The Confessing Seventh-day Adventist

Must a true shepherd give his life for his sheep? (John 10:2,11-13). Should a true shepherd have compassion for those torn and scattered by ravenous wolves? What would you think of a pastor who confessed that he didn't care for the perishing, seek the scattered, heal the broken, or sustain the one standing, and that if he knew that wolves in sheep's clothing were abusing innocent lambs in God's name, he would be quiet about it and just feel good about himself?

Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision...whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. Philippians 3.

I believe strongly that the Seventh-day Adventist church should solve the problem it has with divisions by applying the lessons of Scripture and understand that "the party of the circumcision" (Galatians 2:12, Ephesians 2:11, Acts 10:45, 11:2) became a divisive and very troublesome faction in the early Christian church:

For there are many rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision group. They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach—and that for the sake of dishonest gain. Even one of their own prophets has said, "Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons." This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of those who reject the truth. To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good. Titus 1:10-16.

They were converts from Judaism. The most troublesome among them were former Pharisees (Acts 15:5 cf. The Acts of the Apostles, chapter 36). That was in the first century, the appointed time of the end. The rebellious are still creating trouble in the church. In our day, now, just before the end of the world, most Aggressives in the Seventh-day Adventist church are not "ultra-conservatives" but are from a faction very much like the totally unbelieving Sadducees.

But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was. 2 Timothy 3:1-9.

I call this faction the Subversives to highlight their underhanded agenda.