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It gets very confusing with all the different religions and claims that this or that belief or ideas from various movements that they have the path that leads to God, so is it. But when you hear a Christian religious leader or teacher claim that all religions lead on a path to God, that raises questions. Scripture is clear that is not the case. We find it in John 14... John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. Jesus declares that the only way to God is through Him. https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=5fd0...cmVsaWdpb25zX2xlYWRfdG9fb25lX2dvZC5odG0&ntb=1

My father was a Adventist minister, so I grew up listening to innumerable sermons and Daniel and Revelation prophecy series, and my mother did the various church and health messages, think '5 day plan to stop smoking', and I knew what was coming for each night. But, come to the present as we are getting to the final days, and I sometimes seem to struggle in what sermon to bring before the brethren, as I volunteer for the sermon as a elder. I thought I was the only one, that some weeks I had no idea what sermon for this time to preach about, till almost the day of the sermon. But I have become aware that others also struggle to find what they should preach especially after hitting all the major points and beliefs, especially for the last days and prophecy. It might be that some are between ideas for what the brethren need or just struggling for ideas. If we who preach as lay preachers were all honest, we’ve come across this, or come to the point of asking, ”What do the people need?” So how do you find a message, especially for these last days, from God’s Word that your church needs and you are excited about?

What should be the future of Adventism? The following article briefly examines that issue. https://atoday.org/adventism-for-today-and-tomorrow/

? Pic to go! Photo: Harry Price This vivid sunset, reflected in Virginia's Smith Mountain Lake, was snapped by reader Harry Price.

Kevin, I have no ideal as to how long it took you to prepare and write you post above. I thank you for it. It serves a real purpose.

Absolutely a true hero!

A Muslim followed the Lord. Please pray for Ahmad Al-Ahmad's recovery in an Australian hospital. A true hero!

All salvation comes from God's gracious attitude towards us through what Jesus did for us. At the end of time God will treat everyone the same. God will show up in all his beauty, love, glory, and overwhelming event. Some will find this event to be heaven, others will find this event to be hell. Like when the divinity flashed through Jesus when cleaning the temple (at least at the second cleaning.) People ran in two directions. The money changers were running away, while the children, poor and lame were running to him (and remember Jesus had a whip. How often do you find children running with joy to someone holding a whip? Yet, this is what happened when Jesus showed his "wrath".) Only this time there is no place to flee as God's glory fills the whole world. Everyone is born with a few things: Different levels of intelligence, cultures, environments, points in history. We all have in us two attitudes fighting. One is our deepest desire, to want to love the world on an honest basic, to be fair, to love the world as Jesus has loved it. Fighting this is a weaker, but often placed in power in our lives, a disposition to think we are for ourselves by making less of the outside world. A disposition to esteem ourselves more highly than others, to serve self, to seek the highest place, to manipulate or try to manipulate others especially through things such as criticizing, complaining, blaming, nagging, threatening, punishing, rewarding to control. We also seem to have been born with our temperaments, two out of five possible love languages, two out of five possible apology languages, and our attachment styles. The Holy Spirit works with every person, pointing them to the character ("name") of God as our personal friend (God the Son). All religions have varying amounts of truth and superstitions. People make choices of reaching out to or rejecting the character of God as our personal friend, through the two principles of somehow reaching out to what or whoever may be out there and from this to love their neighbors as themselves. The three monotheistic religions have available WITHIN their framework a looking beyond the forces of nature to the creator. The two based on the Bible have even more truth available to them, with of course the Christians open to study the Bible with the insight that God the Son came and lived among us, and additional insights from records of his life and insights from those who directly witnessed seeing him, including seeing him after the resurrection, or records of people who had direct connection to these witnesses. Protestantism has a mindset of reading the Bible and making the Bible the final authority. And Seventh-day Adventists have the great controversy philosophy (which archaeology has pointed out was a big issue for the ancient world where the Bible was written, but which we have lost sight of in culture.) Now, just because we have more information available to us does not mean that we are allowing them to affect our lives and thinking. People with less information may cherish what they understand while people with more information may ignore it. All may be drawn away by traditions and superstitions. From this I cannot say that all religions lead to God; but God and Satan both have people in all religions. The big issue is HIS CHARACTER, Who HE is, What he did for us. The Holy Spirit working on our hearts to point us in the direction of the character of God as personal friend, and from this to God being the great power and ultimate authority. Sadly, too many Christians turn the salvation through God's gracious character and who HE is, to salvation through being a Christian, salvation through the religion. The false thinking that a Jew, Muslim or other cannot be saved because they are not "Christians" That they have not said the right things about Jesus and give the history lesson about what Jesus did for us. Anwar Sadat was raised by his mother and grandmother with a simple faith of trusting in Allah. In college he got into a more complex nationalistic political form of Islam. Yet, he still had a love for God. He spent so many hours in prayer that a callus formed on his forehead. When he lost the 1973 war, he felt responsible for all the deaths. He turned his back on the more complicated political version of Islam and turned to the simple faith of his mother and grandmother. He realized that he needed to forge a peace with Israel. At Camp David, there were three men of faith and prayer, a Muslim, a Jew and a Christian. They stopped their work at prayer times and were able to work out a solution. In Psalm 23:5 it says that the Lord prepares a table in the presence of enemies. To the ancient world this means forgiveness and reconciliation. After Camp David was arranged, a table for the enemies of Egypt and Israel meet for the reconciliation meal. Now, people wondered about a personal event in this feast. Sadat and Golda Mier had totally hated each other on a personal level. They had never mentioned the other by name. Sadat would only call her "That Old Lady" and she would only call him "That Egyptian." Yes, there was the table of forgiveness for the politics of the two governments, but what about these two individuals? In the receiving line, as these two bitter enemies came face to face, Mier said "Mr. President, what took you so long? At these words Sadat just started laughing, and Mier just started laughing. The hatred they had for each other melted. (I don't remember for sure but I believe that I read/heard that they made a joke about the names they gave each other.) The table of forgiveness became not only political between states, but was also personal between these two individuals who remained friends for the rest of their lives. These actions were accepting and reflecting the character of God the Son, and coming to the power of God the Father through God as personal friend. They are saved through how they accepted the character of God the Son. (and as you look at Sadat, the impact of God upon his life, and how he decided to stand for the right even though it lead to his martyrdom, indicates that he could have well have reached what Ellen White describes as last generation perfection.) Dr. Chan was a Buddhist dentist living in Cambodia. When he heard that the Khmer Rouge came to power, he threw his glasses off his face and stomped on them on the floor, ran home got his family and moved to a part of Cambodia where no one knew who they were and they pretended to be ignorant illiterates. Eventually they were able to go to a refugee camp in Thailand. There were Baptists working in the camps to help the refugees and shared the story about Jesus. The Chan family converted from Buddhism to Christianity. Later they came to southern California where there were Seventh-day Adventists helping the refugees, and they decided to learn more about Seventh-day Adventism and decided to become Seventh-day Adventists. One Sabbath at church, one of the women who were helping the refugees noticed that Dr. Chan's body tightened and went pale. He started shaking and ran out of the church. She went after him to find out what was wrong. She found him on the lawn of the church just shaking and repeating the words "It's him! It's him..." As he was asked what was wrong, Dr. Chan replied "You may find this crazy, but as a child I knew that I had a special friend. Now, I could not see him nor hear him, yet he has always been just as real to me at my friends who I could see and hear. I believe that he helped me to remove and trample on my glasses. I believe that he lead me and my family as we looked for someplace we were unknown, and that he lead to Thailand and finally to the United States. Even though I became a Christian in Thailand, today, for the first time in my life I realize that this special, life long friend of mine is Jesus!" Religions can be a help or a hindrance, but from all religious beliefs (even secularism and so called atheism -- I have not come over this document's words anyplace else for me to absolutely say that it was by Ellen White, but I came across it in the EGW vault at Andrews, and I believe that it was written by Sister White, but this document placed "atheists" into two different groups. One was labeled, infidels. But the author also gave a second group of atheists labeled "Honest Doubters" and that heaven has room for the "Honest Doubters." Whether the writer was Mrs. White or not, I agree with that document. There is the issue of faith that transcends religions. When you read about the Norwegian revivalist Hans Nielsen Hague, or the character of World War I German ace Oswald Boelcke, and how World War I ace Manfred von Richthofen responded to Boelcke's Christlikeness. The Roman Catholic actor Bob Newheart and Jewish comedian Don Rickels were both men of faith, and they felt a special friendship based on their shared love and devotion to their family and to God. They would join each other in worshiping in both Church and Synagogue and recognizing both Christian and Jewish holidays. Herman's Hermit's lead singer Peter Noone had been a devote Catholic. He met a lady who was a devote Jew. They fell in love, and felt that a large part of their relationship was their shared love for God. They have had one of show business longest and happiest marriages. When they decided to marry, instead of just running off, Peter petitioned and received permission from the Church to marry her without her converting to Catholicism (One article I read said that he asked the Pope for permission, but I have not seen that since, only his getting permission from the church.) and they worship in both the Church and Synagogue, and they have a daughter they raised in both the church and synagogue.

There may not be a simple answer that applies to all congregations. The answer may lie in knowing the congregation. What are the individual needs of the people who attend? Congregations differ as people differ. Not all are the same. \

I do not have a major disagreement with the Wikipedia statement. Yes, it is clear that EGW denounced it. EGW was not the educated theologian that we might want to see today. She spoke on a more common level. I do not believe that her denouncement had anything to do with whether or not Christ could sin. The question that I have relates to whether or not that view has any relationship to the so-called Last Generation Theology that is held by some Adventists today.

Well, the devil is very good and can make it 99% truth and one percent the poison in the well much like the Holy Flesh movement that got even into the Adventist church.

Some religions have a very distorted view of God.

To what extent are SDA membership records accurate? The following article is shocking. https://spectrummagazine.org/views/the-missing-millions-problems-in-adventist-statistics/

What place does Ellen White have in SDA preaching? The following article examens that issue in her own words. https://atoday.org/should-preachers-quote-ellen-white/

Mia Orgla. a Seventh-day Adventist college student has received an international preaching award. See: https://atoday.org/newbold-college-student-earns-second-place-in-an-international-preaching-award/

The opening title asked how one should respond to homosexual family and friends. The Biblical answer is: With the same love that God has for them, as God loves all.

All people who wish to worship peacefully in a SDA Church should be welcomed to do so. Worshiping peacefully does not require membership. Yes, I was once a member of a SDA Church that had a homosexual couple attend every Sabbath. No, they were not members. We welcomed them and they came.

Let's break this down This is in a response to what Dr Vine has been saying. We certainly have not had clear explanations of what is going on with the UN relationship and the work of ADRA. If the church had been transparent on these issues, there may have been more people to trust them. As it is, trust is broken. That would be WONDERFUL, however, I do not expect that. This is why this has grown to be such an issue. Because this has not happened and never will.

Yes, this has grown to be a big problem. What Pastor Kelly is building is an independent ministry. It is not new. Independent ministries are the lifeblood of the church. Many church employees do not like them, including the famous remarks by P Ted Wilson last year. But the continued attacks by P Vine are a problem. There may be truth to some of his accusations. But his methods are abrasive. He may be doing this because of prompting by the Holy Spirit. Often God uses imperfect people because that is who is willing to answer the call. As someone who was seen as a troublemaker in the Michigan Conference, I can tell you this is not an easy job for him. It was not for me. It was only through lots of prayer and fleeces that I was able to do what I did. I am glad to be out of that role. But sometimes God chooses to shake things up. I wish the GC would appoint a committee to look into the accusations he is making and report on them. But, I will not hold my breath waiting for that.

Mental health seems to be a growing problem in churches. Churches may attract some people that have serious issues because of their compassion. Gen Z is clearly struggling. I agree, but I am not sure that this role should fall on pastors. His ideas / plan is wonderful, however it is more suited to a larger church. There are not many churches who could do this.

I agree, however, we are not in charge. What I have observed is, each level develops its own power/employee structure. Often to use the money that is available. I have seen unions create their own publishing house and other duplicate services. Why? Because they had the money available in a budget. Many of our leaders are not experts in financial matters. I have seen much better financial management in our organizations that have not enough money. They find ways to be more efficient and thrifty. But that may be true of any nonprofit. It could be human nature.

Celebrated ex-CNN correspondent Peter Arnett, who reported from Vietnam and Gulf War, has died Peter Arnett, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who spent decades dodging bullets and bombs to bring the world eyewitness accounts of war from the rice paddies of Vietnam to the deserts of Iraq, has died at 91. https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/17/media/peter-arnett-correspondent-death