Dig Deeper: SIMPLIFYING ADVENTISM: Mission, Cornerstone Doctrine, Identifying Mark & Unique Characteristic of SDA Chruch Through the Prism of Sola Scriptura

SIMPLIFYING ADVENTISM:

Mission, Cornerstone Doctrine,

Identifying Mark &

Unique Characteristic of SDA Chruch

Through the Prism of Sola Scriptura

Sola Scriptura (Latin for 'by Scripture alone')

The MISSION of the SDA Church is the 3 Angel's Messages:

[Last Call To The World]
1) And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,

Saying with a loud voice,

Fear God, and give glory to Him;

for the hour of His judgment is come:

and worship Him that made heaven, and earth,

and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

2) And there followed another angel, saying,

Babylon is fallen, is fallen,....

3) And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice,

If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; ...

*And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying,

Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen,

and is become the habitation of devils,

and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.....,

Come out of her, My people,

that ye be not partakers of her sins,

and that ye receive not of her plagues.

Revelation 14:6-10/18:2,10

The Cornerstone DOCTRINE of the SDA Church is the SANCTUARY DOCTRINE:

[From the SYMBOLISM of the Earthly Sanctuary to the REALITY of the Heavenly Sanctuary]
And he said unto me,

Unto two thousand and three hundred days; (years)

then shall the sanctuary be cleansed....

*We have such an high priest,

who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens;

*A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle,

which the Lord pitched, and not man.

1) Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary.

--For there was a tabernacle made; the first, wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the shewbread; which is called the sanctuary.

--And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all; Which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold,..

--Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God.

--But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people:

2) But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.

--For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:

--much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?... but now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

-**-And as it is appointed unto men once to die,

but after this the judgment:

Daniel 8:14/Hebrews 8:1,2/9:1-4.6,7,11-14,26,27

The IDENTIFYING MARK of the SDA Church is the 7th Day SABBATH:

[The Seal of His Law that Identifies Him as Creator -- and therefore as God]
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy

Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work:

*But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God:

in it thou shalt not do any work...

For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth,

the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day:

wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Here is the patience of the saints:

here are they that keep the commandments of God,

and the faith of Jesus.

Exodus 20:8-11/Revelation 14:12

In this GREAT CONTROVERSY between God and His opponent, played out here on this Space Fabric of Time,

between the Pillars of the 2 Decrees from the Throne of God,

of "Let There Be Light" (Gen. 1:3) to "It is Done" (Rev. 16:17) --

The Apostle Paul gives us a WARNING:

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood,

but against principalities, against powers,

against the rulers of the darkness of this world,

against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Ephesians 6:12

God sent mankind a Text Message, the Bible--giving us origins, destiny, meaning and morality.

It Begins & Ends the same: It begins with God leaning over and

breathing the breath of Life into Adam. It ends with God leaning over and wiping away the tears of the saints. -- It Begins and Ends with God leaning over and touching us--mankind. In the pages in between He tells us what He thinks of us: ...that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. James 5:11

Picture the Letter of 3rd John as a Summary of God's Text Message to YOU:

Beloved,

I wish above all things

that thou mayest prosper

(personal wellbeing)

and be in health,

(physical wellbeing)

even as thy soul prospereth.

(spiritual wellbeing)

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. But I trust I shall shortly see thee,

and we shall speak face to face.

3 John 1:2,4,14

The Unique Characteristic of the SDA Church is the Gift of the SPIRIT of PROPHECY in its midst:

[We believe through Ellen White]

And the dragon was wroth with the woman,

and went to make war with the remnant of her seed,

1- which keep the commandments of God,

2- and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

And I fell at his feet to worship him.

And he said unto me,

See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren

that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God:

for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
Revelation 12:17/19:10

Her writings are considered by her and the Church, to be the "Lesser Light" pointing toward the "Greater Light" (the Bible). They are in NO WAY to take the place of Scripture nor are on par with the canon of Scripture itself. Rather, under inspiration, they highlight the Present Truth in the Bible for this age---

(Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth. 1 Peter 1:12).

EXAMPLE: The dietary principles of God are in Scripture. Well before the Hebrews in the days of Moses, God distinguished clear back in the Days of Noah, that there are Clean and Unclean Meat for mankind. She pulled the HEALTH MESSAGE from the Scriptures that many Christians had been missing - or ignoring for centuries - yet it was always there.

This last day movement would not only keep the commandments of God but have the Spirit of Prophecy within it.

***12 Samples of Ellen White***

On GRACE:

"If you feel yourself to be the greatest sinner, Christ is just what you need, the greatest Savior. Lift up your head and look away from yourself, away from your sin, to the uplifted Savior; away from the poisonous, venomous bite of the serpent to the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world."

On OBEDIENCE:

"God has given us His commandments, not only to be believed in, but to be obeyed."

Message for LAODICEA:

"You know the truth, you believe the truth, you even love the truth.---But the truth hasn't changed you. Let the truth change you."

On PRAYER:

"Keep your wants, your joys, your sorrows, your cares, and your fears before God.

You cannot burden Him; you cannot weary Him.

His heart of love is touched by our sorrows and even by our utterances of them.
Take to Him everything that perplexes the mind. Nothing is too great for Him to bear, for He holds up worlds, He rules over all the affairs of the universe.

Nothing that in any way concerns our peace is too small for Him to notice.

There is no chapter in our experience too dark for Him to read; there is no perplexity too difficult for Him to unravel. .... no sincere prayer escape the lips, of which our heavenly Father is unobservant, or in which He takes no immediate interest.
......He knows the sorrows that we feel to the depths of our being, but which we cannot express."

On What to Contemplate:

"It would be well for us to spend a thoughtful hour each day in contemplation of the life of
Christ. We should take it point by point, and let the imagination grasp each scene, especially the closing ones."

On the "IF":

"If we ever reach heaven, it will be by linking our souls to Christ, leaning upon Him, and cutting loose from *the world, *its follies *and enchantments."

On SEXUAL IMMORALITY:

"O, how disgusted is God with the tame, lifeless, Christless efforts made by some of those who profess to be his servants. Not one particle of Sodomitish impurity will escape the wrath of God at the execution of the judgment. Those who do not repent of and forsake all uncleanness will fall with the wicked.

Those who anciently committed these sins were taken without the camp and stoned to death. Temporal and eternal death was their doom; and because the penalty of stoning to death is abolished, this sin is indulged in beyond measure, and is thought to be a small offense.
Indulgence in unlawful things has become a power to--deprave mankind,--to dwarf the mind,--and to pervert the faculties.
Just such a state of things as exists today existed before the flood and before the destruction of Sodom."

On Christ in the SANCTUARY:

"The intercession of Christ in man’s behalf in the sanctuary above is as essential to the plan
of salvation as was His death upon the cross.
By His death He began that work which after His resurrection He ascended to complete in heaven. The sanctuary in heaven is the very center of Christ's work in behalf of men.
It concerns every soul living upon the earth."

On the SABBATH:
"Like the Sabbath, the week originated at creation, and it has been preserved and brought down to us through Bible history. God himself measured off the first week as a sample for successive weeks to the close of time.
Like every other, it consisted of seven literal days. Six days were employed in the work of creation; upon the seventh, God rested, and he then blessed this day, and set it apart as a day of rest for man."

On the STATE OF THE DEAD:

"Nowhere in the Sacred Scriptures is found the statement that the righteous go to their reward or the wicked to their punishment at death. Upon the fundamental error of natural immortality rests the doctrine of consciousness in death—a doctrine.... opposed to the teachings of the Scriptures, to the dictates of reason.

Immortality, promised to man on condition of obedience, had been forfeited by transgression.

Adam could not transmit to his posterity that which he did not possess; But what did Adam, after his sin, find to be the meaning of the words, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die”?

Did he find them to mean, as Satan had led him to believe, that he was to be ushered into a more exalted state of existence?

The Bible declares that the dead know not anything, that their thoughts have perished; they have no part in anything that is done under the sun; they know nothing of the joys or sorrows of those who were dearest to them on earth. God has expressly forbidden all pretended communication with departed spirits. In the days of the Hebrews there was a class of people who claimed, as do the spiritualists of today, to hold communication with the dead. But the “familiar spirits,” as these visitants from other worlds were called, are declared by the Bible to be “the spirits of devils.”

The theory of the immortality of the soul was one of those false doctrines that Rome, borrowing from paganism, incorporated into the religion of Christendom.

Martin Luther classed it with the “monstrous fables that form part of the Roman dunghill of decretals.”

The Bible clearly teaches that the dead do not go immediately to heaven. They are represented as sleeping until the resurrection. 1 Thessalonians 4:14; Job 14:10-12. In the very day when the silver cord is loosed and the golden bowl broken (Ecclesiastes 12:6), man's thoughts perish. They that go down to the grave are in silence. They sleep; they are awakened by the trump of God to a glorious immortality. “For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible.... So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” 1 Corinthians 15:52-54. "

On ERROR:

"Error cannot stand alone, and would soon become extinct if it did not fasten itself like a parasite upon the tree of truth.
--Error draws its life from the truth of God.
--The traditions of men, like floating germs, attach themselves to the truth of God, and men
regard them as a part of the truth.
--Through false doctrines, Satan gains a foothold, and captivates the minds of men, causing them to hold theories that have no foundation in truth.
Men boldly teach for doctrines the commandments of men; and as traditions pass on from age to age, they acquire a power over the human mind.
But age does not make error truth, neither does its burdensome weight cause the plant of truth to become a parasite.
--The tree of truth bears its own genuine fruit, showing its true origin and nature.
--The parasite of error also bears its own fruit and makes manifest that its character is diverse from the plant of heavenly origin."

A WARNING:

"...by beholding we become changed. The mind gradually adapts itself to the subjects upon which it is allowed to dwell. It becomes assimilated to that which it is accustomed to love and reverence."

Q: Do you know of any other denomination that preaches the 3

Angel's Messages, lifts up the Beauty of the Sanctuary Doctrine where the Plan of Redemption is laid out, believes in keeping ALL the Commandments of God (including the 7th day Sabbath of the 4th Commandment) and has the Spirit of Prophecy -- not in an arrogant way that makes up new things but rather, under inspiration, points deeper into what's already there in the Bible?

Links for MORE on the 3 ANGEL'S MESSAGES:

3 Angel's Message Simplified