In the near future, the Seventh-day Adventist Church will be split over the issue of homosexuality and the Bible, and whether or not we still believe that the Bible prohibits homosexual behavior in all situations. We will be forced to declare our position on the issues of sexuality and biblical interpretation. Seventh-day Adventism has been committed to holiness and historical biblical Christianity since its inception. However, it is astounding to see different congregations within the Seventh-day Adventist church openly embrace homosexuality without apology in order to be known as a welcoming, affirming, and inclusive church.
La Sierra University Church has the following statement published on their website:
We are at our best when we are willing to be relevant, raw, and wrestling with our faith. We are also seeking reconciliation with those we have left out. Though we have said, “You are welcome here,” we realize that many in the LGBT+ community, in particular, do not feel included. We confess that we have fallen short. Aspiring to follow Christ’s command to love one another, we resolve to work for change in our church community to be fully welcoming and affirming for all LGBT+ people. As we work to make concrete changes and open new conversations, please hear us when we say, “ALL are welcome here.” [1]
The Glendale City Seventh-day Adventist Church published the following on their website:
Proud to be affirming. Glendale City Church welcomes people of all backgrounds to fully participate in our church community. We do not discriminate based on gender, sexual orientation, race, culture, wealth, education, or religious background. If you are learning to love God and others, you belong here. God excludes no one. Neither do we … [We] stand with congregations that welcome and include our LGBTQ loved ones in their faith communities. [2]
WholeLife Seventh-day Adventist Church has the following statement on their website:
WholeLife Seventh-day Adventist Church is a diverse congregation in Orlando, Florida. Our mission is loving people into a lifelong friendship with God. We are . . . single, married, divorced, female, male, straight, LGBTQ, poor, rich, old, young. At WholeLife Church, we welcome any member of the community to join us in worship. [3]
What does it mean to be an “affirming church”? Members of the LGBT+ community define an “affirming church” in their own words as follows:
“We define the word ‘affirming’ as meaning the church does not view homosexuality in and of itself as a sin. Therefore they would welcome and treat a homosexual person no different than any other person who walked through their church doors seeking Christ.” [4]
An affirming church doesn’t view homosexuality as a sin or the need to overcome this behavior. These churches don’t emphasize sin, hell, holiness, consecration, or repentance. They have embraced this false and heretical teaching that, because of God’s grace, our sinful actions no longer have any eternal consequences.
Affirming churches refuse to denounce what God calls an abomination (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13). These churches have adopted a deadly theology that is fundamentally opposed to God’s gospel, which proclaims His truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). Welcoming sinners is not the same as endorsing their behavior. “To affirm” means that these churches strongly support and encourage what they are doing, and we undermine any prospect of repentance or redemption when we affirm homosexuality and those who practice it. This is putting people at risk of losing eternal life.
“Warn every soul that is in danger. Leave none to deceive themselves. Call sin by its right name. Declare what God has said in regard to lying, Sabbathbreaking, stealing, idolatry, and every other evil. ‘They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.’ Galatians 5:21. If they persist in sin, the judgment you have declared from God’s word is pronounced upon them in heaven. In choosing to sin, they disown Christ; the church must show that she does not sanction their deeds, or she herself dishonors her Lord. She must say about sin what God says about it. She must deal with it as God directs” (Desire of Ages, p. 805).
“God does not send messengers to flatter the sinner. He delivers no message of peace to lull the unsanctified into fatal security. He lays heavy burdens upon the conscience of the wrongdoer, and pierces the soul with arrows of conviction. The ministering angels present to him the fearful judgments of God to deepen the sense of need, and prompt the cry, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ Then the hand that has humbled in the dust, lifts up the penitent. The voice that has rebuked sin, and put to shame pride and ambition, inquires with tenderest sympathy, ‘What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?’ ” (Desire of Ages, p. 104).
Seventh-day Adventist churches are becoming safe spaces for sin as we are being infiltrated by LGBT+ activists. These churches have become politicized, attempting to legitimize what God has stated is impossible for Him to normalize. Because of weak leadership, Adventism is being held hostage to the extremist LGBT+ agenda. We are weak on abortion, weak on women’s ordination, weak when our civil and religious freedoms are threatened, and weak when it comes to homosexuality.
We are succumbing to the demands of the revisionists who are redefining the biblical definitions of sin, rather than taking a public stand against these woke churches and speaking out against the world’s indoctrination. We must pray for God to open the eyes of these churches that are being led into wholesale deception, heresy, and a clear break with Christianity.
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Isaiah 5:20.
“Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!” Isaiah 5:21.
“Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!” Isaiah 5:23.
Sources
[1] https://lasierra.church/about-us/
[2] https://glendalecitychurch.org/about-us/
[4] https://www.gaychurch.org/find_a_church/about-our-directory/
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This is unequivocal apostasy and if my church ever adopts this heresy, I will end my membership.
Rev 18:4 “And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”
Thank you, Andy, for calling out acceptance of sin in the SDA Church. I see, hear, and read about this acceptance all the time now. It appears that the Church is about to fall Will this happen?
“The church is in the Laodicean state. The presence of Christ is not in her midst.” Notebook Leaflets, pg. 99.
“The world must not be introduced into the church, and married to the church, forming a bond of unity. Through this means the church will become indeed corrupt, and as stated in Revelation, ‘a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.’ ” Testimonies to Ministers pg. 265.1
In my opinion, if you are a member of a SDA church, you are in agreement with the policies of the GC, whether or not your church practices those things or not. And we can be sure the GC is in agreement with these apostate and sinful practices, because they do not issue one word of censure or discipline to the churches that practice them. By their silence, they are complicit. By membership in their organization, a person agrees with them. I withdrew membership for this reason. Others may not agree, but this is how I see it. “Come out of her my people”. The true remnant people of God are described in Hebrews 12:22-24.
We are never counseled to leave the organized church! EGW states that it looks like the church is about to fall…….but it does not!!! You are better to stay and hear your voice heard, than leave. There is no where else to go anyway. We are the last church, the Remnant Church for this world. You are not responsible for what the upper echelon does. You are responsible for yourself.
Was she talking about the GC church or this church????
God has a church. It is not the great cathedral, neither is it the national establishment, neither is it the various denominations; it is the people who love God and keep His commandments. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). Where Christ is even among the humble few, this is Christ’s church, for the presence of the High and Holy One who inhabiteth eternity can alone constitute a church. {UL 315.5}
Early Writings page 124…the false shepherds will be tormented with more than two of the 7 last plagues…
Early Writings page 289…the false shepherds will have their eyes and tongues consume away in their holes while they are alive and standing on their feet! Why the eyes and the tongues? Psalms 36:1-4; 78:36-37. They have spoken lies and with their eyes they have led the people down the road to perdition. Just as the plagues on Egypt were judgments against the gods of Egypt (Exodus 12:12; Numbers 33:4) so there is a lesson here in the consuming away of the eyes and mouth of the false shepherds.
Great Controversy page 654-655 states the following, “The minister who has sacrificed truth to gain the favor of men, now discerns the character and influence of his teachings….and now, in the wretched, lost souls around him, he beholds the harvest.” E. G. White then quotes the following scriptures:
“For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.” Jeremiah 8:11;
“Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad, and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not turn from his wicked way, by promising him life;” Ezekiel 13:22;
“Woe unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the Lord. Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the Lord.” Jeremiah 23:1-2; read also Jeremiah 25:34-35
Then E. G. White states, “The people see that they have been deluded. They accuse one another of having led them to destruction; but all unite in heaping their bitterest condemnation upon the ministers. Unfaithful pastors have prophesied smooth things; they have led their hearers to make void the law of God and to persecute those who would keep it holy….The multitudes are filled with fury. ‘We are lost!’ they cry. and ‘you are the cause of our ruin.’ and they turn upon the false shepherds…”
Scripture alone is warning enough to stop these church leaders from making these statements and leading their congregations to accept what God calls an abomination! The faithful in these churches need to speak out against it and when they are marginalized and dismissed (and they will be) then separate from these wicked men that the faithful be not destroyed with them as Achan, Koran, Dathan, and Abiram were destroyed in God’s judgment.
Read 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1 and hear His pleading with you and obey that you might escape from the wrath to come. Do not fear man who can only destroy the body but rather fear Him who can destroy both body and soul… and whose approval should we seek and to whom should we obey? The Sanhedrins of this world in its’ many various forms and agendas or God? Choose ye this day who you will serve…
We are in a darkest hour.Shaking has now commenced.The church will be dismantled.And this is what we see.If the very same denomination views differently on the issue of sexuality then something is wrong.Fact is king of the north has entered into the ‘glorious land'(SDA CHURCH)(DANIEL 11:40-45).Others will be overthrown.It will come a time when may be 13 divisions of the church,few will rebuff the issue of homosexuality.Since ADCOM acts like FBI,CIA,MOSSAD or any other world intelligence agency,it will silence pastors,preachers even lay preachers such that their preaching will not include rejection of homosexual ideas.God is love.But His love is for people to quit sinning not embrace sin.Those few churches who affirming homosexuality,in the name of JESUS CHRIST,they need to stop.If icould be there in USA,icould go in those churches and protest the sodom and gomorrah in the church.Icould raise placards,written ‘HOLLINESS TO THE LORD’ with verses embedded.Icould depict a picture of JESUS CHRIST how He cleansed the temple in jerusalem in JOHN 2.There are issues of which we need not to tolerate.If GC will accept into LGBT+ into statement of belief,we should reject what GC has said because GC did not resurrect JESUS CHRIST from the dead.
Genesis 18:20
“And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;”
How sad is this! How terrible for many members in these 7DA churches that do jot agree with this. Pray for the lack of leadership of these churches and a return to Gods statues and commandments.
However terrible this is the 7DA leadership has to confront this viewpoint of these churches and if they will not change their stand they will need to be excluded from calling themselves 7DA. It’s very sad but to serve our Loving God; we need people of character to stand up on the last days.
May God strengthen the leadership; not to be quiet but to be bold in these days.
25 years ago i knew several people in church that were avid drinkers. I knew some who were smokers. Some tokers. Some adulterers. Some LGABC And others.
These were members, who before being dunked signed an agreement that they knew what the fundamental beliefs were.
To be fair, i asked when signing what they were and was told they weren’t important lol.
Yet all these folks were quietly sitting in the pews, taking in the sermons.
Today most are gone but a few remain. I never heard anyone say that a drunk was prohibited from coming. Or one who was gay. In fact two of those are but the few who remain. After so many years the drink is sober and the other straight.
I say that to say this. Jesus came to save the lost, condemned sinner. And what better place for them to find him than in church.
I realize this article is meant to combat not just cherished sin, but outright sinful defiance before God. I would never condone drinking in the pew or an ashtray atop the pulpit, but for those out there struggling with sin- a church full of supportive Christians is good.
End times indeed.
I believe that all should be welcomed to church and to Christ, BUT they should be made aware of what God says is sinful. Are we not made up of liars, cheaters, adulterers, etc? Or are we all perfect in God’s eyes? The difference is that we are aware of what is sinful and repent of these. Who knows what sins are done in secret that only God and each of us knows about. Welcome all, but stand true to God’s Word regarding sin and tell all.
Bonjour,
Matthieu 24;15,C’est pourquoi lorsque vous verrez l’abomination de la désolation dont à parlé le prophète Daniel établie en lieu-saint que celui qui lit fasse attention.
Les nouvelles sont tellement mauvaises qu’on en reste sans voix