*cough*Adventism1840s*cough*

Exactly. I don't have any reason to condemn but sometimes people interpet it that way because they get tired of hearing how God can change people. It makes them feel like you're attacking them for not being the way they know they ought to be, but maybe you don't even know how they are. You just talk about the power of God to bring full healing and joy but they think you're condemning them, even though you haven't said a single condemning word at all. It's like you say one thing and Satan makes them hear something twisted.

I talk up the power of God to change lives because I see the effects of His power in my own life but it also shows me that the only life God can't change is the life of the person who refuses to let God take control.

Sounds like you're a history lover*cough*. *cough* ever read a book named, The Urgent Voice, by Robert Gale? It's a really good book, a biography of William Miller *cough*.

I guess I was just pointing to the rather odd link made with the eras in which things happened, and noting that Adventism arose around that same time, so if we're going to make links... *Not* saying Adventism is actually linked with those various other things, just that such coincidental timeline links are pretty spurious. Anyway, sounds like a good and interesting book.

I know what you mean, John. It's just that no body is going to change until they are ready and really want to. Can an obese person change? We know they can, but it won't happen until they are ready; and telling them they are overweight and that God will give them power to change their habits of sensual indulgence of their appetites will only insult them and make them feel bad. When they have a heart attack they may be ready them to do something.

When I was a smoker I wanted (half-heartedly) to quit for 25 or 30 years. Nothing happened until the Holy Spirit touched me and I wanted to please Him so badly that even thru horrendous withdrawal symptoms, I was able to persist in my efforts and to quit smoking. It was a wonderful thing, although painful, too. So, I think, the way to help anyone to change is not by telling them they should, that they are living in sin, etc. Rather, instead, lead them to the Holy Spirit. Let Him do the "helping."

VERY GOOD D. Allen.

Thank you. This is what we should be doing as Christians.

This is the right approach.

If a person believes that the Advent Movement was raised up by God and that it fulfilled time prophecy [2300 days of Daniel 8: 14], it is by no means spurious to consider what Satan did to counteract the work of God. That's in harmony, certainly, with the Bible's view of the great controversy between Christ and Satan, as well with Ellen White's book by that name. Please consider the following:

Why would Satan have an interest in creating as much confusion and counterfeits as he possibly can around 1844? For the simple reason that he knows that would be the time when the Investigative Judgment would begin and when God would restore the Spirit of prophecy to the church. Satan knew all of this would quickly spell the Second Coming and his own death 1000 years afterward if he did not act quickly. He did not want the the world to pay attention to the Third Angels' Messages, so he created many diversions and reasons for people to ignore the Bible and the prophet of God. That is exactly what a good military tactician does in war-- create "faints" and misinformation and many diversions. I would suggest in fact that we should be surprised if Satan had not done this. As we go back into history, we will see that this follows Satan's pattern. When God is most active, Satan goes into action also to counteract God.

Look at what Satan did during the time of the following judgments:

Judgment of the Flood--false religion leads to the building of the tower of the Babel, which competes with God for heart and mind of mankind;

Judgment of the Exodus--false religion (e.g., the golden calf) completes with God for Israel's loyalty;

Judgment on Babylon--Babylon competes for the hearts and minds of the Jews. Many Jews choose to stay in Babylon. Non-Jews living in Palestine oppose the rebuilding of the temple and the city. But they also infiltrate the society and sacred places of the Jews. Nehemiah tries to put an end to this competition for the hearts and minds of the Jews;

Judgment at the First Advent--the false religion of legalism and traditionalism compete with Jesus for the loyalty of the Jews.

And now at the final hour of God's judgment-- Satan's false ideas will still be competing with God for the hearts and minds of a vast hoard of mankind. For the last time he "will go out to deceive the nations... to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city" (Rev. 20: 8-9 KJV).

In the hour of God's judgment, smoke screens, diversionary tactics, and false religions are employed by Satan to diminish, marginalize, and compete with the preaching of the truth.

The hour of the judgment began in 1844. Is there evidence of competition at that time? At least 12 religions and philosophical movements were born alongside Millerism and Seventh-day Adventism in the 1830s and 1840s. It cannot be denied that so powerful have been some of these movements that they have greatly diminished the effectiveness of Adventism in reaching th world with the message of the hour of God's judgment. Satan knew from studying the past activity of God and the prophecies that the cleansing (or setting right) of the heavenly sanctuary was the final phase in dealing with his rebellion.

So let's take a look at the various movements that Satan created in order to try to defeat the the Third Angels Message:

Modern Spiritualism (1844, 1848)

New Age Movement and Theosophy (1840, 1844, 1851)

The Bahai Religion (Reform of Islam, Abdul Baha born 1844)

Whabism (Muslim counterfeit explanation of Millerite predictions of Christ's arrival in 1844; competes with Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophecies that pointed to 1844; today promotes suicide attacks among Muslims)

Christian Science (Mary Baker Eddy began her false religious journey in 1844: "As long ago as 1844 I was convinced that mortal mind produced all disease," she wrote.)

Mormonism--(Smith a false prophet, received "plates" from the spirit of a dead man; church founded in 1830; Smith killed 1844)

Jehovah's Witnesses-- (founded 1872; competes doctrinally in very many ways with SDAs; Russell studied with former Millerites and "first day Adventists"; teaches that Second Coming was invisisible and happened at various times, then settled on year 1914.)

Christadelphians-- (Published periodical, Herald of the Future Age, 1844; competes with Adventists regarding teaching on Second Coming-- rejected Trinity and developing ideas of conditional immortality.)

British Israel-- (began in 1840; notable proponent in 20th century was Herbert W. Armstrong, The Plain Truth magazine, the Radio Church of God, and the World Tomorrow television program. Recently gave up the Seventh-day Sabbath.)

Atheism-- (Nietzsche, "God is dead"-- born 1844; did much to encourage the cause of atheism; Nazi philosophy and Hitler greatly influenced by Nietzsche)

Higher Criticism-- (Founders were Professors Vatke and Reuss who fet their ideas to their students beginning in the mid-1830s. Most practitioners of this method of analyzing the Bible take it to be based on myth. Many doubt the existence of Jesus Christ as the New Testament portrays Him. Has had a profound worldwide negative influence, its advocates are effectually hostile to Christianity and to its preaching of a resurrected and ascended, living Lord.)

Evolutionism-- (Darwin--1844, 1859; causes many to doubt God's existence and His creatorship, thus also effectually calls into question the Fall, predictive prophecy, the necessity of the atonement, the reality of the resurrection and the Second Coming)

Freud-- (b. 1856; wrote influential books on pyschoanalysis, influencing many to give up faith in Christianity, the Bible, and God; viewing humans objectively as animals and totally discounting and ridiculing the Bible view of man as made in the image of God; got many of ideas on psychology from the atheist Nietzsche as well as from the Russian novelist, F. Dostoevsky)

Marxism-Communism-- (Marx, Engels; main documents written 1844; until the collapse of the Soviet Union near the end of the 20th centruy, came closer to world dominion than any power since the Roman Empire.)

Anarchism--(Proudhon worked closely during 1840s with Karl Marx. Its main documents written by Max Stirner in 1844 and 1845; proponent of anarchism began world war I by assassinating arch due Franz Ferdinand. World war I had a negative limiting effect on the witness of Adventist missionaries in the Middle East who sought to alert the world about the hour of God's judgment. The extreme libertarian antinomianism of the doctrine of anarchy competes with Adventism's stress on the importance of God's law.

Higher Criticism, Evolutionism, and marxism-Communism are all faith destroying doctrines that deny the truth of God's Word and depreciate God Himself to the point of non-existence and thus lend aid and comfort to the cause of atheism. Today they still vie with God for the loyalty of humanity at the hour of His judgment.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. We can't change anyone. It's the Holy Spirit, as you say, who brings about the changes. But the Holy Spirit very often uses the words of Christians to cause the person to wake up to their true spiritual condition. Many of these do not know how dangerous their situation is. Some are under the Satanic illusion that their life, their behavior, is unrelated to their ultimate salvation.

It was a Jehovah Witness man who said some straight things to me from the Bible that made me see myself as I was really was before God, even though I thought I was a Christian.

You see, I had completely given up on the idea that I could change or overcome sin. This Jehovah's Witness man told me the truth simply by having me read some passages of scripture and making a few pointed observations.

I had been to SDA pastors and pyschologists and counselors who had not done this. But, praise God, this Jehovah's Witness man said things that the Holy Spirit used to impress the truth on my mind.

We have to be unafraid to tell people the truth, even if it might make somone upset for a while. What is being upset for a short while compared to being eternally lost if they are not told the truth? We have to love them enough to be more concerned with their eternal welfare than with what they might think about us if we tell them the truth. I wasn't even upset at all, though. God just opened my mind and I sat there realizing what I had to do that I had never done up to that point: I had to commit myself totally, 100% to Jesus Christ and obey Him even if it meant my own death. Indeed it did mean my death-- the death of the old man, to rise new in Jesus Christ, who is now my real life.