Wednesday, September 03, 2008

• Caution: Heretics Ahead!

  

  I got a flyer in the mail about a prophecy seminar being held in town at a local race track. To be honest, when I first saw it, I smelled Seventh Day Adventism. The fishy thing is, that the flyer doesn't mention which church it is being sponsored by or which denomination they are affiliated with. I will explain why this is a problem.

  (1) Background on our dealings with SDA: Before my husband and I were married, when we lived in Russellville, AR, we were walking to my car on campus one day and someone had left a flyer, similar to this one, on my windshield. My then fiance was so excited about it and we went. We thought the seminars were neat, and started attending that church. It was a seventh day adventist church. We loved the people there because they were so friendly and welcoming.

  Come to find out, there is a lot of problems with SDA doctrine. They are founded on a lie and a mistake concerning Jesus' return; they hold to a lot of the levitical laws; they worship on Saturday; they do not eat meat; and they have many picky doctrines that they have formed out of a verse interpreted incorrectly (soul sleep, for example). The SDA church is ripe with heresy.

  So we stopped going to that church, armed the knowledge of true biblical doctrine and no longer naive (mostly!) concerning doctrine and heresy. We had been fooled, hook line and sinker, until God showed the truth.

  (2) More dealings with SDA outside of church: A lady came inside to the place that I worked at one day when we lived in Jonesboro. She was very nice and sweet, and was asking for donations for her college. She said it was a Christian college and was giving cookbooks away to anyone who donated. On my guard a little, I asked her what church the college was affiliated with. She didn't give me a straight answer and really just told me where the college was located. So I naively bought the cookbook, got a receipt, and that was that.

  When I got home, I looked at the recipes and they were all vegetarian except for some egg and fish recipes. It seem an awful lot like something the SDA would put out. So I called the number on my receipt, because I wanted to know first if it truly was SDA. I asked the girl that answered the phone and she did the same skirting around as the first girl. I asked her point blank what church it was affiliated with and she still skirted. I don't remember what I had to say to get it out of her, but she finally admitted it was SDA. So I told her I would like a refund and I had to call another number. I told the guy that answered this time that the cookbook was fine but I did not agree with SDA doctrine and I felt it was wrong to support them financially when I disagreed with them.

  (3) You know me . . . I dug up info and called someone: I wanted to find out for sure if this event was being put on by SDA. So I went to the website: No contact information whatsoever. I typed in the name of the event and SDA on google, nothing together. So I just looked up local SDA churches in Lexington and started clicking. The guy on the flyer is actually the pastor of one of the SDA churches here. Bingo.

  I called the church, and the very man answered the phone. I verified that he was the one putting on the event, and he did not deny it. I asked him why the flyer didn't say anything about SDA. His answer was that the event was open to everyone and that he just wanted as many people to come to Jesus as possible. I said that this method was wrong and the flyer should say SDA on it because my husband and I were deceived by the same means (I did not say "deceived", but used more tactful language like, we went to it and it turned out that we disagreed with a lot of what they said). He said that Billy Graham never put on his events as Southern Baptist events but his method was good, so this is the same thing. I wanted to say, But Billy Graham's southern baptist affiliation is well known. Your affiliation is not. But I just said that I still disagreed and left it at that. He was a very nice, polite gentleman and let me talk without interrupting. But sadly, this nice gentleman is a heretic.

  (4) Why the SDA info not being on the flyer is a problem: (a)These two times ((2) and (3)) that I have run into the SDA after I have realized their error, they have not up-front admitted being involved with the SDA. Ashamed, perhaps? (b)Also, the flyer is deceptive. My husband and I were deceived by them, and if they would put SDA on the flyer, more people would be aware of who was putting it on. Sure, some people don't know anything about them, like we didn't. But they are putting on this event as if they are just any other Christian church with normal doctrine. That is wrong and deceitful, and they know it.

  I am afraid that many people will be deceived by their lies and deception. Please pray that they would not be able to put on this event or that people would just not go.

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