Your reply brings to mind Rev. 18:1 and two statements …

Comment on What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist? by Mary Shelton.

Your reply brings to mind Rev. 18:1 and two statements by Ellen White in COL p.415.
“And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power, and the earth was lightened with his glory”. God’s glory is His character and Ellen White states in COL, “It is the darkness of misapprehension of God that is enshrouding the world. Men are losing their knowledge of His character. It has been misunderstood and misinterpreted. At this time a message from God is to be proclaimed, a message illuminating in its influence and saving in its power. His character is to be made known. Into the darkness of the world is to be shed the light of His glory, the light of His goodness, mercy, and truth.”

God’s “truth” is to be made known as well as His goodness and mercy. He is coming back to take to Himself a bride who has “grown up” from a child into an adult (a final generation, the 144,000) in whose hearts and minds the New Covenant promise has been fulfilled and they will not only have the “faith of Jesus” but through it will be enabled to “keep His commandments” joyfully! It is true, as a church we have gone through an evolving of truth which not only includes His goodness and mercy but the great truths or doctrines taught in Scripture. At this outpouring of the latter rain, the final generation will be truly “lightened with His glory”, in mind, body, and spirit, ready to meet Him whom they adore. May we aspire and long to be part of that group which will honor Him at His coming.

Mary Shelton Also Commented

What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist?
Professor Kent

I agree, Jesus did gently chide Thomas but it is also true that Thomas had had plenty of “evidence” beforehand on which to base his faith in a sacrificial Christ but he, and the other disciples, did not base their faith on the evidence given. They not only had the Scriptures but the words spoken by Jesus himself. It doesn’t appear to me that “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” necessarily mean there was no previous evidence does it?


What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist?
Sean Pitman

I was going to bow out of this discussion but now you have gotten my attention and I am seeing that up to this point I have never had any real clarity on this issue. Nor did “weight of evidence” as an issue ever hold any “weight” with me (smile) as I have never really thought about it nor have had occasion to “weigh” the “evidence”. Scuse the puns but they fit here. You have given some very convincing quotes from EGW and I am really excited to consider this, for me, new line of thinking. I can even see where it would be necessary for our schools to “weigh the evidence” for creation versus evolution. I am glad that I did come on here because it strikes me this a.m. that God is indeed speaking to “rational intelligent persons” and this being so, would appeal to evidence on which we could base our “faith”. I will think on this.


What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist?
Sean Pitman:
I went back and read what you were saying about the teaching of creationism in our schools. Should have done this first as I see where I am not on track with your argument for empirical (got sp. right lol) evidence in our schools. That is, of course, the right thing to be done. I guess my difference with you would be that I find that much of Bible truths are faith-based, not proof-based. Much of the Bible seems like a fairytale without faith to believe, which is God-given. The difference between say believing in the Book of Mormon and the Bible alone is deep within the heart that no one but God can see and understand. It would not be sin to believe a lie if the third person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit, were not available to every man to bring us into “all truth”. Anyway, thanks for your patience and courtesy.


Recent Comments by Mary Shelton

NCSE Report: Adventist Education in the Midst of a Sea of Science
Bill,
I thought your reply made a lot of sense. The devil realizes he can’t change an event but he doesn’t need to if he can change the meaning such as the evolution theory. Genesis can stand but God’s seven-day creation falls exactly like the fourth commandment that is included in most faiths in the U.S. including Catholicism and there it will stay giving lip service but changing the meaning entirely. [edit]

“Association with learned men is esteemed by some more highly than communion with the God of heaven. The statements of learned men are thought of more value than the highest wisdom revealed in the word of God. . .The men who parade before the world as wonderful specimens of greatness. .robe man with honor, and talk of the perfection of nature. They paint a very fine picture, but it is an illusion. . Those who present a doctrine contrary to that of the Bible, are led by the great Apostate. . .With such a leader expelled from heaven–the supposedly great men of earth may fabricate bewitching theories with which to infatuate the minds of men. (YI Feb. 7, 1895; FE 331, 332)


NCSE Report: Adventist Education in the Midst of a Sea of Science
Actually there is only one Sabbath day and that is the seventh day Sabbath. Sunday is the counterfeit sabbath of Baal worship on which the sun was worshipped. You cannot celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday, however, you can choose to worship on that day or any other day but it will not be Sabbath worship. This, I believe, underlies the creation versus evolution controversy, however it may be protested, but a controversy between Sunday worship and Sabbath worship is on the way such as the world has never seen and the groundwork is being laid. Blessings


NCSE Report: Adventist Education in the Midst of a Sea of Science
Higher education can be a great blessing but it can be, and sometimes is, a greater curse. Jesus must have taken this into consideration when He chose His disciples, unschooled but teachable fishermen. Judas, the self-chosen disciple, had the “higher education” and it was he who thought he knew so much that sold the Master for thirty pieces of silver. It seems to me that evolutionary theories came into being for the purpose of degrading God’s creative power and doing away with the sign of that power, His holy Sabbath day. But the truly wise will not be fooled. No amount of machinations of man will succeed in perverting God’s Word to make it comply with their theories. The God who holds the sub-atomic particles and the universe together will have the last word and it will be the same as He wrote it in the Genesis creation account and signed and sealed it in His immutable Ten Commandments.

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the “seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work; you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.

For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” Exodus 20:8-11 Blessings


NCSE Report: Adventist Education in the Midst of a Sea of Science
You can’t dance with the devil without at some point his follow will hijack the lead and you will dance to his tune.

“Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?” 2Cor. 6:14.

If we must dance with the world and their unbiblical philosophies to obtain accreditation, do we then decry the results? Maybe we should rethink. . do we base our beliefs on the Word of God alone or are we to compromise with the “foolishness” of man’s reinterpretation of the Bible?

Soon Job 42:5,6 will take on a fresh and relevant meaning. “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Something to think seriously about while it is “yet today”.


Eugenie Scott’s Letter of Alarm – “Evolution Under Attack”
Eugenie Scott is going to be far more alarmed when Jesus comes! However, unless she invites the truths of His Word into her heart, she will have a lot of evolutionary company. The rocks and the mountains will have no answer in that day to the cry of despair from the godless who would make science their god. So sad. . .