Understanding the Sabbath

Symes said:

From what I have read of EGW shows she was a woman of mercy and compassion. Sometimes even in the Bible there are stories that we may not like to hear because we think they do not portray God as a God of mercy and compassion. But they are still there for all to see. Try reading Steps to Christ or one of the books like Desire of Ages.

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Hello Symes

I have read those books. There is growing evidence that she never wrote steps to Christ. evidence points to Fannie Bolton actually being the
author. Also the Desire of Ages even the SDA general conference has been forced to accept that there is extensive plagiarism and besides that it does not match what the Bible tells us of Christ. I have compared The Desire of Ages to the bible myself and found many errors, contradictions, and inconsistencies. In fact it was the first book I used to show my wife that there were serious problems with the S.O.P
yours in Christ
deu58

Symes said:

You can find all these stories and more on all of the anti-EGW web sites. There are plenty of them around. If I have not already said so I support the Bible and the Bible only as my source of proof for my belief. Not only I do but EGW says to do the same.

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hello symes

I found the errors before I found the websites. plus I do all my own research. I have the entire EGW library on cd from the ellen white estate
these are the official recognized writings of the SDA church. All the quotes from her writings that I have posted here are from that cd.
The cd includes every review an herald , broadside etc every pamphlet biographies you name it its there letters. If you are interested
the cd costs $160.00 U.S .I went to the SDA book store in Loma Linda to get mine

As to the websites actually I am one of those sites. But I do I understand your point. Many I see purposely direct there attacks at sister white herself. I try to focus more on the writings than the person but because the writings are a personal extension of the Author still the line gets crossed. It is difficult to discuss the flaws in the writings without highlighting flaws of the person. the writings are so vast I think she actually lost track of what she said and when she said it. Is there a home church movement in Austrailia?
yours in Christ
deu58

there is a website called sabbathtruth, that has alot of good info..

Ezekiel 22:24-26

"Son of man, say unto her, Thou art the land that is not cleansed, nor rained upon in the day of indignation. There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst thereof. Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them"

That is what is taking place today. The Sabbath, holy and profane, clean and unclean, people are not separating them.

adam please where do you get that the sabbath was mentioned 2300 yrs before the jews? Gen 2 uses the word "sabat" and the word "Shabbath" does not occur until Ex 16. Also does gen also say that in the cool of the evening God visited with Adam. I did not find anything about God visiting Adam only on the seventh day.

What day would you call the day of the resurrection? There are no weeks with 8 days in them. God only created 7. This would make the 8th day the same as the first day of the week. It has to be after the 7th day. This also makes it the first day.

"...first day of the week" in the greek is "mia sabbaton." "Mia" means first. "Sabbaton" is the greek equal of "Shabbath" meaning day of repose. Is not the word sabbath mean a perticular 24 hour period of time in general (can vary as the earth rotates). Thus sabbath is another word for day, however, not a common work day.

Please name any day (by number or current day title) you find Jesus meeting with anyone and give a Bible reference. Please state why it singles out "mia sabbaton" when they met everyday for the exact same purpose as you indicate.

respectfully Norman

Hello Symes,

You said,

That is not the case at all. If you look at the history of the SDA Church and the Sabbath you will find that EGW was not the founder of the Sabbath in the SDA Church and was in fact reluctant at first to embrace the Sabbath as she had come from a Methodist background.

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First as I have already mentioned the SDA` Sabbath doctrine is based on the visions of Sister White.

94- {5MR 93.3}
I will now write you the vision God gave me on the Sabbath, the twenty-fourth of March. We had a glorious meeting. I was taken off in vision. {5MR 94.1}
I saw the commandments of God and shut door could not be separated. I saw the time for the commandments of God to shine out to His people was when the door was opening in the inner apartment of the heavenly sanctuary in 1844.

She did not come to this conclusion through bible study but what she believed to be divine revelation.

Early Writings Pg 32-33
*The four on the first table shone brighter than the other six. But the fourth, the
33
Sabbath commandment, shone above them all; for the Sabbath was set apart to be kept in honor of God's holy name. The holy Sabbath looked glorious--a halo of glory was all around it. I saw that the Sabbath commandment was not nailed to the cross.

I saw that God had not changed the Sabbath, for He never changes. But the pope had changed it from the seventh to the first day of the week; for he was to change times and laws. {EW 32.3}

She also taught that the Sabbath is a test for true salvation.

Early Writings Pg 37 The Sealing

Thou art weighed in the balance, and found wanting." I asked who this company were. The angel said, "These are they who have once kept the Sabbath and have given it up."
We have believed in Thy coming, and taught it with energy." And while they were speaking, their eyes would fall upon their garments and see the writing, and then they would wail aloud. I saw that they had drunk of the deep waters, and fouled the residue with their feet--trodden the Sabbath underfoot-- and that was why they were weighed in the balance and found wanting. {EW 36.2}

You are correct that the idea did not originate with her, it came from Joseph Bates who had studied with a seventh day baptist woman named Rachel Oakes. But what is also true is that what ever Ellen White claims to see in vision the Seventh Day Adventists claim for doctrine regardless of what the Bible says. They only select the verses that they feel support the visions neglecting the rest of scripture. And any one who disagrees, from Ballenger and Canright to Rea and Brimsmead are put out of the Church. All these men were cast out because they did their own bible studies and found the visions of Ellen White to be with out Scriptural support.

Christian experience and teachings of Ellen G White
pg 85
Elder Bates was resting upon Saturday, the seventh day of the week, and he urged it upon our attention as the true Sabbath. I did not feel its importance, and thought that he erred in dwelling upon the fourth commandment more than upon the other nine.

Joseph Bates is also the one who brought the tarrying time teaching of seven years from 1844 to 1851 believing that the investigative judgment would end in 1851 and Jesus would return. Ellen White supported this teaching through her visions.

On June 27, 1850, Mrs. White wrote that only a few months remained for the people to get ready:

"My accompanying angel said, 'Time is almost finished. Get ready, get ready, get ready.' . . . now time is almost finished. . . and what we have been years learning, they will have to learn in a few months." (Early Writings, pp. 64-67).

This vision also failed and now the SDA church tries to pretend it never happened. They have modified this to what is now called the open and shut door doctrine because the original visions failed. Ellen White did say"I saw the commandments of God and shut door could not be separated". Now how can half of a vision be true and the other half fail? Does this seem to you how God reveals his Truth?

If the part of the vision on the Sabbath is true then why did the Adventists keep the Sabbath incorrectly for 10 years!

."TIME TO BEGIN THE SABBATH"--FOR A PERIOD OF ABOUT TEN YEARS SABBATH KEEPING ADVENTISTS OBSERVED THE SABBATH FROM 6 P. M. FRIDAY TO 6 P. M.
SATURDAY.


1 Testimonies for the Church Appendix
PAGE 116,

1 Testimonies for the church, Ch 16 Pg 116
*I saw that it is even so: "From even unto even, shall ye celebrate your Sabbath." Said the angel: "Take the word of God, read it, understand, and ye cannot err. Read carefully, and ye shall there find what even is, and when it is. I asked the angel if the frown of God had been upon His people for commencing the Sabbath as they had. I was directed back to the first rise of the Sabbath, and followed the people of God up to this time, but did not see that the Lord was displeased, or frowned upon them.

* I inquired why it had been thus, that at this late day we must change the time of commencing the Sabbath. Said the angel: "Ye shall understand, but not yet, not yet.

To this day the Adventists have not received an answer to the question Ellen White asked her guiding angel

The reason again for the improper Sabbath keeping is because of Joseph Bates.

* ELDER JOSEPH BATES IN HIS FIRST PAMPHLET ON THE PERPETUITY OF THE SABBATH OF THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT, PUBLISHED IN 1846, HAD GIVEN REASONS FOR THE SUPPOSED SCRIPTURAL SUPPORT FOR THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH IN THIS WAY.

It was Joseph Bates who first instructed the Adventists on proper Sabbath keeping AFTER Ellen White had her vision supporting his teaching. So was it God who gave her the truth on the proper way to keep the Sabbath?

A THOROUGH BIBLE INVESTIGATION OF THE QUESTION WAS MADE BY ELDER J. N. ANDREWS, WHO WROTE A PAPER SETTING FORTH THE BIBLICAL REASONS IN FAVOR OF THE SUNSET TIME.

THE PRESENTATION OF THE SUBJECT TO MRS. WHITE IN THIS VISION, GIVEN TWO DAYS LATER, ANSWERED THE QUESTIONS LINGERING IN SOME MINDS AND EFFECTED UNITY AMONG THE BELIEVERS.

Again no. Just as she received all the information first from Bates and had a "vision" now she receives all the information first
from John Andrews and then TWO DAYS later has another vision saying that Andrews is right and Bates is wrong. Now does this seem to you how Gods prophets reveal truth?

yours in Christ
deu58

Also I should add that the passing of 1851 is a clear message that The Sanctuary, Investigative Judgment, The Sabbath, The Shut door, and The Scape Goat visions were never from God for all these visions were directly related to what the Adventists believed was the end time second coming that was to take place in the fall of 1851. The only reason Adventists hold these doctrines today is because to admit other wise is to also admit that Ellen G White did not have the gift of prophecy.

due

As I said it was not EGW that gave the Sabbath to Adventists and from what you have shown I am right in that.

Christian experience and teachings of Ellen G White
pg 85
Elder Bates was resting upon Saturday, the seventh day of the week, and he urged it upon our attention as the true Sabbath. I did not feel its importance, and thought that he erred in dwelling upon the fourth commandment more than upon the other nine.

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This is not to say latter on that EGW did not support the Sabbath but it was not her original concept nor did she at fisrt agree with it.

If the part of the vision on the Sabbath is true then why did the Adventists keep the Sabbath incorrectly for 10 years!

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The Adventist Church did not have a correct view on every doctrine right from the outset. It took time to develop. I do not see any problem with this. Truth never changes, our understanding of it does. The correct understanding of the Sabbath took time to be understood.

Hello Symes

Actually according to Ellen White, yes they did have a correct view from the beginning.

Review and Herald, May 25, 1905
"After the passing of the time in 1844 we searched for the truth as for hidden treasure. I met with the brethren, and we studied and prayed earnestly... When they came to the point in their study where they said, "We can do nothing more," the Spirit of the Lord would come upon me. I would be taken off in vision, and a clear explanation of the passages we had been studying would be given me, A line of truth extending from that time to the time when we shall enter the city of God, was made plain to me, and I gave to others the instruction that the Lord had given me"

Unless of course you believe that God would not want to make his insructions clear just to keep everybody confused.

1co 14:33 For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

yours in Christ
deu58

It is the same as the New Testament Christians. They had a meeting in Jerusalem to sort things out. Not everything was revealed to them at first. They progressed in order of thought and deed.

Hello symes

The Health message? You mean the one in 1863 that was about meat eating arouses the "animal passions" causing people to want more sex? also it increases the desire in children to fondle themselves and go insane. That health message? From 1863 onward Ellen White condemned anybody who would not accept her "health message" as being from God and did not become a full vegetarian that they were in violation of Gods natural law

Spalding-Magan Pg 40
If appetite, which should be strictly guarded and controlled, is indulged to the injury of the body, the penalty of transgression will surely be the result. As nature's laws are transgressed, mind and soul become enfeebled. {SpM 40.3}
Christians should regard a transgression of these laws as a sin against God, to be accounted for in the day of Judgment, when every case shall come in review before God. {SpM 40.4}


And all the while that she was condemning everybody else she was eating meat her self. she did not become a vegetarian herself until sometime after 1891 almost 30 years after she had her "Health Vision" Here in her own words she tells about eating deer meat that they
bought from a butcher shop in 1878.


Manuscript releases vol. 14 Pg 318-319

MR No. 1127 - Helping the Needy; Reporting on Christmas Activities; Importance of a Living Connection With God

(Written December 26, 1878, from Denison, Texas, to "Dear Family at Battle Creek--Willie, Mary, Aunt Mary, Edith, Addie and May, and Brother and Sister Sawyer.")

Christmas morning we all took breakfast together--James Cornell; Florence and Clara, their two girls; Brother and Sister Moore and their three children; Sister Bahler and Etta, a girl living with them; and Sister Daniells, our cook, Father, and myself. We had a quarter of venison cooked,

and stuffing. It was as tender as a chicken. We all enjoyed it very much. There is plenty of venison in market. {14MR 318.3} yours in christ
deu58

also they did think they had it clear. they believed Jesus was returning in 1851 and they had a prophet to confirm it.

Symes said:

Why does one keep the Sabbath today?

Very simply put there has never been a command to stop keeping it. There has never been a command to keep the first day of the week. If there was I would keep it.

deu58
Can you show me from the Bible where it says to keep the first day of the week instead of the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath?

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My question is why do people require a direct command/statement about performance. Clearly The New Testament teaches nothing about preforming a do and don't list. Have you not read in this discussion about gentile covenant and prosylites?

I also don't understand how people can take a statement like "if you love me, keep my commandments." and come up with 2 different people declaring them the same. In this statement are not me and my reference to the same person? To say that the 10 commandments are property of Jesus (or issued by Him) because He kept them is not correct. Of course Jesus kept the 10 commandments, if He didn't then He would not have "fulfilled" (met the requirements of a contract) "the law."

adam332 said:

Christ is the one who blessed the Sabbath on the seventh day of creation. He is the one who wrote them with His finger on tables of stone. Do you need proof the Christ is our creator and not the Father?

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Yes i certianly do need proof that Jesus is indeed the personality that carved the 10 in stone.