Dear Friend,

I hope you are doing well. I am reaching out to you today to share something deeply personal that has completely transformed my relationship with God and my walk as a Seventh day Adventist.

Over the past several months, I felt convicted to look deeply into our past history, our early pioneers, and the archives of the Biblical Research Institute. What I discovered about the changes in our doctrines specifically concerning the Trinity shocked me, but it also opened my eyes to the beautiful, unadulterated truth of who Jesus truly is according to the Bible.

I have compiled my personal testimony, along with the historical references and the supporting scripture, into a short essay titled “Knocking on the Closed Door.”

I am not asking you to take my word for it. I am sharing this with you out of a deep love for our faith heritage, because I believe we are living in a time where we must choose scripture over corporate tradition. Please take a few minutes to read the attached essay and test it against the Word of God for yourself.

I would love to pray with you and talk through this whenever you are ready.

In Blessed Hope,

Mike Bennett

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Hi, my name is Michael Bennett. I started studying with The Adventists in early 1990. I dedicated my life to the work of the SDA (Seventh-day Adventist) church on September 21st, 1991, and became a baptized member. From that point on I worked as a medical missionary devoting my life to work for Christ. On Returning home, I met a friend named CD at church. He stated to me that the trinity is false. So as a true SDA believer my heart set out to help this individual learn the truth about who God is and the Trinity. As I deeply studied this topic it shocked me to find that my friend is correct. There is no Trinity. There are no three gods. All throughout the Bible and SOP (Spirit of Prophecy) points us to the One True God and Jesus, His son. After being convinced of this salvational truth eventually I quit going to church because I didn’t want to be worshiping this Babylonian God. I would attend Tuesday Bible study occasionally.

I shared my findings with another friend Roy, who I attend church with, and after he began studying the topic of the Trinity, he too was convinced of the One True God and his son Jesus and how the Holy Spirit is God and Jesus, plainly as the Bible teaches.

One day after not attending Bible study for some time I was reading Matthew 14: 22-33, the story of Jesus walking on water and the terrified disciples who, not knowing who Jesus was, initially thought he was a ghost. Again, I called my Adventist friend Roy, and said I think we need to attend Bible study and share who Jesus is. We drove to the church and said a prayer before entering, that Jesus would open the door for us to share that He is the true Son of God. Of course, the door opened and the pastor stopped the Bible study and asked me to share what I have been learning about Jesus. So, I shared the Trinity, Jesus as the Son of God, God the Father, and The Holy Spirit etc. The Biblical Research Institute states that Jesus is a metaphor. The pastor then looks at my friend and says, “Do you believe this?” My Adventist friend Roy said, “Yes this is what both the Bible and the SOP states.” After the confrontation of the belittlement towards us from all in attendance, the pastor was concerned and accused me of trying to split and divide the church. He got in my face with his chest puffed up and stated that this was not true, and I asked him if he believed in the SOP. While in my face, he stated, “Obviously not as much as you do. You have been more trouble than anyone in the church.” After a few days I received a text from the pastor telling me that my friend should go back to his SDA Church and not to come back. I was hurt and stunned! We never attended church there again. My heart ached.

Each day I pray for the Church and the pastor and occasionally send info to him on the One True God and his only begotten Son. Although, I do not receive any replies.

The walk from this point forward has been in solitude because I know the truth about who Jesus really is and this means more to me than anything else this world could offer. I’ve been sharing this truth that I have learned with others and wanted to let a dear friend of mine, Brent, know this special salvational truth but I hadn’t spoken to him in years and had no way of contacting him. I had to let him know of the One True God. So, I prayed and asked God if there was any way to let my friend know. About a month went by and my friend Brent came to the church in Indiana and was inquiring about where Mike Bennett was, and asked the Elder there, and was told he doesn’t attend church anymore, and that he believes in this Holy Spirit thing. So, Brent got my number and called me wanting to visit with me and I invited him to my home. My thoughts flooded me. How am I going to let him know about Jesus, God and the Trinity? Upon arriving at my house, I started sharing with him about how I don’t attend the church anymore, as I don’t believe in the Trinity. I went on to explain my newly found belief from the Bible, and he smiled at me and said, “Mike, I believe in the One True God too.” We rejoiced and I told him how I had prayed, wanting him to know this precious truth. I didn’t know how I would tell him since I didn’t have his number and he lived 1800 miles away in Idaho. And then he showed up at my door with the same exact message to me. This is the work of Jesus and His Holy Spirit. Brent introduced me to the Everlasting Way Advent Fellowship, which I am part of now. It is wonderful to know there are other followers of Jesus to fellowship with the same belief. This is truly the work of the Holy Spirit - Jesus! To God be the glory!

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KNOCKING ON THE CLOSED DOOR

A Call to the Remnant: Bypassing Creeds to Find the True Son of God

 

INTRODUCTION: Remembering How God Has Led US

We have been taught to look at the world to see the signs of the end of times, but we have failed to look inside our own house. As Seventh-day Adventists we pride ourselves on being the people of the book. We claim to follow “present truth”, yet we have quietly allowed human creeds to replace the living Word of God. I am writing this to you not as an outsider, but as someone who shares your heritage, loves our people, and can no longer stay silent.

We must stand on the warning given by Ellen White herself to General Conference leaders in Life Sketches, page 196. She plainly stated; “We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history.” Yet, forgetting our history is exactly what we have done.

Our pioneers James White, Joseph Bates, and early builders of this movement stood firmly against their Trinitarian dogmas that originated not in the scriptures but in the councils of Rome. They recognized that these philosophical definitions of God fractured the simple, powerful truth of the Father and His literal Son. Over time our church has drifted away from how God led us in our past history. We have slowly adopted the formulations of the ancient creeds, infiltrating our sanctuaries with the very errors we called to expose. We have become just like the Catholic Church in prioritizing institutional orthodoxy over a plain ‘Thus saith the Lord.”

The sobering reality of our day is found in Revelation 3:20. We often preach this text to the world, but it is written directly to the Laodicean Church to us. Jesus is not standing inside our sanctuaries, validating our committees, or approving our revised manuals. He is standing outside, barred by the walls of institutional tradition, knocking on the door of His own church. The tragedy is that we are so busy defending a system that we cannot hear Him. I am pleading with you today to stop listening to the pulpit for just a moment, open the scriptures for yourself and listen to the knock.

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THE LITERAL SON VS. THE CREEDS

The central deception that has infiltrated our movement strikes at the very identity of the One who died for us. We are told by modern theologians that the relationship between the Father and the Son, is a metaphor, a mere role play designed to help human minds understand the plan of salvation. But the Bible does not speak in metaphors when it declares the supreme truth of Christ’s identity.

The ancient scriptures challenge us directly in Proverbs 30:4; “Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? Who hath gathered the wind in his fists? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou canst tell?” God has a literal son.

The New Testament confirms this exact confession in 1 John 4:15; “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he in God.”

When Jesus stood before the high priest in Matthew 26: 63–64; he was put under oath: “Tell us if you are Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus did not say he was playing a role. He affirmed it boldly; “It is as you said.” It was this exact truth that He is the literal begotten Son of the living God that the authorities labeled as blasphemy.

Peter’s entire confession, the very rock upon which the true church is built, hinges on this exact reality in Matthew 16: 16; “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” If Jesus is merely a Co-equal component of a philosophical Trinity, then His Sonship is a fiction, and the profound love of the father, in actually giving his only begotten Son (John 3:16), is reduced to a theological drama. The Bible proves he is the Son. Why have we allowed a creed adopted from the very system our pioneers warned us against, to tell us otherwise?

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THE COMFORTER IS JESUS HIMSELF

To protect the theological trinity common modern theology has invented a third separate being, telling us that Jesus left us entirely to be replaced by someone else. But the scriptures reveal a far more beautiful truth. The Comforter is none other than the omnipresent Spirit of Jesus Christ himself.

In John 14:16-17, Jesus promises “another Comforter,” the Spirit of truth. But look closely how he defines this Comforter in the very next breath in John 14:18; “I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you.” Jesus does not say He is sending a substitute to take His place permanently. He says He will come to us in spirit form. He reinforces this personal unbroken presence in Matthew 28:20; “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

The Apostle Paul understood this Identity perfectly when he wrote in Galatians 4:6; “God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying, ABBA, Father.” It is not a nameless faceless 3rd entity dwelling within you. It is the very life and spirit of the Son of God. Furthermore 2 Corinthians 3:17 states it explicitly; “Now the Lord is that Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.”

Ellen White beautifully aligned with these scriptures in The Desire of Ages pages 669- 670, when she explained how the disciples failed to understand Christ’s words spiritually; “By the Spirit, He said, He would manifest Himself to them, the Savior is our Comforter. This I have proved Him to be” (Manuscript Releases, Vol. 8, p. 49) In Manuscript Releases, Vol. 14, p. 179, She wrote plainly that this promised gift “refers to the Omnipresence of the Spirit of Christ called the Comforter. “When we let the Comforter in, we are letting Jesus Himself into our hearts.”

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THE ERROR OF THE BAPTISMAL FORMULA

This Trinitarian infiltration runs so deep that it has even altered the sacred rite of baptism. Most of us have been baptized under the formula found in modern translations of Matthew 28:19 which commands baptizing “in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” But historical and textual evidence reveals that this threefold formula is an error that was added to the text way back during the early centuries as the Church began to compromise with Roman traditions.

If you look into the historical record, the famous early church historian Eusebius of Caesarea, who lived between A.D. 260 and 339, and had access to the oldest surviving biblical manuscripts in the great library Caesarea Quoted Matthew 28:19 seventeen times in his writings prior to the Council of Nicaea. In his work The Proof of the Gospel (Demonstratio Evangelica), He quotes Jesus as saying; “Go ye and make disciples of all the nations in My Name.” The phrase commanding baptism into a three-Fold Trinity was completely absent from those ancient copies.

This historical reality explains why throughout the entire book of Acts; the apostles never once used a Trinitarian baptismal formula. They consistently baptized believers “In the name of Jesus Christ” or “In the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 2:38, Acts 8:16, Acts 19:5) The inclusion of the Holy Spirit into the baptismal formula was a later liturgical development added by the Roman Church system to validate their newly formed Trinity doctrine, a system our pioneers explicitly warned us against.

I challenge you to do what I did. Do not take my word for it. Go directly to the official archives. Search the documents of the Adventist Biblical Research Institute. Look up our own history and see for yourself how our doctrines have changed over the decades. Specifically, regarding the Trinity.

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THE APPEAL, WILL YOU LET HIM IN?

The data is there in our own history books, and the truth is in your Bible. The question is no longer whether the church has changed; the question is what you will do now that your eyes are open. We cannot hide behind or rely on a corporate structure to save us. God is calling people out of deception and back to the unadulterated truth of His Word. Jesus Christ the true and literal Son of God is knocking at the door of your heart today. He wants a relationship based on truth not on human traditions or altered doctrines. The institutional door may be locked by creeds, but your heart does not have to be. Will you bypass the structure, look at the evidence for yourself, and let him into your heart today?

 

Christian Ministries with Bible Resources and Spirit of Prophecy:

Seventh Day Press

Seventh-day Church of Revelation

Everlasting Way Advent Fellowship

Nader Mansour – Prove All Things

Judgement Hour

Revelation1412.org

ImadAwde.com

Pioneering Again

MarkLastimoso.com

Adventist@truthseeker.church

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