The 3abn Massachusetts Lawsuit Poll Options

[Pickle]

Pickle, I dont see anywhere in the bible where the bible tells about the rise of the Adventist church.

I think it is very clear that Rev. 10, coupled with a few other passages, foretells the rise of the Seventh-day Adventist church. I have not seen any alternative interpretation that would in my mind rule against such a conclusion.

From the very beginning of Adventism, we have taught that being a member doesn't make one saved, and that many within our ranks aren't going anywhere, which has been true since the days of the apostles. On the other hand, we have also taught that it is critical that one heed the call of God in Rev. 18:4, and that God does want us to associate as a church family.

Such association is linked in Scripture to salvation: "Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved" (Acts 2:47). Again, that doesn't mean that only church members are saved or that all church members are saved. But it does show us God's intent to associate His people in a church family, and Jn. 10:16 does tell us that His intention is to end up with all His people in one fold in the end.

[st mary]

I hope this is not too much off the topic but I have read your comments re; Revelation 10 foretelling the rise of the Seventh day Adventist church but I must say that you are grossly mistaken. Nowhere in scripture is there any reference to a specific modern day church organization. The body of believers or the church as referred to in the Bible is the entire christian community. Since the Israelites lost this favored position when Jesus came the first time, God has been using anyone who is willing to be used, Jews and gentiles alike, wherever they are, in an organized body or outside of an organized body. My study and understanding of scripture has not revealed anywhere in the New Testament where God has limited himself to what we know today as an organization. We have limited God to our church organizations but remember the Bible says in Col 3:11" ... where there is neither Greek nor Jew circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian slave or free, but CHRIST is all and in all." For those of us who have and are placing our trust in an organization whether it be the Adventist church, the Baptist church, the Methodist church or any other church, our fate will be just like that of the Jews of old.

[watchbird]

I hope this is not too much off the topic but I have read your comments re; Revelation 10 foretelling the rise of the Seventh day Adventist church but I must say that you are grossly mistaken. Nowhere in scripture is there any reference to a specific modern day church organization. The body of believers or the church as referred to in the Bible is the entire christian community. Since the Israelites lost this favored position when Jesus came the first time, God has been using anyone who is willing to be used, Jews and gentiles alike, wherever they are, in an organized body or outside of an organized body. My study and understanding of scripture has not revealed anywhere in the New Testament where God has limited himself to what we know today as an organization. We have limited God to our church organizations but remember the Bible says in Col 3:11" ... where there is neither Greek nor Jew circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian slave or free, but CHRIST is all and in all." For those of us who have and are placing our trust in an organization whether it be the Adventist church, the Baptist church, the Methodist church or any other church, our fate will be just like that of the Jews of old.

I agree fully. I think the Bible is for ALL Christians everywhere and that it foretells things in general that have to do with the church and changing conditions as we near the end of time. But I do not think that any specific denomination is pictured in prophecy.... and I've been an Adventist for many many years, btw.

[princessdi]

I see you two are for trashing th Rev. Sem. materials also. LOL!! Where exactly did we get that from?

[st mary]

I am in no way trashing anyone or anything. Jesus clearly says; " ...teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." If it is not in the Bible then it is a man made doctrine. I have been and am a seventh day adventist for as long as I know myself but allowing the holy spirit to teach me is the greatest thing that ever happened to me for a long long time. Try Him and I guarantee you your world will be shaken. When Jesus came the first time the then known church destroyed him. They did not understand that he did not come to to be their enemy but only to present the true and living God to them, the God whom they thought they knew. They killed Jesus instead, thinking that they were doing God a favor.
My friend it will happen again so let the Holy Spirit be your teacher and not fallible men who know the truth but refuse to be corrected like the Jewish leaders of old.

[watchbird]

I see you two are for trashing th Rev. Sem. materials also. LOL!! Where exactly did we get that from?

I don't know if I was trashing the Revelation Seminar materials or not... since I've never indulged. I do know that I asked Jon Paulien, one of the most prominent of our Revelation scholars, a few years ago which he would recommend and he said, "None". When I asked him when he was going to write one himself, he said, "Someday".

That day has come.... almost. Tthe Seminar materials are completed but still in production at the moment.... so are not released yet. But he does have a DVD set finished and available on a special half-price deal available currently from Sam Bacchiocchi's website. This set is called "Simply Revelation". For more information go to http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/revelation.

This post has been edited by watchbird: Jun 27 2007, 05:38 PM

[st mary]

I have read and listened to some of Paulien's work on the trumpets and seals of Revelation and and it is the closest interpretation I have seen yet written on the truth as it is in Revelation by any Seventh Day Adventist writer. Revelation I am finding without adding or subtracting anything is just so simple and easy to understand.

[Snoopy]

Based on a little (albeit limited) legal knowledge, I believe that what is being said here is that 3ABN is not an Adventist owned television station. Being Adventist owned and owned by an Adventist are different legally. The word that needs the focus here is "specific". 3ABN may be owned by an Adventist, but it is not owned by a specific church, so if Shelton decided to start teaching catholic or baptist doctrine or allowing it on the program the GC could do nothing about it. Also he must go through the legal channels and pay for the rights to use anything that is specifically Adventist while Adventist owned media outlets do not. 3ABN is not affiliated with a specific church, denomination or organization. Now 3ABN may be affiliated with the Adventist church in some areas, but it may also be affiliated with other churches. Affiliated here would mean "in partnership with". (Small example, Burger King is affiliated specifically with Coke. That means they sell exclusively Coke products at their company owned stores, Wal-mart on the other hand is offiliated with coke, Pepsi, 7-up, they sell all products so there is no specific affiliation). Lastly, 3ABN's financing is not through a specific church. It may have donors who are Advenist and donors who are Adventist entities, but some 3ABN donors are non-Adventist organizations and individuals. This wording, in essence, protects 3ABN from any legal action that might be taken against the Adventist church and also protects the Adventist Church from any legal action taken against 3ABN. So that if someone decides to sue Danny Shelton and 3ABN the General Conference can not be held liable, and vice versa. Hope that helps.

I disagree that "3ABN may be owned by an Adventist." It is a 501©3 tax-exempt organization which means to me that it is "owned" by its donors. The president of a for-profit corporation does not "own" it - the stockholders do. If 3ABN were to dissolve, its assets would have to be distrubuted to another tax-exempt organization or be turned over to the federal government. DS does not "own" 3ABN.


Edit note: Can't get the "c" in the parentheses without it turning into the copyright symbol...

This post has been edited by Snoopy: Jun 27 2007, 08:30 PM

[Pickle]

I hope this is not too much off the topic but I have read your comments re; Revelation 10 foretelling the rise of the Seventh day Adventist church but I must say that you are grossly mistaken. Nowhere in scripture is there any reference to a specific modern day church organization.

But I do not think that any specific denomination is pictured in prophecy.... and I've been an Adventist for many many years, btw.

I think we can agree that my mother church, the church of Rome which calls itself the Mother Church, and which throughout the Middle Ages sat upon seven hills, and which was a city which reigned over the kings of the earth, and which was drunk with the blood of the saints, and which has given birth to daughters, is pictured in Rev. 17. Thus we do have a specific denomination and modern day church organization pictured in Scripture.

As far as Adventism and Rev. 10 goes, Rev. 10 has an Angel whose face shines like the sun who lifts His hand toward heaven and swears by Him who lives forever, holding a book that is open. In Dan. 12 we have Michael lifting His hands toward heaven and swearing by Him who lives forever, and that is supposed to have something to do with when the end will be when the book of Daniel is unsealed. Thus, 12:7 tells us that Daniel would be unsealed at the end of the 1260 days.

The question is, what part of Daniel was ever sealed? Not the identity of the head of gold, that is for sure. In fact, the only part of Daniel explicitly said to be sealed until the time of the end is the 2300 evening-morning of Dan. 8:14 (see Dan. 8:17, 26, and the marginal reading of 8:14).

Thus in Rev. 10 we have pictured the unsealing of the 2300 days after the end of the 1260 days. And that would lead to a bitter-sweet experience, after which those involved would be told that they must prophesy again, which presumably would mean that they must now give the third angel's message.

And in Rev. 11:1 John is told to measure the temple, the altar, and the worshippers, in the context of the unsealed 2300 days of Dan. 8:14 as pictured in Rev. 10. Now the sanctuary, altar, and worshippers just happen to be the three entities that are cleansed in Lev. 16 on the Day of Atonement, and "measure" just happens to mean "judge" in Mat. 7:2, and a measuring judgment just happens to be an investigative rather than a sentencing or an executive judgment.

Note that the worshippers are being measured. Why? Measuring the temple makes sense, but why measure the worshippers? To see how tall they are? How wide they are? Not at all. "Measure" has to mean "judge."

So in Rev. 10 we have a very specific people being described, a people that would have something to do with an unsealed 2300 days, a bitter-sweet experience, a call to prophesy on a global scale, a people that would recognize something about how the worshippers are now being measured.

If you can find another people all that fits, I'm interested.

[Voktar of Zargon]

I concure wholeheartedly brother Pickle. Why do people keep setting up a straw man that orthodox Adventists are looking for salvation in their church? Nobody believes this of course, any more than people believe that baptism saves.
I told Jon 16 years ago that I was tired of theologians trashing our evangelistic material (which does need improvement) if they did not offer something better. Sure has taken him long enough.
I trust the final appeal will not say something like, "Come out of Baylon - which probably doesn't represent Catholicism and the "Protestant" daughter churches as we used to teach - and come into our church (if you feel like it) which may or may not have the correct interpretation of prophecy for the last days. Which used to believe that it had a prophetic/historical significance that set it apart from all other churches (but we now believe this interpretation to be erroneous). Therefore come out of amorphous Babylon in a purely spiritual way - affiliate with the remnant (whatever that represents) in your heart somehow and we hope to see you in the kingdom someday. God bless. - Oh, and by the way, if you want another non-denominational message which has no affiliation with any organization 3ABN says they can help."

[Johann]

The participation in this poll tells me there are more than 3-4 people interested in this subject.

[st mary]

There is only reference to two churches in scripture and those are; ( 1 ) the corrupt church of satan, Babylon of which the Roman system is a part and (2) God's true church. The modern day organizations as we know them such as the Baptist church, the Adventist church, the methodist church, the Church of Christ, etc; are not referred to in scripture. Much of what we see today masquerading as God's true church is really just a part of the system of Babylon. No man knows or even has the right to say that one of these church organization is Babylon because Babylon is a system that consist not only of the religious system but of financial, government and military system.
The christian church as we know it today is not yet perfected and Isaiah 4:1 clearly shows the state of the christian church in the last days in which I am sure we are living now. "And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own food and wear our own apparel; only let us be called by your name to take away our reproach." This is the state of the christian church today, everyone making their claim to Christ yet preaching their own manmade doctrine and declaring themselves righteous. It may sound impossible yet God is still still working with and using imperfect man even among this mess. But God's last church, the one that will carry out his final command just before his coming is yet to appear. The references to this church is in Joel 2.

The great work done by a people great and strong on that Day of the Lord that is done by God's last church, the Two Wittnesses of Revelation 11 who were later killed because of their testimony.
Our faithful and dedicated pioneers were much mistaken when they applied to scripture what was to apply to the last church. I believe they thought like many before them that what they saw happening were definately the events of the last day but this was just a misapplication of scripture on their part. In Matt. 24: 21 Jesus clearly said; " For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time nor ever shall be." Have we seen this time as yet? Then he went further to say in verse 29, " Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light: the stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens will be shaken." And in verse 34 he says;" Assuredly I say to you this generation shall by no means pass away till all these things take place."

This Prophecy of Matt. 24 as you all will agree has a two applications; one to the destruction of the the temple in Jerusalem after Jesus left for heaven and the other; the final destruction before Jesus comes the second time. This we know because of the questions that were asked of Jesus at the beginning of the chapter. So we know that Jesus was specifically talking to the generation of people who were alive at that time he was speaking because thase people later wittnessed the destruction of the temple. The second set of people that this prophecy specifically apply to is also to the generation who will wittness his second coming. We all can admit that that the generation of our pioneers whose interpretation of scripture we follow today are long gone. So an honest mistake was made, so what do we do? Instead of admitting to our mistakes some of us have held on for dear life to what is not truth thus missing the truth in scripture.

[LaurenceD]

From the very beginning of Adventism, we have taught that being a member doesn't make one saved,...

(snip)

As far as Adventism and Rev. 10 goes,...

(snip)

If you can find another people all that fits, I'm interested.

In order to avoid any confusion, maybe you should explain the difference between Adventism and adventism and why you felt it necessary to capitalize the word. Also, between adventism and Seveth-Day Adventists as a denoination, ie, the difference between May 21, 1863 (SDA inception) and the first time anyone believed the second coming of Jesus and the end of the world were near.

[st mary]

In the past the people were led astray by the jewish leaders. Jesus has come and himself became the atonement for us but because man is so used to having the scripture interpereted to him even 2000 years after the cross man is still expecting it and sometimes demands it sadly. Jesus has opened up his heart to us yet we continue to feed on leftovers from other men's tables. The catholic church held sole rights to the scripture and dished out to the uneducated poor and even the educated rich people what they thought was good for them. This was against the will of God then as it is against his will today. The scripture is open to all today thank God but It is so sad to see us constantly referring to," what the church doctrine says," or " what we have been taught."

God has made it very clear in scripture ; Jesus Christ is the center of all things and until He becomes the center of all that we teach, what we have been taught by the church will never hold up. It never held up for the Jews when they watched as Jesus tore down all that they took centuries to build up. It never held up for the church in the middle ages and are we about to see for the last and final time that it is not going tohold up? It seems to me that what we have been taught by our leaders are far more important than Jesus himself.

The 3ABN saga has come to rock the very foundations of the SDA church because most members believe in the infallibility of the SDA church. This situation is revealing our hearts which is the only thing that God cares about in man. Let him do his perfect work in us. God is about redemption. The work of redemption will never be in vain

[Pickle]

In order to avoid any confusion, maybe you should explain the difference between Adventism and adventism and why you felt it necessary to capitalize the word. Also, between adventism and Seveth-Day Adventists as a denoination, ie, the difference between May 21, 1863 (SDA inception) and the first time anyone believed the second coming of Jesus and the end of the world were near.

Okay, I'll give it a try.

If you look at Rev. 10 through 11:1, we are talking about a people that not only preached a message based on an unsealed Dan. 8:14, but also which afterwards recognized that there was an investigative judgment going on in heaven. Now when we realize that that is what the passage specifies, then we move beyond talking about the entire Millerite Movement, the entire Advent Awakening. We are specifically talking about the handfall of that movement that became the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

When we look at Rom. 12, 1 Cor. 12, and Eph. 4, when we read what Paul says about spiritual gifts, he in each passage compares the members of the church to the members of our physical body.

We've all been let down, we've all been disappointed, and because of that Satan tempts us to think that somehow we can be a member of the church without being a member of the church. Yet we forget that the parts of our body are tightly connected in a definite organization, and that is precisely what the church really is.

Paul says that when Jesus comes, He will have a church that is without spot or wrinkle. Jesus is the head of the church and died that He might purify it, and Paul holds that up as an example of how we are to treat our wives. in other words, Paul acknowledges that the church isn't spotless now.