Category: Uncategorized

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Adventists and Pollution

Pollution is an interesting issue among Adventists. I have heard preachers downplay the importance of taking care of the environment for, they argue, “God is going to clean up everything at the Second Advent anyway.” This attitude seems to be to promote disobedience to God who gave us care over this world. Just as we would not eat anything and destroy our bodies for “God is going to clean up everything at the Second Advent” neither should we cavalierly ignore the cry for a better environment.

Interestingly enough, a youtube channel entitled “Adventists About Life” have discussed this very topic. Here is the video. Dr. Allen Handysides argues “Do We Care? I care, for this is God’s world and it wasn’t meant to be polluted by plastics.”

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Doctrines and Preaching

Now we know that we must only preach the Gospel. This provides a problem for those of us who feel the need to preach such doctrines as the Sabbath, State of the Dead, and Sanctuary. Some of us might give in to the temptation of sometimes preaching Gospel and other times preaching these doctrines. Such a temptation is understandable in light of the belief that we need these doctrines, but it is problematic in that it places some doctrines above Gospel.

Some preachers get around this by only preaching doctrine “sometimes” and emphasizing the Gospel above these said doctrines. they preach “doctrine” because they Adventist, but preach “Gospel” primarily because they are Christians. I wholeheartedly understand this decision in light of the fact that we must major in Gospel preaching, but I do not think that is our only choice.

Other preachers see the deterioration of our understanding of doctrines in modern day Adventism. In light of that, they emphasize the doctrines. You can hear their sermons as these few “true believers” preach discourses on the law and its importance. They preach the sabbath as the seventh day and meticulously calculate 2300 to come out to 1844. I understand this decision as well in light of the fact that we do have a message or a perspective that God has given to us to give to the world. But that is not our only choice either.

E. J. Waggoner wrote in Bible Studies on the Book of Romans:

Nothing can be added to the preaching of the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ. What about these doctrines, as the Sabbath, immortality, etc?-Since the “kingdom of God and His righteousness” is the one thing needful…all of these doctrines are simply divisions, lines depending upon the one thing,-all summed up in the doctrine of the righteousness by faith. We can preach nothing else…

Waggoner is noting that you do not choose between Gospel and doctrines. No! You preach gospel totally. If you want to preach the Sabbath, then please show us how it is connected to Gospel. Show us how it is connected to the Good News. Please connect it to the larger framework of what God is “up to” in this world. Don’t just get up and preach the Sabbath as the seventh day and sit down. We must turn the page and move towards a so-what that tells us how these doctrines are connected. And dare I say, if you can’t connect the doctrines to Gospel, then PREACH ON SOMETHING ELSE UNTIL YOU CAN!

As preachers, let us take seriously our call to bring good tidings of great joy. Whether you are preaching Revelation, Sanctuary, Sabbath, or even State of the Dead. If you do that, then our preaching of this message will align with and join in with the messages that Ellen White identified as the beginning of the Loud Cry…

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Laypeople Have Lost Their Job

There was a time when all Christians were supposed to pray for the prayer of a righteous man avails much. (James 5:16) We were told that we need to pray for our civic leaders. We were told to pray for the leaders of the church and for the direction of the church. In fact, we were told to pray about many things.

However, at some point, we decided to make a set of people responsible for our praying. They are called “prayer warriors.” They have the special gift of prayer and have gone through the training so that they can go on prayer offensives to take down the kingdom of the evil one.

Under this new idea, there are those who have the special calling to simply pray. This seems to be a continued movement towards firing the lay people. Years ago all members were all supposed to give Bible studies and work for the salvation of souls. Now we have Bible Workers who take care of that responsibility. Even the Pastors are no longer evangelists in many cases, we have professional evangelists for that work.

The “praise team” concept that we have borrowed from evangelicals seems like a development that will allow the people to sing praises to God, but in many cases the only people you hear are the leaders singing in the microphone.

How about preaching. Instead of developing the talent of the local elders, in many cases (in America) we simply bring in professional preachers. We save the local elders to preach when most of the church is away at camp meeting or Christmas.

So now we come to prayer. That is now in the hands of a select few who know the ins and outs of the discipline. One Wonders what is next. Soon the only contribution that Christians will have is give tithe and sit down and consume the religious entertainment that has been provided for them.

I ain’t got a problem with praise teams, but maybe every so often we aughta just cut down the volume on the leaders mics and have an old fashioned chorister lead the people in praising God. It may not sound as good to our ears, but there is something about a congregation with voices (some flat, some sharp, and some on the wrong note) that sounds REAL.

Maybe it is time for a revival of Bible Work. Not just dropping off the Amazing Facts lessons, but working with someone, reading the Bible and learning where texts are located. And maybe just maybe we aughta tell the prayer warriors that we are happy they are there, but in reality every believer is a prayer warrior and we all will pray for the coming kingdom.

Adventists used to say that lay-people will finish the work. Well if lay-people will finish the work, perhaps they aughta start working. By God’s grace, we will move closer to God and to each other and learn the skills to interact with the world from a spiritual and yes Adventist standpoint.