church for myself, my mom was a 7th Day Adventist.

She uh grew up Catholic, but she uh remarried a Seventh Day Adventist and that’s where that culture was brought into my home. I kind of rejected it, moved out of the house. Eventually, I got into a really dark place after doing psychedelic drugs and just, you know, just yeah, hitting rock bottom and looking for for answers. Um, I started reading the Bible, you know, and I my my closest frame of reference for Christianity was the Seventh Day Adventist Church because that’s what my mom uh, you know, had kind of raised me in or or kind of just had in the home,

You know, while I lived with her. And you know, in that low moment, as I’m reading scripture, and I’m like, you know what, maybe Jesus is the way, I went to the, you know, the nearest English-speaking church that I knew of, uh, that my mom used to bring me to. And I can honestly say that from the very beginning, extremely loved, received, uh, you know, uh, part of the young adult group. Eventually, I was so on fire that they started giving me leadership roles as uh a leader in public campus ministry at Ruckers University. Uh part of the youth leadership team at the church. Uh

Feeding me, inviting me to their homes. Just all around a positive experience. But the thing is that while I was uh you know growing in the faith, I didn’t have another frame of reference to compare Adventism to. Right? All all I knew was all right, I have a Bible in my hand. And in this church, they talk about the Bible. So, I’m here. I’m reading. I’m with the young adults. I’m, you know, with community. So, as time goes on, um, you know, eventually I’m doing ministry. People are getting baptized. And one of my friends, uh, said, “Hey, why don’t you

Do a masters in divinity? You know, you’re finishing your bachelor’s. You should just go straight into that. You don’t need to have any background to really go into it.” So I applied, ended up getting in and uh yeah, just began to study and and you know my experience at the seminary uh was was positive. It was eye opening uh seeing people from all walks of life, all cultures, all backgrounds. Um yeah, so overall in terms of the relational aspect, it was extremely positive. Um though there were moments where in the back of my mind I’m like yeah this is kind of different. You

Know I was coming out of the world. I was coming out of partying and smoking weed every day and doing psychedelic drugs and you know coming into this culture was uh it was a shift. It was a culture shock. Um but in terms of the disposition of people towards me it was a positive experience. So, I don’t know if you wanted me to just talk about more so that relational aspect or what else do you want me to touch on in terms of Yeah, I mean really really anything you want to share, man. I mean, I I think you you kind of highlight a lot of things that um

Despite, you know, the insistent claim from Adventists that everybody leaves because of these like horrible experiences, are there some people out there? Probably. I’ve talked Chris with I can comfortably say at this point close to probably thousands of former 7th Adventists because millions of people have left Adventism. So that’s a very small fraction. So, it’s anecdotal, but I have yet to really find the person that left because of some sort of well, just all the the talking points that the statistics department puts out that, you know, David Trim puts out this

Report. Uh, I don’t remember what year that the last one was, but I remember listening to his talk and he’s talking about how, you know, we got to do a better job of loving on people. We got to do a better job making sure people feel cared for. Yet none of the data that they presented presented any sort of information about people saying, “Well, I left and didn’t come back because I didn’t feel cared for. All these people I talked to left because of theological reasons.” Yeah. Um, which is what we’re about to transition into into momentarily. You

Mentioned something there that’s really interesting. You said that you you kind of noticed um even though it was like your only frame of reference for what you understood Christianity, Christianity to be, you still kind of pinpointed that there was something different. Um there’s been there’s been a lot of those. So I remember um obviously going to church on Sunday for the first time was kind of this like am I going to be struck by lightning or like you know is something crazy going to happen when when I go and do this? But um the other there’s just a number

Of those sort of things that you maybe don’t pick up on when you’re in the movement that you do once you leave. And one of those for me was realizing this organization. Well, let me preface by saying this because Adventists will clip this and be like, “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Um, yeah, the the the food companies, I know they’re not owned by the Adventist church, but let’s be real. We all know how this operates and functions, so they know what I’m saying. It’s interesting that this religious organization has their own fake meat

Products. Like, imagine if there was like the Baptist meat packing company, you know? It’s kind of just like, well, that’s an interesting combination. Like, you’re a religious group and like you have your own Well, it’s not even just meat. It’s like you have your own soy meat products. Interesting. You have like fake breakfast meat and like lunch meat and dinner meat, like turkey slices, like everything. So, that was one thing for me that I remember I brought that up actually to somebody. I I’d mentioned it just in passing and conversation, one of

My Christian friends, and he like kind of looked at me weird, and I that was the moment that it hit me where I’m like, you know, that is actually kind of strange. I’d never really stopped to think about that before. Um the other thing too is like their own bookstores. Adventist bookstores. It’s not just a Christian bookstore. It’s an Adventist bookstore. Specifically Adventist. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, there’s a couple of uh those that just come to mind when you when you say that immediately. Obviously there’s a number of other things like especially when you go to like I go to

Like a lurggical church service now which is like very different. You know there’s not special music. There’s not a little lamb’s offering and all these other traditions of men that you know the Adventist Church loves to to dog on things of you know they they follow the traditions of men. Yeah. Show me the uh show me the apostolic line of uh special music. Show me the apostolic line on little lamb’s offering. Yeah. So there’s Yeah, there’s a lot there’s a lot to it. They they point the finger, but yeah, there’s there’s a lot that you kind of ignore internally when you’re so

Focused on flaws outside. Well, and I think a lot of that too, kind of like you were saying, it’s easy when you only have one frame of reference, when you don’t really know anything different, which statistically speaking, the majority of Seventh Day Adventists are generational. Um, it’s passed on generationally, which is why there’s a major crisis going on internally about how are they I don’t know how it was in in the pockets you were in, but like when I was growing up and whatnot, and I still hear it today, there’s always this we got to get the youth. We got to get the youth.

What are we doing for the youth? What are we doing to keep the youth? because they know that the the majority of of people on the outside once they start to have the hood peeled back outside of just the sort of generic things that maybe they haven’t thought about of like, oh man, what if Sunday is the mark of the beast? Oh man, project 2025. Like that stuff can only last so long before it like you see the other stuff that you’re like, “Yeah, this is kind of odd.” I mean, we get people like that all the time. We just had a guy reach out to us last week who is in New York u

Or not last week. Uh it’s probably been like two two or three weeks at this point. He emailed us and he’s in New York and he said, “Hey, this guy Doug Bachelor is here. Um he’s doing this prophecy seminar that’s like two weeks long and a friend invited me to it and I got on Google and started googling Adventism and your website came up and he said, “I’m glad I started looking into this because I noticed that some of the things he was saying were kind of bizarre. Um this guy’s a Christian.” And so he’s like, “I noticed some of the things he was saying were kind of

Bizarre. I’d never really heard this before.” And so he started digging, etc. But it’s very easy when you all that to to say statistically speaking most people are generational adventists and they often times just don’t know any different. So they don’t really have a reference point to be able to pinpoint these sorts of things and kind of have any sort of alarm bells go off. Right. Yeah. And if I could just jump in there real quick. I mean it’s it’s like uh when you’re swimming in water and you’ve never been in any different, you know, any other bowl. So it’s like this is all

You know. Um, man. Yeah. Just really quick, just want to say this. As a pastor to do evangelism for the 7th Day Adventist church, especially in a Orthodox Adventist traditional uh local congregation, it is very very difficult to get people. The majority of people that come in are either transfers of membership are people that uh you know just kind of walked in for the first time just like wondering what the heck is going on in here and many times you don’t see them ever again. Um, but to do like really deeprooted 7th day Adventist disciplehip according

To again the fundamental beliefs according to Ellen White, a lot of it does not stick in this generation because there’s so much information out there and it’s just like uh yeah, y’all are a little bit weird. So, I don’t know. I’m going to try and find a a church that has like contemporary music or something. At least for young adults. That’s what I found. That was kind of the thing that set me on the trajectory of leaving because not to get into this whole story, but I was raised Adventist and I became pretty nominal. I was just kind of like, man, whatever. Um, I had a

Pretty radical conversion experience, a genuine conversion experience, not at an Adventist church. Um, but upon that happening, you know, you’re you’re new to the faith, I just had this new hunger for the word of God like I didn’t have before. You know, I’ve read like the Sabbath school quarterly and like the the proof text and like that sort of thing and thought I understood the Bible. Um, but I mean like really started like consuming and eating up the Bible. Um, and while I’m still like ironing certain things out, I had these vestigages of what was planted in me via my own

Experience and tradition. And so, of course, some of the things that popped up in my head were, but the Adventist church is the remnant. So, I’ve got to find an Adventist church. So, I hadn’t been going to to church at that time. Um, and then I have this experience and sorry I got a hair in my mouth here. Um, and after that happens, I immediately think despite reading the Bible and hearing the gospel and realizing that the gospel, what I was told was the gospel growing up is not the gospel. Um, I still had this compulsion and pull to go back to

Adventism. And it was during that period, which it happened very quickly because I started sitting under sound preaching and teaching and I started asking this pastor blesses, you know, God bless this guy. Um, I started dumping all these questions on him and he’s probably thinking, “What in the world is this guy?” You know, where’s this guy coming from? But it was during that period where I was like, “Okay, I’m going to be serious about Adventism. I’m going to study the really study this stuff out because I want to be able to really like understand and defend and

All this stuff.” And that was where that’s where it really all started to crumble because I’m like, “Dude, this this is indefensible. I’m not going to try and defend something that is indefensible when it’s clearly that this just isn’t the truth. And at that point in time too, you know, I don’t have a bunch of connection. I wasn’t like you. You know, my employment was not dependent upon this organization. Um I didn’t only have friendships within the Adventist church. I didn’t only have connections in the Adventist church. My my employment was not tied to the Adventist church. So, it

Was a lot easier for somebody like me to just be like, “Yeah, okay.” Okay. You know, my dad’s an Adventist pastor, so he obviously wasn’t very, you know, happy about that. But I’d also argue he’s not a consistent Adventist. He’s he’s not what you mentioned. He’s an evangelical Adventist, which is I just call that an inconsistent Adventist. You’re just you’re not an Adventist. You’re an Adventist in name only. You’re an uh I know a nist in name only. So yeah, with with that in the background though, what was the trigger that caused you to begin questioning Adventism

And how did that progress to being dismissed from the organization? Yeah. Yeah. Super long story. Um, so again coming into this one local church in New Jersey, I was uh in my mind this is this was the entirety of Adventism that this was just this is what it is. Uh and they are Orthodox Adventists, right? So they’re living according to Ellen White and fundamental beliefs, etc. um end up going to seminary and my mind is blown because everything I thought was uh Adventism actually, you know, I realized that it was a larger tent, quote unquote. So, I’m like, okay, this

Is different. I’m seeing people from, you know, from Africa, from Korea, from California, from Texas, from all over, and you know, different expressions of what it means to be Adventist. So, I’m like, “Okay, cool. This is this is great.” you know, I’m I’m in my mind I’m like, “Okay, like I’m not trapped in this cultural box of what I think Adventism is.” So, time goes on, I’m at seminary and um I come across this uh this ministry and this YouTube video of this guy preaching and he’s uh preaching on the book of Romans. And as I’m listening to these sermons,

Like my my heart is like there’s a heaviness on my heart that is literally being lifted off that I didn’t even realize was there. And uh specifically Romans chapter 5 was life-changing for me uh from verse one all the way until the end when I realized specifically in verse 18 and 19 that it is Christ’s obedience. It is Christ’s one righteous act that leads to justification and life for all men uh for all mankind. It it released me. It like I I literally broke down in tears and like I was on the ground crying and praising God and I I think that was my uh my Cornelius

Experience where I I heard the gospel fall in my ears and I felt like the Holy Spirit in a whole different way just drop on me. And it’s crazy because at this point I had already been preaching in uh like like all over New Jersey. I had gone on multiple mission trips around the world to preach uh you know with Adventist uh missionary organizations. I had, you know, been in seminary. I had done campus ministry. I had done youth min. I’ve done so many things. Yet, like it’s not until 5 years later that I I hear the gospel in such a way and I see it in scripture in such a

Way that my heart literally just melts underneath God’s love. And this was kind of the beginning because I feel like I was seeing things like I I understood and I had the knowledge of scripture in terms of like head knowledge and information but it hadn’t the there was something missing that hadn’t reached my heart and it was the gospel. It was the pure unadulterated gospel as presented in the New Testament. And when I finally understood it, when I finally saw it, I couldn’t unsee it. So I started reading again Genesis to Revelation. I started reading all throughout scripture. I

Began to see the gospel everywhere. And as time went on, I was just so passionate. I was like, “Yo, this is the gospel. This is what the gospel is. We are saved by grace through faith. There’s nothing we can do to to save ourselves if if not Jesus wouldn’t have had to come.” And I’m just passionately sharing this. Now I transition out of seminary and now I am ready and passionate and hyped up to go out into the field, especially into areas that I know uh lean into legalism, lean into uh this orthodox Adventist theology that kind of uh dilutes the gospel. And I’m excited to

Go and just be a pastor and to go preach and set people free and all of these things. And I’m doing it and people are coming to me and they’re like, man, like I’ve never heard the gospel presented like that before. Like like people are getting baptized like oh man, God was moving in that uh a little over a year that I was pastoring. But it was about 6 months in that I came across um a video. And actually, I’m going to mention you as well, but I came across a video from uh Dr. Eric Mason and uh Jackie Hill Perry and Preston Perry, and they have an interview. And Dr. Eric Mason had

Just released a book uh called um Urban Apologetics, and the subtitle uh I forgot the the exact subtitle, but it’s it was uh cults and cultural ideologies or something along those lines. and he had just released the book and he was doing an interview with uh the Perry’s. They have their own podcast, their own YouTube and he is um you know just introducing the book just very superficial. In passing he mentions that seventh day Adventism is a cult and my my ear perks up because again I respect Jackie Hill Perry, I respect Preston Perry. I respect Dr. Eric Mason

And he says this thing in passing and he just keeps going as if like nothing happened. But in my heart I was like wait a second like say more. You know what I mean? and he wasn’t saying things that I hadn’t heard before, but he the the things he was pointing out led him to the conclusion that this is this is a cult or this is this is not in line with orthodox Christianity. So that kind of left an unease in me because I was in complete agreement with the points he was making. you know, he was talking about 1844 and how it’s, you know, kind of a again it’s it’s a cover

Up and it’s, you know, uh you shouldn’t be setting dates and and he was talking about Ellen White and in um Patriarchs and Prophets saying that Jesus was not uh fully divine or not fully uh fully God. So, he was just saying some of these points in passing and I was like, “Yeah, I I I’m in agreement with you, Dr. Mason, but keep speaking.” So that there was a gap between that and the following podcast that they did because there was so much response to what Dr. Eric Mason had said that they actually did a part two uh titled YouTube video titled is 7th Day Adventism a cult and

They dedicated a whole hour to it. They had um uh a person who was an evangelist uh exeangelist from the SDA church uh brother Thunder EJ Leston from Jamaica. And he was sharing as well and he was saying things and I was like I’m in I’m in agreement with you guys. And that’s when I actually came across your channel, Miles. I came across your channel and I was listening to these things. And to be honest with you, it was it was this one video that like it it sealed the deal for me. It was the funeral of LG White. That 4 hour, 3 hour, however long

Video that you did and and and Miles, you’re wild, but I I love you and your dedication because I I haven’t seen that from anybody. But after watching that video and seeing the quotes and seeing how you underlined and and bolded and made things very clear, I was like, “Yeah, bro. This this isn’t it.” So now this tension is just growing in me. Again, it’s not with uh things that I’m like, “Oh my goodness, like what are they saying?” Or I’m like trying to defend Adventism or I’m getting angry or whatever. But it’s like no, I’m in agreement with you guys, but y’all are

Are going to a conclusion that I haven’t reached yet. And that is that again SDA church is not uh is not Christian or is is is not uh in line with Orthodox Christianity. So, time goes on. I go on a mission trip um with some of my young adults that I took with me. I come back and I was actually asked to share a testimony uh or I applied and I was invited to share a testimony for a a really large page on YouTube. Actually, it’s called Deafare Testimonies. And basically, I I took a train ride. I I so I landed in New Jersey from Honduras from a mission trip the day

After completely exhausted the day after hopped on a train from New Jersey went to New York uh to Long Island to record this testimony uh at V1 Church actually in Long Island and they had the whole setup and everything and I go there and I sit down and I’m about to share my testimony of how Jesus saved my life and literally uh the director uh is is is there and I just want to be fully transparent. That’s one of my principles that I live by now. I I I cannot bring myself to to be fake, to be inauthentic. Like what you see is what you’re going to get. So I tell him

Straight up, I say, “Hey man, like you know, I just need to tell you honestly that um I don’t know if you know this. I think you should know this because of my application, but I’m a 7th Day Adventist pastor and I just want to share more specific details about, you know, these uh churches that I visited and and just like the more specifics of the journey. And his reaction really just like opened my eyes because he he paused and he was like, “Okay, so I didn’t know that you were a Seventh Day Adventist.” And I’m going to be honest with you, it’s not my preference

To uh record 7th Day Adventist. And I, you know, just want to ask you, do you believe that you need to keep the Sabbath to be saved? And in essence, I had communicated that, you know, Jesus is our source of rest. That through faith in him and his finished work, we enter into his rest. And that is our our Sabbath. That is our spiritual uh the the ultimate fulfillment of of what Sabbath is. Um and that’s ultimately what is going to save us. So he was like, “Okay.” And he said, “You know what, man? just talk about Jesus and you know we’re we’re gonna just see

Where it goes. Recorded the testimony by the end of it you know it was very cordial very you know uh it was it was it was a good recording. I ended up leaving and that whole train ride home, I was reflecting deeply on my identity as a Seventh Day Adventist because I was being labeled because of my label or because of my title as a Seventh Day Adventist pastor. I was there was an assumption made about me that I believed something that was contrary to the gospel of of Jesus Christ. And it didn’t sit well with me. And you know, I’ve been journeying

Through uh you know, just healing and and and being an authentic person and and just wearing my heart on my sleeve. And um at the same time, I’ve been listening to a podcast called The Basement by Tim Ross. Um shout out to him. He’s awesome. And something that he prioritizes in his uh podcast is vulnerability and being congruent. Meaning you are the same person in every room that you walk into. Not meaning that you’re going to be disrespectful. Not meaning that you’re going to you know uh you know treat people badly or whatever. But it just means like you need to be honest

With who you are and what you believe and you know what what God has taught you and what God has shown you. And I came to a place where I I realized that I was being inongruent, that I was being inauthentic, that I was showing up as a 7th day Adventist pastor, this cleaned up 7th day Adventist pastor. Um, you know, I wouldn’t really speak out on these controversial subjects because obviously I didn’t want to lose my job. I had a pregnant wife. So, but in my heart there was just something that was like this is not okay. It is not okay for me to be a 7th day Adventist pastor

And to believe that many of these beliefs of the institution are actually false and actually uh contrary and against actively the against the gospel of of Jesus Christ against the gospel of the New Testament. And this is where this tension began to grow and to grow and to grow. And there would be days where I would just be praying and I would just say, “God, like, you know, I don’t want to be here anymore. You know that I’m not at peace. You know that I I I don’t believe these things.” I would have interactions with some of these members. Um I remember one

Specifically after a funeral um that I was a part of the um one of the the members I was eating with and talking with and and you know the person was saying something along the lines of yeah man you know that you know on the way to heaven when Jesus is taking us to heaven you know we’re actually going to take seven days and actually those that never experienced Sabbath before are going to experience Sabbath on that on that journey for the first time before we get to heaven so that they can actually understand what Sabbath is. And he was, you know, he was quoting Ellen White. He

Was, you know, giving me the references and I was like, where the heck am I? Like where in the Bible does it say that? And the thing is when you open up the door to extra biblical um not even interpretation but adding to the ex to adding to the narrative of scripture with an extra biblical narrative uh in the way that Ellen White does it is extremely dangerous because you know once you do it a little bit it just opens up this giant uh Pandora’s box of who knows what interpretation who knows where you’re going to go. And in reality, that’s the entirety of

Patriarchs and Prophets all the way to the Great Controversy. Her her series of books, the Conflict of the Ages series is literally an extra biblical narrative that is not found in scripture that she adds to uh to the Bible. And I mean, Revelation says clearly, do not add, do not take away. Like, if you add to it, the plagues of this book are going to be added to you. if you take away, you know, your your reward is going to be taken away. So, I’m just processing all of these things. And eventually, I get to a point where I’m I’m studying deeply Hebrews chapter 4

Specifically, and I’m reading the ESV study Bible, which is a great resource. Highly recommend to anybody who wants to really get deep into Bible study, uh, and see different perspectives side by side, and, you know, you can kind of work through it. But I was reading the ESB study Bible and reading Hebrews chapter 4 and trying to get to the bottom of what what is this Sabbath that remains in Hebrews chapter 4:9 and is I was reading in context which is something that we are taught to do in seminary. It’s something that we need to teach you know disciples to do to read

The Bible in context which means to read the verse before the verse after it to understand. If that doesn’t make sense, read the entire chapter and see how that one verse fits in the whole chapter. Then read how it fits in the whole book. Then read how it fits in the whole New Testament or Old Testament and understand what context you are in whether Old Covenant or New Covenant. That’s a whole thing uh that we could talk about how to read the Bible 101. But essentially, I was reading Hebrews 4 and I couldn’t get around the fact that the interpretation I had heard for so

Long is that Hebrews 4 affirms that you need to keep the seventh day Sabbath to to be saved. And as I was reading it for myself and and reading these different commentaries, it literally said that this rest that remains is a result of hearing the good news and uh believing it today and entering into that rest today. Now let’s just say I was reading that on a Tuesday. If I can read this text and believe the good news of the gospel on that Tuesday, I enter into that rest on that Tuesday. So this rest is not talking about the seventh day Sabbath. This rest is

Something far greater. And again, the context is talking about the salvation that we find in Jesus Christ and and the rest that we find in him. And you know, Matthew uh the end of Matthew chapter 11, he says, “Come to me. I will give you rest.” Right? The fact that Jesus said that to a group of Jews who kept Sabbath, even that is is borderline blasphemous to them because he’s saying, “Listen, I am the one that’s the source. I am the one that’s going to give you the thing that you’re looking for, not that day.” And he goes on to in Matthew chapter 12

To go and and basically break the Sabbath in their eyes and to teach them that hey I am actually the source of rest. I am the one bringing healing. I am the one bringing deliverance. I am the one doing all these things. So, I’m going through this theological um in-depth just kind of uh learning and and relearning, unlearning, and I get to a point where I’m just like, God, like this thing is so strong on my heart. And I’m I’m out on a walk and I’m listening to a podcast. I’m I’m on a prayer walk. I’m talking to God. And I just feel this impression on my

Heart. And I just feel like God, like the Holy Spirit is saying, you are going to testify about your experience in Adventism on a podcast. And in my mind, I’m like, okay. Like, cool. Like, I’ll probably do that 5 10 years down the road when I’ve switched lanes in career. I’m maybe in hospital chapency or doing something else and I’m just living my life and I’m not dependent upon them for a paycheck. A week later, less than a week later, just really a couple days, uh Ian Reyes, who is the host of the Better Than We podcast, reaches out to me and he says,

“Hey, bro. I really have been praying about this and I really just want to ask if you’d be willing to to be on my podcast. I know, you know, you’re an SDA pastor. I know, you know, this may uh cause some controversy, but, you know, I I just really want to extend the invitation because it’s been on my mind.” As soon as I saw that, I was like, “This is what the Lord was talking about. This is it.” Because he wanted me to talk about my experience in Adventism. And uh we ended up getting into a conversation about esquetology. I was sharing about Hebrews chapter 4 and

My findings and and how uh the seal of God interpretation of Ellen White contradicts Paul and how Paul says that the seal is uh the Holy Spirit. He says that in Ephesians 1:13, Ephesians uh 4:30, he says that in 1 Corinthians, I forgot the exact passage in 1 Corinthians, but he says that mo three times in in the New Testament. And you know, Ellen White goes on to say that it’s the Sabbath that it’s talking about. And you know, her along with many Adventists will use texts that are completely out of context in Exodus or Ezekiel or wherever to say that this is

The seal of God when again completely removed from the original context, not even connected. Um, we know in context that has to do with Israel. But yeah, so all of this is taking place. I end up speaking on the podcast and eventually um it’s released and it was quiet for about a week and then about a week later uh the president of my conference uh came to visit me at my church and sat me down and basically said hey like a lot of people had shared with me about this podcast and you know I listened to it and you know we talked a little bit about the theology but by the end of it

You know he basically said like hey if you continue believing what you leave, we’re going to have to go our separate ways. And, you know, he basically said, you know, if you’re willing, you know, uh we could go through a process where we can sit down with other theologians and leaders and pastors and and maybe try and uh talk things out to see where we land. And I was like, okay, just out of respect, I said, okay, like let’s let’s do it. Let’s let’s conversate. Um the first meeting I had, you know, the the pastor basically didn’t even believe that the old covenant and new covenant

Were different. He basically said it’s the same thing. And just off of that alone, I was like, we’re not going anywhere with this because that is completely incorrect. Um you know, ended up meeting and and having more conversations with the president. He was trying to reach out to people from you know uh higher positions of of authority and uh they were not even willing to sit down and talk with me because they were afraid uh that you know this thing would go public or I don’t know what. So eventually um after having you know about two weeks of conversations

Uh sat down with the ministerial director and and we were just talking and uh you know basically by the end of it it was just like you know what the the feelings are mutual I think it’s best for me to to resign and I ended up resigning um and you know the whole aftermath that came after I mean Spectrum magazine which is a uh advent Venice Journal covered it and that made it blow up into a whole worldwide thing where I had professors from Andrews University reaching out to me saying, you know, what was going on. They wanted to check in on me and yeah, it it was a

Whole thing. Um, but in essence, once the seal of God interpretation as as the Sabbath by Ellen White, as soon as that was dismantled in my theological structure, everything else began to fall as well. Um, if the seal of God is is not the Sabbath, then that means that the SDA church is not the remnant. If the SDA church is not the remnant, then they are not the group that was formed and called after uh 1844 to be the ones to proclaim the the judgment hour of Revelation 14. If that’s not the case, then that means uh you know, as Desmond Ford said that

Jesus ascended into uh the most holy place into the at the right hand of the father, meaning you know, he’s he wasn’t in the holy place up until 1844 and then waiting for the investigative judgment to start in 1844. And then from there forward, that’s where you have uh you know, the end times. and and and you know if if the Sabbath is not the seal then that means the opposite is the mark of the beast is not the Sunday law because that’s not the point of contention here. So literally the entire structure and and even the authority of Ellen White now falls apart because if

She’s wrong about the seal of God which is the climax of the great controversy narrative literally from patriarchs and prophets which the the main issue in patriarchs and prophets in the beginning is uh is over the law supposedly Ellen White says that the devil was claiming that God’s law could not be kept which is not found in scripture but basically from that point forward all the way to the great controversy uh the book great controversy which is the last book in her series of books that point is like every narrative there’s there’s a conflict and there’s a

Resolution that conflict of you know you cannot Satan’s saying that the law can’t be kept um you know again not found in scripture but that conflict the the resolution has to be tied to that conflict and the resolution is the Sabbath being the seal of God. The Sabbath separating the sheep from the goat uh in in the final judgment because um you know this this is the point of contention because this is all about God’s law. The whole narrative is about God’s law and if God’s law is not kept then God’s character is is uh defamed and there’s a whole thing but

Essentially the once you dismantle the seal of God everything else falls apart literally like 7th day Adventist theology like their purpose right now like as as an institution maybe not all individuals but as an institution they are literally waiting for for the Sunday law to take place so that the persecution can take place of the remnant and so that Jesus can come back to to save the remnant, those who keep the commandments of God, uh including the Sabbath according to Ellen White. So, this is a huge thing that I didn’t even realize was a huge thing. You know, I’m

Here just trying to study Hebrews chapter 4 and I it leads me to this whole thing about the seal of God and literally the whole Adventist theological structure is just dismantled before my very eyes once that is dismantled and once 1844 is dismantled. um as you know Jesus entering into the most holy place which again Desmond Ford covered that the book of Hebrews says very clearly that Jesus entered behind the veil meaning into the most holy place in the heavenly sanctuary. So the whole 1844 thing is not even um is not even a thing of him entering into the

Most holy place. So yeah, that was a lot. But um you know, the point that I’m trying to get to is that it it was a domino effect. Once one domino fell and especially a very important domino being the seal of God, being the climax of the narrative, everything else from the beginning of the narrative all the way till the end of the narrative is it it just falls like a house of cards. Bro, there is so much there that I want to speak into because I am a jabberjaw and I I could talk to a stump if I thought it was listening. Um, they’re just I mean, you hit the nail on

The head and you your experience is like millions of other people out there. It’s like when I remember the exact day where it dawned on me that as an Adventist, what made me distinct and separate from Christians was not the Sabbath. Yeah. Wasn’t the Sunday law, wasn’t the health message, and that I was a vegetarian, all this. It was that I had a totally different world view. Yeah. I had beliefs that weren’t coming from the Bible that I had always been told are biblical and were being taught from the pulpit as you know Satan’s Satan’s greatest charge against God was

That his law is not fair. Halt. Hold up. Where are you getting this book, chapter verse? Tell me. Tell me this. Where’s the book chapter and verse? It’s not there because it’s not coming from the Bible. But there’s no receive. But a the average Adventist does not understand the interconnectedness of this single claim and the fact that it can’t just be handwaved away from the system. All of SDA theology folks, folks that are regulars around here, you have heard me beat this drum for years at this point. I’m constantly talking about this. The great controversy narrative is what

Informs all of SDA theology. We look at Herbert Douglas December 2000 Ministry magazine on this all the time. his article, what is the great controversy theme? And he explains and he uses the term the the formal term that they’ll use for what you described is their doctrines are mutually supportive clusters of ideas. They are necessary all to be believed to keep the cluster together. If you remove one of those cl one of those particles from the cluster, the whole thing falls apart. You have to have the whole system. And we’re going to look at one of those in

Particular that they must have that in more recent years they’ve tried to distance themselves from, but it is a part of this mutually supportive system. But there’s a couple things you mentioned there that I would just want to hit on in passing because I’ve just been sitting here ruling on them and they were just so good. You mentioned Romans 5. Yeah. Romans 5 is well just the whole book of Romans. when you understand what Paul was addressing um and you understand that Romans is a powerhouse. I can I can prove to you all of Christian Orthodox teaching from the book of Romans alone.

That’s all you need. Um I I I can basically teach or or show you the entire Apostles Creed from the book of Romans. Um now there’s some things it’s not obviously all going to be verbatim there. There’s other places that things like the virgin birth are going to be verbatim stated, but they can still be proven through good and necessary deduction. Um, but the book of Romans is just a powerhouse. And you you mentioned Romans chapter 5. Yeah. And there’s such a key thing that I also realized in Romans 5 very early on, and I’m going to use the technical terms here. Um, I didn’t know

Those at the time, but what you ultimately described is active the active and passive obedience of Christ. Now, the Adventist Church and her scholars, I don’t know how much you keep up with these things, but like in the book, uh, I cite it pretty regularly here. um salvation contours of adventist otiology. It’s supposed to be this new staple work that this, you know, it’s this amalgamation. Yeah. Correct. And it’s got, you know, Richard Davidson has a chapter in there. Um a variety of people all have chapters in there and they’ve all contributed

Basically. Well, it’s in Richard Davidson’s chapter where he’s he’s trying to essentially poo poo on Calvinism. And so he mentions in that chapter though that the idea of the active and passive obedience of Christ being imputed to the believer. He tries to pigeon hole this as that’s Calvinism because that’s one of their favorite boogeymen. I don’t know how much you’re you’ve encountered that in seminary or whatnot, but that’s one of the uh the favorite boogeymen that I run into from Adventists. Anytime you say something that disagrees with their

System, they just handwave it away as well that’s Calvinism. No, folks, the passive and active imputed righteousness of Christ by virtue of his passive and active obedience, that’s just standard Protestant theology. Yeah, that’s just Lutheran believe this. Lutheran are not Calvinists. So, this is just standard Protestant theology. And it’s because that’s what scripture teaches. And if you don’t understand both of those, that’s what gets them in hot water regarding the often cognitive dissonance that Adventists will run into when you disagree with what they’re

Saying about obedience. Because ultimately in the Adventist system, I know every Adventist individual doesn’t necessarily say this, but from a systematic standpoint, the system teaches that your obedience maintains your righteous standing before God. They affirm what is called covenantal nomism. You’re in by faith. you’re kept by obedience. And they’ll try and say that, well, no, that’s not work salvation, just like the early covenantal gnomes did in the first century with Jesus um or or during Jesus’s day. But the active and passive obedience of Christ is so c

Is so important to understand because Jesus was perfectly obedient not just in his active decisions, not just that he didn’t lie, not that he didn’t just he didn’t kill people, he was perfectly obedient in his passive actions as well. meaning he went to the cross willfully. He never committed a sin of omission or commission. He never was not doing what he should have been doing. That’s the standard. Total perfection. Never breaking the law a single time. Not you’ve broken it who knows how many times, but well Jesus comes and he gives you a doover and now no. The law makes

No provisions for that. This is why and then you get into the law gospel distinction which they don’t understand that the law is anything in scripture essentially that uh commands or or tells you dos and do nots. Salvation does not come from that. All that the law can bring is condemnation for anyone that’s violated it a single time. And this is the problem that Paul is laying out in Romans 1 through3. Jews would have been tempted to think, “Well, right, those dirty Gentiles, but I’m not one of them.” And he says, “No, no, no, no, no. Do you not even understand the Old

Testament scriptures which clearly attest to this that all of us are under the same condemnation? And then he transitions like you mentioned into Romans chapter 5 where he essentially says all of us are in Adam, the first Adam being his fallen parogeny. We’re guilty in him as well as for our own actions that we commit um that are that are sinful. But all of that to say, you need a perfect passive and active obedience to be seen as righteous in God’s sight. And only Jesus Christ can give that to you. And that’s exactly what Paul is talking about there when he

Talks about being transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, transferred from the first Adam to the second Adam. And it’s only by being found in him that you can be seen as righteous. You mentioned the uh the Perry’s podcast as well, which was so funny because part two that part two that you mentioned was supposed to be me and Pastor Thunder. It was supposed to be the both of us and Ty Gibson and Ivor Myers. Now, they publicly have gone on record saying they weren’t invited. They would have shown up had they been invited, and this was

Kind of a whole scuffle for a bit, but they they know that they know the the the private record shows. So, they know and they know that once they found out that we were going to be there, they didn’t want to show up. They wanted to just go on there where they could talk with the Perry’s and Eric Mason and basically bamboozle them because the Perry’s and the Masons don’t understand the language barrier. That’s a key component. I’m talking about this all the time on this platform is how the dangers of Adventism is scaling the language barrier. An example of this is

You mentioned at the very beginning of your your short testimony there or your your summary of your testimony there that you came to realize salvation’s by grace through faith. I can’t tell you how many times all the Adventists in the in the audience are thinking we believe that. We believe that. And that’s an example of you have to scale the language barrier. What do you mean by that? And you summarized it very clearly. You’re saying that the active and passive obedience of Christ is essentially a part of salvation by grace through faith. It’s strictly on

The basis of Jesus alone. It’s not that Jesus made something possible and then you come alongside him to vindicate him from Satan and all these accusations and all this other stuff that comes with it. Now, the Adventist system has redefined grace as well. They essentially see grace as an enabling force to essentially allow you to do something you couldn’t do otherwise, not understanding that that mercy and grace are two sides of the same coin. Um, and they’re basically interconnected and that’s not exactly what grace is. Um, you it’s funny actually you you you

Brought up the Perry’s and uh last week I was on the phone. Do you know David Astric? Yes. Yeah. So David and I talked on the phone because I did a response to him and Tai in a Q&A that they did where they brought up, “Is Adventism a cult?” And it was essentially Yeah. So he took umbrage with that video and so he made it sound like he wanted to come on here and have a discussion, but he wanted to talk on the phone first. Well, all that that turned into was him wanting to grill me for an hour and a half, which that’s fine. Um, I was like, “Okay, you know, but eventually toward

The end of it, I wanted to kind of switch and and say, uh, well, I’m going to I’m going to grill you on some things now.” and the conversation took a a drastic turn at that point, but um he was kind of trying to put forth the same sort of thing. You you mentioned something in there that was just very similar to kind of the approach he was trying to take of this like, well, none of those sources have any authority over me as an Adventist. He he basically wanted to argue. So, we were talking about the great controversy theme. I said, “Hey, David, can you show me

Anywhere in scripture? Do you do you believe that uh before the creation of the earth Jesus was or Satan began accusing the ten commandments that saying it was unfair because he was trying to essentially put forth this idea that Adventist just Adventism just believes the Bible. He’s like I don’t go to ministry magazine. I don’t go to any of these other things. I just go to the Bible. I just and they love doing that. I just go to the Bible. And I said okay. I said do you believe that uh uh Satan began accusing Yeah. I was like do you believe that

Satan began accusing the Ten Commandments uh prior to the creation of the earth? Well, he knows the logical next question I’m going to ask is, “Okay, book, chapter, and verse if you just believe the Bible.” Well, he didn’t answer that. He didn’t answer that question because he knew the elephant in the room is, “Right, you guys don’t only believe the Bible. So, stop saying this. You do believe the great controversy theme. Don’t tell me that what Herbert Douglas is saying is his own private opinion.” No, it’s not. It’s being published in Ministry magazine. But he

Basically essentially told me, now I’m paraphrasing here, but he essentially told me, “Well, the Adventist Church is not responsible for what it publishes in its own official publishing arms.” I said, “Well, isn’t that convenient?” He said, “Well, is every Lutheran and every Presbyterian responsible for uh what a Lutheran or a Presbyterian publishes?” Well, that’s a category error. You’ve now jumped from the the Presbyterian church, for example, and the Lutheran church are not set up in the same way the Adventist church is. The Adventist Church is set up like a

Corporation such that they can even have an official publishing arm that publishes books like that. We don’t have that. Presbyterians, for example, we have Banner of Truth. Banner of Truth is just a a a publishing arm of people who are Presbyterians. It’s not an official publishing arm of the uh of the Presbyterian Church. Yet, if you go to the Review and Heralds website, which is the example I gave him, I said, “Go on there and read the about me page. What does it say?” He brought it up on the phone. I said, ‘Do does it not say it’s the official publishing arm of of the

Seventh Adventist Church? Well, see, here’s the And then we got no answers. So, there’s really no removing these sorts of things. All these things that you mentioned about patriarchs and prophets and all these added details. I know all the claims that Adventists make. I know all the claims. She doesn’t contradict the Bible, right? But she’s bringing details to the text that are not found in the text. and you’re claiming that because they don’t contradict what’s there, they’re biblical. Well, no. I could do that same thing. I could say Jesus woke up on, you

Know, Wednesday of the fifth week of the the year five and he ate, you know, this with his parents and did this. Well, it doesn’t contradict the Bible. Jesus would have had to have eaten food, right? Well, no. The Mormons do the same thing with the Book of Mormon. They just bring a bunch of added details to the text that they claim, well, it doesn’t contradict the Bible, so therefore it’s biblical. No, it doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t work that way. So, yeah. Yeah. Really quick. Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. Let me let me just say this, man. like as you’re speaking like I I think I

Think Christianity needs to because you know there’s this whole history with the SDA church trying to present itself as a Christian denomination and you know the book Kingdom of the Cults and the whole history of that um but I I think Ellen White’s writings need to be categorized in the same way that you just mentioned as a Book of Mormon. Yep. It has to be seen in that way. Yep. And I I think this honestly it has been presented as oh she’s just a Christian author you know she’s just you know a nice she’s just a commentator. No she’s not in in when you dissect the theology when

You dissect the fundamental beliefs when you dissect um you know even the the books and articles being produced by the seminary they have to be within the bounds of Ellen White’s writings. Yep. or if they’re not, they are cast out. Right? So, it has to be categorized as as a Book of Mormon of sorts because it is extra biblical. It is adding extra information, but it’s not just merely commentary. Yeah. And so, if you go back and watch the uh the discussion, speaking of Kingdom of the Cults, with uh Walter Martin and William Johnson on the John Ankerberg Show, there’s a clip that I’ve

Clipped out of that that I show periodically and I show them how the language game is played in Adventism. And exactly what you just said is exactly what William Johnson said about Dez Ford, but he didn’t word it that way. He he worded it in an innocuous way. He asked, Walter Martin asked, “Why if pastors showed me or the book Questions on Doctrine was published in response to the Kingdom of the Cults, and you’re insisting, “No, we’re just evangelicals.” That was the thesis. We’re just like you, brother. If that’s the case, why is there a massive firing

That’s taking place of all these pastors that are saying, “I simply uphold what’s in questions on doctrine.” And William Johnson’s response was, quote, “We at Glacier View, we didn’t see light in his interpretation.” Meaning what he said was checked against Ellen White and the spirit of prophecy and it didn’t jive with what she said because that’s how she functions. I get Well, I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I want to preface my next question very specifically and you’ve basically already answered it, but I do want to

Have this on record so it’s just very clear. We don’t have to sit on this very long because again, I think we’ve made this point very clear and I make this very clear on my platform, but I want people to hear it from you. I’m not asking this pertaining to individual Adventists, the people, but Seventh Day Adventism, the ism, the system, and its teachings. Do you believe Seventh Day Adventism to be a valid Christian denomination? If not, why not? That’s the question, man. Just based off of why I lost my job, that tells me that it’s not. So, the the

Seal of God being the Sabbath literally compromises the gospel. Yep. And the core of what Christianity is, the message that Paul and Peter and Thomas and Matthew and all these guys gave up their lives, being hung upside down on a cross, being boiled alive in a pot of oil, being cast out to remote islands. They did all this for the sake of the gospel. What is the gospel? We could do a whole theological uh you know unpacking of what that is, but essentially it is that Jesus Christ through his death, resurrection, and ascension has purchased salvation for us that he

Gives to us for free when we believe in him by faith. That’s the facts. That is salvation. And we receive as part of that gift is the presence of God living in us. Yep. Ephesians 1:13 literally says that in 13 and 14, Ephesians 113 and 14, the Holy Spirit living in us is the guarantee of our salvation. Bro, if if if Oh man, I get so we’re we’re gonna get Let’s pause there real quick because we’re gonna get to looking at that in a little bit and we still have a little bit that we need to get to because I definitely want to make sure we get to everything tonight.

But this is this is good. This is really good. Um, yeah, as you can imagine, answering Adventism gets messages from Adventists constantly claiming that I’m misrepresenting what the SDA church teaches regarding the writings of Ellen White. These are typically the sources I show on this in light of everything we’ve said, folks. You tell me if I’m misrepresenting. First, Chris just mentioned in passing, just not by name, the statement of confidence in the writings of Ellen White. I show this constantly. This is a portion of it. It’s about half of it.

Notice what they say. Quote, “We reaffirm our conviction that her writings are divinely inspired, truly Christc centered, and Bible-based. Rather than replacing the Bible, they uplift the normative character of scripture and correct inaccurate interpretations of it derived from tradition, human reason, personal experience, and modern culture. We commit ourselves to study the writings of LG White prayerfully and with hearts willing to follow the councils and instructions we find there. Whether individually, in the family, in small groups, in the classroom, or in

The church, a combined study of the Bible and her writings provide a transforming and faith uplifting experience. We encourage the continued development of both worldwide and local strategies to foster the circulation of her writings inside and outside the church. The study of these writings is a powerful means to strengthen and prepare his people for the glorious appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Close quote. So folks, catch everything that’s in there. Her writings uplift the normative character of scripture. They’re the infallible interpreter. You

Won’t understand the normative character of what the Bible’s actually saying without her writings. They’re divinely inspired and they correct inaccurate interpretations. If you are like Chris and you provide an an interpretation of Hebrews 4 that you genuinely through sound exeetical and sound hermeneutical principles can prove your new conviction by, nope. It doesn’t align with the spirit of prophecy. It’s wrong and it’s going to be rejected. I also often show this article from the review and herald that Adventists love to tell me was one lone individual’s

Mere opinion despite it being published in the organization’s official publishing arm and saying essentially the same thing we just read which was a statement from 2015. Quote Protestants have always claimed that the Bible is its own interpreter. Perhaps it’s better to say that the spirit of prophecy. We use the term here as synonymously with the gift of prophecy or testimony of Jesus is its own interpreter. The Bible is an infallible guide, but it needs to be infallibly interpreted to avoid confusion and division. Close quote. Now, there are others I’ve shown like in

The fundamental beliefs book, but very clearly they view Ellen White’s writings as an infallible interpreter of the Bible when she is commenting on any given passage. Without her writings, you’ll be left in confusion and division, which is precisely in line with the fundamental beliefs book regarding what they claim her role in the movement is. In chapter 18, they speak of how the prophetic gift in the New Testament is supposed to function. They list six ways. One of them is the following quote. Prophets helped to bring about the unity of the faith,

Protect the church against false doctrines, so believers would no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Close quote. Now, I could keep going with source after source after source, but this is very clearly what the organization has taught and presently teaches. So Chris, my question for you, h and I know people in the audience are wondering this as well. How did you see her writings function in the seminary? And why do you think so many Adventists

Vehemently deny that the organization does indeed teach this despite the obvious fact that they do? Yeah, as I mentioned, um her her writings are like the fence of the dog park. You can have fun, you can do whatever you want inside, but once you go outside of that, that’s when you’re in trouble. So, you’ll have a lot of new ideas, a lot of new concepts, a lot of, you know, uh, seemingly progressive ideas presented, but it has to be in line or or inside the bounds of what she has said. So you have, you know, certain professors that are really strong and will, you know,

Use her writings constantly in class. You have others less so. Um, but again, overarching theme is that you’re not going outside of the bounds of Ellen White’s writings of as you have just showed on the quote of the infallible interpreter. Um, yeah. And and it makes sense. I mean, you can’t have a job as a Seventh Day Adventist theologian at the university and not be within the bounds of, you know, this individual and and her writings. And even attributing the title Spirit of Prophecy to her body of writings is is blasphemous to be honest. It’s it’s actually really scary because

The spirit of prophecy is the Holy Spirit and you are literally calling the body of writings that this woman has written, you are calling it the Holy Spirit. And you need to be very careful with that because in the same way when we have conversations daytoday, you can’t just say, you know, everything that this person is saying or everything this person is writing is is straight from the Holy Spirit. Um, so yeah, that I think that kind of answers um, you know, generally speaking. Yeah. And that’s essentially what they’re saying here when they say that

The spirit of prophecy is is or the testimony of Jesus is its own interpreter. What they’re saying here and the argument I often often hear from say professors or scholars when I’m talking with those types is no, no, no, we’re just saying that Jesus is the one interpreting the Bible. He just uses means. He uses a vessel. We’re not saying that it’s Ellen. Why? And you get these slippery word games where it’s like, “No, dude, that you guys are saying this.” Or they’ll try and do the the Hail Mary attempt of like, “We’re not saying the Spirit of Prophecy is

Ellen White. We’re saying the Spirit of Prophecy is Jesus.” Right? Which you claim Jesus was speaking through her. Come on, man. Like, stop with the games. All these statements are out there. Now, brother, we have to address this. I typically do not do this, but just because um this is exactly what I’m talking about. Exactly what I’m talking about. Michael, please listen, sir. Please listen. He says, “Exactly.” So, salvation’s not just by faith alone. We need to keep the commands also. That’s why James mentions in chapter 2 10-11 to not commit adultery because we should be

Keeping the law. This is what I’m saying, folks. Adventists will hear you disagree with their aberrant theology, and immediately they jump to, “You’re an antonyomian. So, you just think we can live however we want. You think Michael, you don’t understand the proper category of works. You are saved by faith alone because you’re only saved by Jesus and what Jesus did. You can’t add anything to that. And actually, it’s aberrant that you would say what Jesus did is not enough. You have to add something to what he did. Recognizing this does not therefore mean that I live lentiously.

It doesn’t mean I don’t have a desire to follow Christ. It means we properly understand the category of obedience. And as I’ve shown numerous times on this platform before, folks, the Adventist Church by way of Ellen White, who again they esteem to be an authoritative source higher than any living Adventist today, she openly claimed in the book Faith and Works, pages 99 through 101. You can read the whole stanza since they’ll say you’re taking it out of context. She plainly states, “A person maintains their justification by their obedience to the law.” False. That’s not

The proper role of obedience. And if you believe that, you have a false gospel. What you are saying is that what Jesus did is not enough. You have to do something else. And Jesus only made something a possibility. That’s not the gospel. That’s not the gospel. But all right, with what you said in mind, I want to look at a quote from Ellen White and then I’m going to have another question for you. Okay. This is from the SDA Bible commentary and it’s originally coming from the October 13, 1904 issue of Review and Herald. Quote, “Those who have held the beginning of

Their confidence firm unto the end will be wide awake during the time that the third angel’s message is proclaimed with great power. During the loud cry, the church, referring to the SDA church, aided by the providential inner positions of her exalted Lord will diffuse the knowledge of salvation so abundantly that light shall be communicated to every city and town. The earth will be filled with the knowledge of salvation. So abundantly will the renewing spirit of God have crowned with success the intensely active agencies that the light of present truth will be

Seen flashing everywhere. Close quote. So there is a mountain of statements from various sources that we could look at that state this same thing, not just Ellen White. The SDA church allegedly has the definite article, the message of salvation, and they are taking this message to the rest of the world. No one else has it, only them. You were theologically trained at the flagship SDA seminary, which means you were trained to teach and spread this unique message of salvation. So my question for you, what did the SDA church teach you was the message of

Salvation? Yeah. So it’s very interesting because my my experience was that I had this very orthodox SDA message before I went to seminary and I was invited to preach online. I was invited to preach again in different countries. But once I got to seminary and once I heard this preacher preaching on Romans, I was preaching a completely different thing than what these people were kind of saying we had to preach. In my mind, I was trying to minimize the cognitive dissonance of the fact that these are two completely different messages. But in essence, you know, Revelation 14,

We could go really deep into it. I kind of don’t want to. It’s just a lot. But in essence, Revelation 14 is uh talking about the three angels messages. It’s talking about how uh first there’s this everlasting gospel that’s going out that uh you know people are are receiving this this gospel message which you know they will affirm that this is the gospel of of Jesus Christ um that we’re talking about even though it’s not fully understood in the way we’re talking about it. Um then you go into the second and third angel’s messages which in essence the point is that they are they

Are calling people out of uh these false movements these these false organizations that are worshiping God on Sunday and they are trying to call them back into worshiping God on the Sabbath because that is uh when uh or the the mark of the beast is coming which they believe is the Sunday law. So they need to call them out of Babylon, which again in their view is their Sunday churches. Basically, that’s the main focus. They they’ll say that it’s a little bit broader, but that really is the main focus. And bring them into the remnant so that as the mark of the beast is being

Applied, they will be sealed because they’re keeping the the the Sabbath. Um, and yeah, so so in essence, like if you really boil it down to the core of of what this three angels messages or what this Adventist gospel or what Ellen White’s gospel is, it’s really about, hey, you need to come out of these other churches and you need to keep Sabbath because this is what’s going to save you. So yeah, that’s the most blunt way that I could describe it. and underlying every ministry, underlying evangelism, underlying the way that they target other Christian ministers and other

Christians rather than really focusing on non-believers. Their focus is on, you know, oh, you’re a Christian. Like the example that you gave earlier of this guy who messaged you saying that Doug Bachelor is preaching in New York. I’m sure somebody was like that person that invited him was like, “Oh, this is a this is a Christian and he’s open and he doesn’t know about Seventh Day Adventism. He’s not closed off. So, let me invite him to Doug Bachelor to this grand event and he’s going to be so impressed and, you know, with all the lights and everything and all the all

The Bible verses that he’s going to be like, “Wow, you know what? I need to be a Seventh Day Adventist.” But I’m glad that he looked it up because now it’s like, you know, it’s clear what is being preached. That’s a perfect summation that and that’s not what the apostles preached. Paul says in Romans chapter 1, not even close. The gospel is a message that is the power of God to salvation for all that believe it. And we used to do open mics. We’re going to start doing these again, folks. Don’t don’t fret. Um it’s been a minute since we’ve done those. There’s

Just been so many things that um we’ve had to just knock out or take care of that we haven’t had really an opening to to do one of those. But we’re going to start doing those again. And I used to do this. Step on up. An Adventist would step up and I would just say, “All right, explain the gospel for me. Like, share the gospel with us.” And it turns into this 15inute long thing about the sanctuary and following Christ in the sanctuary and the seven steps of the sanctuary and the labor and all this imagery from the sanctuary that’s supposed to be typological of us

Paralleling Jesus who went through these seven steps and all this craziness and I’m like dude let me just say this as a pastor especially as a pastor going into again a more orthodox more traditional field knowing the gospel. I actually asked people and I asked them directly. I said, “What? Tell me what the gospel is.” Like I would be upfront and test these members and you know it would be like laughs and it would be it would be fun until like 10, 15, 20 people later after asking this question. Nobody knew what it was. Nobody could tell me what the

Simple message, the good news is to the point where I had to do a whole threemon sermon series on the book of Galatians to show them for the first time people that have been in the church for 50 years, 60 years, their whole lives. And the fact that I did not know the gospel for almost for for five six years until I came across this one preacher is crazy to me. And that tells me that that the flaw is is is not just mere uh you know extremists or or a certain side of Adventism, but it’s like built into the disciplehip pathway of this institution.

Y is is is a belief system that actually doesn’t allow you to see even when it’s right in front of your eyes in scripture. It it literally it’s like it puts on scales on your eyes so you literally are not able to see in the text the pure gospel. Yep. Yeah. It’s a that’s why I call it the theological fog. It pumps all this extra stuff into your head that causes you to get so distracted on all these things you can’t see the simple truth of the gospel. I used to ask when I was at SDA university. Now I had I had recently left Adventism within like a year of

Going to an SDA university. And I I went there for a number of reasons, but one of the reasons was I saw it as an opportunity as a mission field. I’m I’m going to go here and and work on sharpening my theological sword and engage with Adventists. I engaged with hundreds of Adventists. And what I used to do is simply go to lunch, you know, whatever it be with friends, and I would just lob that bomb out there in the the small group or like, you know, we had to go to like uh what was that like convocation and like we had to we had like these these like

I don’t remember what they were called, but they were like these small groups that there was like signups for campuswide like type things. And I would just Yeah. I would just Yeah. I would just lob this bomb in there like, “Hey, what’s the gospel?” And you would get that. You get a lot of like chuckling and laughing and like kind of looking around and you’d hear all sorts of answers. And that’s because Adventism uses the word gospel colloquially. They use it in a way or like as a euphemism. Sorry. They use it as a catchall for the Adventist system of

Theology. Yeah. That’s not the gospel. The gospel the gospel means good news, right? And it’s intrinsically tied and the most succinct way of saying it, the gospel is the person and work of Jesus. That’s the gospel. So the Adventist church completely alters the gospel not just by what you mentioned, but by their whole entire great controversy paradigm. The entire paradigm alters why Jesus came. That includes his work. Why did Jesus come to earth? The great controversy paradigm says, well, to silence Satan, to vindicate the law, to demonstrate the law can never change and

That you can come to him and just like he did, you can rely completely on the spirit and you can walk like he did as the great example and you can silence Satan yourself. None of that stuff is the gospel. God’s not on trial. God doesn’t need vindicated. None of that has anything to do with the gospel. The gospel is the good news about what Jesus accomplished as well. Well, and this gets us into, you know, I could I could get really technical around it, but it’s the very simple message that you mentioned at its core. Yeah. Now, we have to address one other thing

Because this guy uh had a follow-up when we brought up his question. So, I want to just make sure that this is addressed because they tend to think that this is some sort of gotcha as if uh Protestants haven’t known about James 2 um for 600 years, 500 years. Um and even before that, I mean, it wasn’t just the reformers. Michael James is not talking about you need to stop doing word association fallacy. Just because the word justification is used in James chapter 2 and the phrase faith alone is used, you can’t now just import into that whatever you want. Context

Determines the usage of words. Words mean what they mean in context. The book of Gala uh the book of James is not talking about a person’s righteous standing before God. Theologians refer to this as he’s speaking about the horizontal, not the vertical, between personto person. And you’d know this if you started back in James chapter 1, the very first verse. Who does he say that he’s writing to? The diaspora, the dispersion of the Jews. This is more than likely after the persecution of the Jews in the Jewish holy wars and the destruction of the temple in AD70. They’re then dispersed

Out and James is writing to them. there clearly was some sort of questions around because they’re addressing something just like Paul in the epistles. He’s not just arbitrarily writing about stuff. He’s clearly addressing things that they were asking about. James is clearly addressing the question of how can I know a person that claims to be a follower of the way actually is. He’s addressing human to human. He then gets into chapter two where he well he ends chapter one by saying true undefiled religion is is shown by a person’s actions and he uses

The example of the poor and the widows etc. That’s true undefiled religion. He then transitions into chapter 2 and you have to start back at verse 14 Mr. Morgan because what does he ask rhetorically? He posits two types of faith. That’s the focus faith. He then says there’s a living faith and a dead faith. And he explains what a living faith is over and against a dead faith. But the whole focus of the chapter is on the fact that there’s a certain type of faith that saves and a type of faith that does not save. There’s a type of faith that even the demons have mere

Mental ascent. The sort of what I can’t stand is 20th 19th century American revivalist theology. Phineism, this idea of you need to get people real worked up emotionally at a tent revival to compel them to now come down and say a sinner’s prayer and now they’re going to heaven because they said a sinner’s prayer. They mentally checked some boxes in their head. Do you believe that Jesus is God? Yes. It’s not to say people can’t be saved that way and the spirit can’t use that. He does. But the point being that’s what James is essentially saying is that doesn’t save a person. But at

The end of the day, you have to start at verse 14. He says it’s faith that saves and it’s living faith. And yes, living faith has works that are attached to it. But the works are not what save along with the faith. It’s simply a living faith alone that does indeed save. He’s talking there when he talks about because they love to point and they’re not the only ones. I’m I’m assuming this guy’s an Adventist by the way he’s commenting, but um they’re not the only ones that point this out. So this isn’t some sort of gotcha thing. Just go back and read. And again, there’s people

Before the reformers that were bringing this up. Sorry. I just wanted to make sure that we addressed that before uh uh moving along because it’s just like I’m so sick of hearing Romanists and Orthodox etc. just constantly throughout James 2 as if it’s some sort of like the the Protestant teaching of of solid folks faith alone is not the claim. The term faith alone is in the Bible. So therefore that’s not the claim. It’s also not the teaching and belief of easy belieism. It’s faith alone in a specific context. And when you go and study it historically, ironically enough, the

Adventist Church is on the Roman Catholic side. They believe in a two-tiered system of justification. You’re initially justified by faith alone. But then over time, based on your obedience, that will determine if what the Adventist Church calls if you are escatologically justified. That’s what Rome is essentially teaching. Now, it’s not identical. All the Roman Catholics that watch this don’t lynch me but they have a similar thing because they tie justification and sanctification together in such a way that your justification is maintained by what you do. Solid is simply the

Response to that to say no faith alone justifies. Sanctification is a distinct and separate thing. It’s not one side believes in faith and works. The other side believes in just faith and you don’t have to do anything and your life won’t be marked by holiness or any of that sort of nonsense. Sorry, this is a personal irk with me because I get so sick of hearing the silly claim that’s it’s just like, dude, people the Bible has been around for a long time, folks. People know about these things. Study out what what the answers and stuff are and and study what the real issues are,

Etc. Now, piggybacking off of something that you said earlier, which is very important. I want to look at Ephesians 1, and we were just talking about the gospel and the simplicity of the gospel. Now, remember Paul says in Galatians 1, there’s only one gospel. any other gospel is cursed by God. He says this single gospel, Galatians 1:12, is what the apostles received by Jesus Christ himself. Jesus didn’t give the investigative judgment and the health message and young earth creationism and 7th day sabotarianism and all this other stuff to the apostles as the gospel. So in

Light of that, I will have a question for you after we read this. So it’s important for folks to understand. And Chris was mentioning uh context earlier and the importance of making sure you understand that this is a part of didactic scripture meaning it is plain teaching doctrine. It is not for example apocalyptic literature. It is plain didactic teaching. Sound hermeneutic principles teach us that when we study a particular doctrine we start with the clear and work our way to the unclear. We don’t start by building doctrine on apocalyptic passages, for example. We

Start with the clear, plain, didactic ones, then understand the less clear in light of that. So, we do a an entire look at all of scripture. What does all of scripture have to say on a subject? You start with the clear passages, then you work your way to the more obscure, not the other way around. But he starts off here in his epistle. We’re going to read Ephesians 1 3-14. He says, “Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him

Before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved. Now, pause really quick, Chris. Did you catch what Paul says? The purpose of all of this is is it God being on trial and he’s vindicating himself? No, that’s not what it says. It’s all about to the praise of his own glory. That’s why he’s doing it to glorify himself. And he’s completely right in

Doing such because he’s the sovereign. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven, and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so

That we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. in him. You also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. And thus, the reading of God’s holy and infallible word. So the Holy Spirit through the apostle begins with a beautiful summation of the good news about the person and work of Jesus Christ. Particularly though the benefits

Of being in Christ. He uses this phrase in Christ in Christ Jesus etc. This is used hundreds of times in the New Testament. I talk about this all the time. Those are phrases regarding union with Christ. But the person and work of Christ is what the gospel is. He reminds the church in Ephesus of all the blessings that they experience by b by virtue of being in union with Christ. There are a mountain of benefits that someone receives by virtue of being united to Christ by faith. They are seen as blameless. These are just the ones he says here. Blameless, holy, adopted,

Redeemed, and forgiven. And then in and then in verses 13 and 14 specifically, we are very plainly told how a person is brought to the point of being in him. When a person hears the word of truth, well, what is that? Well, he tells us the gospel of your salvation. And when you believe that gospel, he says, “You’re sealed with with with.” And I do the triple emphasis there to say it’s not by, that is later. That is Ephesians 4:30, which means it’s a both and, not an eitheror. Adventists love to say, “No, no, no. It’s you’re sealed by the Holy Spirit.” No, it’s a both and.

You’re sealed with the Holy Spirit, which is why you’ll now get some of them that will try and argue, well, there’s two seals. You’ll have the you’ll have the seal of the Holy Spirit if you have the seal of the law because people that have the seal of the law are filled with the spirit and they’ll have the desire to keep the law. That sort of thing wrong. The gospel of your salvation, you believe the gospel, you’re sealed with the Holy Spirit, which is a guarantee of all these blessings that we receive by being in Christ. So when a person is born again, they receive the Holy Spirit

As a down payment guarantee of what the gospel promises to a person. It’s like a down payment on a house. It gu it guarantees the acquisition of that house. The Holy Spirit is God’s down payment to us, the believer, that we will acquire what the gospel promises. You’re guaranteed. He’s going to resurrect you. He’s going to glorify you. You’re forgiven. You’re adopted. all these things. The Holy Spirit is the down payment guarantee of that. Well, what we just saw from Ellen White, she claimed that the message of salvation is tied to the SDA church’s present truth

Message that only they have, which the Apostle Paul clearly didn’t have in mind when he wrote this. What were you taught as an Adventist about the seal of God, and how does it square with Ephesians 1? I just want to really quick um I want to mention the Ephesians 4:30 uh comment you made because actually after I put out the document um the you know that I where I formulated my beliefs that led to my resignation um I had a conversation with an Adventist and you know Ephesians 4:30 in the Greek it actually says that we are sealed in the spirit. So even that argument that we are sealed

By the spirit is is like in the original language it’s not even the case. The word is n it’s it’s or in um in English. So just wanted to say that. So yeah, the Sabbath as the seal. Uh, man, there’s there’s so much to this. Uh, there’s so many quotes that Ellen White says in the great controversy regarding this, but essentially the seal and and this is kind of the argumentation, the line of thought that many Adventists use. They will say that a seal is something that has the name, the territory, and the title of the person. So they will say that logically and

Again now this is using logic human logic and this is not using what scripture says which actually you know they’re uh in that general conference uh session statement you said it’s that you know Illinois is supposed to correct these interpretations that logic is not supposed to be in the picture but they use logic to say that okay a seal in in uh in government terms has the name, the title, the territory, and there’s only one commandment in the ten commandments that has those three things present, and that’s the fourth commandment that talks about the Sabbath.

So, they will um say that the seal is found within the fourth commandment. So this is ultimately the thing. This is like the stamp of approval on God’s people when they keep the Sabbath because the again the name, the title, the territory is on them because they keep Sabbath. I find it just so interesting that they would give so much emphasis to that again which is just based on logical explanation and not even based on reading the text in context of Ephesians or first Corinthians. But it’s it’s so interesting that they would give more weight to the fourth commandment than

They will give weight to the Holy Spirit. Right? Like like if we’re talking about a stamp or if we’re talking about literally like a mark on somebody’s life to say that person is is that person belongs to God, they would say that the keeping of a certain day is the thing that sets them apart and not the actual living presence of that God in that person’s life. Like it’s it’s it’s amazing to me, you know, to even consider that like Yeah. And and again, this this argument really only has a little bit of leeway because they hold on to that Ephesians 4:30

Argument that they that uh they are sealed by the Holy Spirit, which again in the Greek it doesn’t even hold up. So we are sealed in the spirit, we are sealed with the spirit and uh that is the mark of belonging to God, of being a child of God. Right? Romans chapter 8 says that the those that are led by the spirit are the children of God. And you will not see Sabbath in that conversation. And you know even in in one of these initial conversations I had during the investigation that the conference was doing in my beliefs, I brought this point up. I said, “If Sabbath was such a

Big deal, like if if if God knew that this was going to be the end time issue and that this would separate the sheep and the goat, why didn’t Jesus include it in Matthew 25 in in the parable of the sheep and the goat?” Or why didn’t he, you know, just say it clearly in uh in the list of the works of the flesh, Sunday keeping and Sabbath breaking as works of the flesh along with adultery and and sexual immorality and pride and and division and all these other things. Why is it specifically this thing and it’s nowhere else found in scripture communicated clearly? It’s

Always an inference. It’s always like Revelation 14. Oh, it says that he’s the creator of the seas and and and the waters. So, this has to be talking about the Sabbath from Genesis. Like, all this reasoning is is not based on like the plain reading of the text. It always has to be an inference. It always has to be like, okay, this implies it. And it’s very hard to argue this in the New Testament because it’s not in the New Testament. The New Testament is very clear. Like Paul says it three times. Ephesians 1:13 and 14, Ephesians 4:30, and the other one’s in 1 Corinthians.

The the the reference is slipping my mind. You can look it up. Second Corinthians literally 12-22. 2 Corinthians 1:20. Yeah, thank you. So if if you have it repeated that many times and you still go against it, you are literally putting scripture aside and you are putting Ellen White above scripture. There’s no way you can get around that. If Paul has said it clearly three times, if it’s just in line with the rest of the New Testament, it’s in line with all of scripture and and you continue to go against it, that is called pride. And I I my heart

Really longs for my Adventist brothers and sisters. I I have no hatred. I have no anger towards any of them. I really do love them. And I’m I’m sad because even participating in conversations like these have uh you know a lot of my even close friends have have uh kind of cut off communication with me. But it’s it’s because I I love these people that I’m like yo just look at the text and stand for the text. If you really love Jesus, which I believe many of them do, stand on the text. Stop comp stop compromising because you grew up in this thing. Stop

Compromising because all your family and all your network and all this is all you know like your brothers and your sisters and your mother and your father are the ones who follow Jesus who are led by the spirit who who are are pushing the real gospel. So this is something I’m just so passionate about because yeah it’s it’s treated as a small thing. It’s pushed aside as a peripheral thing, but really it’s just people want to have an ethed conscience and they they minimize, they ignore. And it’s not until you have to come face to face with this thing that they say, you know what,

Yeah, this is an issue. But many times they don’t because some of them are in more progressive spaces or more liberal spaces, whatever you want to call it, but this is an issue. This is this is a a deeprooted institutional theological issue that is not going to go anywhere unless fundamental belief 18 is completely removed. And if that happens, the mutually supportive clusters fall apart. She she’s one of the mutually supportive clusters. She’s one of the seven pillars. And so it’s like you this is you’re just echoing Chris so many things that I’ve said for years. So many things

That I’ve said from this platform. I haven’t had this platform the entire time that I’ve left Adventism, obviously, but I’ve been saying this for a long time, folks. It it just you mentioned it. It’s like Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, all these groups. They have to build their whole system on the unclear. They’re completely backwards hermeneutically. They have to interpret the New Testament in light of the Old Testament when no later revelation in informs previous revelation. This is like hermeneutics 101. Yes. Yet they constantly try to

Interpret the New Testament in light of the Old Testament. No, you got it backwards. That’s why their whole sanctuary model, they think, which I like to to go along with them sometimes on that, by the way. I’m not going to go on a a rampage here, but like I’ll go along with some of that sometimes and just go with it and poke the holes, you know, that way to show even when you do that, there’s still errors. But they have to go another one. They have to go to the unclear instead of the clear. And they use the unclear to try and obscure the clear.

The veil has been lifted. in the New Testament. Yeah, exactly. I we had a guy reach out to us h it’s been about a year ago at this point, probably at least uh a year um who said he went before he left the Adventist church, he went to his Adventist pastor when he was questioning these things and he said he was reading it was another Galatians red pill. So he’s reading the book of Galatians and I mean you you get 10 verses in and you’re like whoa. He said he never really stopped to think about what it’s saying when it says if you have a different gospel you’re under

A curse. Like what does that mean? That’s that’s alarming. That should cause you to go hold up. That’s what I that’s why that’s why for me that was the thing for me that I was like I’m done. I can’t go back to the Adventist church. It doesn’t the Sabbath doesn’t matter. The remnant doesn’t matter. The health message doesn’t matter. Younger all this stuff. None of this stuff matters because right here any other gospel I don’t want to be under a curse from God. That’s scary. Whatever that sounds like serious enough. So he went to his pastor, his Adventist pastor at the time. He

Said, “Hey, I got a question for you.” So, and he said, “Ironically,” and it’s funny how God works like this so many times where like you’ll be kind of like your situation with the the podcast and whatnot, how it’s like you’ll be studying something or really contemplating praying over something and then you go to church that week and your pastor ends up preaching on like that exact thing. Well, he said there recently when this whole thing happened, his pastor had been teaching on the present truth message. Well, that’s the Adventist gospel. That’s essentially what he’s

Talking about. So he said when he’s reading Galatians, he took this to his pastor and he said, “Hey, I’m curious. How could the present truth gospel be present here in Galatians 1?” When Paul says there’s only one gospel, it would mean that the present truth gospel is different than that. You know what his adventist pastor told him? What he said that doesn’t apply to us. That was his response. That doesn’t apply to the Adventist church. Now, I don’t say that to say that’s the Adventist church’s official position or anything like that. I’m simply saying

Those are the sorts of things that people have to say to get around the plain didactic portions of scripture. It’s very clear. Ephesians 1 is very clear Ephesians one’s a powerhouse. It’s just like you hear the gospel, you believe that message, you’re sealed with the Holy Spirit under the day of redemption as a down payment. It’s so clear. There you go. And then you have to And then you have to establish what did Paul claim the gospel was? Yep. Well, Paul is essentially laying out the gospel in Romans 1 through essentially chapters uh roughly 10 to to

11 and then he transitions into 11 uh the end of 10 and uh through to 16. How do we now live in light of that? Chapters 1 through three he explains the sin problem. Chapters four, five, and six or or four and five he essentially explains the remedy to that problem. And he ironically uses Old Testament examples. David and Abraham in chapter 4. David was the blessed man who God does not impute or hold sin against. That doesn’t jive with the uh investigative judgment, but also to Abraham. So, he uses these two examples and talks about how it was by their

Faith that God reckoned them righteous. Um, and then you you mentioned earlier, for example, Ellen White’s patriarchs and prophets. I’m getting ready to do a video on this. Uh, I don’t know if it’s going to be this year or if it’s going to have to end up in January. Um, but we’re going to be looking at covenant theology because this is a huge huge area of um, well, there’s just a lot there. But Ellen White actually claims that with with Abraham, this is in patriarchs and prophets. She claims that with Abraham, Abraham passed through the cut animals.

No, Abraham was asleep. Mrs. Mrs. White Abraham was asleep. She makes it a b She makes it a bilateral covenant, not understanding that. No, no. Abraham was asleep and God alone passed through which if anyone knows anything about Suzar and Vassel treaties that was basically God saying if I break this covenant let me be like this animal it’ll never happen he’ll never break covenant and so um not understanding like those types of things though are what lead to these sorts of really botched just understandings of very clear plain didactic teaching. Now I

Want to transition to another subject. We’ve talked about it a little bit in passing. This is one that many Adventists vehemently deny and claim is outdated. I hear this all the time because it’s a subject I bring up all the time because it completely compromises the gospel. We talked about it a little bit earlier when we were talking about obedience. They’ll tell me the SDA church in no way, shape, or form teaches sinless perfectionism. That you must be totally sinless in order to be saved, be made right with God, etc. You must achieve total simus perfectionism before

The close of probation. I want to look at a number of quotes here. Bear with me, but I think this is important. I’ll have a question for you afterward. I’m going to read a number of them here because I want to really make sure the audience gets this. Okay, we’ve looked at most of these sources before. I have a couple of new ones in here just to spice things up. This first one is from the December 10, 1889 issue of the Review and Herald. They write, quote, “And Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” Genesis 5:24, “It’s only a short

Journey to the heavenly hills, brethren, if we walk with God.” In John 15:10, Jesus tells us he kept his father’s commandments. He did not say, “I’m trying to keep them.” But he says, “I have kept them.” So, it is not enough that we try to keep the commandments. We must keep them. The character of the saints is not established by their failures to keep the commands of God, but by their success in doing so. Those who simply try to keep the commandments are moral cripples. They do not walk with God. They simply hobble along after him. Close quote.

So Jesus as the example kept the law perfectly which is supposed to demonstrate that you can too. And as Chris is well aware, the Adventist Jesus is the great example in SDA theology. He’s supposed to be a picture of what you must do in order to inherit eternal life. So they claim it isn’t enough to say that you try your best to keep the law, but you must do so as perfectly as Jesus did. Those who try but fail are moral cripples that don’t actually walk with God but simply hobble along after him. which is why you then have statements like this a decade later

Or sorry uh yeah I guess a little over a decade later in the same publication from Ellen White the May 28 1901 issue of the review and Herald Ellen White stated God will test all even as he tested Adam and Eve to see whether they will be obedient our loyalty or disloyalty will decide our destiny since the fall of Adam men in every age have excused themselves for sinning charging God with their sin, saying that they could not keep his commandments. This is the insinuation Satan cast at God in heaven. But the plea, I cannot keep the commandments need never be

Presented to God. For before him stands the Savior, the marks of the crucifixion upon his body, a living witness that the law can be kept. It’s not that men cannot keep the law, but that they will not. Close quote. So, she ties this to the great controversy storyline. And like I mentioned earlier, this is something I constantly talk about. Perfect lawkeeping in the system is tied to silencing alleged accusations that Satan made in heaven before the earth was created. Namely, that the law can’t be kept. Ellen’s response is that the plea that one cannot keep the law should

Never be presented to God because the crucifixion marks of Jesus are supposed to show you that you can keep it perfectly. It isn’t that you can’t, but that you will not. Again, in the great controversy, not some obscure manuscript somewhere, they’re actively handing out millions of copies of this currently. I show this quote all the time. Quote, “Now, while our high while our great high priest is making the atonement for us, the investigative judgment, we should seek to become perfect in Christ. Not even by a thought could our savior be brought to yield to the power of

Temptation. Satan finds in human hearts some point where he can gain a foothold, some sinful desire is cherished, by means of which his temptations assert their power. But Christ declared of himself, “The prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me.” John 14:30. Satan could find nothing in the son of God that would enable him to gain the victory. He had kept his father’s commandments, and there was no sin in him that Satan could use to his advantage. This is the condition in which those must be found who shall stand in the time of trouble.

Close quote. So while the investigative judgment’s going on, probation is currently open. One must become perfect in Christ. She defined perfect in Christ here as being as sinless as Jesus was. And if one hasn’t achieved this before the close of probation, they will not make it through the time of trouble. So she used she does this constantly. She used Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness as a parallel to the time of trouble in the end times with Jesus being a picture for us of ourselves. Satan’s going to be seeking to tempt believers during this

Time. And only those that have arrived at total sinlessness will make it. Now many Adventists will appeal to the fundamental beliefs book which says stuff like this. quote, “Some incorrectly believe that the ultimate perfection that glorification will bring is already available to humans.” H but Paul wrote near the end of his life, “Not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that which for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do,

Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the price of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12-14. Sanctification is a lifelong process. Perfection now is ours only in Christ. But the ultimate allcomprehensive transformation of our lives into the image of God will take place at the second advent. Close quote. So they say that some incorrectly believe that ultimate perfection won’t come until glorification. That total sinlessness will only come at the second advent.

Which means that Ellen White herself was one of these in incorrect people who misled others because she contradicts this claim over and over again. Notice first from sons and daughters. This is her alleged inspired insight on first John 3:2 which says that when Christ returns we will be like him using that verse and then writing out her her message for the day because that’s a 365 book. She says, quote, “We’re not to settle down expecting that a change of character will come to us by some miraculous work when Jesus shall appear in the clouds of heaven with

Power and great glory.” No, my young friends, we’re judgment bound, and probation is granted to us here in this life in order that we may form characters for the future immortal life. Close quote. So the fundamental beliefs book outright contradicts this claim because she says the total perfection of one’s character must be achieved before the close of probation because no change in one’s character will take place at the second coming. This is precisely why probation is granted to people. She says right now and again this is supposed to be in accordance with 1 John 3:2. And she

Supposedly corrects inaccurate interpretations of scripture. And this isn’t a one-off for people that want to say, “Oh, that’s just one statement.” No. Again, in last day events, quote, “If you would be a saint in heaven, you must first be a saint on earth. The traits of character you cherish in life will not be changed by death or by the resurrection. You will come up from the grave with the same disposition you manifested in your home and in society. Jesus does not change the character at his coming. The work of transformation must be done now. Our daily lives are determining our

Destiny. Defects of character must be repented of and overcome through the grace of Christ. And a symmetrical character must be formed while in this probationary state that we may be fitted for the mansions above. Close quote. I mean, folks, it really doesn’t get more blatant and obvious than that. And I could keep going. So, the SDA church needs to figure out if their fundamental beliefs book is right or if Ellen is. The same fundamental beliefs book that tells us, like we saw earlier, she’s supposed to be this gift to the movement that helps them avoid confusion and

Division. Yet, that same fundamental beliefs book says people incorrectly believe that total sinlessness will only come at the resurrection and we’re all going to struggle with sin our whole lives. Yeah. Well, that confusion exists because of their own prophetus. And it’s why Adventists to the present day are so all over the place on this subject. This teaching isn’t just something that Adventists can brush away and say it’s antiquated and it’s no longer a reality within SDA theology. No, it may not be a reality to your neoadventist pastor. You

May not hear people talking about it, but when we’re talking about the system, no, it’s 100% integrated. It’s one of these mutually supportive clusters, a prepared people, which is also typically tied with the health message, but it’s tied to the great controversy paradigm. You have to attain to total sinlessness in this life before the close of probation in order to silence Satan’s pre-earth accusations and vindicate God. You can’t just handwave away that, you know, as some sort of, oh, we’ve moved on past that. No. the SDA theologians that I could show you countless the

Systematic theologians, Norman Gully, um you know, all these people that the the modernists love to say, well, those are conservatives. They just dismiss them. It’s like, no, those are guys that actually understand the system. Those are high IQ thinkers that understand you can’t just cherrypick this stuff. They tell us that the central crux of the great controversy storyline is the vindication of God. You achieving total sinless perfection before the close of probation is tied to that being successful. So, Chris, I know that was a lot, but again, I wanted to make sure

People really saw because I get a ton of push back on this. What were you taught as an Adventist, especially in seminary, regarding sinless perfectionism, and how did that impact your personal understanding of who God is? Yeah. in um in seminary actually uh a lot of professors write against uh what’s called last generation theology which is basically what you very concisely explained right that the that the last generation that the the remnant which again are the faithful ones even right now um need to be perfect need to be sinless in their in their acts so yeah there’s uh a book

That I that was actually put out by John Peekom along with some other scholars where they basically speak against this while at the same time upholding Ellen White which is um it’s hard to do because this is founded upon Ellen White’s writings. So in the seminary um yeah to be fair there were a handful of professors that wrote against this theology. Um, I didn’t get a chance to read the entire book, but you know that each professor has their own chapter in that book. I I think it’s uh God’s character in the last generation or something along those lines. The book

It’s it’s white and blue the cover. But yeah, so outside of that though, because in reality, Adventism is not like the seminary is not representative of Adventism at all. If anything, it is the small minority. I believe of uh you know theological perspectives of of Adventists. But when you go into the local church, especially to an Orthodox Adventist church, those that are reading Ellen White’s writings, those that are having, you know, book clubs and uh you know, gathering around her writings, you will find that they do uphold this and they they teach it strongly. And the

Implications of this theology is you you have an environment that is uh you have to tiptoe around people and you constantly in the back of your mind need to wonder if somebody’s watching you or if somebody’s judging you or if somebody’s, you know, looking at what you’re wearing or or whatever, right? There’s judgment of all kinds. And that’s the issue with um this kind of theology, of course, which is against the gospel. And again, I even said this in uh the other podcast with Ian Reyes, uh and you say it as well, theology matters. Theology is not just abstract

Conversation. It’s not just, you know, having fun about uh you know, talking about philosophy like the Greeks. No, the what we believe about God, what we believe about scripture, what we believe about the gospel, uh what we believe about ourselves, it impacts the way we treat people. It impacts the type of communities that are created, whether they be grace-based and are welcoming and and and tax collectors and sinners and prostitutes can come in, or you have a a law-abided environment like what the Pharisees set up where again, constant accusation, constant not

Feeling good enough, constant uh neuroticism, and and that’s really what Ellen White’s writings and and last generation theology really form in people’s hearts. and minds. I’m so I’m serving as the Christian mental health coach and I’m passionate about helping people to recover from these things because there are a lot of individuals including myself that struggled with like nightmares in the middle of the night waking up thinking that Jesus came and you got left behind or thinking that you know you forgot to repent before you, you know, fell asleep because uh

You know, you had committed a sin and and because of that you’re you’re not going to make it into the kingdom. So like there’s there’s this neuroticism. there’s this anxiety and this um yeah this this unstable heart and mind that that comes as a result of believing this and you know that’s why this is such a huge issue and that’s why defending the purity of the gospel is so important because like the fruit of the spirit like love, peace, patience, joy, kindness, gentleness, goodness, self-control, all of these things are a fruit of genuinely understanding and

Internalizing the the pure gospel. Like your life will look like Jesus when you understand the gospel and what you’ve what he’s done you know for you. Not as somebody who’s trying to uh you know behavior modification your way to salvation but as a natural expression of receiving a gift and and being grateful for that gift. But SDA theology, Illinois’s theology, last generation theology sets you up for a terrible life here and basically sets you up to be cursed as Galatians says. So, um, yeah. So, so that’s kind of how I learned in seminary. That’s how I, uh,

I heard most of this outside of seminary to be honest. Even with my peers, a lot of the young adults, you know, pastors and and chaplain and ministers at the seminary, they don’t believe in half of this stuff. They they really don’t. And that’s why like I don’t know what’s going to happen with the future of Adventism because these people are being sent out into these environments and either they’re going to lose themselves in the process or they’re just going to blow up, you know, the spot and leave like I did, you know. But we’re not setting people up for success.

We’re not. Yeah. So, the reason I wanted to ask that is because that is often a common defense. Now, this typically comes from SDAs that are really gung-ho and they’re really plugged in and they’re really studying and they’re real serious and you know, they’re going to put their cape on and they’re going to be, you know, Mr. Defender of Adventism type thing. Um, and that’s one of the common things that they love to say is that’s not taught in the seminaries. Like, come on, that’s an outdated whatever. And my point in bringing that up is to say that

What’s happening is you’re going to have, and this is the term I’ve coined and I’m going to keep using it because it’s accurate, you’re going to have tried and true by the book Adventism, and there’s going to be a split and you’re eventually going to have neo adventism. Yes. A new a new version of Adventism that’s really treats it more like a buffet line of like, well, we’ve just we’ve moved on from that. they they’ve been influenced by um you know evangelical types typically and so they’ve tried to embrace things from like a different system and a different worldview plug it

Into their own worldview but they are not typically integrative thinkers so they don’t stop to think like well how does this impact the rest of my system because again we always have to keep going back to this pre-earth origin story which informs all of SDA theology it informs the seal of God being the Sabbath it informs the health message it informs from sinless perfectionism. It informs all of this. So, I I just think it’s interesting that deep down a lot of these individuals I have an article coming out uh next week, by the way, folks, for those of you that

Are subscribed to Proclamation Magazine. Um I have an article coming out in Proclamation that’s talking about this exact subject next week. Um and I I talk about a little interaction that I had in that article with an Adventist professor and he tried to do this sort of thing like, well, I don’t teach that in my classroom. Come on. like I was a student of his and so it’s like he’s like I don’t teach that in my classroom and it’s like yeah but you’re you’re pointing out the the the catch 22 that that that’s kind of my entire point is like you guys are trying to just kind of

Throw this off and say oh that’s old that’s that’s this thing back there but no man this is like integrated in your system and now you have hardcore inconsistencies you can’t just handwave it away like that but the other thing and you pointed this out and this is really important then I’m gonna have one final question for you before we shut things down. Um, folks, you have to really understand that a lot of the the psychology and the pathology of Adventism is heavily influenced by Ellen White’s own pathological fear of God. Now, Dr. Steve Dailyaly talks about this

A lot in his psychiography of Ellen White and how at a very early age, Ellen clearly had psychological dysphoria regarding who God is. She was terrified of going to hell as a kid and this clearly remained with her throughout her whole life. It’s not normal for a seven-year-old kid to be constantly fearful of going to hell. That’s not normal. That’s not healthy. There was clearly some sort of psychological issue going on there. And people can use the genetic fallacy and just dismiss everything Steve says because, well, he’s a critic of Adventism, so everything he says has to

Be false. I mean, you can try and do that, but no, Steve has put in a lot of work on this specific subject, especially as a psychologist. And so, you have to understand that a lot of this stuff is coming from Ellen White’s own pathological fear. And yes, I’m fully aware that she wasn’t the one that systematized SDA theology, right? But she’s the one that gave the divine stamp of approval. And there are a lot of things that she did originally bring to the table and they were influenced by her own personal lived experience. So that leads me here to my final question,

Chris. Yeah. What is your advice for the Adventist that’s out there that’s listened to this discussion? They might be on the fence. They might be questioning Adventism. They might even be hardened. They might hate everything that we said tonight. They’re angry. There’s smoke pouring out. Their fire alarms are going off in their house cuz so much smoke’s poured out of their ears. What is the one thing, the one piece of advice that you would give to this individual that might be fearful of leaving Adventism? Oh man, so much I could say. If you follow Jesus, he’s gonna take

Care of you. Your community, your finances, your reputation, your life. I’m I’m a living testimony of that. God has been providing. God has been taking care of me and my family um in miraculous ways, ways that I Yeah. I can’t even imagine. And Don’t be afraid to follow Jesus. Jesus will only lead you into something better. He will never lead you into something that is worse for you. And the information that we’ve presented like it’s it’s just so clear. It’s so clear. And I understand and I I have empathy for those of you who are, you know, slow

To move and and you’re contemplating and you’re thinking um but you need to follow Jesus. If if you and I believe many of you have pure hearts and many of you really want to glorify God and really want to honor God and I’m speaking to those individuals, follow Jesus. Follow what his word says, not what man says, not what Ellen White says. Uh, unfortunately, Adventism has made Ellen White as as a type of pope. And I know as Adventists, many of you criticize the pope and are constantly talking about how, you know, the Catholic Church and all the issues that

That they’re facing and that they’re perpetrating. But I just we need to look internally and we need to reflect and we need to be honest with ourselves and we need to look at the text and when the text says something and if you really are a follower of Jesus, you need to allow that to be the final authority over your life and not the tradition, not what your parents say, not what your uh your friend group says. You need to follow the word of God. And at the end of the day, when you see him face to face, you’re going to be able to embrace him with a clear conscience because you

Know that you heard his voice and you followed him. So, I just want to say that there’s so much more that could be said. Um, but there’s something better for you when you follow Jesus. That’s what I’ll say. Amen, bro. let people know any final thoughts that you have, any anywhere they can connect with you, social media, YouTube, counseling, whatever it may be, and then I will let you go and I will have a small little uh closing remarks. Okay, sounds good. So, uh I believe Miles is putting these links in the description as well, the in the description of this live stream. So, I

Actually just started a Christian mental health coaching uh business where I sit one-on-one with people and I also do group coaching in group settings where we process things. We we process um traumas. We process church hurt. We process unhealthy views of ourselves, unhealthy views of God. And as we’ve been talking about, a lot of this theology, it impacts your psychology. It impacts your your daily life. Again, it’s not just an a separate compartmentalized part of your life like religion is here and everything else is here. No, the way you understand God, the way you

Understand scripture, it it impacts the way you you view yourself, the way you treat yourself, the way you view others, the way you treat others. So, my goal is to help people process um to really be the person that I wish I had as I was transitioning through this. And you know, I thank God that I have been going to counseling for so long. So, it’s like I never switched off or I never had to to start counseling because I was already in it through this process of transition. But I I just want to let you know that there are resources out there. Uh my website will be in the

Description. It’s Christopher Mindanao. Um I also have a YouTube channel that I am beginning to grow and I talk a lot about mental health. I talk a lot about uh topics like how to identify a cult, what is the gospel, um why I left the SDA church. I share some details there that I didn’t get a chance to share here. So, um there’s so much there’s so much uh that’s out there for you if you’re looking for it. Um so, yeah, just those two things I’ll share. You can follow me on Instagram, too, if you want. I I put some encouraging stuff on there. Uh Chris Mendel. So, yeah, man.

All I want to say is that God has something better for you. And God cares about your heart. God cares about your mind. He’s not he’s not just wanting you to be right about theology. Like he knows that right theology will actually live you uh lead you to live an abundant life, to live a life of peace, right? Romans 5:1, a fruit of understanding the gospel and and and receiving the gospel is peace with God. And that’s something that as an Adventist I did not have. Again, I was anxious. I was worried about my salvation constantly. I didn’t think I was good enough. I struggled

With perfectionism already. And that narrative just amplified my issues. So again, what you believe about the Bible, what you believe about God, it matters. It’s not just abstract. It’s not just conversation. It has implications. So, um, yeah. and I’m here to process that with you guys if if that’s something that uh you’re open to. Amen, bro. The link to his YouTube channel as well as his website is down in the description box. Folks can go check that out if you are interested. Brother, thank you so much for being here. This has been excellent. We will

Remain in contact and maybe you will appear on here sometime again. I’m going to let you go and then I’m going to shut things down here. All right, bro. Take care, man. Have a good night, everyone. Thank you. All right, folks. Wow, what a discussion. Told y’all I was looking forward to that. I’ve been excited about that for a number of weeks now. Couple things. Adventists, and I’m speaking to to the uh hardcore committed I’ll defend Adventism to the death types. Y’all, it’s easy to shoot spitballs from the sidelines. It’s easy to make accusations and claims

And all that sort of stuff. It takes guts to do what he did. He has my respect. You know what I have to say to everything he just said?

He gained nothing by losing by by leaving Adventism while at the same time gaining everything. He gained Christ. Adventists don’t have peace with God. not an Adventist that actually believes official SDA teaching, which is what an Adventist should be, not just this grabag of, well, it’s whatever I claim it is. It’s my own whatever. No, you’re an Adventist if you believe official Adventist teaching, orthodox Adventist teaching. They don’t have peace with God. That’s the question when I go out and do street evangelism to Adventists. That’s the leading

Question that I start with. Heck, not just Adventists, lots of groups out there. Do you have peace with God? And what does that mean? Because that’s what Paul says. Therefore, having been justified by faith, after he explains what he does about the blessed man in in Romans 4, what he does about Abraham, he then begins chapter 5 saying, “Therefore, because of that beautiful reality, which is a response to the sin problem he lays out in chapters 1 through three. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have present tense peace with God. You can have peace with God today.

Today, you can pack up your bags. You can leave all this mess. You can come join the Christian church. You can be fed Christ through word and sacrament. You know, I used to hear stuff like that when I was an Adventist. Words like sacrament. Oh, Roman Catholic. No, it’s just Christian. Just Christian belief. But there’s a a real difference, folks. And I talk about this a lot. I I’m not one of these apologists for modern- day evangelicalism. When I talk with my Roman Catholic friends and my Orthodox friends, the Syrian church, the, you know, these

Other Christian traditions, I’m willing to own the problems on the quote unquote Protestant side. Now, I don’t consider modern day evangelicalism to be Protestant. I consider Protestantism to be what goes back to the Reformation, not just any group that’s not Roman Catholic as like this default group where like, oh, if you’re not Roman Catholic, well, now you’re you’re Protestant. No. Now, I’m not an apologist for modern day evangelicalism. I’m an apologist for classical Christian teaching and belief. And sure, we have differences with as a Protestant, we

Have differences with Roman Catholics. We have differences with with the Orthodox, etc. But folks, a core central component to the Christian faith and worship experience of the liturgy, the worship has been the reception of Jesus Christ, the whole Christ. Adventist. That’s not just Roman Catholic. This idea that you actually receive the actual physical spirit, the whole Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist as well as baptism. This is just classical Christian belief. It’s the gospel to your senses. And every week when word and sacrament is administered at my church, it’s a

Display of the gospel. The gospel is proclaimed through Jesus’s own word. It’s then believed and heard by the hearer. You actually get law and gospel both because there’s law and gospel in the whole Bible. And the whole Bible is profitable for teaching, correction, reproof, etc. And you should be in a church where they’re preaching through the Bible verse by verse by verse. Not these cherrypicked topical sort of things where he can just say all sorts of who knows what. No, they should be going through verse by verse by verse. You should be hearing word of both law

And gospel. When you hear the law, it points you to the gospel. It should crush you. It should cause you to go, “Ah man, I fell short this week. I I slipped up. I was impatient with my son. I was impatient with my wife.” Or whatever it may be. Ah, my my prayer life wasn’t as strong this week. Then the gospel swoops in and you’re reminded the goodness that Jesus is enough. Thank God we don’t get what we deserve because you don’t deserve salvation. You deserve condemnation. That’s why the gospel is good news because there’s bad news. And after hearing that word and

Believing that word, you get to approach Christ at his table. What a privilege. And you get to receive him. That’s the gospel. The person and work of Jesus. That’s what the gospel is. It’s the gospel to your senses. After hearing it proclaimed, believing it in the mind by faith. I then get to approach him at his table after corporate confession of sin, by the way, and hearing absolution from the word. But nevertheless, you get to receive the whole Christ. Once you experience that and understand this, you’ll never go back to Adventism ever. Because what you experience in

True Christian worship, night and day difference. It’s time to give up Adventism, folks. It’s time to give it up. You know, I have fun on this platform. I kid around sometimes. You know, Chris Chris mentioned the the funeral of Ellen White stream. I was goofing around a little bit in that for the sake of making a point. But we care about you. That’s why we’re doing this. It’s not just a dunk on the SDA church, folks. I’ve been saying this for a long time. It’s not about just like, haha, look. No, we care about Adventists. They’re great people. We want them to be

Saved. We want you to have peace with God. That’s why we’re doing this. And I know Adventists don’t like it. The vast majority of them at least. I get it. I get it. But you would be shocked at how many people we just had on Instagram yesterday. A guy messaged us and I hadn’t actually seen the the it’s hard to keep up with with all that stuff. So I was like, I’m going to check the Instagram message and there’s like, you know, they’re backed up. So I I checked a couple of them and one that I happened to click on this guy, he had sent this long thread of

Stuff and this was like a couple weeks ago. And again, I hadn’t looked at this thread at all yet. He had sent through a bunch of stuff from a couple weeks ago, but it popped to the top of the messages that were unread because he had sent a new message uh like a couple days ago or yesterday. I don’t remember the exact day, but it was within the last couple days. And so I saw that message first before reading his whole wall of of stuff. And in that message he sent, what did he say? I didn’t like you at first. you weren’t really my style. But I stuck

Around. He was hate watching and I kept studying and I kept digging and I realized, oh no. Oh no. What he’s saying might be true. Not because he’s saying it. Not because he’s some special whatever. But he might be true. Now he wants to leave the SDA church. So we’re counseling him through how to to to properly go through doing such and find a sound local church where he can receive Christ in both word and sacrament. Thank you all for being here. Hopefully this was beneficial to you. This was a wonderful, wonderful discussion. God bless Chris, his boldness. May God

Use that to lead an exodus out of this spiritual gospel desert known as Adventism into the true promised land. Come join the convoy. Jesus is leading, you know, Chris mentioned Hebrews 4. Jesus is leading a better Exodus as a better Joshua and a better Moses. That’s what the author talks about in chapters 3 and four. They all pointed to him. Jesus as the better Moses and a better Joshua is leading a better Exodus into a better promised land, the heavenly Jerusalem, the heavenly kingdom of God, better than the earthly Jerusalem. We’re in that convoy.

The kingdom of God is advancing. Seventh Day Adventism will be made a foottool under the feet of Jesus Christ. It’s going to happen. It’s guaranteed to happen because the biggest enemy of the SDA church, it’s not even the false doctrines. It’s not even Satan who is its architect. The biggest enemy of the Seventh Adventist Church is time. And God owns the clock. Come join us. May Christ richly bless you all in the grace and peace won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for sinners. Hallelujah. Until next time, God bless.