The Confessing Seventh-day Adventist

Unquestionably, the success of the subversives in the Seventh-day Adventist church is largely due to their camaraderie with Seventh-day Adventist pacifists. Logically therefore, the pacifists are a greater threat to the Seventh-day Adventist church than the subversives.

Judging Subversives
Gnosticism was a notoriously subversive movement in the first century that was both undermining Christianity and competing with it. And to this day, we have the foolproof test that the Apostle John devised so that the Early Church could discern who the deceived teachers were that were promoting the fundamental error of the Gnostic movement:

1 John 4
1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. 4 You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. 5 They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

The lesson here is that God protected the Early Church in its struggle with a subversive movement by having believers test, look and recognize the confessions of the spirit of a person and to judge whether or not the attitude of that person was in harmony with the truth about Christ or antichrist.

If the Bible approves of discerning the spirits of subversives, then what about God-given revelation to identify subversive sympathizers?

For those who recognize the importance of the prophetic gift to guide the God's remnant church through turbulent waters, we have the blessings of special testimonies from Ellen White that identify and explain the greatest danger facing the Remnant Church.

"The worst enemies we have are those who are trying to destroy the influence of the watchmen upon the walls of Zion." 5T 294.

Clearly, the watchmen are obeying God and the opposers are on Satan's side against God and Scripture.

Please note these mutually opposing forces:

2 Timothy 4
1 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.

"Satan has laid every measure possible that nothing shall come among us as a people to reprove and rebuke us, and exhort us to put away our errors." TM 411.1.

Consider now this inspired profile of the Seventh-day Adventist pacifists that oppose the watchmen:

"When the call is made for those who will be on the Lord’s side to make a decided move to vindicate the right, they will manifest their true position. Those who have been nearly all their lives controlled by a spirit as foreign to the Spirit of God as was Achan’s will be very passive when the time comes for decided action on the part of all. They will not claim to be on either side. The power of Satan has so long held them that they seem blinded and have no inclination to stand in defense of right. If they do not take a determined course on the wrong side, it is not because they have a clear sense of the right, but because they dare not.

"God will not be trifled with. It is in the time of conflict that the true colors should be fling to the breeze. It is then that the standard-bearers need to be firm and let their true position be known. It is then that the skill of every true soldier for the right is tested. Shirkers can never wear the laurels of victory. Those who are true and loyal will not conceal the fact, but will put heart and might into the work, and venture their all in the struggle, let the battle turn as it will. God is a sin-hating God. And those who encourage the sinner, saying, It is well with thee, God will curse." 3T 272.

"Who are standing in the counsel of God at this time? Is it those who virtually excuse wrongs among the professed people of God and who murmur in their hearts, if not openly, against those who would reprove sin? Is it those who take their stand against them and sympathize with those who commit wrong? No, indeed! Unless they repent, and leave the work of Satan in oppressing those who have the burden of the work and in holding up the hands of sinners in Zion, they will never receive the mark of God’s sealing approval. They will fall in the general destruction of the wicked, represented by the work of the five men bearing slaughter weapons. Mark this point with care: Those who receive the pure mark of truth, wrought in them by the power of the Holy Ghost, represented by a mark by the man in linen, are those ‘that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done’ in the church. Their love for purity and the honor and glory of God is such, and they have so clear a view of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, that they are represented as being in agony, even sighing and crying. Read the ninth chapter of Ezekiel.

"But the general slaughter of all those who do not thus see the wide contrast between sin and righteousness, and do not feel as those do who stand in the counsel of God and receive the mark, is described in the order to the five men with slaughter weapons: ‘Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at My sanctuary.’ " 3T 267.

"They despise the straight testimony that reaches the heart, and would rejoice to see everyone silenced who gives reproof." 3T 272.

"Those whom God has chosen for an important work have ever been received with distrust and suspicion. Anciently, when Elijah was sent with a message from God to the people, they did not heed the warning. They thought him unnecessarily severe. They even thought that he must have lost his senses because he denounced them the favored people of God, as sinners and their crimes as so aggravated that the judgments of God would awaken against them. Satan and his host have ever been arrayed against those who bear the message of warning and who reprove sins. The unconsecrated will also be united with the adversary of souls to make the work of God’s faithful servants as hard as possible." 3T 261.

"Those who work in the fear of God to rid the church of hindrances and to correct grievous wrongs, that the people of God may see the necessity of abhorring sin and may prosper in purity, and that the name of God may be glorified, will ever meet with resisting influences from the unconsecrated." 3T 270-271.

"If those who have had great light have not corresponding faith and obedience, they soon become leavened with the prevailing apostasy; another spirit controls them. While they have been exalted to heaven in point of opportunities and privileges, they are in a worse condition than the most zealous advocates of error." GCDB, Feb. 6, 1893, 170-171.

"All heaven is interested in the work that is going on upon the earth. But there are those who see no necessity for a special work at this time. While God is working to arouse the people, they seek to turn aside the message of warning, reproof, and entreaty. Their influence tends to quiet the fears of the people, and to prevent them from awaking to the solemnity of this time. Those who are doing this, are giving the trumpet no certain sound. They ought to be awake to the situation, but they have become ensnared by the enemy. If they do not change their course, they will be recorded on the books of heaven as stewards who are unfaithful in the sacred trusts committed to them, and the same reward will be apportioned to them as to those who are at enmity and in open rebellion against God." RH, Aug. 13, 1889.

Some who occupy the position of watchmen to warn the people of danger have given up their watch and recline at ease. They are unfaithful sentinels. They remain inactive, while their wily foe enters the fort and works successfully by their side to tear down what God has commanded to be built up. They see that Satan is deceiving the inexperienced and unsuspecting; yet they take it all quietly, as though they had no special interest, as though these things did not concern them. They apprehend no special danger; they see no cause to raise an alarm. To them everything seems to be going well, and they see no necessity of raising the faithful, trumpet notes of warning which they hear borne by the plain testimonies, to show the people their transgressions and the house of Israel their sins. These reproofs and warnings disturb the quiet of these sleepy, ease-loving sentinels, and they are not pleased. They say in heart, if not in words; "This is all uncalled for. It is too severe, too harsh. These men are unnecessarily disturbed and excited, and seem unwilling to give us any rest or quietude. ‘Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them.’ They are not willing that we should have any comfort, peace, or happiness. It is active labor, toil, and unceasing vigilance alone which will satisfy these unreasonable, hard-to-be-suited watchmen. Why don’t they prophesy smooth things, and cry: Peace, peace? Then everything would move on smoothly."

These are the true feelings of many of our people. And Satan exults at his success in controlling the minds of so many who profess to be Christians. He has deceived them, benumbed their sensibilities, and planted his hellish banner right in their midst, and they are so completely deceived that they know not that it is he. —Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 2, p. 440.

What then are the straightforwardly discernible signs that identify the pacifists?

1. When the call is made for those who will be on the Lord’s side to make a decided move to vindicate the right, they manifest that they are paralyzed with perfect passivity. They seem blinded and have no inclination to stand in defense of right.

2. They conceal their real beliefs.

3. They fraternize (play pat-a-cake) with subversives, which is a remarkable crime since God said, "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean, and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters."



4. They are not among those that ‘sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done’ in the church.

5. They do not see the wide contrast between sin and righteousness. "Those who feel so very peaceable in regard to the works of the men who are spoiling the faith of the people of God, are guided by a delusive sentiment." SpTB02 10.3.

6. They think that Elijah and John the Baptist were unnecessarily severe.

7. They make the work of God’s faithful servants as hard as possible.

8. They dismiss messages of warning, reproof, and entreaty.

9. Their influence tends to quiet the fears of the people, and to prevent them from awaking to the solemnity of this time.

10. They condemn God's messengers as being unloving.

Final thoughts
A subversive movement in John's day sought to undermine and reconstruct Christianity into its own perverse image but Christ's Apostle gave the Early Church a foolproof test to expose the subversives.

Those that have discernment can plainly see that the Remnant Church is not prospering but is besieged from all sides, is in the midst of a battle, and is losing a great war over hearts and minds.

There is to be a constant conflict between good and evil. Those who are enlightened by the Holy Spirit’s power are to strive with every power of their being to snatch the prey from the seductive influences of men who refuse to obey the word of God, whether they be in high places or in low. Christ’s property is not to pass out of His control into the control of the children of darkness.

If this matter were rightly understood and closely guarded, God’s servants would feel a continual burden of responsibility to counterwork the efforts of the men who do not know what they are about, because they are enchanted by the delusive allurements of Satan. When God’s people are fully awake to the danger of the hour, and work fully on Christ’s side, there will be seen a sharp contrast between their course and that of those who are saying, "Good Lord, and good devil," and we shall see much firmer and more decided work done to counterwork the schemes of satanic agencies. — Special Testimonies, Series B, No. 2, pp. 5-11.