The following are some (slightly edited) questions I asked a Seventh-Day Adventist with whom I engaged in a significant amount of dialogue. They deal with some of the damnable heresies and grievous errors of the Adventist religion. If, dear reader, you are a Seventh-Day Adventist, these are some of the issues that you really need to come to grips with. If, dear reader, you are a Christian, not an Adventist, do you know enough about their religion to effectively preach the gospel to them? There is a lot more to the SDA religion than going to church on Saturday. Do you know what it is? If, dear reader, you are in a position of church leadership, does your church have material to reach Seventh-Day Adventists in its tract and/or pamphlet rack? Do your people know how to reach those precious souls trapped in this false religion? If you cannot answer the questions above in the way God would want you to answer them, I would suggest an examination of the pamphlet Bible Truths for Seventh-Day Adventist Friends (churches that wish to use it as a pamphlet, and to personalize it with contact information about their Baptist congregation, can download the composition as a Microsoft Word document here) and the other resources on Adventism and sabbatarianism here. A detailed exegetical analysis of the arguments for eternally morally binding Sabbath-keeping from Genesis 2:1-3 and the Decalogue is also found here.
1.) Is the Bible alone the Word of God, or is it 1% or less of what God has given to the church, with Ellen G. White's writings being 99%? Should we be willing to lay down our lives for a single word of EGW's writings, the way we should be willing to lay them down for a single word of the Bible? Nothing could be more fundamental than this. If you don't have rock-solid explanations for the false prophecies made by EGW compiled here, and positive, rock-solid reasons, reasons better than the evidence for the alleged 1% of God's revelation that is the Bible, for believing EGWs writings are the inspired 99%, that would be an issue that is absolutely central for you.
1.) Is the Bible alone the Word of God, or is it 1% or less of what God has given to the church, with Ellen G. White's writings being 99%? Should we be willing to lay down our lives for a single word of EGW's writings, the way we should be willing to lay them down for a single word of the Bible? Nothing could be more fundamental than this. If you don't have rock-solid explanations for the false prophecies made by EGW compiled here, and positive, rock-solid reasons, reasons better than the evidence for the alleged 1% of God's revelation that is the Bible, for believing EGWs writings are the inspired 99%, that would be an issue that is absolutely central for you.
2.) Does the true church worship the true God, or the devil? I rejoice that, as a Baptist, I am part of a line of churches that has believed in the same God and gospel from the 1st century when Christ founded us until now. Since the SDA denomination rejected the Trinity for decades and decades until the early portion of the 20th century, how can they can be the true church? Scripture is clear that people who don't believe in the Deity of Christ (John 8:24, 58) or the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:1-6) are unsaved (cf. John 17:3). How could the SDA denomination be the true church when its pioneers--including Ellen White, her husband, and her son, were anti-Trinitarians? How could they be fearing God and keeping His commandments, supposedly as part of what Rev 14 says, when they didn't even have the right God?
3.) Who is Jesus? Is he Michael the Archangel, subordinate to the Father, with a sinful nature, a being capable of being destroyed for sinning, or is He the eternal, unchangeable, sinless God who became, in His one Person, two in nature, true sinless God and true sinless Man?
4.) What is justifying grace? Is it something that requires one to stop working to receive it (Rom 4:5), or is it the ability to do works and become as perfect as Jesus supposedly did with a sinful nature and so pass an Investigative Judgment?
5.) Is Jesus the Mediator of all His people, so that nobody can come to the Father except through Him, or will many be saved without His mediation?
6.) Does honest exegesis applied to texts on being absent from the body and present with the Lord, and on the lake of fire and Gehenna, really support annihilationism?
7.) Does the blood of Christ forever remove sin from those who have it applied to them at the moment of faith, or does Christ's blood defile the heavenly sanctuary, while sin is not removed until Satan finally takes it away?
8.) Does Christ perfect forever all of His people and keep them secure? Is His prayer in John 17:24 for all of His people answered, or can they lose salvation if they don't continue to do enough works, so that His prayer in John 17 is not answered?
9.) Did God give us 1 John so that those who believe on the Son of God can know that they have eternal life, or can nobody know that he has eternal life?
10.) Is it appropriate for every believer to pray, "Forgive us our sins" daily, as in the model prayer, or are some now perfect so that they don't need to pray this anymore--indeed, must all who hope to be saved in the last generation pass beyond the model prayer?
11.) Should Christians oppose the murder of people from conception until natural death, or should they be part of religious organizations, like the Seventh-Day Adventist denomination, that support legal abortion and kill pre-born children in SDA hospitals?
12.) Based on New Testament teaching, did true churches worship on the first day of the week from the time of the Apostles onward because the Sabbath was fulfilled in Christ, or did every Christian worship on Saturday until an unnamed Pope in the 4th century made Sunday the Sabbath?
And, finally, but certainly not least important, must someone consciously and miraculously, through the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit opening blind eyes and creating a new heart, be renewed unto saving repentance and faith, a God-given trust in Christ and His cross-work alone, or is faith a man-originated mental assent to facts, and a miraculous new birth through the omnipotent efficacy of the Holy Spirit raising the spiritually dead sinner to life not necessary?
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