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Gates is not considered to represent Adventism, as generally understood. This section, of this forum has been established where HCH, and others, can present their views that are not considered to be within main-line Adventism. It is pushing the boundaries of this section to begin to advocate the views of another as this forum does not exist to promote other forums and views. Rather it is a place to engage in a civil discussion of one's own views. I acknowledge that it is allowed to cite another forum as a point of reference. I do that along with many others. This will continue to be allowed.

photodude, your grandkids are very, very cute... the fellow in the photo (you?), not so much...

I reread the comment that struck me as jesting about JoeMo's comment. it may have struck me differently than the poster intended it. My apology to him as well. Miss reading or reading something into some one's comments can set up barriers too. We are at the time when God's people need to be more mindful of the feelings of others and join together to finish the work.

Call me selfish; but I am much more concerned about humanity's salvation (especially my own) than that of a class of beings that I can barely wrap my head around (angels). Angelic salvation is between God and angels.

Okay - here's my 2 bits: The Bible is a book written by Israel, written about Israel, and written for Israel. It almost exclusively deals with various happenings in the Middle East, North Africa, and (later) parts of Europe. These folks had no idea about the existence of the Americas. So why would the scene suddenly change to America? How about a "beast closer to the Middle East and a much larger threat to Israel - like radical Islam? America is NOT the center of God's universe - Jerusalem (specifically the Temple Mount) is the center of God's universe. I won't even get into the ridiculous rant about President Trump. This isn't a political thread.

**off topic** anyone else ever read, "ROFL" and feel like you're hearing Scooby Doo saying "waffle"?? **back to topic**

Rolling On Floor Laughing My A$$ Off With Tears In My Eyes.

Jesus was a Jew. How could He have been an SDA? He never studied EGW. He wasn't aware of the health message. He ate meat. He was a real troublemaker at church - so much so that some people wanted to kill Him. If He came to one of our churches and said some of the stuff He said, He would be booted out of the church immediately. And if He turned water into wine at an SDA party - wow - bye-bye Jesus.

There is always room for hope. Find your place, and build on that:

💕💖💗 God is merciful 💕💖💗

On another issue: The helpers are getting burned out. I was contacted today and asked if I would be available next week to provide emotional support to helpers, not victims, but helpers who are getting burned out. I will probably do some.

The following article and the comments that follow, suggest that commonalities exist between the Roman Catholic Church and the SDA denomination as to abuse. Probably both Catholics and Adventist will not like something that is said in the article. I can say that from my professional background, I have had to deal with women who have been abused by SDA clergy. It exists and has existed. However, I can personally state that the S DA church is making progress in this area. It may not have reached perfection. But, it is making progress. Today abuse is less often swept under the rug. Both victims and those who committed the crime are more often appropriately dwelt with. Yes, we have more to do. We are not as different from the Roman Catholic Church as we might like to think. https://conversation.spectrummagazine.org/t/catholic-or-adventist-abuse-in-common/17387

On one last comment as to posts made by Rachel: She has stated that certain specific doctrinal understandings are essential to salvation. She is correct from the perspective that doctrine teaches us about God, and our understanding of doctrine may affect how we relate to God and whether or not we want to spend eternity with God. As an example, I would not want to spend eternity with a God who kept people alive so they could be tortured by fire throughout eternity. If I believed that God did that, I would reject that God.

That is not a bad thing. When we discuss Bible prophecy, an important point in the discussion is: how are you reading it? The different ways of reading Scripture (or not reading it and just trusting what so and so said) have an impact on how we view it.

How did we get from Iran attacking the USA to a debate on replacement theology? I suspect I had something to do with it several pages back. Yup - it was me in my rant against the David Gates video.

I am guessing BS means Barely Sane. It should be noted that 8th day is NOT an Adventist and frequently requests that NO EGW be used in topics she has started. It is my understanding that this forum does allow widely divergent view points to be expressed. The only lines drawn are the usual ones, such as no abuse, name-calling, nothing illegal, racist and all those good things that we have grown to count on here.

I believe that God the Father sent His Son to "save" human beings, and to SECURE His entire universal kingdom (which includes spirit beings). The created spirit beings did NOT fully UNDERSTAND the ugliness and awfulness of rebellion against the Creator. For the entire created universe to be SECURE forever, they needed to understand how a tiny seed of rebellion, could grow to destroy the entire creation. The created spirit beings had to have questions. Most chose to remain loyal to the Creator - but they did have questions. Those questions had to be answered, in order to SECURE God's creation for eternity. Whether you call that "saving" some spirit beings, or simply securing their loyalty - either way - Christ died to demonstrate God's love - for EVERY CREATED BEING, not just His love for humans.

There is only one issue that is important for our salvation. That issues is: To accept whatever the Holy Spirit convicts us of being truth.

How do we know that some of the angels who - at first - fell for Satan's lies, did not later return to the Father? The Father would have forgiven them, I think. Only at the cross, when Satan and His crew committed premeditated torture and murder, did they cross the line and close their probation. When was Satan cast out completely and permanently - to the earth? Book of Job tells of Satan attending a council before the Father. Later the NT says that Satan was no longer allowed to accuse the saints before God.

The problem is, ... when you have been wrong a number of times and then keep prophesying, it is dangerous to keep listening to you. Some in the Bible reported God as saying something, the hearer listened, and they died for listening. So, once someone fails in their prophesying, anyone else is more than justified to not listen to you again. One is not obligated to keep falling into the mud puddles of your failures as part of a growth process. If it was truly a prophesy from God, it will always be right. To prophesy in God's name and then be wrong is to make God out to be a liar! Some will never understand, ever! "Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand." - Daniel 12:10 Generally, studying prophesy should be done in groups. When you come up with your own interpretations, you are then violating Peter's statement that no prophesy is of a private interpretation. From what I have read, your interpretations are derived solely thru your own personal studies. I would be concerned to give serious consideration.

These ideas have been in the Adventist community for quite some time. There was an Elder Fifefield in the 1800s who was at least close if not here. And he was a good friend of the Whites. During the 1920's Dr. Lynn Harper Wood developed this from his study of the scriptures and Mrs. White and taught it in our schools. Paul Heubech was one of his students and spent his career teaching this. (I can't think of his name right now but the guy who started the "God does not kill" heard this from Paul Heubech but took it to an extreme and has a partial truth). I learned this from the Theology faculty at Atlantic Union College (although I put it in my own words). Lynn Wood came to PUC for a week of prayer when Graham Maxwell and Jack Provonsha were students. They both said that Wood's week of prayer was the most impressive week of prayer that they ever attended. Neither remembers learning anything that week that set their thoughts along this way of thinking, but after PUC they both developed a similar theology. Over in England Jonathan Gallager come to a similar view from his study of Mrs. White, and behind the iron curtain Daniel Dudah was allowed by the communists to get an M. Div from a Lutheran seminary. He brought a large amount of Mrs. White's writings and decided to compare and contrast what he was learning at the Lutheran Seminary with Mrs. White and he also developed from her writings . My professors at AUC developed it independently from each other and was not influenced by any of the others such as Lynn Wood, or the others listed here. So this was formed by different Adventists over our history in different parts of the world independently from each other.

I am sure. I am beginning to think very seriously about how I, how we as Jesus followers, look at addicts. Freeing the captives is more than taking the drugs away. The bondage is much deeper. The drugs are secondary and the addiction a symptom.

While I do agree that "Eternal Life" is perpetual existence in God's presence, I cannot agree that "Hell" is a similar perpetual existence outside of God's presence. Certainly not a perpetual existence of torment. IMO, those who do not go to Heaven are destroyed in the fire of hell when the Earth is cleansed*. They are destroyed in as much time as it takes a fire to kill someone, they lose conscience existence, and are no longer sentient beings. They do feel the fire, but only until they lose consciousness and die. * I recognize that this may be an SDA viewpoint.

Your questions are complex, valid, important and probably not able to be totally answered within our boundaries as to the limits of our knowledge about God. My response must be considered incomplete, and at best partial. # 1: Some will argue that God did not know, while others will argue that God did know. I will leave tis aspect of your question and only focus on the rest of your question. The claim of Satan was that human life, if given free choice would chose to rebel against God and to follow Satan as their leader--IOW sin. If Jesus had incarnated as an angel, it would only have demonstrated what was already known. There were angels who had not rebelled and sinned. Incarnation as an angel would have demonstrated nothing new. With the sin of both Adam and Eve, the entire human race had sinned. In order to redeem humanity, Jesus had to incarnate as a human. #2: This saga, when it ends, will have demonstrated to all of creation--angels, humans, intelligent life on other planets, the results of rebellion against God. As a result of that demonstration, all such created life that remains alive spending eternity with God, will have freely made a choice that results in their determination that they will never rebel against God and therefore sin will never arise again.