Ashers Bakery
Two years on from the Northern Ireland Appeal Court hearing, the United Kingdom Supreme Court is now considering the case of the Ashers Bakery. This is a full four years from the original incident; and the decision of the Supreme Court is not expected before the end of this year or possibly the beginning of the next. At the end of the hearing, the President of the Supreme Court, Lady Hale, said that people should not expect an answer on the case immediately: “People will of course not expect the answer any time soon . . . these cases are by definition complex and difficult”.
Biblically, the case is not complex and difficult at all. Homosexuality is a gross evil, and so too is its promotion; and nobody should be compelled to
promote sodomy. All the complications in the case arise from our evil laws which permit and protect homosexuality. Furthermore, one suspects that the delays in the case have as much to do with political and media pressure on the judges to favour homosexuality as with any complications in the law. Faced with a simple situation, that could surely have been foreseen by our law-makers, Ashers consulted God’s law and soon concluded that they should not make the cake. Had they consulted British law, even with the help of our top judges, it would have taken months or even years before they knew whether they had a legal obligation to bake the cake. If the law over baking a cake is “complex and difficult”, what is it like in matters that really are complicated? Truly, the Lord is holding our law-makers and legal system up to ridicule.
DWBS
Seventh Day Adventists
In the last few months, cards have dropped through UK letter boxes inviting householders to request a free book which claims to explain the link between the European Reformation and the European Union. The book, The Great Controversy, duly arrives on the doorstep of respondents. The contents page seems Reformed, naming among others, Wycliffe, Hus and Luther. Biblical quotations in the book are mostly from the Authorised Version. On closer inspection, however, we can see that it is published by Advent Books and the author, Mrs E G White, was in fact one of the founders of the Seventh Day Adventists (SDA) cult. Apparently this current effort is part of a worldwide campaign to bring millions more into its fold.
The sect began in New York in 1840 through the influence of a Baptist preacher, William Miller. He predicted that, based on his understanding of the book of Daniel, Christ would return to the earth sometime between 21 March 1843 and 21 March 1844. The failure of this prediction – which became known as the Great Disappointment – resulted, understandably, in many becoming disillusioned. However, one follower of Miller, Hiram Edson, claimed to have seen a vision of Jesus standing at the altar of heaven and concluded that Miller had been right about the time although wrong about the place.
The explanation given was that “Jesus’s return was not to earth but a move into the heavenly sanctuary as is referenced in Hebrews 8:1-2”. This perversion of Scripture, known as the Sanctuary Doctrine, is a fundamental SDA belief. True Christians trust in Jesus, as their High Priest, interceding for them at God’s right hand on the throne in heaven, but Adventists hold that “Christ entered the first part of the sanctuary in heaven and, after a prophetic period of 2300 days, entered the second phase of His atoning ministry, a
work of blotting out sin”. They teach that, from His ascension until 1844, Jesus had been applying the forgiveness He purchased on the cross in the first part of the sanctuary, but in 1844 He entered the second part and began to “investigate” the lives of those who had supposedly received forgiveness to see if they were worthy of eternal life. Only those who passed this test could be assured of being with him when He returns to earth. Clearly this is far removed from the scriptural truth of justification by faith alone.
After Miller’s revelations and Edson’s vision, the “prophetic” ministry of former Methodist, Ellen G White, gained prominence. A prolific writer, she produced over 5000 articles and 40 books and also claimed to have received around 2000 visions and dreams before her death at 87 in 1915. SDAs state that “her writings speak with prophetic authority and provide comfort, guidance, instruction and correction to the church”. Whilst they claim that “the Bible is the standard by which all teaching and experience must be tested”, it is clear that Mrs White’s teachings and visions form much of their belief system. They claim, “The spirit of prophecy was manifest in the ministry of Ellen White. Her writings are inspired counsel from the Lord and authoritative in doctrinal matters.” It is one of her books that passes through the door of an inquirer. In The Great Controversy she repeatedly wrenches out of context quotations from Luther, Wesley, Baxter, Spurgeon and other godly men, to try to substantiate her doctrines.
Like Jehovah’s Witnesses, Adventists deny the existence of hell – in spite of the multitude of warnings given to us in the pages of Scripture. SDA doctrine is that lost souls are annihilated. They also reject the scriptural truth that the souls of believers go to heaven at death. These souls, they insist, have to wait “unconscious” until the resurrection. While – unlike Jehovah’s Witnesses – Adventists accept the full divinity of Christ, they heretically imply His liability to sin, stating that “Jesus Christ possessed a human nature that not only was weakened by sin, but had propensities toward sin itself. His nature was like that of Adam after the fall. Because of his success in overcoming sin, Jesus is primarily our example.” SDAs also believe that the punishment of the sins of the redeemed are laid on Satan – not on Jesus – as the ultimate scapegoat. As their name suggests, they observe the Sabbath on Saturday – not the first day of the week, which is given to us in the New Testament as the Christian Sabbath.
Alarmingly and in spite of these delusions – and there are many more – a section of modern American Evangelicalism is now leaning towards accepting SDAs as Christians. For well over a century, from its inception in 1840, true Evangelicals viewed SDAs as a cult, but in recent years there has been a watering down of that view as can be seen by a recent statement by
the Christian Research Institute, an Evangelical apologetics ministry in America: “Since SDA does accept the foundational doctrines of historic Christianity (the Trinity, Christ’s true deity, His bodily resurrection, etc) we do not believe that it should be classified as a non-Christian cult. It is our conviction that one cannot be a true Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon, Christian Scientist etc, and be a practising Christian in the biblical sense of the word; but it is possible to be a Seventh-day Adventist and a true follower of Jesus, despite certain distinctive Adventist doctrines which we consider to be unbiblical.” Truly we live in perilous times when professing Christians are prepared to accept into fellowship a group which denies fundamental doctrines of Scripture. But we all need to be vigilant in the face of what passes through our letter boxes.
KHM
Assisted Suicide
Advocates of assisted suicide are attempting to initiate a new inquiry into the subject by the Scottish Parliament, in the hope of bringing in legislation which will permit this evil practice. According to a report in The Scotsman, prominent supporters are emboldened by what they regard as a “more progressive outlook” among “pretty close to half” of the MSPs in the current Parliament. Proposals to legalise what is groundlessly termed “the right to die” have already been defeated twice at Holyrood, but an opinion poll earlier this year claimed that 74% of those questioned now support a change in the current legislation in this area, up from 69% in 2014.
The House of Commons overwhelmingly rejected a change in the law regarding suicide when it was last debated there, but a test case being heard in the English Court of Appeal, at the time of writing, is only serving to intensify the pressure mounted by “euthanasia” campaigners.
In spite of all the overwhelming arguments against the barbaric and godless practice of assisted self-murder, such as the danger to vulnerable groups in society, there seems to be a relentless drive to tear down all the age-old safeguards and sanctities which Christian civilisation has thrown around human life, from its earliest to its latest stages. That a considerable majority of the population should be relatively positive towards assisted suicide ought to come as no surprise to us in this evil and self-destroying generation. As with abortion, we have little doubt that, if assisted suicide is ever legalised in this country, the initial proposals would sooner or later give way to further-reaching and more pernicious changes, for “the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel” (Prov 12:10). The brutalising effects on society which this would inevitably bring are fearful enough to contemplate, but the ultimate consequence would be the eternal ruin of multitudes of precious souls.
Under the pretext of a false, short-sighted compassion, the supporters of assisted suicide are assiduously serving the interests of the great destroyer of human life; “he was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him” (Jn 8:44). It is therefore the duty of Christians to do all they lawfully can to oppose any “taking away of our own or the life of our neighbour unjustly” and, above all, to plead with the Creator and Sustainer of life that He would arise in mercy “to hear the groaning of the prisoner, to loose those that are appointed to death” (Ps 102:20). AWM