#8 NO IMMINENT RAPTURE??

Following: http://hotspuds.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/sabbaths-and-sundays.html

If you happen to find yourself at a Seventh Day Adventist seminar you will probably hear scorn heaped on the idea of an ‘imminent rapture’ when Christ returns, in fact, you may even be told that the word ‘rapture’ is not in the Bible.

What is ‘rapture’ anyway?                                                  
‘Rapture’ is to seize, snatch, catch away – like an eagle does.  Here it is in Latin as rapiemur in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 from the Vulgate Bible – once the only Bible available for 1000 years.

As for being secret, let’s check that out by starting with the Adventist Fundamental Belief 25.  Second Coming of Christ: “…The Saviour’s coming will be literal, personal, visible, and worldwide…”                           

Visible, hey?  Well, how do we know Christ is even coming back for us?                   
He said He would!

“…if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself…”           John 14:3

Then, when He did go…

“…this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet…” Acts 1:11-12

... very public and very visible, UNTIL……“a cloud received him out of their sight”.  
The Mount of Olives is where Jesus Christ will one day stand…

“Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof…” Zechariah 14:3-4

Okay, Christ comes back to fight…but what happens to Christians?                       
It’s thanks to the apostle Paul that Christianity came to Gentiles and spread even to Europe.
Notice the distinction he makes:

“Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him…” 2 Thessalonians 2:1

His coming back to Earth is described here…

            “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him…” Revelation 1:7

Visible? You betcha!  Whereas the gathering together to Him is not so visible:



No rocket pack required!

“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

…and this is how quick it will be:

“Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed…” 1 Corinthians 15:51-52

Wow!!...that’s quick!  So when Christ comes to Earth?...                                                            
The gathering to Him must have occurred first and here’s why…                            
WE COME TOO!!...and here’s the proof:

“…at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.”                          
1 Thessalonians 3:13                (also Zech 14:5, Jude 14, Col 3:4)

What about a coming tribulation? Won’t we have to endure that?                
NO!!...and again, here’s the proof:

“…to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.”  1 Thessalonians 1:10                   
(Also Romans 5:9  Luke 21:36  Revelation 3:10  1 Thessalonians 5:1-11)

So, secret rapture??  True or false?                                                       
A rapture?...absolutely!...the hope of Christians for nearly 2000 years! 
Secret?  Well you could hardly remove millions from Earth secretly.   
Quick?  Blink and you miss it!                                               
Mysterious?  Sure thing. The real Church is a musterion (from Greek) - a mystery - only for those initiated. (also Ephesians 3:1-9, Romans 16:25-26, Colossians 1:24-28) 
Imminent?....ahhh!....maybe today?                                              

So don’t let any misguided Adventist destroy your hope of our Lord Jesus Christ coming for us today - delivering us from the wrath to come.

NEXT: Is it really ‘curtains’ for Israel?
http://hotspuds.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/is-it-really-curtains-for-israel.html

 Acknowledgements:                                                                                      sdanet.org/atissue/doctrines/gc28                                                                      
photocredit: perthroyalshow.com.au                                                                                                                                                               

 

#7 SABBATHS and SUNDAYS

Following: http://hotspuds.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/hell-no.html

Come sunset this Friday, Seventh Day Adventists around the world will again respect sabbath for 24 hours despite most of the community enjoying leisure or engaged in commerce.                                                              
Why?                                                                       
Another Fundamental Belief…Clause 20. Sabbath: “The beneficent Creator…instituted the Sabbath for all people as a memorial of Creation.”

Is that correct? Did God institute the Sabbath for all people?                              
After Creation, “God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it” (Genesis 2:3) but later He said: “I gave them (Israel) my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.” Ezekiel 20:12.                
Okay, we all need a break from work but the Sabbath covenant was made only with Israel in particular.

But isn’t Sabbath-keeping part of a Christian’s obligations?                           
No, the apostle Paul upheld the principals behind all of the 10 Commandments – EXCEPT the Sabbath!

“Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days…”

Really??  What about a pork chop with a glass of rosé?                                         
You’re missing the point - it’s all about Jesus Christ, not about food and drink and sabbaths!               

“…which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.”
Colossians 2:16

Paul spelled it out to the Corinthians like this:

“…One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” ch14

Well that’s plain enough. So what did Ellen White teach on this?                                                                                                            

“The enforcement of Sundaykeeping on the part of Protestant churches is an enforcement of the worship of the papacy - of the beast….those who continue in transgression will receive the mark of the beast.”

Whoa!  Worshipping on Sunday earns the mark of the beast??                               
The coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 was on the day of Pentecost which fell on the morning after the seventh sabbath. (Leviticus 23:15-16)                                       
No matter what Emperor Constantine or the Roman Catholic Church decreed, there is ample historic record from the writings of the early church fathers such as Justin Martyr that early Christians celebrated Christ’s resurrection on the first day of the week (8th day) or ‘Lord’s Day’, which happened to be called Sunday by the secular world. No-one then claimed that this replaced the Jewish Sabbath day.

That means that if I continue to follow the Biblical precedent of taking communion on the first day of the week to remember our Lord’s death (Acts 20:7) and celebrate his resurrection I will eventually receive the mark of the beast and the resulting punishment?

…according to Ellen White!

 

NEXT: No secret rapture
Click on...    http://hotspuds.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/a-secret-rapture.html

Acknowledgements:                                                                                     
White E, ‘The Great Controversy’, United Publishers, 1971                                             
sdanet.org/atissue/doctrines/gc28  
Photo credit: lifehopeandtruth.com                                                                                                                                                      

 

#6 HELL NO!

Following: http://hotspuds.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/adventists-on-soul-sleep.html

We found present enjoyment of eternal life in our Lord Jesus Christ denied, but surely Seventh Day Adventists don't deny hell do they?

This one is not so obvious in the Fundamental Beliefs...                             
Under Clause 25: Second Coming of Christ we find: "...but the unrighteous will die." and under Clause 27: Millennium and the End of Sin: "The unrighteous dead will then be resurrected, and with Satan and his angels will surround the city; but fire from God will consume them and cleanse the earth."

Hey!...check this out in Revelation chapter 20 – for a start, they’ve got it BACK-TO-FRONT!   Satan will inspire the nations to surround the 'beloved city' only to be devoured by fire…THEN…the resurrection of the unrighteous will take place - NOT BEFORE!                                                                                     

What we are NOT being told is Ellen White saying in 'The Great Controversy':     
"How repugnant to every emotion of love and mercy, and even to our sense of justice, is the doctrine that the wicked dead are tormented with fire and brimstone in an eternally burning hell; that for the sins of a brief earthly life they are to suffer torture as long as God shall live."                          
"It is urged that the infliction of endless misery upon the wicked should show God's hatred of sin as an evil which is ruinous to the peace and order of the universe. Oh dreadful blasphemy!"                       
"It is beyond the power of the human mind to estimate the evil which has been wrought by the heresy of eternal torment...one of the false doctrines that constitute the wine of the abomination of Babylon..."

Whoa! Strong words, Mrs. White!...but how do your human sentiments stack up against Holy Scripture?

"Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels...these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal"  Matthew 25:41-46

“But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear Him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell…”      Luke 12:5

In case anybody thinks that the Christian’s God cannot be so severe as when Korah and his band were buried alive or incinerated (Numbers 16)….

               “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Hebrews 10:31

            “For our God is a consuming fire.” Hebrews 12:29

…and in a day of ‘same-sex marriage’, let’s not forget those from Sodom and Gomorrha…“suffering the vengeance of eternal fire”. Jude 7

Yes, God is love - but He knows how to hate.

Sorry Mrs. White, we have to do with a holy God and yes, He has prepared “the lake of fire which burneth with fire and brimstone.” Revelation 21:8                         

How long will torment last?...more to the point:

“Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men…”                 
2 Corinthians 5:11

 

NEXT:  Sabbaths and Sundays
Click on - http://hotspuds.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/sabbaths-and-sundays.html

 

Acknowledgements:                                                                                    
White E, ‘The Great Controversy’, United Publishers, 1971                                              sdanet.org/atissue/doctrines/gc28                                                                        
Image credit: oldpathstn.com                                                                                                                                                      

 

#5 ADVENTISTS ON 'SOUL SLEEP'

Following: http://hotspuds.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/whats-happening-in-heavenly-sanctuary.html

Did Ellen White’s ‘closing work of atonement’ in the heavenly sanctuary pass your biblical scrutiny? 
What about this ‘soul sleep’ business?

Mmm…we can’t have people going to heaven while some sort of ‘investigative judgment’ is underway, can we?  Saint Peter at the pearly gates wouldn’t know whether to welcome you in or send you back down!                    

 Another Fundamental Belief is Clause 26: Death and Resurrection. "God....will grant eternal life to His redeemed. Until that day death is an unconscious state for all people. When Christ, who is our life, appears…" 
…and of course this agrees with Ellen White saying: “The Bible clearly teaches that the dead do not go immediately to heaven.”

Hang about…we don’t receive eternal life until Christ appears??                         

Is that what the Scriptures say? Haven’t these people found the eternal life bubbling from John’s Gospel in their Bibles?...

Chapter 3: “…whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” v16  “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life…” v36                                                  

Chapter 4: “…the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” v14

Chapter 5: “…He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” v24

Chapter 6: “…He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.” v47               
“Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” v54

Chapter 10: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish…” vv27-28

Chapter 11: “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die…” vv25-26

Chapter 17: “…and this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” v3

…and what about John’s letters?...

Chapter 5: “…God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his son.” v11

Didn’t Jesus refer to death as sleep?                                            

Sure He did, but who proved He had power over the death of Lazarus? John 11

So where do Adventists get this ‘soul sleep’ idea from?                               

If you go back nearly a thousand years before the hope from Christ’s first advent, you find Man’s vain earthly struggle ‘under the sun’ 29 times in Ecclesiastes, in a book with death in every chapter, e.g. “the dead know not anything”; also “…for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” 
Hardly the place to look for eternal life, hey?                                                                  
In the same era you have the Psalms: “Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.” / “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” / “The dead praise not the Lord…” / “For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?”          

Of course, if you’ve ever been to a funeral with an open casket – there’s not much response from a corpse is there?                                                     
Is that your idea of hope?......or is this more like it?...

“We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5:8

“…even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.”       1 Thessalonians 4:14

What do we make of a doctrine that denies our present enjoyment of eternal life, regardless of death, by believing in Jesus Christ our Lord, according to the Holy Scriptures?                              

NEXT: Hell no!

Click on:   http://hotspuds.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/hell-no.html

Acknowledgements:                                                                                    
White E, ‘The Great Controversy’, United Publishers, 1971                                              sdanet.org/atissue/doctrines/gc28                                                                                                                                       
Photo credit: sleep.com