I just could not sleep. Just read your exchange with Dwayne.  You know I think that the problem with these dear souls is that they simply do not understand WHO AND WHAT THE CHURCH IS and the place that a corporation or organization has.  My meaning is that the organization is not the Church. That's why the Adventist movement per se can never be Babylon, whereas the organization CAN, because tares tend to become the majority in a church and the Devil takes the helm.

I believe in organization but organization is merely a vehicle for the ministry of the gospel. When an organized community of believers who profess to be a church, enter into apostasy, they cease to be the Church, irrespective of how large or how small they are, irrespective of what their heritage or reputation has been, for they have lost the presence of Christ. Without Christ’s presence professed churches cease to be part of the Church. It becomes nothing more than a social club and the faithful are commanded by Christ to follow His example and separate (cf. Isa 52.11).

The Jews once had the oracles of God and in Christ’s day still claimed to be the Church. But Christ told His disciples to leave them alone. He separated His disciples and those who followed Him at that time from that murderous organization.

Unless these dear folk see that truth they will argue until the cows come home or they are blue in the face or both.

I once believed the same as Dwayne and argued the issue with an SDA brother of mine, until he got frustrated to the point where he simply told me to study out the question WHO AND WHAT IS THE CHURCH.  He had to leave me alone until I studied it out FOR MYSELF...  Well, the Lord and A. T. Jones’ book ‘Lessons From the Reformation’ came to my rescue and liberated me from my spiritual ‘tunnel vision’.

Since then it has been my turn to be on the receiving end. Like you I recently had an exchange with a dear brother in Romania and it is SO FRUSTRATING because he like all these folk use texts that APPLY ONLY TO THE TRUE CHURCHES OR the TRUE MOVEMENT and which do not apply at all to apostate churches.

Consider in Isaiah and Jeremiah.  In those books there are counsels to two groups of people in Israel, both claiming and professing to be the true church. There are sometimes comforting words to the faithful (the true church) and warnings to the unfaithful (the apostate church), -- sometimes within the same chapter and other times within separate chapters that follow through sequentially (cf. Isa. 54 with Isa. 57).  I am sure you know of these...  If the reader does not keep the two entities separate he can get awfully confused as I did. God sometimes refers to Israel as His ‘bride’ or a ‘faithful city’ and yet other times as a ‘whore’ (cf. Isa. 1:21).  How could you call your wife a virgin one minute and a whore the next? If He is addressing the same people then that would be a contradiction.  But when you make the distinction between those who PROFESS to be His people and those who ARE His people then all is plain and the confusion is cleared up.

I remember the time when Ty Gibson and James Rafferty went back to the mainstream SDA church and wrote a book to justify their action.  I left the Reform Movement on the strength of that book.  At the time the book was immensely appealing but the book is error because it makes the same mistake regarding organization as Dwayne does and so many other do.  The concept that the organization is the church is, as I am sure you well know a Catholic concept that the Reformers rigorously opposed and needed to oppose otherwise there would have been no Reformation. Yet brethren like Ty and James, who I admire for their scholarly insights and spiritual integrity, cannot see this. And that, Bob, never ceases to amaze me. It shows how powerful a delusion this concept is (the organization is the church) and has become among Seventh-day Adventists. It is a dangerous heresy. It certainly keeps me on my ‘spiritual toes’ to make sure that I do not fall back into the same error!  .

By the way, I was intrigued by your reference to material that examines the teaching that Christ was crucified on a Wednesday. Would you be prepared to share with me what you have read?

God bless you as you continue to be His channel of truth.

Your brother

Brian from England (Partially sighted with RP)