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Seventh-day Adventist Church | Apologetics Index
And danschance, SDA leaders lied to Dr. Walter Martin. Desperately wanting to hide their heresy, the leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist church lied to Christian apologist Walter Martin and his evangelical colleagues, including Donald Grey Barnhouse, in a series of meetings that took place in 1955 and 1956.
The SDA Church published
Seventh-day Adventists Answer Questions on Doctrine: An Explanation of Certain Major Aspects of Seventh-day Adventist Belief. The book, often referred to simply as QOD, was the church's official answer to Martin and his colleagues.
Walter Martin stated the facts himself on the John Ankerberg Show in 1985. But as Stephen Pitcher stated, "It's now time to admit that the Adventists did not tell Martin, Barnhouse, and their evangelical colleagues the truth. It's time to set the record straight."
The definition of "lie" is to tell an untruth with the intent to deceive. Included in the definition is the act of not telling the whole truth, or telling partial truths with the intent to mislead. Given this definition of "lie," the simple answer to the question must be a clear "Yes, Adventist leadership lied to Walter Martin."
Read this:
Did Adventist leaders lie to Walter Martin
The Seventh-day Adventist Church had the chance to come clean about their anti-trinitarianism, multi-phase atonement, identification of "Sunday worship" with the mark of the beast, Sabbath requirement, prophetess Ellen White, and many many other unbiblical beliefs. They instead chose to
rework the wording of their positions
to appear acceptable to evangelical Christians.
Skip to "Wordsmiths-Why did the Adventists change their language?"
The crafting of phraseology that sounded orthodox to evangelicals while not renouncing historic Adventist positions intentionally obscured the true nature of Adventist beliefs. Martin and Barnhouse were convinced that the Adventist church had changed some of its cultic doctrines to conform to the evangelical understanding. In reality, the QOD:
"represents a total rejection of Barnhouse and Martin's dispensational understanding of the Second Advent and the covenant, while it is a courageous statement of the Adventist position on such controverted topics as the Sabbath, the mark of the beast, Daniel 8, the investigative judgment, the state of the dead, hell, Babylon, the remnant, and other topics that were offensive to the evangelical community." -Knight, George R.,
Questions on Doctrine.
Liars!
Seventh-day Adventism has been able to infiltrate the evangelical community because key leaders deceived Walter Martin into believing they were evangelical Christians (albeit with a number of heterodox teachings and practices). Under this facade, however, the church has never renounced or stopped teaching its founding doctrines, and now, with the election of Ted Wilson as General Conference president, there is renewed emphasis on proclaiming and embracing "true Adventism!"
Regardless of the church's corporate stance, however, individual Seventh-day Adventists always have the opportunity to admit the truth. Jesus is calling, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your soul" (Mt. 11:28–29).
The voice from heaven in Revelation 18 calls all those caught in false religion:
"Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, "Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities" (Rev. 18:4–5, ESV).
Listen to this:
An Evangelical Adventist? The Dark Side of Seventh-day Adventism
[contra] [
part 2
] [
part 3
] by former SDA pastor J. Mark Martin