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Seventh-day Adventists worship on a day dedicated to a pagan god. But, our worship is not dedicated to that pagan god. By the way, it is not a sin to worship on Sunday. It is not a sin to worship with other Christians on Sonday. The Biblical Sabbath, is much more than a day of worship. The Bible, as I understand it, established a Sabbath on the 7th day of the week. It does not forbid worship on any day of the week. I have worshiped with fellow Christians on Sunday many times. Sometimes I have even preached to congregations of other denominations on Sunday.

Recently the Federal Centers for Disease Control published an 8-page report on the dangers of the natural herb Kratom. It is widely used, and freely sold in most of the united States by people who consider it to be a healthful way to address some of the common concerns of daily life. What is often not understood is how addictive and dangerous it can be, especially in some of the forms in which it is sold. Withdrawal will often require medical supervision. The following article will explain this in more detail. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/75/wr/mm7511a1.htm?s_cid=OS_mm7511a1_w My assumption is that as it is becoming popular in our society in the U.S, it is also being used by Adventists who see it as a safe natural product,and have no understanding as to how lethal it can be. If we as a Church decry the use of tobacco and alcoholic drinks, I suggest we need to warn our members as to the dangers of Kratom. The above CDC publication provides enough information for several articles for authors to use. On a personal basis, my second son ended his life in 2024 while attempting to withdraw from Kratom usage that was not medically supervised. His story is told in the following article which will inform to a greater degree. https://atoday.org/the-day-my-son-took-his-own-life/ NOTE: I have an agreement with the above publisher that permission will be granted free of charge for the article to be republished. Gregory Matthews

As border dynamics change, priest keeps ministering to migrants and deportees Over the past five years, the Rev. Brian Strassburger has gone from ministering to throngs of asylum-seekers in overcrowded shelters at the U.S.-Mexico border to celebrating Mass with detained and deported migrants. Despite the drastic changes, the Jesuit priest says his mission remains centered on a Christian message “that God is accompanying you on your journey.” Read more. Why this matters: Based in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, Strassburger heads the Del Camino Jesuit Border Ministries, a trio of Jesuits who have been providing Mass and other sacraments to migrants on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border since 2021. Back then, thousands of migrants crammed into bare-bones shelters daily before and after crossing the border in record numbers. Nearly 2.5 million people crossed the border from May 2023 until January 2025, when President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the border at the start of his second term. With the ongoing immigration crackdown, Strassburger has been focusing on celebrating regular Masses at two large Texas detention centers as well as in shelters in Mexico. RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Faith leaders push for access to ICE detention centers during Lent and Ramadan Faith leaders prep for border changes amid tension, hope Border app that became ‘a salvation’ for migrants to legally enter the US may end

Ellen White went from a "shut door" Adventist into becoming a very popular preacher on non-Adventist churches including giving the Sunday morning sermons.

2 Samuel 6:12-15. 17-19 is a description of how Easter was celebrated in the ancient world. As for 2 Samuel 6:16 and vss. 20-23, had Michal become pregnant that night, the child would be seen as the chosen king and we would not have had the conflicts between David's other sons over who would be the next king. Besides the cultural indications, this child would have been a decandant of both David and Saul, giving the child extra right to the throne. Michal loved David, but even love can be tried as she saw all David did in his gaining of the throne. David probably tried to make things up with her, but she clearly refused and did not have children. Even if she did not get pregnant on Easter Sunday night, she could have still provided a child of both the house of Saul and house of David. Since David is our hero, often we read into the text that Michal was punished by no children, but when you look at the story, and the cultural implications from the ancient world, we have a very, very hurt Michal who punished David by not giving him a child. Also, the night before Easter Sunday, the King would sleep in the temple expecting a dream about the future, as we find in Daniel 2 and 4.

Once again, I find the evidence presented at Atlantic Union College and The Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies that they are the testimony of the 12 tribes and 12 apostles telling the truth about Jesus in contrast to the 24 Sadducee Priests, members of the Sanhedrin (A Greek word, in Aramaic the word means "Elders") that inquired and brought Jesus to Pilate and cried "crucify him" when their job should have been to tell the truth about Jesus, but they told lies about him. Or that the 24 Elders are the testimony of scripture where Heaven directly communicates with us over history. Jesus does not need assistance in the investigative judgment. Jesus is simply, on the heavenly side, reviewing with the angels and unfallen worlds the lives of people who in what ever way claimed to have accepted God; and looks at the two questions as to whether or not they truly accepted the Lord into their lives, and if they did, what difference does it make? This helps the unfallen understand their own salvation better. And on the earthly side, we are living in an age where more and more discoveries are made to allow us to study the Bible in a deeper way then ever before. As we learn more about the Bible, we can learn more about the God of the Bible, and as we behold Him we become changed.

OTTAWA. There is a particular brand of official mendacity that can only be practiced by those who believe themselves to be pragmatic. The post The Hedgehog’s Bow: Ottawa’s Unholy Alliance of Uranium and Censorship appeared first on ReligiousLiberty.TV. View the full article

From vaccine mandate lawsuits to beard bans and a purged Army Spiritual Fitness Guide, the sweeping overhaul of military spiritual policy has ignited a constitutional reckoning over faith and service. The post The Chaplain Crisis: Pentagon’s Religious Accommodation Battles Reach Boiling Point appeared first on ReligiousLiberty.TV. View the full article

Finland just convicted a parliamentarian for a 20-year-old church pamphlet. The post They’re Not Coming for Hate Speech. They’re Coming for Theology. appeared first on ReligiousLiberty.TV. View the full article

Spectrum magazine has published a series of three articles that challenges Adventism and where itis going. Consider and read only if you agree to be challenged. Part 1: Posits that the Adventist tithe system of finance developed in the 1800s is not suitable for the mission needs of the Church today. https://spectrummagazine.org/views/analysis/reevaluating-adventist-tithe-part-1-a-system-built-for-another-time/ Part 2; Considers stewardship (tithe) administrative structure and how they relate to the accomplishment of our mission. https://spectrummagazine.org/views/analysis/reevaluating-adventist-tithe-part-2-align-church-structure-and-stewardship-with-21st-century-mission/ Part 3: Considers the flight of young Adventists away from Adventism in North America, the use of tithe and Adventist Education. It clearly challenges. https://spectrummagazine.org/views/opinion/reevaluating-adventist-tithe-part-3-investing-where-it-matters-most/

Okay, this is all what the church has been teaching for over a hundred years. But the point I bring up, is that we are at the end of the investigative judgment, where the living are now being judged.

i suppose it is easy to think that since we may consider Luther to be the Father of the Reformation that he rejected all of his Catholic background. I think that such would be false. I would suspect that he maintained some of his Catholic background. In my experience, I find that converts to Adventism from a Catholic background maintain some of their Catholic faith and practices. In short, I suspect that Luther probably maintained his Catholic understanding of the Ten Commandments. I suspect that this is what scholars from the Lutheran church would say. NOTE": Catholics and Adventists do not disagree on every aspect of the Christian faith.

Another man with whom he had issues was one who borrowed one of his books and did not return it. Elder Richards retrieved it from his widow. He told me a story about a historical figure who had secured a firearm, something new at the time. When the king paraded through his town, he took aim and fired from a rooftop, knocking the king off his horse. HMS thought that was quite amusing. Not sure why he told me that story. I enjoyed reading the VOP book[let] of the month. I retrieved a bag full of them from the VOP headquarters. One was called "The Occult Explosion." It had a purple and black cover with appropriate illustrations. We had some Hell's Angels in our town at that time. I offered the booklet to one of them. He not only accepted it but thanked me for giving it to him.

From a child I've admired HMS. I got to meet him twice, and Jr. often enough to be recognized. I love hearing stories about his remarkable life. Among the most influential sermons I've ever heard is his "The Man that God Forgot." I often mention about a paper I wish I had written when I was working on my masters; while looking up other topics, I kept coming across letters between Mrs. White and/or Willie White to the pastors who's thought has developed into the thread of Adventism called "Historic Adventism" and/or "Last Generation Adventism." As well as handbills from the early 1900s accusing Mrs. White of Heresy for becoming a trinitarian, for her slack views on inspiration and attacks on Fundamentalism, and her writing testimonies to our faithful pastors who she should be supporting and not criticizing (and these are those who's thoughts developed into "Historic Adventism" "LGP") among other changes. While these had a deep impact on my life and thoughts, I did not see them as relevant enough for a paper. I saw the problems being with say Des Ford and Walter Rea and thought the thought of these pastors was something that Adventism had moved beyond. One of these pastors became the only man that HMS hated. Whenever this pastor talked to HMS's mother, she would cry. As this pastor got old and widowed, he ended up in a nursing home. His strict understanding of perfection and trying to push these views burned a lot of bridges between his peers in the church. His children wanted little to nothing to do with him, but not only wanted nothing to do with the Seventh-day Adventist church they wanted nothing to do with religion or God at all. He evaluated his life and theology and came to a much more moderate understanding. This more moderate view ended up burning the bridges between him and those who liked his old theology. He was very much alone. HMS heard about his sad state, and started visiting him in the nursing home. HMS's hatred for the man changed into a close friendship and brotherly love, and a respect that this man was willing to evaluate his faith and grow.

I forgot to mention in an above post that our "Last Generation" people who are looking for a different QUALITY from other generations, also tend to have a very Greek/Western view of perfection, which is the culture we live in and have grown up in. However, others have noticed that while using the word "perfection" that Mrs. White seemed to hold a different view from our traditional Greek/Western understanding. As archaeology and scholarship studied more into the differences between Greek and Hebrew thought, that Mrs. White's use of the term "perfection" sounds a lot more like what has been discovered in Hebrew thought. The Hebrew and somewhat more Eastern view allows for variation and growth. Greek perfection is fully some ideal unchanging. The Hebrew view can be more compared to say a plant's growth, where perfection is a plant being on it's routine cycle. Also, while Wesley imagined a higher form of sanctification than he experienced or had ever seen, while she does not use his name, it's been pointed out that her descriptions of someone reaching perfection has been repeats of descriptions of John Wesley as a person.

Just a side note on James White and the trinity: When going over the Review for the early years, you could expect to find a general number of articles on different topics each year. James White would edit the Review at different times between other editors. A study going over these found that whenever James was the editor that there was a noticeably large drop in the number of articles about the trinity from the usual number when others edited. Another study was where anyone who had ever met James White in person was asked memories of James' comments on the trinity. One person met James only once, that was as a 8 year old boy and his parents had James over for lunch once. This was early in James' ministry. He said that over the lunch discussion that James spoke against the trinity. Everyone else gave the same answer, all the others said that James liked to be parts of discussions, but they noticed that whenever the trinity was discussed, James would not say a word but just listen to what everyone else had to say. Then when the topic changed James would rejoin the discussion. Towards the end of his life, James White wrote a letter that included saying "I'm starting to find the arguments for the trinity to be more convincing than the arguments against the trinity."

John Wesley had a very deep understanding of Sanctification, far beyond the reformers. However, John Wesley also had a theory that there was an additional sanctification experience beyond his understanding. He did not reach it, ne never met anyone who reached it, but sadly, he theorized that it existed. Most have either given up or placed that additional sanctification experience on a back burner, but at least two groups latched on to his theory. One group is the Pentecostals, who see this additional sanctification experience in speaking in tongues. Another group has been within Seventh-day Adventists in which they understood "last generation perfection" as a different quality of sanctification, this level that Wesley theorized, and that those who reached this level would be keeping the law at a quality of no one before, except maybe Jesus. While the Seventh-day Adventist pioneers did NOT make a rejection of the trinity a church doctrine and test of fellowship, MOST (NO NOT ALL as some want to say) did reject the trinity. Now, they did not form their question about the trinity into a unified doctrine as we find in some of the other groups forming at that time with similar questions (such as the Jehovah's Witnesses) Adventist pioneers allowed a spectrum of beliefs including trinitarianism. As the trinity was questioned, there was a wanting to understand the role of Jesus. When you don't have the different roles of the members of the trinity in tension with each other (God as power and authority, God as personal friend, God as working on our hearts in our subjective, existential experience) we end up taking one aspect of the trinity and make that aspect GOD IN TOTAL. While not using our language, Eastern Religion is based on making the Holy Spirit GOD IN TOTAL. We in the west tend to focus on God the Father and make this aspect out of proportion to become GOD IN TOTAL. Since God the Father is God as power and authority, and we make this aspect of God as GOD IN TOTAL the focus is on power and authority, focusing on the law the law the law until we are as dry as the hills of Gilboa. This tends to encourage and attract people who are either control freaks, or those who don't want to think for themselves and be told just what to do. We even have this problem if we have a form of trinity, but where God the Father does not submit, but God the Son, God the Holy Spirit and creatures' job is to submit. In this unbalanced understanding of one aspect of the Godhead not submitting but all submitting to him, Jesus becomes more our example than anything else. While not really necessary, often this would want Jesus to have a sinful nature. That we are sinners based on our actions rather than having a sinful nature. This forms a focus on actions. The actions of Jesus and our actions. While generation after generation falls, the final generation would finally get this right. This is what lead to the 1888 crisis. Many wondered how Mrs. White could support Jones and Wagner. Many who opposed Jones and Wagner in 1888 took a pause and in their minds worked out some kind of compromise between the view and somehow kind of fit Jones and Wagner into their framework. Mrs. White blamed herself for much of the 1888 crisis for not being clear enough in sharing the issues of the great controversy. One of Mrs. White's first steps in dealing with this was when in Australia she gave an assignment to A. G. Daniels to do a study on who Jesus is, and she gave a similar assignment to W. W. Prescott to see who the Holy Spirit is. (NOTE: I might have mixed up who got which of the assignments.) Both Daniels and Prescott questioned the doctrine of the trinity when they started the assignment. However, each came to the conclusion that the one they studied was indeed fully God. When the two reported to Mrs. White and compared notes, they realized that between the two papers that they ended up supporting the trinity. From this the idea of the trinity moved from an option that you can believe if you really wanted to, but was an unpopular view among Adventists, to where it became the center of Mrs. White's philosophy on the great controversy (The three aspects of the trinity as fully God and thus in tension with each other as they all submit to each other; Lucifer/Satan forming three deceptions, each an attack on a member of the trinity, and how many of the threes in the Bible are connected to the trinity, and/or the three deceptions, including the three angel's messages. and how the 1888 message of righteousness by faith is the three angels message.) As I pointed out above how the pre-1888 view had the idea of standing before God without the atoning sacrifice, to where you can't do anything without the atoning sacrifice, that not even faithful angels and unfallen worlds still needed the atoning sacrifice, but we can stand before God's presence without the need of Jesus pleading with our hearts to turn to him. Instead of works/acts it is a total trust. While pre-1888 Adventism, and our so called "Historic Adventists" sees a last generation perfection as a DIFFERENT QUALITY than any other generation before, and is built on the Greek understanding of perfection and that this perfection is that additional sanctification that Wesley theorized; Mrs. White understood last generation perfection as a DIFFERENT QUANTITY. That every generation can be divided into three or four groups: Those who committed the unpardonable sin, those who have come to have an unshakeable faith in Christ, and those in-between. Or those who committed the unpardonable sin, those who have not accepted God into their lives, but have not committed the unpardonable sin and could convert and accept the Lord into their lives; those who have accepted the Lord but had not yet developed into an unshakeable faith, and those who have the unshakeable faith. That each generation fits in these categories, but typically it's a bell curve, with some who commit the unpardonable sin and some with the total trust, but most in-between, that in the last generation everyone would either have committed the unpardonable sin, or have come to totally trust Jesus with an unshakeable faith. Over centuries the church argued over the nature of Christ. Often this was whether Jesus had the nature of Adam before the fall or the sinful nature after the fall, but finally concluded that Jesus had his own unique nature, with similarities but also differences from Adam before the fall and us after the fall, especially that Jesus did NOT have the sinful nature. As the trinity grew in Mrs. White's writings, she began to copy some of the best descriptions of writers of the above conclusion, thus joining this view on the nature of Christ. Sadly, many Adventists have not followed her. Some, among those who like Desmond Ford, like the idea of Jesus having the nature of Adam before the fall. (Now, I'm not sure Ford himself fell to this, he could have well held the view of Jesus having his own unique nature.) but there are people going through these writings like a lawyer looking for loopholes trying to give Jesus the nature after the fall so that they can use this for their mish-mash of pre/post 1888 thought. In the discussions that lead to the book "Questions on Doctrine" I wish that the reply was "Yes, many of our early members questioned the trinity, but as we became more accepting of the trinity we went to the traditional view that Jesus had his own unique nature" give the E. G. White quotes that they did give in the book, and maybe refer to the author she copied. Sadly, we tried to distance ourselves from our pioneer's questioning of the trinity and ended up focusing more on Jesus as God instead of the balance of Jesus as both God and man. This ended up a mess. (Note: I have mixed feelings about Questions on Doctrine. Some parts I think are excellent, others not so good, but overall it's just a book with strong and weak points. But sadly, there are too many who filters beliefs through QOD with an attitude of "QOD said it, therefore I don't believe it and that settles it for me."

It is interesting how Mrs. White changed the idea of" standing without an atoning sacrifice" to standing "without an intercessor." A superficial reading might miss this change. But they are sssssssssssssssssssssssssoooooooooooooo different from each other. First, it's been pointed out that there is the difference between the Roman Catholic understanding of intercession, how it was modified by the Reformers, but in contrast to what we find in descriptions of intercession in the Bible. The Roman Catholic has us reaching out to God through our priest, through the saints, to Mary to beg Jesus to beg the Father to forgive us. The Reformers started out with this but removed all the middle people and have us reaching out to Jesus to beg the Father to forgive us. Now, what we find for intercession in the Bible, such as in Exodus 19:5-6 and Revelation 1, we find a change of direction from the Roman Catholic/Reformer's understanding of intercession. Instead of us reaching out to God, it is God the Father, reaching through God the Son, through the Holy Spirit's work on the heart, with a role for the angels, and for God to have a special chosen people, to reach out to people's hearts. The idea of "standing without an atoning sacrifice" is scary, is NOT possible, and is NOT Biblical. While standing without an intercessor can give a picture of such a total trust in God. That God has won our hearts. That at the end of time there is no need for an intercessor because those who have accepted have reached a point where Jesus does not need to try to win us over because he has already succeeded in winning our hearts; and those who have totally rejected him have so hardened their hearts that nothing can win them over. While this can be seen clearer in Bible intercession of God reaching out to us, you can still apply it to the traditional Roman Catholic/Reformer's direction of us reaching out to God. That no matter which direction we see intercession, there is a point where we and God are in a firm relationship with each other, so there is no longer a need for one party to work on the heart of the other party. Until we close probation on ourselves, we need intercession because this is how we grow, Especially in the Bible intercession of Jesus constantly trying to win us over as we grow until we grow to where we totally trust him. As we continue to study Mrs. White, you can give a fairly strong argument that he believed in the God reaching out to people view of intercession, but either way, it is the start of sinful people reacting to the love of God for a point that can be called conversion and it's effect, then growth and while just as conversion and it's effect never ends, so growth never ends, but we grow to a point where we constantly are turning to Christ (justification) and it's result (sanctification) that this pattern becomes characteristic of our response to the Holy Spirit, and thus Mrs. White sees this experience as settling into the faith. But this relationship consistently needs Jesus' atoning sacrifice. Everything comes from Jesus' atoning sacrifice. Mrs. White even saw the faithful angels and unfallen worlds as equally needing Jesus' atoning sacrifice.