Links on this Website
Seventh-day Adventists
use deceptive practices
It is evident that SDAs hold some unique, unbiblical teachings that are quite divergent from mainstream Christianity. However, Adventists do not want to appear to be that divergent! Rather, they want to be seen by Christendom as within the mainstream. In order to do this, they have become very subtle in their evangelism. Seldom are their Revelation Seminars advertised as Adventist evangelistic meetings. The Voice of Prophecy, Faith for Today, It Is Written, The Quiet Hour, Amazing Facts, 3-ABN and other SDA media programs are often not advertised as Adventist programs. These programs often leave out of their messages some of the erroneous doctrines outlined in this booklet. First, they want to “set the hook”, and then after they have the “fish in the boat,” they tell them “the rest of the story.” I have talked with many Seventh-day Adventists or former Seventh-day Adventists who were never told about all the unbiblicaldoctrines, including the acceptance of Ellen White as a continuing and authoritative source of truth, until after they were baptized into the church.
Not only are Adventists somewhat misleading in their evangelistic approach, their history is literally riddled with deceptive practices. For example, they have suppressed one of Ellen White’s visions because it clearly teaches a shut door of salvation after 1844. In the book Early Writings is recorded Ellen White’s first vision. What many Adventists do not know is that part of this vision has been deleted. When honest Adventist leaders learned of some of these errors and left the church, they were usually castigated and given over to Satan. In fact, Ellen White went so far as to state,
"When the power of God testifies [has told Ellen White] as to what is truth, that truth is to stand forever as the truth. No after suppositions contrary to the light God has given are to be entertained."
In other words, once Ellen White has clearly supported a given Adventist teaching, based upon a “vision” or “instruction” from “God” that teaching is to stand forever. One now understands how difficult it will be for Adventists to admit error, especially the foundational, fundamental doctrines upon which this church was founded which received the prophetic stamp of Ellen White’s approval.
Adventists know the problems associated with their doctrines, especially their investigative judgment doctrine. When working on the SDA Bible Commentary Adventist scholars became acutely aware that this doctrine had no biblical basis. In fact, a super-secret committee of Adventism’s top scholars was appointed by the then General Conference president to solve their Daniel 8:14/1844 problem. They worked on this problem for five years, could not solve it, disbanded, left no minutes and were instructed to continue to teach the investigative judgment based upon their “traditional assumptions.” The church has tried to make it appear this problem has been solved by publishing a huge, multi-volume “scholarly work.” However, it is riddled with assumptions. Also, according to one member of SDAs Biblical Research Institute Committee, it either tended to ignore serious questions about Adventist doctrine, or it would turn the problem over to a naïve scholar who would defend without question the traditional teaching.
If someone presented a paper pointing toward a conclusion at variance with the church’s teaching, however, it was just as quickly relegated to the denomination’s archival collection, never to surface again. The author of such a paper was usually never asked to do research again on a subject that could show Adventist teachings to be error.
Cultic Doctrine lists and illustrates seventeen ways Adventists have dealt with known error. Yet the church has never, to this author’s knowledge, publicly admitted doctrinal error. The reason is that it would create a crisis of faith among the laity who believes its historic teachings. How could the "true church" be founded on error?