An EllenW compilation of prooftexts? Ehm? Ok...

TE: Mike, the quotes you presented are dealing with SDA's as a visible, corporate group, aren't they? God has risen up a corporate body whose purose is to make known His character, to prepare the way for the coming of Christ. Our job is to proclaim the Gospel. This is a corporate work, of which we take part as individuals.

MM: Amen. The SDA church, not any other church, is God’s appointed people, in these last days, to restore the breach, to glorify God, to proclaim the three angel’s messages, to prepare the world to meet their Maker. God is not working through any other church to accomplish these things. In fact, one of God’s main goals for the SDA church is to call His people out of the Babylonian churches.

TE: You wrote that since 1844 that the "people of God" refers exclusively to the SDA church, but there was no SDA church in 1844 and for years thereafter, so how could what you are asserting be true?

MM: True, the chosen people of God were not officially called SDAs, nevertheless, the movement, which later on adopted the name SDA, is God’s chosen church.

TE: What evidence is there that one must join the SDA church to be saved?

MM: Again, by the time probation closes anyone who has refused to join the SDA church is lost. The only people who will be translated alive when Jesus returns are those people who received the seal of God, who refused to receive the mark of the beast. Through the SDA church God is calling people out of the non-SDA churches to become members of the SDA church. Anyone who refuses to become a SDA is in danger of committing the unpardonable sin. If they persist in refusing to become a member of the SDA church after probation closes they are lost.

Evidence? Revelation 12:17 and 14:6-12 and 18:1-5. The SDA church is God’s appointed agency to call people out of the Babylonian churches. Anyone who refuses to heed the call is refusing the voice and authority of Jesus Christ. When a believer responds to the call to come out of Babylon, Jesus does not leave them homeless; instead, He calls them out of Babylon into the remnant church, His chosen people – the SDA church.

Of course, there are millions of people who, as of yet, have not heard the call to come out of Babylon. The SDA church has not yet reached everyone everywhere with the gospel. There are, nevertheless, people in the Babylonian churches who God refers to as “His people”. They are His people in the sense that they are living up to the light He has revealed to them, but they are not His people in the corporate sense. He has not entrusted them with the testing truths for these last days. However, should they die before they hear the call to come out of Babylon they are saved.

MM, you are sounding like a Catholic to me. We don't believe that grace or truth is dispenced by a church, but by God. We are Protestants.

It's true that God is using the SDA church for the purpose of preparing the world for the coming of Christ, but there is no necessity that one become a member of the SDA church to be saved, at any time. The requirement is to know God, by faith in Christ. It's the same requirement there has always been, because to know God *is* eternal life. Not simply the way to obtain it, but it is eternal life. Those who have the Son have life. Those who have not the Son have not life.

Another point to keep in mind is that God is not working exclusively through the SDA church. There are many statements from the SOP that if we drop the ball, God will work through other means to fulfill His purposes. There are those through whom God is working now, who are not SDA's.

At some point the wonderful truth about God will be seen, that He really is like Jesus Christ, and all those who seek for and believe this truth will unite.

Btw, I share your conviction that the SDA church will in the end fulfill its mission. That is, there are some who believe we will have to flee the church in order to be saved at some point in the future, but she speaks of the church being awakened to its condition and repenting, which I believe will happen. Someday we will see ourselves as God sees us, and that will open the door to repentance. Until then, God patiently waits, while we remain blind, rejecting the offered eye salve.

Again I agree with Tom. Salvation and membership in the SDA church are two completely separate thing. Have allways been so and will always be so.

/Thomas

interesting indeed....

Becoming a SDA church member is synonymous with becoming a member of the Remnant church portrayed in prophecy. It requires responding to the call to come out of Babylon into the SDA church.

Anybody who refused to come out of Judaism into the Early Church risked losing their salvation. The same is true during the closing scenes of Earth’s history. Anyone who refuses to come out of Babylon into the SDA church is treading on dangerous ground.

Revelation
18:1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
18:2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
18:3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

Again, anyone who refuses to heed the calling to come out of Babylon into the SDA church during the time frame described above will be lost. Nothing can be more obvious.

1. Or, do you believe God is using members of one or more of the Babylonian churches to call people out of Babylon as described in Rev 18?

2. Do you believe God has entrusted one or more of the Babylonian churches with proclaiming the 3AMs?

3. Are there individual members within the various Babylonian churches that are also proclaiming the 3AMs?

Mike.

I think the bible said that the people of God are those who has the righteousness of Christ in them witnessed by the law and the prophets. Is this a condition that only the SDA church could fulfill?

In His love

James S