Tough Questions About ADVENTISM With Justin Khoe

well hey what's up everybody alan parr here super super excited about today's live stream this is going to be an epic conversation i am joined by my friend and brother in christ and i say that in all sincerity my brother in christ justin coo and many of you are familiar with him you've seen his previous youtube channel that christian vlogger and he's putting out some amazing content on his newer channel that is self-titled justin kuh but it used to be i'm listening with justin kuh so i'm super excited to have justin here today uh do me a favor a few of you if you could just give me a thumbs up in the comments and let me know that audio and video is good to go and uh we'll we'll get started here in just a second i want to just check here and make sure that we are indeed live and so let me go ahead and you're wondering how you can grow it make sure we've all heard the advice to scream sacrifice and deliver uh let's just do so we are good to go all right so i just wanted to make sure of that so um i am going to bring on my friend all right says uh let's see here both good audio good good so let me bring on justin justin how are you doing today my brother good to see you thank you so much for being here i'm doing wonderful thank you for extending an invitation to jump on your channel i'm excited for a conversation awesome awesome um so guys this is exciting this is exciting and uh also now that justin is on do me a favor just a couple of you just type in we can you know justin's audio is good justin's video is good because once again this is technology it's live stream and we want to make sure that um you know before we continue to uh you know a proceed in the conversation that tech issues are all worked out so um if justin's audio and video is good you can give us a thumbs up somebody said alan's audio is too loud perfect thank you see so i will take care of that right now i'm just gonna move myself down just a little bit make sure my audio levels are good and let's make sure my audio levels okay awesome all right so i saw that my audio was a little on the low so i just adjusted it a little bit so hopefully that works as well perfect perfect see thank you all so much and justin is perfect with audio a couple of other people said the same thing so we're going to be looking at the comments here and there so if something changes or whatever let us know also we are streaming over internet and it is live so therefore listen i've done these many times before every so often the stream just cuts out it doesn't i hope it doesn't happen today but it can happen so if it does uh just refresh just refresh your browsers all you have to do and the live stream should uh pop right back up again okay so um we are good to go people say now it's good for my audio thank you so much for that feedback okay now um first and foremost we are going to start off with a word of prayer because it is our desire today to invite the presence and power of the holy spirit in this conversation and we want him to to really fill us with wisdom so that we can have a great conversation so let's go ahead and start with a word of prayer gracious and heavenly father i thank you so much today i thank you for all the people that are watching this live as well as the people who um are going to be watching this on the replay i thank you that they're here and i thank you for my brother in christ justin i thank you for his time i thank you for his family i pray for his wife who's going to be giving birth to their first child uh here in some time and so i thank you for what he does for you and for the kingdom and lord i pray that you would season our words with love and grace so that we can have a good conversation today um about matters of faith we love you and praise you in jesus name amen all right amen so um everybody there's a couple of things that i want to um to highlight before we jump in first and foremost as many of you know i published several videos on my channel a little while back and um uh bringing to the surface many of the objections that i had uh and still have if i'm honest with you about uh some of the beliefs of the seventh-day adventist church now before i even get into the conversation with justin i want to issue a public apology and this public apology is not necessarily me recanting on my beliefs uh my positions have remained the same in terms of what i feel is sound doctrine but as a believer in christ i always want my words to be seasoned with love respect and grace and i want to apologize to every member of the adventist community because the title of the videos as well as my tone that i may have used as sometimes i get passionate about what i believe and sometimes um that tone may come across as arrogant that may come across as being offensive and so for any member of the adventist community i just want to apologize if anything that i said was was received in the spirit and tone in which it was not intended um so i did want to issue that apology to the adventist community um now our goal today jump in real quick yes please justin thank you so much yeah i just wanted to say thank you for those words like that means a lot and for those who haven't seen yet the video where i got to actually hear alan out for i think it's like an hour and a half uh hear why you had these concerns and what was the heart behind these things um one of the most consistent things that i have seen in all the responses that have come through on that video is just how great you handled yourself um and like i hear what you're saying as far as maybe you did you spoke in a way that was maybe more passionate or came across a certain way that was unintended i think my personal conviction is that you handle yourself with grace uh with humility with love and like after our conversation i already had a a high level of respect for you as you know we've been friends for many years i've had a high level respect for you but my respect has skyrocketed after our last conversation and so so uh alan i just want to say thank you so much for for what you do i know your hearts and i know where it comes from i know that you're doing this for all the right reasons and even if one or two ignorant people out there in the out there on the internet who have never met you who have never had a conversation with you make a snap judgment about your character i want you to know that i see the real you that i love you and that i care about you and i'm really grateful for your friendship well i appreciate that you know and thank you so much and uh that's basically guys what we want to model today is we want to model how you can have a respectful god-honoring conversation or discussion if you want to even call it a debate which that's not our intent here but if you want to refer to it as that feel free to do so but the point is this we want to model how it's possible thank you for the super chat joel uh it's possible to to uh to disagree with someone without disrespecting them right because sometimes we feel so passionate whether it's in your relationships in your marriage with politics with religion that we sometimes can disrespect people with our tone and even sometimes part ways and and and not be friends with people over things that you could just agree to disagree on and still have fellowship so that's what we want to model with you all today now with all of that being said the goal here today is we want to get down to some real issues right um and and i'm going to be asking justin we're going to be looking at some real issues today because i put out some very strong objections on my videos and many of you wrote back and said hey brother allen you really need to have an adventist on like you're a non-adventist trying to represent an adventist community like dude like that's not right bringing adventists on so that they can discuss or at least further explain their positions on some of these things because you misrepresented us so that's what i want to do today so i want to go back and look at some of the things that i presented in my previous videos and i really want to hear justin's heart as a prominent well-respected member of the adventist community so if that's okay with you all put your seatbelts on okay we're gonna have a good time today we're gonna discuss and we're going to hopefully get better understanding justin do you want to share or chime in no i i'm here for it and and i think that i the overall intention of the of this video is the same on my end i'm not here to defend adventism at every cost i think one of the things that i wanted to bring context to this conversation especially if this is the first time you've ever seen my face on the internet and you're like man this guy is defending quote unquote defending adventism i've been youtubing for several years now and with nearly 500 videos i think only one literally once have i ever explicitly talked about seventh-day adventism and the reason behind that isn't because i'm trying to trick you or deceive you it's literally because my goal in life as a follower of jesus really has nothing to do with increasing adventist membership my goal in life is to raise christ up uh to to lift him up and to allow people to be drawn to him oh um super excited to have justin autism i've been you oh i just heard echo i don't know sorry if you were trying to jump in or not no no i was not um anything you're good okay so yeah just wanted to say like i'm not i'm not here to convert anybody or try and change anybody's mind but i'll do my best to reflect as accurate as i can uh uh an understanding of what adventists uh collectively believe which is a challenging uh task to do this is a denomination with over 20 million people with nearly a hundred thousand churches across the world so there's always going to be a spectrum there's always going to be varying degrees of feelings when it comes to these beliefs but i think that i'll do my best to to articulate what most adventists hold together to be common awesome yeah and and i respect that because if somebody said hey you know you're the the representative for all christianity i mean you have baptists you have lutherans you have methodists you have pentecostals you have apostolics you have so many different denominations sadly um but um you know we hope that we can be agree on some of the core tenets of the faith so with all of that being said once again our goal is not to convert one another just as justin said with all that being said i want to jump in to these categories okay so um now i could spend time asking justin about his life his personal life and all that stuff but i think you all came here because you want to uh you want to want to learn we want to want to hear okay so um here's the agenda for today i would like for us to discuss first and foremost the position of ellen g white's writings in the adventist faith right there are some questions about what position uh what type of authority her writings may have within the adventist faith and so we need to talk about what that is another thing that i brought up in my videos is the sabbath what does that mean how do they view the sabbath right is is it a salvation issue uh uh how you know how do they look about how do they look um towards people who maybe don't observe the sabbath in the same way so we want to address that and then we also want to look at the mark of the beast what is their position on the mark of the beast as it relates to those of us who choose to worship on sunday versus the sabbath day and then um we also want to take a look at the differences in terms of our positions on the afterlife i don't know if i'm gonna get censored or not if i say the word but um we have different positions on the afterlife right so we want to look at that and i don't i don't think we will get censored but and then finally if time permits i would like for us to uh to explore a little bit further on this idea of the investigative judgment as it relates to the work of jesus christ in terms of salvation so that's what you came here for that's what we want to address and so um we're gonna we're gonna jump right in okay we're gonna jump right in so first and foremost let's just talk about the writings of ellen g white and the position that her writings may hold now i have several slides prepared that have quotes on them and these the only reason why i'm doing this is because these are the same exact slides and quotes that i used in my videos that people said you misrepresented us or you didn't understand it or you took these words of hers out of context right so i want to to to really get a better understanding of these things uh first and foremost uh i believe it's on the website the adventist.org website and i believe they have since changed this wording slightly and justin you can speak to this but um on the website or actually in this seventh-day adventist believe document it says her writings are a continuing and authoritative source of truth now from what i gather maybe they have since on the adventist.org website change the wording slightly so maybe you can help me understand maybe why that wording was changed but also what what um you know what do what do you all mean in terms of her writings are continuing an authoritative source of truth i think that's the word that many might be getting tripped up on is the word authoritative so uh what what is that uh referring to yeah absolutely so uh just for a little bit of context i was born and raised into a seventh-day adventist family my parents met at a seventh-day adventist school my mother was an immigrant from the philippines where her grandfather was a seventh-day adventist pastor and church planter and evangelist and so for a church that's only been around since the you know mid-1800s to be able to trace your kind of lineage in adventism back that many generations is is somewhat of a rare thing and so i'm all that to say is that adventism plays a really deep role within my family unit um it's you know the context and the culture in which i grew up in i went to the same school that my parents met at the adventist academy in glendale california and i went to church every single sabbath you know with very few exceptions i sang in the choir i did all the church activities you know for in an adventist context we have what we call sabbath school instead of sunday school and i was a regular attendee of that and participate in that i was in uh i was involved with many different ministries as i was growing up in junior high in high school later in life as well obviously still doing ministry and things like that and my personal experience and i think that the experience isn't entirely uncommon my personal experience when it came to ellen white was i was around i think it was literally 17 or 18 years old when i first heard of ellen white and i shared this kind of anecdote to say the place that ellen white holds in adventist culture is very different than i think what the general consensus what the internet might think ellen white's role is in the life of an adventist now i want to always allow room for other people's experiences uh to surface as well because if you had your experience who am i to argue with it but for me when i was 17 or 18 years old was the first time i ever heard of ellen white she was not someone that i grew up hearing about all the time and it was until later in life that i actually had to figure this out now again many adventists that's not their experience many adventists do grow up with her kind of in the background as as part of their culture their context the conversations that are taking place this is a challenging thing but this is just the reality of adventism is that adventism is a very broad and diverse group of people again like 20 plus million people over nearly a hundred thousand different churches across the world and the experience of every adventist is unique and different but the fact that i could grow up in adventism with a rich tradition of adventism with adventist pastors literally as as kind of my ancestors and never hear about ellen white until i was you know in my late teens helps paint a picture of where she fits in our life on my channel i do kind of interfaith conversations i did a series of videos with mormon missionaries who actually knocked on my door not too long ago and it's interesting to me that in order for the latter-day saints in order for the mormons to really have equal footing with you they must first be successful in getting you to believe at least minimally one thing and that's the inspiration of the book of mormon that's of the authority and the and the the role of someone like joseph smith um in order for them to even appear rational in order for their beliefs to even make any bit of sense you must accept their quote unquote profit as an authoritative source otherwise their beliefs kind of you could just throw them out the window because you don't accept the same book as an authority as they do when it comes to adventism this is not the case if you were to go to the adventist website and to peruse through the 28 fundamental beliefs you'll notice at the end of every description of the end of every belief are not quotations of like the book of mormon for example you won't see quotations of ellen white's writings the only quotations that you will see as uh kind of the building blocks or the evidence for the the descript the beliefs that are outlined on the web page are scripture and that's because adventists first and foremost consider themselves to be people of the book when i when i think of adventism when i think of the spirit of the adventist is ultimately the spirit of a berean the bible describes bereans as people who studied the word daily and and studied to find a find out if these things were so when i think of adventism at large the heart of adventism is berean in nature we are a people that are committed to the scriptures that is old and new testament we don't accept the uh the what's uh the one that the apocrypha yeah we don't accept the apocrypha we don't have any extra biblical sources in the sense that our doctrine is founded upon scripture and scripture alone now we do have uh to keep that belief in tension with another belief and that this is the belief that at the end of time god has spoken on multiple occasions that he will speak through prophets uh joel for example talks about that young men and young women would prophesy at the end of times that god's spirit would be poured out on all people both male and female and so we hold these two beliefs in tension that one the scriptures are the only rule or guidebook for belief and christian practice and also the belief that that same book does talk about a prophetic move at the end of time in particular so how do we reconcile these things together how do we mesh these things together and the answer is it really depends on which adventist you ask some adventists do this very poorly and what i mean by very poorly is that in practice some adventists do actually maybe elevate her writings to a level in which she never intended illinois was very clear about what she perceived her role to be ellen white was very clear when she talked about where does her writings stand in position and in relationship to the scriptures i actually wrote down a few quotes to read just to kind of illustrate this idea of how ellen white viewed her own role when it came to scripture here are here's one quote for example my mind has been greatly stirred in regard to the idea why sister white has said so and so and sister white has said so and so and therefore going right up to it she says god wants us all to have common sense and he wants us to reason from common sense circumstances alter conditions and circumstances change the relations relation of things ellen white is actually speaking directly to the kind of adventist believer who have elevated her writings without any kind of rational thinking she might have said something to one person in one particular culture in one particular timeline for a very specific reason to give certain counsel or advice and well meaning but just just wrong people have taken that one piece of advice or that one teaching and then created something out of it that was never intended to be there everyone says no no circumstances changes things use common sense second thing i wanted to read out and this is kind of maybe one of my favorite things that ellen white has written she says i do not ask you to take my words she says lay sister white to one side do not quote my words again as long as you live until you can obey the bible she says when you make the bible your food your meat your drink when you make its principles the elements of your character you will know better how to receive counsel from god she says i exalt the precious word before you today do not repeat what i have said saying sister white said this and sister white said that find out what the lord god of israel says and then do what he commands there's many quotations that are like this but unequivocally ellen white says the bible is what you should be looking to as a follower of jesus the bible is where you should get your direction and wisdom from not from me ellen white as a human being adventists are firm ellen white is fallible we don't elevate her to some pope level status where uh she's the vicar of christ where she speaks on behalf of god in this like really divine sense no we have a much more humble perspective and as you know uh alan in your studies of ellen white she doesn't even use the title prophetess for herself she would rather consider herself a messenger for god my last quote that i wanted to read to kind of nail this point home and i think that this is more strong language she says this if the testimonies and when she says the word testimony she's referring to a large body of her work she says if the testimonies speak not according to the word of god reject them christ and belial cannot be united ellen white's opinion is simply this hey if what i'm saying doesn't line up with the bible throw it away just get rid of it why because she had no motive in trying to establish herself as some towering authority upon which no one can combat she says use common sense she says lay my words to the side just make the bible your food and then she says if at the end of the day you're studying the scriptures and you can't reconcile the scriptures with what i'm saying always go with the scriptures throw the testimonies to the side reject them and so this is the broader context i think that is super important when it comes to how do adventists view ellen white within adventism there is a spectrum on how they experience ellen white for many people like myself didn't even know why it was a thing until many years down the line why because it's not like really something that we hammer home every single service at church that we have there are churches that might do that but that's not a common experience all the time yeah um beyond that um ellen white herself never elevated herself to the level of scripture or like to exceed scripture or on par with scripture she was very clear throw my writings away if it's getting in the way of you connecting with god via scripture itself and so when we get to a place like uh this passage here that you have on the screen her writings are a continuing and authoritative source of truth this is something that adventists are trying to keep that tension the bible and the bible alone but also the parts of the bible that speak to a prophetic uh movement a prophetic word from god specifically in the end times in your critique video on the first critique video you talked about how uh from your perspective women don't have authority to teach women don't have authority to kind of uh um i don't know if you would go as far to say as like stand on a pulpit and to teach no i wouldn't i wouldn't go that far i wouldn't go that far i wouldn't go as far as to say that women can't um speak for the lord my only and people may disagree with me on this but my only office that i believe that women are prohibited from holding a senior pastor so i want to be very clear on that um if women want to share the word of the lord you know if they want to speak and teach the bible you know hey you know what i'll leave that between them and god particularly if they're teaching women and you know women's groups and all those things but in terms of establishing authority i believe that the bible is pretty clear on the position of women being in spiritual authority over men establishing doctrine uh senior pastor and that sort of thing now people can disagree with me on that but that's my stance on that i didn't mean to cut you off but i wanted to address something as well because i i understand and you and i talked about this yesterday i understand that the adventist church uses scripture to support all of their beliefs which i can respect that however would it not be fair to say that the interpretation of some of these beliefs were largely influenced by her understanding or her interpretation and maybe not just her but maybe some other early members of the church their interpretation of scripture because yes you're quoting verses from the bible and that's you know we could all say well i'm using the bible you're using the bible jehovah's witnesses using bible mormons jesus bible christians use the bible you know uh adventist like we're all using the bible but the where we get into trouble is how are we interpreting these verses and would it be fair to say that the interpretation of some of these verses was largely passed down or influenced by ellen white and i say that because some of the positions that you know the adventist church may hold it seems as if these are not positions that were held throughout uh the the large portion of christendom like the traditional position on hell which we'll talk about later is maybe a little bit different right or the the the the traditional position on the high priestly work of christ and the atonement that the church has held for 18 1700 years might be slightly different than what was passed down from ellen white the founding members of the church and now is perhaps a belief of the adventist church so i don't want to talk too long about this particular topic because we have so many more to cover but i want to give you a chance to respond to that is is it am i out of line into thinking that some of the some of your beliefs were um yes scriptural but in influenced by her interpretation yeah i i'm never going to be the guy to tell you alan that you're out of line you can you can believe whatever you want and of course it's fair to ask questions and so i don't think you're out of line to ask these types of questions um we just fundamentally disagree about the role of women in the church um you say that the you know women aren't to exercise authority over men in a teaching capacity i think that the scripture does change the narrative uh there are multiple times when women are explicitly mentioned as prophetess and if i had to put a hierarchy of authority is a pastor a local church um are they higher or lower than than than a prophet i'm getting an echo right now i'm sorry i don't know what's happening okay and somebody said my mic is too high somebody said uh the gain on my microphone is too high which is causing your audio to clip it's not the volume itself but check the db threshold okay thank you all right i will um yes let me go ahead and fix that right oh no wonder yes good god i was getting a terrible echo i was hearing myself like five seconds later the game is way too high so high so sorry guys i fixed it it's one of those things that apple just all right i think we i think we should be good now guys let me know uh give me a thumbs up and let me know i'm seeing my levels now are much better and it's not clipping so we should be good to go um justin are you getting the echo still i i don't have an echo anymore so i'm not a little bit happier perfect thank you all so much that's why i want to make sure i read these these comments to make sure that everything is good so we should be good for the rest of the stream okay sorry i didn't mean to cut you off there no worries so i was just saying that when i read the scripture i speak i see multiple instances where women are explicitly mentioned as having the role of prophetess and if i had to put a hierarchy of ministry a local pastor might be exercising a good amount of authority on a local context but when i think about a prophet or prophetess i think it's safe to assume that they have a higher level of authority than a pastor and so this is maybe one of those areas that we might agree to disagree like you see the example of samuel and you know i think it's samuel and nathan he comes and he basically rebukes a king if a prophet has as much or more authority than a king i mean that's kind of a high level of of authority in that respect so all that all that to say is that we do make space for women in the church we do make space for ellen white specifically as a woman in the church so how do we deal with the idea that she has influenced teachings well i don't think that this is actually un unreasonable i mean it's not unreasonable to think that martin luther influenced the teachings and practices of lutheranism sure it's literally called lutheranism john calvin very much so had an influence on the interpretation of scripture of calvinist now no calvinist would say oh but we go to john calvin to find out what is the final word on every question about doctrine no of course not you go to the bible and you go to the bible alone but it's it would be ignorant to say that john calvin's interpretation doesn't influence calvinists sure so yes obviously ellen white's interpretation does influence adventists but i don't think that this is uh out of bounds i don't think that this is wrong it's part of what it means to be kind of an influential figure in a movement it's it's not unlike me saying you know what an authoritative figure in my role in my life a influential figure in my spiritual development and my theological thinking is alan parr i watch his videos and i love what he has to say and when i have questions that i don't know the answer to i go to him because he's someone that i respect someone that has studied maybe the subjects a little bit more than i have and so when i'm trying to understand the bible i do respect his authority as a teacher as a as a preacher as a man of god i respect his opinions but at the end of the day i don't hold his word as canon i go back to the bible and if i find a conflict between alan parr's videos and the bible i throw away allen part's videos right there for us absolutely it sounds oddly similar to what ellen white is advocating for hey if if my writings don't fit throw them away it's okay sure let me let me uh everybody's saying that my audio is a little bit too low now that i've adjusted it but guys do me a favor and let me know if that's a little bit better i know there's a little bit of a lag between when i'm talking versus the comments and stuff so let me know um if that's a little bit better my levels look like they're leveling out to about 70 percent and there's no clipping so um if you could just say okay audio is better now then um uh then that way okay everybody's saying the audio is good now good to go good good good okay thank you so much okay so um we have talked about that and justin has shared his position thoroughly on that and uh thank you for such a thorough reply i would like to talk about something that's a little bit more um uh you know a little bit more applicable to everyday life so um uh now i did have another quote here but uh you know it's i don't know if it's necessarily worth reading but this is obviously a quote that i'm sure you've seen before from i guess someone who was a prominent uh member or maybe he was over ellen white's estate or something of that nature but i think it's quotes like this that would cause people who are non-adventists to be like okay this seems like they're elevating ellen white's writings beyond where it should be and like i said we don't need to focus on this because i really want to move into the sabbath conversation which is next sure but here's a quote that i think i put in my video i believe that both ellen g white and the apostle paul were true prophets who wrote under the influence of the holy spirit my reason for believing in the inspiration of one is identical to my reason for believing in the other now obviously that's a sound bite you take things out of context i get it but just reading it for face value and like i said we don't need to go into too much depth here but uh because we have so many other things we need to talk about but um reading that for face value as a non-adventist it would it would it looks like okay this person is elevating ellen white's prophetic authority on the level with the apostle paul and it sounds like that but that might not be what he intended no i i don't believe that's what he intended and let's say if that's what he's intended i would just flatly disagree with him and i think that the church would flatly disagree with him if what he's communicating is that they're on par with each other that's not what he i believe he's communicating okay what he is saying is though that it is the same spirit that inspires and like if anyone is inspired by the spirit they're all inspired by the same spirit so if i would say someone something like alan parr i believe is a man of god who's inspired by the spirit who's who when he ministers is under the influence of the holy spirit yeah it's going to be this identical holy spirit that that moved elijah that moved paul so what we're saying is that the quality of inspiration is the same but that does not mean therefore that the role of these people are the same uh in the scriptures for example it talks about many other prophets or prophetess that are not included in the canon of scripture you know the prophetess miriam is something that's talked about in exodus but you don't see the writings of miriam anywhere or minus a few songs here or there you hear about you know uh this group of four women who are prophetess um the daughters of philip you never see their writings anywhere and so here's the point is that if they are genuinely moved by the spirit they're moved by the same holy spirit but it does not mean that their role are the same as paul so the point that's being communicated here is like if ellen white is inspired by the holy spirit it's the same as holy spirit that inspired paul it does not mean that ellen white is on the same level as paul ellen white herself made that very clear yeah and i appreciate that and justin just so you know justin and i have had conversations offline about this word inspired and once again we want to move on to the uh concept of the sabbath next but i think that is also can i say one last thing just as a reference i won't read all the quotes but um if you're wanting to have a more explicit handling on what is the role uh of ellen white according to adventists there's a website ministry magazine it's the 7th adventist encyclopedia and i would encourage you to google search of article called the inspiration and authority of the lmg of ellen g white's writings it's a statement that was originally penned in 1982 so it's something that stood the test of time and there are a number number of affirmations of what adventists believe in regards her writings as well as several denials that help make things clear it's important to not only look at the affirmations but the denials as well for example explicitly written we do not believe that the writings of ellen white serve the same purpose as the scripture which is the sole foundation and final authority of christian faith we do not believe that the writings of ellen white are in addition to the canon of sacred scripture we do not believe that the writings of ellen white may even be used as the basis of doctrine we do not believe that the study of the writings of ellen white may be used to replace the study of scriptures i could read many more of these but there's affirmations and denials and so if you want a clearer a holistic picture of how do adventists approach ellen white ministry magazine the inspiration and authority of the lng white's writings awesome awesome thank you so much justin for that um very thorough answer i appreciate that okay now let's jump into something much much more practical that hits us in everyday life this idea of the observance the observance there it is of the sabbath or lack thereof all right now um in my video i i now this one this one i'm going to need some real help understanding this because this is this is one of the things that i think myself and many people are getting consistently tripped up on okay now uh once again i understand that um that your beliefs with regards to the sabbath come from scripture i understand that however what i'm trying to discern here is ellen g white's writings about the sabbath you know um do adventists just straight up honest answer do adventists support and believe uh what she's saying so for instance statements like this from a if i read it from a non-adventist perspective she says the rejection of god's holy memorial the sabbath will decide the fate of many professing christians so when i read that as a non-adventist i'm reading that without any context and i'm looking at that and i'm saying okay if i reject the sabbath if i go my entire life and i go to church on sunday and i never observe the sabbath day in my life that rejection of the sabbath is going to decide the fate of many professing christians meaning oh alan's a professing christian but he's not a real genuine christian because he has made a conscious decision to reject the sabbath day and the observance of it and i'll let you respond here she also says the sabbath is the golden clasp that unites god and his people it means eternal salvation to keep the sabbath holy unto the lord so once again as a non-adventist i need some help in understanding what a she may have meant and b uh it does do her writings these statements correctly um correctly what's the word i'm looking for represent the the position of the adventist church uh and and so uh i need some clarification and then uh we'll we'll i'll touch on a couple of those other ones as well but i'll let you respond back to that sure so um before kind of diving in on the nitty-gritty can i paint a more holistic uh understanding of the sabbath rather than it's just is it saturday or sunday is it salvation or not can i can i help you yes please understand how we as adventists view the sabbath so adventists boil down um honoring the sabbath to two primary uh motivations in exodus chapter 20 and in deuteronomy chapter 5 is where the fourth commandment is explicitly stated and what's interesting is as you read each of these differing accounts there's many parts of the commandment that are common remember the sabbath day to keep it holy six days you should do your work and the seventh day you should rest and in it you should do no work but not just you your your maid servant your manservant down to you like the animals that you like employ so to speak but the reasoning behind each of these iterations of the commandment actually differs from chapter to chapter in exodus chapter 20 where it's the fourth commandment as in the traditional ten commandments the reason why you keep the sabbath is because you remember god as your creator that's important to us the in deuteronomy chapter five the reasoning actually shifts and it highlights god ultimately as your redeemer the the reason for why you should keep the sabbath is as a memorial that it's god who takes you out of egypt and so when it comes to sabbath keeping in adventist culture the reasons why we do it are primarily twofold it's always a memorial it's never in order to get something sabbath keeping does not earn you salvation that needs to be 100 clear we're not saying that sabbath is a work you must perform in order to be saved that's not what it is sabbath keeping ultimately boils down to a memorial of two things god as your creator and god as your redeemer and so sabbath observance is really just a reorientation of your life to remember where you came from to remember what your history what your origin is what god has done on your behalf and resting in those in in the completed work of jesus on the cross that jesus's sacrifice is enough and so now we can rest when the world tells you that your value and your your ultimates kind of um that your value as a human being boils down to the number of zeros in your bank account how much education have you gone through uh you know how popular you are how good looking you are your your your merits your values all dependent upon what you can produce with your hands the sabbath stands as an open rebuke against consumerism it's it's a rebuke against kind of this uh hustle mentality this kind of grinding and out all the time in order to achieve some sense of meaning and satisfaction in life the sabbath is a sign that you are already enough in christ that what he has done on your behalf is enough the sabbath ultimately comes down to a practice of faith that you know what while it's important for me to put my hand to work while it's important for me to maybe you know try to improve my life self-improvement and all those kinds of things at the end of the day it's not me who who secures my my identity my value my worth it's not me who secures even my own salvation it's what jesus has done and it's because he has created me and it's because he has redeemed me that i can have security in who i am and the sabbath is an exercise of faith saying i will trust his plan over mine to give you an example i have one of my really good friends chico who's uh who's featured on some of the interviews on my channel he was a former pagan turned christian we're talking about this idea of what does it look like to genuinely trust god when it comes to all facets of your life this is something that's new to him he just opened up a barbershop in the middle of a pandemic which is a crazy thing to do because who knows if it's going to succeed or if it's going to fail to complicate things even more his wife is now expecting their first or well their first born and so there's a lot of pressure a lot of stress that's taking place within chico within his wife and within their relationship together not to mention the business and everything else that's around it so the temptation is the world's answer to this reality is you must work seven days a week 24 hours a day 365 the world is saying you must do everything that you can to secure your position to make sure that your family is safe and not to say that that's necessarily evil or wrong but as believers we say you know what ultimately my my destiny is not dependent on what i do why because there's a god who has plans for my life who's orchestrated and from beginning who i can trust because he's got my back and so while it might seem like the thing that he should do is work work work work work never stopping doing it all on putting it all on his own back the sabbath stands as a way for him to exercise his faith and saying you know what there's more to life than what i produce there's more to life than what i can secure with my own hands and maybe god has wired humanity with certain rhythms that are required certain rhythms of work but also rest that are necessary for the flourishing of the human soul that are necessary for the flourishing of relationships and mental health to me it's no surprise that adventists on average this is what the statistics statistics bear out that adventists on average live seven to ten years longer than the average human being in the world one seventh sounds oddly like one out of seven days of a week it's it's almost as though adventists are granted an additional seven years why because they've been resting one out of every seven days they can unload from the stress the physical toil the emotional toil the maybe even spiritual toil this belief that sometimes that creeps in that we know is false but creeps in this idea that i must work to secure favor with god no no the sabbath is a symbol it's an exercise of faith that you are already complete that what jesus has done is enough that he has created you that he has redeemed you this is the perspective of the sabbath for most adventists okay so i can respect that and and and listen uh guys and i'm reading the quotes and stuff so i understand the purpose of rest i think i think i think most people in the world would agree that we need to rest i understand the position of faith in terms of hey i don't have to work seven days i can work six days and trust god to provide for me i don't have to do like all that none of that is in question i don't i don't question any of that i understand that you know god has given us a gift of rest and all of that but i think what i'm trying to get to and what these comments are trying to get to is how do we look at the quotes right like let's get down and dirty man let's like let's let's get honest about what is th what do these things mean and we can skirt around the issue and talk about you know um you know the importance of the sabbath which i believe look guys i have a video on my channel where i talk about ways that protestants can and should observe a sabbath now i don't necessarily mandate that it has to be sundown on friday to sundown on saturday but i do believe in the concept the biblical concept of rest and not working so we are in agreement with that but what i'm trying to get to the bottom of and i in this live stream is it sounds like something else is being communicated from you know um you know the adventist website or ellen g white's writings or even many members of the adventist church so can we really address these quotes that seem to say you have to keep this sabbath to be saved i mean it's it i think you can either we either have to land on yes we agree as an adventist that ellen white's uh writings are true and therefore if you don't observe the sabbath you're not saved either we have to assert that or we have to say we do not agree with ellen white we have to publicly say those words we do not agree with her in this situation because um you know we don't believe that like for instance i'll i'll add another one she says i saw that the holy sabbath is and will be the separating wall between the true israel of god and unbelievers and that the sabbath is the great question to unite the hearts of god's dear waiting saints then it says and if one believed and kept the sabbath and received the blessing attending it and then gave it up and broke the holy commandment they would shut the gates of the holy city against themselves as sure as there was a god that rules in heaven above now if i'm a non-adventist reading that i'm interpreting that to say if i was once an adventist who i to use her words believed kept the sabbath receive the blessings attending it and then i say you know what i don't want to be an adventist anymore i'm going to give that up i'm going to break the holy commandment maybe i go to church on sunday and don't do it on saturday i'm going to shut the gates of heaven against myself meaning i'm not going to be a christian so can you help us understand not just the concept of rest we get that but how do we interpret these quotes right here that's what i think people are trying to get to yeah great questions so the first thing i would do is to repeat what ellen white says if there's something that she says that doesn't line up with scripture where do we default we throw her writings to the side and we follow scripture so if let's say at the end of this discussion um you're still convinced that she's saying one thing and the bible's saying a different thing cool like that's fine like go with scripture i think that you're within your not only within your right to do it but that's actually the thing that she would prefer anyways to begin with and so there's no need to stand on a perception of what she's intending right here and somehow put that against the scriptures if that's how you want to read the the passages that's fine but that's not in keeping with the spirit that adventists have when it comes to the sabbath what is she talking about here when she's talking about like the golden class what is she talking about when she's talking about the importance of um obedience it this is a this is a question that doesn't only have uh bearing on something like the sabbath but it's just a general question of like what do we do as believers when we are convicted about something the spirit convicts us about something we see the teaching in scripture what do we choose to do with that what is the role of yes we understand that no one is saved by works we're saved by faith in christ right but what is the role of obedience i mean on your channel you have dozens if not hundreds of videos that talk about you know should christians do xyz or you know is it okay for a christian to do fill in the blank and nowhere is anyone accusing you allen of saying oh it's a salvation like you're equating it salvifically no you're asking a genuine question of hey if you're a believer and if you believe the teaching of scripture is such a thing there's kind of a moral requirement for you as a follower of jesus to live up to what your conscience says and so i think that this is exactly the intention of these passages if you are convicted about the importance and the the the bearing of the sabbath presently there is a certain responsibility to live up to that light and if you reject it like i'm not going to be the person that says that you're lost but there is a certain shakiness that you're standing on to say i believe something is the case but i'm going to actively choose not to do it that's one category if you're not convinced about the sabbath well then that's an entirely different category james talks about sin is when you know to do something and then don't do it so if you're not convinced about it right now i'm willing to give a person the respect as a human being and i'm willing to treat these big questions with with enough humility to say you know what maybe this isn't the time maybe god will reveal that to you if it's that important to him maybe he'll reveal it to you at another time but if he's not convicting you about it right now like okay like i still wish you the best it's okay so where do we get like these ideas as far as um you know golden class what is she commenting on she's often commenting on certain yeah or this one here yeah go ahead add him in and catch up go ahead she's she's uh commenting on a lot of passages in in like ezekiel that say for example my sabbaths are a sign between me and them that they would know that i am the lord that sanctifies them the sabbath was again a symbol an expression a practice of faith ultimately that it's not me who saves me but it's god who does the sanctifying on my behalf and so in this sense sabbath is not a work it's just a fruit of the salvation that is yours and so when there's an illusion when there's a connection there between sabbath observance and your salvation she's commenting on these ideas that the sabbath really is a sign that god is the redeemer not us so that that's like overarching what i would say as far as these general comments okay all right awesome awesome i appreciate that and i know that this is the case because i even you know knowing that we're going to talk today i called several of my pastor friends right and saying hey you know this is how i always heard it growing up as an adventist is this fairing your estimation in your experience with adventism and 100 of them said yes that's what i believe as well adventists have a very optimistic view of salvation um it's not at all narrow-minded and close-minded like say some of our friends that are on the fringes like you know mormons or jehovah's witnesses who might actually believe and i don't know these things for certain but this is at least how the internet represents them right that they are the only ones going to heaven this is not the case for adventists every single person that i asked um will be in heaven yeah absolutely in fact everyone every one of them agreed there's going to be way more non-adventists than there are adventists in heaven and every single one of them agreed on another layer further past like the box so to speak that we would even leave space for people who have literally never heard the name of jesus to be able to make it into the kingdom that's between them and god we're not going to say they're saved or lost for a fact that's not our role but we leave space for that optimism to say you know what someone out there an aboriginal in some far-off jungle or desert or some far-off place or maybe in a time period where the gospel hadn't reached them if they live their life to the light that god has revealed them through through general revelation we would say hey god's totally within his rights to save them if that's what he wants to do so our view of salvation is much more open-ended than is represented on the internet okay okay and and i can respect that it's just um you know once again from a non-adventist perspective um whenever we read these things you know and you know it's it's very very hard if i'm just being honest it's very very hard to to read this and even believe that there is another possible interpretation or you know as you and i have talked offline you say well you know you have to understand the context in which she was saying these things and so it's hard sometimes as a non-adventist to believe that regardless of what the context is it's like okay wow you know to say that if i reject the sabbath that's going to decide the fate of many professing christians is just a very strong statement so i think i hear let me let me give you an let me give you an example i think that will be closer in your wheelhouse that will help you grasp this idea what we're talking about is not just a kind of blank slate did you keep the sabbath or not what we're talking about here is someone who is convicted on believes on and rejects something so let's imagine uh alan that you are same-sex attracted you're a member of the lgbt community and as you are wrestling through your identity as a christian uh with your same-sex attraction you come and study the scriptures and you and you come to the conclusion that i believe you you do hold as as you yourself that um that this is not in keeping with god's ideal to say it lightly but also that there's really a sense of judgment that comes to those who who embrace the lifestyle to use kind of the colloquial terms if you are convicted that homosexuality is in fact a sin but you persist in it and you reject what you believe the teaching of scripture is alan what what do you think what is your estimation of that person does that person stand on solid ground or maybe is there some shakiness with the way that they've chosen to follow god and to live things out they could just simply say well how about we just agree to disagree about this but no the question is they are convicted about it and they reject it yeah so and and uh this is definitely brings up um you know another um point that we won't go into today is our differences in terms of um salvation and i don't want to even send the chat down a crazy uh i don't think we just i don't think we disagree on salvation very well no i'm sorry i don't i meant eternal security whether whether a believer can lose their salvation that's what i meant yes okay so maybe maybe that's a helpful context you are calvinist in leaning and i'm armenian in leaving that is to say that i believe there's a role for freedom of choice that someone can accept the sacrifice of christ that they cannot choose to do that or they can choose to reject it so sure if if we're willing to accept the idea of freedom of choice when it comes to salvation then someone has the right to reject things and if someone chooses to reject whatever it is that god offers look that's their choice and that's the way that we would approach something like the sabbath that's the way that we would approach something like any any other thing that has to do with obedience in general like hey you ultimately get to choose you don't have to if if you don't want to it's your choice okay awesome all right so i think we've we've discussed that quite a bit now a topic that's related to this idea of the sabbath which we're going to move on because we want to keep this conversation flowing is the idea of the mark of the beast all right now i'm just going to read a couple of quotes here and i'm going to ask justin to to really explain the position because i'll just read them okay let me just read a couple of these now once again this is coming from lng white and once again what i'm trying to do here if you haven't figured out is i'm trying to get to the heart of what adventists believe and if they say hey alan you know what we respect ellen white but you're interpreting these things wrong and this is what we truly believe that's why i want to bring justin on so he could help us better understand these things or yeah what she's saying i'm we're in full agreement of so let me just read this here she says god has given men the sabbath as a sign between him and them as a test of their loyalty those who after the light regarding god's law comes to them continue to disobey and exalt human laws above the law of god in the great crisis before us will receive the mark of the beast all right now let me read another one here she also goes on to say if the light of truth has been presented to you revealing the sabbath of the fourth commandment and showing that there is no foundation in the word of god for sunday observant and yet you still cling to the false sabbath which i would assume she's referring to sunday refusing to keep holy the sabbath which god calls my holy day you receive the mark of the beast now i'm just going to be honest when i read that as a non-adventist that feels very very uh offensive because it feels like i won't say adventists but it feels like ellen white is saying if i reject the sabbath and i am attending church on sunday and i someone has come to me and they've explained to me the importance of the sabbath or i've read in the word i'll say you know rest is important and sabbath is important yes but if i go the rest of my life and i'm like you know what i'm going to choose to take my day on wednesday i'm going to choose to take my day on saturday or sunday or friday or whatever right and i'm consciously rejecting this i'm going to receive the mark of the beast now this is a bigger conversation if we don't have time to go into right now because once again um this is an area where justin and i may see different in terms of the the eschatological age in which we live in i don't want to use a big word but basically my my position is i'm a pre-tribulation rapture person that's i believe that christians won't even be around to take the mark of the beast because we will have been raptured before the seven year tribulation occurs now we don't need to get into all that today that's not the point of this okay this is not a study on eschatology but let's just say that the post-tribulation view is the accurate one which for those of you don't know that is the view that christians will not be raptured before the tribulation that we will have to be here and endure the seven years of tribulation all the stuff you read in revelation i'm reading this quote and i'm saying okay it seems to suggest that if i'm a christian during the tribulation and i reject the sabbath and i'm attending church on sunday i'm automatically going to receive the mark of the beast which means i'm not saved so can you help us better understand what the church's position is on this idea of connecting the sabbath with the mark of the beast i'll i'll do my best um it requires a lot of like there's you're you're pinpointing one part of a much larger world view and you're right it is eschatological in nature so context is necessary yes i'll share though that in my kind of looking up the church's official stance on this i was actually surprised because um the mark of the beast is certainly kind of a common and popular um conversation within adventist circles that is that is true um that's not like a unique thing that only happens in certain circles of the church but what was surprising to me is actually looking on the 28 fundamental beliefs that nowhere is the mark of the beast actually mentioned so while this is certainly a major part of adventist culture i was surprised to find out that it actually doesn't make it into the codified kind of this is the collected understanding of what scripture teaches so what that teaches me and i actually uh conferred with again several pastor friends that this is speaking about a particular prophetic interpretation of the very certain part of the book of revelation specifically we're looking at revelations chapter uh 12 13 and 14 as kind of this cornerstone location for this teaching on the mark of the beast so where did we quit real quick sorry i'm going to cut you off um guys let's not make this a argument about eschatology in the in the in this in the chat please like listen i've already conceded that let's just assume for for for this discussion that christians will not be raptured and we have to go through the tribulation so let's let's let's not get off track okay let's listen to what justin has to say about his position here on the mark of the beast let's let's focus on that and let's not you know discuss this whole pre-trib post-trib thing okay go ahead justin sorry i'm just watching the chat's going crazy here with that i'm sure i i closed the chat out exactly for that reason so i can focus on what you're asking me the questions thank you um so in order for us to get to an understanding of what is the mark of the beast i think an important question to ask is well what is the beast um who is the beast i guess is maybe a more accurate question adventists join a very long and rich tradition of protestants in their interpretation of who the beast power is who is the little horn who is the antichrist kind of all the same question all baked into one protestants i think pretty much unanimously have agreed on one primary identification of the beast power uh for example martin luther john calvin thomas cramer john knox isaac newton even i think it's explicitly written in the westminster confession in the 1600s that they were united in saying that the beast the little horn power the beast in revelation 13 is none other than the uh than the papal power in rome um there are several defining characteristics in daniel chapter 7 as well as revelation chapter 13 that help you identify this beast things like it comes among ten horns there's a man that speaks on its behalf it uproots three of the other horns uh it's unique from the other ten horns and makes war with and persecutes god's people um they'd be given god's people would be given over to this power for time times and half a time it speaks blasphemous things and then perhaps most notably to adventists it intends to change times and laws so whether we agree on whether or not this is a great fulfillment of this power in prophecy adventists join the history of protestants in identifying this power as papal rome and because of that then we ask the follow-up question well really what's at play here what is happening in revelation 13. what seems to take place is that this beast is given legislative power of some sort and has the ability to make laws that have to do with worship and it seems as though in revelation there's a decision that must be made do you worship god or do you worship the the idols the images that are set up the you could even uh say the false trinity where is your allegiance to what are we looking towards adventists would say that this is something that takes place in the future that this is not something that's taking place right now that if you go to church on sunday no you don't have the mark of the beast i go to church on sunday sometimes with my friends when when there's you know other things happening here that i'm not afraid to do that there's nothing wrong with doing it the mark of the beast is not something in our estimation that's happening presently right now we are talking about a future event in which um let's just say broadly speaking legislative powers come to be that mandate worship that is contrary to god and in this moment when you have a choice kind of if you could picture um uh the three hebrew boys you know before the the the tower uh when they're faced with the fiery furnace there's this moment where you have to choose to actively transgress what god has decreed or you stay faithful to god even if it means you can't buy or sell you might be persecuted maybe even certain death revelation 13 has this beast power that emerges issuing a mark and limiting those who don't have the mark revelation 14 seems to be god's answer to it highlighted in god's answer to the beast power is this emphasis on a very unique group of people specifically it's a group of people in revelation 12 17 and revelation 14 12 that have a unique relationship to the commandments of god as well as have the faith of jesus there's these are a group of people who put their faith in jesus and have a relationship to the commandments of god and so when this idea is revolving around forced worship the question is is who do you worship whose allegiance do you have the kind of common adventist interpretation of this is that it may in fact come down to a day of worship and this is kind of why in revelation 14 there's a strong illusion in this angel's message that says worship god who created the heavens and the seas and the fountains of water it's an illusion back to the fourth commandment this is where adventists would infer and say hey this end time eschatological event that has to deal with the mark of the beast and the seal of god very likely has something to do with worship and since the beast power attempts to change times and laws what is the only law that has to deal with times what's the only law that really has to allude to the creator you know god in revelation 14. we would infer and say huh this is the sabbath commandment and it's interesting that this is the only commandment that starts with the word remember and in a time where it seems as though that god is forgotten both as a creator as a redeemer this is maybe perhaps where the central issue is focused on yeah awesome um now uh okay so this is awesome all right thank you for that i'm gonna put it it's the first time i'm gonna put a quote on the screen here uh someone named god the father says excuse me that's that's somewhat blasphemous that's that's i know that's that's an interesting uh you know so he says alan the adventist website says forced sunday worship is the mark of the beast justin is saying differently who do i believe um you know i yeah so no no i mean that's that's that is what i'm saying i'm saying that adventists commonly understand that revelation 13 is fulfilled in a mandated sunday worship and combined with that to desecrate god's sabbath or to honor a man-made law in the place of god's law is ultimately what the mark of the beast issue comes down to but again like i'm i'm trying to build the greater context of this actually isn't codified in one of the 28 official beliefs of the church this is an interpretation of prophecy in the same way that you know jonah gave a prophecy saying that the city would be destroyed a conditional prophecy it didn't actually come to come out that way is this what will actually happen i've talked to many adventist administrators and pastors in just the last couple of days asking hey so how do you view this common understanding of the mark of the beast is this a for sure thing it must happen in this exact way or is it one of those things that yeah like i mean it's written there that's what we understand that's our best understanding of it but we don't know and i think the reason why it's not in one of the 28 fundamental beliefs is because the actual consensus of all the people i've asked is it's something that's there but we're not sure how it actually will happen could god do it some other way he could do it some other way now yeah and i understand it now but would you would you understand would you rather say i understand but would you agree that as a non-adventist reading these things it sounds on the surface that this is pretty clear like i'm living in the end times the tribulation period is going on all around me and i am not observing the sabbath i'm still observing christ and i'm still going to church on sunday because i want to worship the lord but i'm not going to go to church on saturday this or the sabbath i'm not going to observe the sabbath should i say let me rephrase it that way i mean like i said i i see i understand your you know your your your converse your logic and you know all of your answers but i feel like um and people are asking in the chat like i feel like some of the quotes and some of these things that i'm trying to get to the bottom of it's just it's i don't know if we're getting there um because it's like how how do i still interpret this like how do i still interpret as a sunday worshiper a sunday observer you're like am i is does this mean i'm going to receive the marketplace i see what you're saying you're like we don't know or that's not what we're saying but that sounds like what it's saying let me see if there's anything more okay no that's the last one i had on that topic but that sounds like what it's saying which now you can understand maybe from a non-adventist perspective why um you know many of us are like man you know we don't like these people because they're basically saying we're going to receive the mark of the beast and we're going to hell oh man let's go just for going to church on sunday like that's how it can be that's how it can be interpreted sure like i can understand those feelings and when adventists have wielded their beliefs in a way that makes you feel that way like i'm sorry like that sucks like that's never the intention like adventist would just simply point like it's a commandment like it's something that's there i mean we can have a discussion if we if we think the commandments we're done away with um adventists would disagree i think that adventists would say the moral law still matters today and inherent to the moral law is the sabbath commandment and so like i don't know like i want to give room for people to wrestle through this with their with their own convictions with god like hey study out the sabbath on your own in your own time like study out if you if you if you see it in scripture or not is there any evidence that the day was changed or that the commandments are done away with and if ultimately come to that conclusion like okay like i'm not trying to be the person that gets in between you and god that's never my role like that's between you and god like what you want to do and if god doesn't convict you about it ever or in the near future then like you should be fine like you're you're walking with a clean conscience towards god yeah i think the context of this eschatological thing that happens in the future is if there comes a moment where god does convict you about the importance of anything the role of a believer is to walk in faithful obedience as best as we can yeah and that's important i'm not going to back down from the idea that if you're convicted about the sabbath you you really ought to keep it like because god has convicted you of it like who am i to say that you go against your convictions one way or the other and we're in agreement on that romans 14 talks about that right let each man be fully convinced in his own mind one man sees one day as being sacred another man sees all days are alike let each man be fully convinced in his own mind and i think obviously paul was writing that because the church at rome and many of the churches of that day they were merging together or fusing together two very very different cultures you have the gentile culture which knew nothing about the sabbath and respected the sabbath not and then you have the jewish culture where you know they obviously withheld or upheld the sabbath to a high standard and paul was trying to build unity in the churches and he didn't want these things to further divide the brothers in christ and so that's why he wrote chapters like romans 14 where he says hey you know what if you're a jewish christian and you want to observe the sabbath and you want to like there's nothing wrong with that like there's everything right with that like it's good to take a day of the week and say i'm going to rest i'm not going to work i'm going to spend time with my family i'm going to worship i'm going to pray like that's honorable and it should be done and it's amazing it's a date night with jesus like i respect that 100 but then paul is like hey but you know what if somebody else sees all days alike and maybe they want to do that on sunday or on monday or tuesday and that's hey you know what we are free we're not under law we're under grace and we all have freedom now to be able to um you know um uh you know rest on our own terms if you will so i think we can move past that one just well thank you you'll do it sorry that is one that i'm getting in trouble if i don't actually respond to with my community sure um i don't think that's actually what paul teaches in in that passage in romans if you do a word study of the entire book of romans surprisingly absent is the word sabbath literally not once does the word sabbath show up in the book of romans um i don't think that that's actually what he is intending to say with that passage i don't believe that um paul is talking about which sat which sabbath or is saturday or sunday or wednesday or any other day the sabbath day that i don't think that that's what he's talking about um i think adventists generally believe that he's talking about other feast days other important days whether it's fasting or feasting or other kinds of you know ceremonial days those kinds of things he's saying in those areas those are things that that make up kind of cultural judaism don't let that be a stumbling block between you and the gentiles to that point that's kind of where we see that applying but i i don't see precedent for paul saying hey any day works every day is kind of created evil equal choose one and seven um the testimony of scripture and the testimony of history is that at least till the first or second century a.d there was unity in that saturday was the day of gathering and worship it wasn't until later on constantine came on and more as like a political move to distance themselves to distance christianity from judaism there was kind of a transfer quote unquote of the solemnity of sabbath to sunday so i would disagree with you and we can move on if you want or dig deeper into that but adventists would not feel that the using romans uh to say that any day is fine uh that would rub a lot of adventists the wrong way sure sure and uh and and i i i i definitely think that along with the colossians 2 passage um you know about um i would have to say something about colossians 2 but then we're getting into a more nuanced theological discussion yeah and that's why it's up to you where you want to take that yeah i would i'd say let's move on to uh the differences of hell because once again guys what we're trying to model here is that it's possible to have different understandings different interpretations and look after this discussion i could easily take justin out to our well my favorite place wow red robin uh yes he took me out and treated me to red robin uh but you did not get a beef burger though right i did not i got a vegetarian one which is a big part of adventist culture that's right but i did i ate i ate some beef all right so so my point is that i i i would be happy to to hang out like like we're gonna be friends we're gonna like this is totally just a discussion that we're having that we want to model for you how to do in your own home so let's go ahead and move on to a couple more topics and we'll take some questions i don't want to make this forever but um and this one i think won't necessarily be as long of a discussion as some of the other ones but i want to touch on this one because we do have some differences of opinion with regard to the afterlife right and basically the traditional position of for protestants uh that don't quote me on this but i would probably say has been held by um within well i'll just say i'll go on a limb and say has been held by traditional christian christianity and christendom uh for centuries if you will is that just as there is eternal life the for those who place their faith in christ there is also eternal separation from god i'm just going to go ahead and say it in hell if i get censored fine right but there's an eternal separation in hell for those who are you know not redeemed now i know that the position of the adventist church obviously feels that you know they see things differently if i'm correct you know they are uh they believe in annihilationism which justin will discuss here in just a moment but i want to just highlight a couple of things here and i want to see if you could help me understand um how to interpret you know a couple of verses in the new testament now the first one is matthew 25 46 and obviously we will look at the context and all this stuff but jesus is basically talking about what's going to happen at judgment and the judgment of the sheep and goats and all of that okay so that's the basic context and he says here and these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life now what i did here and just to check because i knew what this verse would i how i interpreted it but just to check before this call i looked up the greek words in this verse for eternal and i want to say it's aonias i could have pronounced it wrong but basically when you look up that word the word eternal uh refers to an unending duration an unending duration and so the question that i've always had for an adventist i know you can look at other verses and and other words in the bible that you know eternal doesn't mean forever it means things are going to burn up and when things burn up it's done like i i get that i've i've been you know i've been i've communicated with that venus before but how does an adventist interpret this verse where the same greek word is used in the same verse and how can we come to the conclusion that one use of the word eternal in this verse means yes hey christians are going to go to eternal life yeah we're going to spend with the lord forever and it's never going to be cut off but in the exact same verse the same greek word means you will go into punishment but it won't be forever it'll just be temporary uh until you pay off your crime so to speak and then you'll be annihilated you'll be burned to death and then you'll cease to exist but the believers will still continue to have eternal life how do you interpret the same greek word in the same verse as meaning two different things absolutely happy to talk about this um in my conversations with adventists um the sabbath and hell are probably the most treasured uh identifying kind of characteristics of what it means to be an adventist people might have disagreements on the role of ellen white on the idea of the mark of the beast and kind of investigate judgment there are certain things that for a lot of adventists presently get i don't know take or leave it that's not an official stance of the church by any stretch of the imagination and i think that some adventists would get very upset with this description but it is true that many adventists that's not really what they claim when they're claiming adventism but they are claiming the sabbath and they are claiming their idea about hell and so i know that you want me to go about this specific verse i'm happy to talk about it but i always want to back up a little bit and to give context as to kind of really how adventists view uh the subject at large adventists uh in general have a real strong moral um complaint with the idea of a god who will eternally eternally consciously torment people we see that out of keeping with the character of a loving god um we i could nod my hat to calvinists who say yeah but god's ultimately the creator he could do whatever he wants with his creations like yeah like i could see how maybe logically that fits but morally we have a lot of problems with that um the idea of eternal conscious torment specifically is what i'm kind of pushing back on i think many adventists would push back on um i think most clearly emerges in revelation chapter 14. and i'm reading right here it talks about how those who receive um you know don't or who reject god it says that they will drink the wine of god's wrath poured full strength into the cup of his anger and will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and the presence of the lamb it says the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever they have no rest day or night these worshipers of the beast in its image so we have this language that's at least at first read seems to say no like their smoke goes up forever and ever the punishment is eternal and conscious it's it's this type of uh pop idea of what hell looks like it's burning fire it's this thing that's going to go on forever and ever and we have a lot of again like i said moral kind of questions about that but i think it's the easiest way to kind of insight to get an insight into the thinking of an adventist is the context in which this takes place let's say that this verse does in fact describe an eternal conscious torment the locus or the the locale of this event is really kind of uh off-putting and raises a lot of problems it says that this will take place specifically quote in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb so if we are to accept the idea of an eternal conscious torment we must take the rest of the verse at face value as well to say therefore hell is something that jesus himself is perpetually overseeing he will forever till the end until the end of time which literally doesn't exist exists so for all of time jesus is like dad at the barbecue flipping sinners over and over i mean if you're if that's your your picture of hell like okay that's hard for me to to agree with and so this simple question of like is that really what the the verse is meaning leads to ask a handful of other questions if we're not willing to say that it's the lamb who's uh who's who's uh uh administering the eternal conscious torment we ask a lot of other questions like well what does eternal mean what does it mean forever and ever and could it be that in the same way that we today use idioms or phrases like i went to the dmv and it took forever or you know i was at red robin with my buddy allen parr and we finished our uh our basketball took him forever to eat his burger or it took him forever to eat his burger right could it be that these are phrases that are used uh with a little bit of tongue-in-cheek they're they're they're phrases that are embellishments to create a point but don't actually literally mean forever and ever when i'm at the dmv forever and ever i don't literally mean without end and so the reason why we feel like there's this space for interpretation here is that as you mentioned earlier when you look at the word forever and ever in its greek aeon or whatever i don't know how to pronounce it either i didn't i didn't study greek i actually didn't go to seminary myself but when you study that word there are times where it literally does mean without end it's a literal translation of the phrase without end eternal you know forever and there are other times where it's uses the word forever but it refers to a predefined time in other words they're using it as an idiom uh i think for example jude talks about um sodom and gomorrah are put on display as an example of those who sustain the eternal fire well if we go to where sodom and gomorrah are today is there still fire today no so what does the scripture mean when it says eternal or without end could it refer to the members could it refer to the people in those cities that are experiencing eternal fire not the cities themselves like the grass and the trees and stuff like that it could mean that we know that sinful people there sure it could mean that but what adventists would say is no when we're talking about the punishment we're really talking about a punishment that effects our eternal not that there's an eternal punishing but an internal punishment you know you go to somewhere like malachi chapter 3 where it talks about the day of judgment where there's this fire that's consumed but at the end of it there's this moment where we actually tread upon the ashes there's this visual uh component where the thing that was burning is burnt up so much to the extent that it actually talks about how like the roots are burnt up that there's worms now that are eating the decomposition it's this visual uh imagery that the the fires at some point finish and so because we're not willing to say that jesus is the one overseeing hell forever and ever and ever it's not actually happening the smoke of the torment is not actually rising literally forever in front of jesus we're saying maybe there's an idiom that's used here maybe it's just a play on words in the sense that no it might even be a long time but at some point the fire burns up so when we go to somewhere like matthew 25 which we have on the screen we would also compare that to something like john 3 16. for god so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him should not perish have a definite end but instead eternal life the contrast in john 3 is life without end and perishing if we have eternal conscious torment that is still eternal life and that doesn't seem to be the thrust of john chapter three it's either you have life without end or you perish so when we look at something like matthew chapter 25 those who go away into eternal punishment we would focus on punishment the idea that the punishment actually has a definite end but it is eternal in its effect that those who suffer the wrath of god in the you know to use the language of something like hell that that separation that does happen is eternal like there's no end to the separation that does exist we reject the idea of eternal conscious torment but we do accept the idea that there is in fact an eternal separation there's an eternal punishment and the punishment is eternal separation yeah yeah let's see and that and that that that's where it's just if i'm honest it feels it feels like a really okay i'm just going to be straight it feel this is what it feels like this is what it feels like it feels like we are coming to the scriptures with what we believe in our finite minds a moral god should or should not do so we're coming to the scriptures and we're saying ah i don't feel like god as a moral god should punish people because i'm human and i think i know better in terms of what's immorally correct and what's morally incorrect than god and so therefore i'm going to transpose my belief of what is moral and what's not on god and say because the idea of eternal punishment and torment should i say is just doesn't feel right to me it just doesn't seem like it's consistent with the loving nature of god and so i'm starting with that premise i'm i i'm starting with that premise and so therefore if i start with that premise then what i have to do is i now have to find a way to make the scripture say what i want them to say so that it fits within my idea of a holy moral god because i'm i'm leading with what i feel god should or should not do versus leading with hey i don't know what god should or should not do but i'm going to go to the text and i'm going to let the text speak for itself and then i'm going to form what i believe god would do based on so i think the problem here that i'm hearing is that we have a different starting point my starting point is god i'm finite i don't know you what i don't know how you're planning on punishing these people i don't know if that's that's that's you that's your business but you've given us the word of god to study and so i'm going to look at the scriptures and i'm going to just come with a completely unbiased approach and i'm going to say lord show me the truth in your word what it says and then based on what that says whether i agree feel good feel bad like it don't like it i have to accept that this is what you say versus coming to the scriptures and saying ah man us partying in heaven and having good times and then like looking across the street and seeing our loved ones like burn up and they're suffering and fire like burning up in their pain like ah and god is okay with that that just doesn't feel right so let me and once again you know i i see your perspective but you know i still don't feel like a scripture like this well you you mentioned it you said that you feel like the eternal punishment means the results of the separation so in other words these people will be eternally separated from god so therefore that's how the you're interpreting this verse rather than eternally being tormented by god now while i'm here there's another real quick because i i need to be able to respond to that like that's not a very fair counterpoint because you like in our discussion on the sabbath for example you actually lead with like your feelings like what's the difference between one day and seven it doesn't feel very reasonable that you know that we should be held to this strict like you're falling on your own sword here when it comes to other other subjects that we've discussed here no i don't think that that's a fair characterization of how we get to the idea of our understanding of hell it's not as though that we're leading with our feelings that's just simply the easiest way for someone to access our world view if if what we're leading with is we're leading with the idea that god is love that god puts his life in uh he's willing to give his life for other people that god hates the death of the wicked that god hates like these things like the the overarching world view does not come from this makes me feel really uncomfortable it actually comes from a place of having deep respect for the character of god that god is actually loving and while certainly there's a there's an aspect to which we don't fully understand god's love but we absolutely can understand when something is loving and it's not a parent who would torment their child lock them in a basement and constantly zap them with a with an electrical prod no matter how you view that that's not loving for anyone to consciously torment someone for forever and ever i'm sorry like that that doesn't fit under any definition of love at all and so it's it's fair to say that god exceeds our understanding but he doesn't he certainly doesn't contradict our moral understanding like the reason why we have morality is because we're reflectors of god's image and i think that that's something that's very important for us to to to understand and so you know we can disagree at the end of the day which view of hell is correct and that's fine like this for me this is not a salvational thing you're not gonna go to hell because you think there's a hell or anything like that but it's unfair to say that the reason why we get there is because of our feelings no like this is done through a very careful and thorough study of scriptures we can do much more verses if you like but again like this is not how we get there there are many evangelicals for example who embrace the same idea of of this type of picture of hell i think it's notable that nowhere in the jewish tradition is this idea of eternal conscious torment to me it really seems like historically like this view is more influenced by dante's inferno than it actually is the scripture you even said in your description of maybe we just don't understand it or maybe god has the right to do these things and who am i to make a moral judgment you accepted the picture that there's heaven you're over here partying and celebrating and you look across the street and your relatives are burning and they're being tossed in flames like if that's your picture of heaven in what capacity in what actual capacity could god wipe away every tear and ever from their eyes can you wipe away all pain i was joking i have no idea to know that whether we're in heaven that we would have any idea of what's going on in hell so that was let me let me strike that from the comments because i don't know yeah yeah but yeah let me strike that i was that was just me painting a picture but no i i have no idea let me go on record and say this before i get in trouble i have no idea whether we will have any idea of what's going on in hell while we're in heaven and i totally agree with you heaven would not be a fun place to be where we're in enjoying the presence of god and our loved ones if we can look over and see people suffering like i wouldn't want to see that at all like that would that would be totally depressing so yeah let me let me just strike that from the record i i look that's not scriptural i have no biblical basis for that so let them know but this is this is my point it is scriptural if you're reading revelation 14 without the understanding of idiom if you're reading revelation 14 and if you're looking for example uh at the story of rich man and lazarus there is clearly according to these two uh moments where hell is described after life is described there's an ability to communicate between the righteous and the fallen so much to the extent that he's like hey pre please give me a drop of water to quench you know this this thirst of mine in revelation 14 it's not only do we get to see it but jesus is literally there standing there yeah so if we're going to take everything at face value your picture of hell has to include the proximity to jesus and the proximity to believers well if you're not willing to accept that then you might have to say maybe there's an alternative way to understand this maybe when it's jesus is talking about the rich man and lazarus maybe it's an actual parable because the rest of the context of those chapters are all parables maybe he actually wasn't talking about the afterlife maybe he was talking about the idea of hey if you can't believe my words you won't even believe if someone named lazarus is raised from the dead maybe that was his point there and in revelation 14 maybe the point isn't that hell lasts forever and ever maybe he's actually making a different point here and so that's why for for me and for a lot of adventists and many people who are not adventists we reject the idea of eternal conscious torment because in order to hold that belief faithfully you have to include proximity to jesus and proximity to believers and there's a lot of other passages as we've discussed that talk about without end or aeon or eternal has the flexibility to be used as an idiom or to be used literally yeah and so when i take the moral uh character of god in in conjunction with all these other passages malachi chapter 3 john chapter 3 so many other passages that seem to really talk about the end of this ultimate punishment as having a definitive end i think the weight of scripture is actually on the side that says hell is not in the place of eternal conscious torment yeah totally and i and i think this is definitely once again guys this is once again one of those places where we you know we agree to disagree and it's totally fine you know um really quick speaking on the luke 16 passage um i'm of the belief that you know jesus never used proper names in parables so if you go to any proper any parable um you know you'll you'll never see jesus using proper names it's always a certain man did this or a widow did that or so i don't interpret luke 16 as a parable i know some people do but it doesn't seem to be any practice in any of his parables where he used a proper name but also so then if i'm understanding that correctly you then do affirm that someone in heaven you know you know had the ability to communicate with someone in hell that were in within eye shot and within earshot of each other well and that's what i was going to address the next thing which is we have to remember that luke 16 um you know is is uh referring to the present state of the dead but we know that throughout all eternity that's not where they're going to be they're going to be ultimately transferred from sheol or hades if you will to their final resting place or their final place of separation which is the lake of fire now i don't know the underworld i don't know where the lake of fire is in conjunction with heaven i don't know if it's five miles 50 miles 50 i don't know in another unit like that's that's beyond what i'm able to figure out right but then you do have to understand jesus pardon me revelation according to revelation 14 it's at the feet of jesus and the feet of the angels minimum okay so um from that ah because revelation 14 is not about the present state it's about a future thing right right it's talking about the ultimate judgment it's talking about the actual eternal torment that's sure on your view sure and according that chapter it's at the very presence of the holy angels and jesus so would you be willing to affirm that much well i'll say this i'll say this i i don't know i i okay let's just let's just let's just say that you have people who are suffering even for a period of time like a small period 100 years 200 years even if it is within proximity to heaven i still feel like there's some things here that we're talking about that are completely unknown right so does that mean our first 500 years in eternity we're depressed because we can hear people suffering but then after everyone burns up and they they you know serve their sentence and now the lake of fire is completely empty and the fire's not is out then now and we can finally enjoy the presence of god without knowing that our brothers are suffering there's an element here where i will be perfectly honest and admit and say i don't know and i'm humble enough to say i i just don't know i i'm not going to try to make up an answer and try to you know i just don't know i don't i don't know how what the relationship is the proximity and even if it is at the feet of jesus and and proc and close whether we're going to even have any consciousness of what's going on i don't know if the lord has been able to shield our minds to be able like there's just too many unknowns and i think the scripture doesn't give us enough details to firmly say no we're not going to have any idea about what's going on or be you will but you won't feel it because he's going to wipe every tear from your eyes so you can see it you won't be feeling anything because heaven will be a place of joy and peace or we just it might be next door but we just don't see like i admit i don't know yeah i don't know about that that's that's a very fair answer appreciate it honest so guys um i know that we said we're gonna try to cover like all these things but i'll be honest with you the time is uh ticking away and we have been on now for an hour almost two hours yeah almost two hours and i i i would assume that uh justin's got some things to do today and and uh whatnot so um for the sake of time i think i would like to take maybe five good questions um because a lot of these other things i had here um you know uh i had a couple of quotes here about evangelism and just um well i wanted to read this one that's i don't think that that's a hard or long drawn out answer okay let me read this one real quick so ellen white says if our ministers go into a place and first come to the shepherds of the flock so i'm assuming those are pastors and are friendly and sociable it may have an excellent effect upon them and leave a favorable impression in regard to the truth upon their minds all right so to paint the picture i'm assuming she's saying if our ministers seventh-day adventist ministers go into it i would assume she's saying a non-adventist church and they're friendly they're sociable that will leave a good impression on their minds okay let's keep going at any rate it is fair and right to give them an opportunity to be favorable and kind if they will if by earnest prayerful christ-like efforts you can bring one minister into the truth you through his influence may be able to convert a score of souls now once again i'm reading this and this is how i'm interpreting it i'm interpreting this to say um she i'm interpreting her to say if you are an adventist pastor and you visit a a non-adventist church be nice to them be favorable towards them make a good impression upon them because if you do you can bring these ministers into the truth these protestant non-adventist ministers into the truth and then now that the pastor has the truth he can then influence his congregation and potentially convert them to be true believers and the implication behind this is first and foremost the non-adventist pastor needs saving and then if he does he will then be able to share that truth with his congregation who also needs saving as well and so once again i read this and and this is my struggle guys this is i'm just being honest my struggle is there's just too many things like this that i read that it seems like it just requires a really difficult interpretation to understand it's like there's too many things that i just can't read and take for face value right so am i interpreting this wrong here or what what is it saying it's certainly the most cynical uh interpretation of this passage that what this is intending to say is that adventists view other christian leaders as degenerate and lost and in need of the saving you know saving you know in need of salvation you know through christ that's that's not what's being communicated here in the least bit like this is why for me all these answers start with like a longer context adventist view that you're going to heaven alan like as far as i know right you seem like a man of god who's doing your best to live up to the light that you have you're sincere like i believe you're going to heaven we have disagreements about doctrine and so when it comes to these things it like let's say for the for the conversation you're right and i'm wrong in this sense you have truth and i don't and so if you are able to change my mind there's a sense in which i'm converting to truth in other words i'm i'm accepting your point of view on an idea so this is what's being communicated here is hey there's people out there as adventists we believe that heavens can be littered with people who didn't keep the sabbath that are not adventists all these things like that's established like that's a done fact so when they're talking about your interactions with other people who might not see hell the same way you do or who won't see sabbath the same way you do or the nature of the second coming or all these things she's simply saying guys stop being jerks because this is actually part of the tradition of or not the tradition the history of adventism which is also the history of like christianity which is also the history of pretty much every human being on the face of the planet that we don't always do a great job in how we communicate what matters most to us and her advice is saying simply this guys chill out a little bit like don't be so harsh don't be rude don't be mean to each other like be christ-like in how you choose to interact with someone and then if you get the opportunity to share your perspective and they come to find that they do agree with you you've converted them to this truth in the same way that you're like it would not be uh the advice to alan to say hey in your conversation with justin maybe you don't have to call him names maybe you don't have to be mean at him and and curse at him and degrade his family and his belief system and his people and all these things how about you just be christ-like how about you be nice and if in your interaction with him you'll help him find that your view on you know hell or whatever the case is is actually the true view you might actually be able to through your christ-likeness be able to bring him to the truth as opposed to being rude and just having him run the other way this is what she's saying she's simply saying hey adventists and other people we may not always do a great job in how we are winsome in our witnessing maybe we can actually lead with christ's likeness in our conversations maybe we don't have to feel so defensive about our beliefs or maybe we don't even have to be offensive in how we communicate our beliefs i don't think that this is unfair advice i think that this is actually really great advice whether you're democrat or you're a republican as you're talking about politics if you're a christian or a muslim as you're talking about religion if you're talking about cultural divides parenting styles whatever the case is lead with christ's likeness and by doing so you have a better chance of helping someone see where you're coming from than if you were rude to them yeah that's what she's ultimately saying that's the point of passages like this yeah and and totally you and i have talked about this before that you know a a a basic uh evangelism um you know a basic evangelism technique is to always um you know show christ like character uh before you know just slapping them over the head with truth right what we believe is truth and i get that totally understand that i think where i got tripped up and where many people might get tripped up if they read this is this idea that you know you're an adventist minister now you're dealing with a non-adventist minister and it's that strong language that that's like okay you know um i need to i need to convert this brother so that he can convert his congregation and i think that that is where it can be you know like a little dicey like okay you know maybe is that their ultimate goal here is to you know to bring everyone over to their their view of things so i understand that you you say that's not necessarily the uh uh um you're free to that interpretation of this passage but like i just wanted to understand it better i don't i don't want to assume i interpret it that's why i want to bring you on i don't want to assume that i am it's just the most cynical version of it like if you're gonna treat the idea with a little bit of uh grace then it's easy to see like oh her point isn't they're lost you're not her point is stop being a jerk be christ-like like that's the point if you want to lead with cynicism sure are there adventists who do believe that if you're a baptist you're not safe like i'm sure they exist yeah i don't agree with them like i think that if you're an adventist who thinks that only adventists are going to heaven you're very ill red when it comes to the scripture and you're very ill red when it comes to ellen white and you're very ill informed when it comes to actual adventist teaching that's not our position sure sure yeah so guys um listen uh we could be talking for another hour and i'm not even gonna get into this today because i just think this is gonna lead us down another you know um i mean i'm sorry i didn't manage my time our time well today uh but this this conversation with regard to the investigative judgment is going to lead us down another path and quite frankly if i'm just being honest um you know this is probably not a doctrine that 99 of protestants non-adventists have ever even heard of or even aware of that um adventists uh hold to be well i should say i don't want to speak for adventists but that has been maybe a belief that has been passed down in their faith and their denomination should i say so you know i don't necessarily want to go down this path right now because i i wanted to at the beginning but i just don't know if we're gonna have time to really flesh it out and so uh you know but this is definitely an area of theology where there is some major concern from a non-adventist perspective in terms of the atonement of christ um i don't know justin should we postpone this or five minutes do you want to give five minutes to it and like the hard stop sure like the thing that i would want to say about the investigative judgments if the fear is that the way that you understand the investigative judgment has some impact on whether or not you can have security and your salvation you've understood the investigative judgment wrongly the investigative judgment is not the kind of thing that has ever been intended for you to spend the rest of your life cowering in fear whether or not you were accepted by god that's not the point of the investigative judgment the investigative judgment is uh an application of the day of atonement it's this idea that um oh i won't even because the only people that come under this type of judgment are people who have already claimed the blood of the lamb in the feast the only people that come under this judgment are those who have participated in the sacrifice of the lamb that those who by faith have had their sins transferred from themselves to the lamb the lamb is then slain the blood is then taken into the sanctuary service there's a whole bunch of other things that happen to that but the only people that come under review in this moment are people who have claimed the blood of the lamb so if you've claimed the blood of the lamb then you're fine then you're good you should not have fear you should not be cowering you should not be worried about whether or not you're saved or not if you've professed faith in christ and you've been genuine about that as far as we're concerned you're good this idea the investigative judgment actually really ultimately isn't for you or for me the investigative judgment actually serves a purpose more so in the heavenly bodies in the cosmos that are out there it's actually not for you and i and it's certainly not intended to be used so that you live in fear yeah yeah awesome guys well so listen um due to the time you know um i i don't know if we're going to have a ton of time for questions because like i said i want to respect your time first and foremost i'm sure you have other things that you're trying to do today uh but i'm excited we have almost 1800 people that are still watching from what i can gather and uh yeah which is amazing and i'm thankful for everyone for your time yeah thank you all so so listen guys um uh let me just go on record and say this i love justin i love my brother in christ and i say that wholeheartedly like brother in christ um at the end of the day i believe that justin believes that jesus christ died on the cross for his sins and that he is a sinner saved by the grace of god i believe the same i believe that jesus christ died on the cross and was buried and rose from my sins and you know my sin has been transferred to him and as a result of that uh you know his sacrifice that i'm you know i'm saved and and so we leave this time understanding that um you know justin and i uh may not see things eye to eye from a theological and doctrinal perspective but we can still have fellowship we can still celebrate the grace of god in our lives because we make mistakes all the time we may not love our wives the way we're supposed to and we thank god for forgiveness for that right like we can have fellowship over those things right if if justin's having a difficult day i can pray for him he can pray for me and we can keep each other accountable with regard to our purity our our um our lifestyles like the goal is the same right like we uh we can have that type of fellowship and so uh and we can have these types of conversations and we can learn from one another about what someone else's perspective might be although it's different and it doesn't mean we have to disrespect it doesn't mean we have to be converted over it just means hey okay i see you see things a little differently than we do i can respect that and so i just wanted to i'll give justin a chance to kind of close us out but i just wanted to thank him and all of the members of the adventist community that were on the chat thank you all so much for chiming in thank you for your kind words thank you for giving us your time we appreciate you we love you and uh who knows maybe we'll do a part two sometime down the road but uh justin you want to end with some with some words before we go sorry we couldn't take as many questions today but um uh obviously we wanted to present all the major issues to you all uh today so justin you wanna close us out sure uh i just wanna echo my sentiments as well alan thank you so much for just the the the openness in which you've handled these these conversations i i really admire you for it and i respect you for it um there it's so easy to other quote unquote other people who are different from you whether that's because they're different politically they're different racially they're different religiously aware of the cases and i think that one of the one of the things that we're seeing in 2021 is the effect of this othering the effect of this distancing yourself from the humanity of another person and i so deeply appreciate your willingness to include me as a human being at the table in this conversation as an adventist i know what it is like to really feel misrepresented on the internet um to really feel misunderstood um you know we are a group of people where we're used to googling our denomination and seeing the most angry critics represent us uh in most of our estimations incorrectly and unfairly and so because of that uh when you bring us to the table for a conversation it means a lot and i'm really grateful for that um i also want to echo alan that i see you as a brother as an equal as someone that i still really appreciate your ministry as was iterated on my channel i've been following yours for several years and i think that there's so much good that you bring to the world and even if we disagree on this or that here or there i'm a big fan of your ministry and have been and will continue to be a supporter um i think my many of my adventist friends will love your most recent series on the tabernacle or to use language at administer would use the sanctuary services there's a lot here that alan is talking about that you will find that you completely agree with and love and maybe there's even some other things that will challenge your thinking and i think that that's a good thing to be exposed to so i'd encourage you to continue following alan's channel to listen uh and even if you at the end of the day end up disagreeing with him at least you're treating him with respect and compassion in the way that you interact with this him in the comments that you're in you're in the estimation of your own mind and and maybe even in the process you'll learn something along the way so um again thank you for the journey i'm looking forward to many more years of this friendship and um hopefully our collaborations in the future don't have to be so we're coming at opposite ends because in reality i don't see you and i as coming from opposite ends i don't look at you as an enemy or a competitor i really truly do look at you as a brother in christ and so i look forward to more opportunities to collaborate at that capacity as opposed to opposing each other yeah and i think that's so well said listen justin and i have way more in common than we have different and so our focus moving forward and i encourage you to have this focus for with other people who claim the name of christ um who genuinely i'm not talking about you know jobs witnesses or i'm i'm talking about people who are genuinely like they believe in christ right is to focus on those things that you all have in common um uh let me also say i was going to say something else uh but i can't remember what it was on the screen yeah i was gonna say something on the screen here um but uh oh yeah thank you um go subscribe to justin's channel right because as he mentioned earlier like he's got hundreds of videos there and he's seldom if ever even talks about anything that would that would you know um raise a hair in terms of like okay adventist doctrine like he's just dealing with regular issues of life and he's got a channel now that um he just listens to people who have different perspectives and uh he goes around and he's like hey i'm listening and i'm listening to people who may be struggling with same-sex attraction or people who have different beliefs or whatever and so much like i tried to listen to him today he's doing that the link to his channel is in the description below but i think this question on screen is a perfect fitting end to this live stream and it says this so does this mean that you consider adventists as christians and it's that guy that answers this question i'll end with this listen it is not my place to to state whether or not someone is or is not a christian or let me just refer let me just say this let me let me let me back it up a little bit it is not my place to label every single member of a denomination and say they're all christians or none of them are christians any more than i could say all catholics are christians and all uh catholics are not any more than i could say all pentecostals if you go to a pentecostal church then that means you're a christian you're going to heaven or no no pentecostal like you can't sweep and paint a broad brush what i can say is this if there are members of adventist community that accept the basic sacrifice of jesus christ on the cross and they hold to what we could would consider the non-essentials of the faith the triune god the deity of christ right the resurrection of christ the second coming of christ the sacrifice of christ the bible being the only authority like these are the essentials of the faith with my estimation if they hold to these things i would say yes but at the end of the day it's god who's going to determine their salvation i don't make it or my job to go around and figure out he's saved he's not she is that's not my job okay so to answer your question that guy um i believe justin is saying but i can't speak for every member of his denomination any more than he could say hey all non-denominational protestant christians are saved or not i just don't think it's our place and for the for what it's worth i know that the question wasn't directed towards me but i feel the same way about alan i i believe that as far as i can tell alan is completely sincere in his faith in christ i have no reason to doubt his sincerity in the least bit i have every uh hope and anticipation that we will be maybe even neighbors in the heavenly kingdom i'm looking forward to hanging out with alan and his family many more times in the years to come whether that's on this side of eternity or on the other side of eternity yeah awesome guys thank you all so much for your time thank justin for his time go subscribe to his channel you'll love his content if you haven't already subscribed and uh share this video guys if you if you have some people that really need to learn how to communicate healthy way and not disrespect people and to be able to have good conversations if you didn't get anything else out of this hopefully you saw that it is possible to do so so i love you all so much god bless you and i'll see you next week on the beat and hopefully you'll check out justin's content as well see you guys later bye

Channel: THE BEAT by Allen Parr

Views: 117,191

Rating: 4.794951 out of 5

Keywords: allen parr, seventh day adventist, former adventist, seventh day adventist beliefs, seventh day adventist exposed, sda, adventist, 7th day adventist, 7th day adventist vs christianity, 7th day adventist exposed, are 7th day adventist christian, investigative judgement sda, ellen g white, ellen g white false prophet, ellen white, the great controversy book, the great disappointment, seventh day adventist church, bible study, bible study with me

Id: Z92gFSOlfSU

Length: 127min 35sec (7655 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 05 2021