Vance
Ferrell on Should We Leave the Church Part 1
By Vance
Ferrell
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Dear Reader, Vance Ferrell has published an article on
the issue of whether or not one should leave the apostate Seventh-day
Adventist church, and indeed, whether or not the church is in apostasy. Elder
Robert Priebe is a staunch separationis. Elder Priebe told me personally,
face to face, at a seminar I conducted in California, that he went to see
Vance, and the Vance told him that he admired his stance on separation. But
Elder Priebe said that he took stock of all the bagsful of money in the
corner of the room they were meeting in and that he could understand why
Vance might be pulled in another direction. I have always maintained since
the inception of my ministry that there will be a direct conflict of interest
at the end-time between the fidelity to present truth and selling materials
to professing Seventh-day Adventist, and this will involve the White Estate
as well regarding their response to gross, Omega Apostasy. In the prefigure example of apostate
Israel, they made of the Lord’s Temple a house of merchandise and the Lord
has shown this writer that the same thing has become a snare in professing,
New Movement Seventh-day Adventism. One can even find books on speaking in
tongues in SDA book stores and just about any other heresy of modern day spiritualism.
That is part of the abominations that will result in another Ezekiel 9
slaughter beginning at His Sanctuary, Jerusalem, the SDA church, the very
courts of the modern day “counterpart” Temple. You see, Vance has many followers and
claims to get hundreds of thousands of responses daily to his Website. Many
of them give him money and/or he sells them books. It does not take much
brain power to see that if Vance took a separationis stance, the money flow
would dry up for the moment you mention separation to an SDA, the is the
direct consequence. Vance has waffled on his position in the past, saying
that he is not calling folk into the church or out of the church. That is not
the yea or nay position advocated by Scripture. The following article by Vance Ferrell is
conspicuous by Vance not providing one Bible or Spirit of Prophecy statement
in support of ANYTHING he says. It is all his personal opinion. Many of his
personal opinions on the issue fly in the face of Biblical instruction as
well as that of the Spirit of Prophecy. I am going to provide that
instruction below some of the paragraphs in Vance’s article. Here is the article: Should
We Leave the Church? Last week I received a letter from a
person in the Northwest, who said I was a devil because I was not giving a
call out of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. Ron’s Commentary: Some have speculated
that I am the person from the Northwest who wrote to Vance saying that he was
a devil because he was not giving a call out of the Seventh-day Adventist
denomination. That is not true. I have NOT written any such letter to Vance
Ferrell. The only personal contact I have had with Vance Ferrell is over the
phone in 1988, when I called him to tell him that he should be reporting more
on the ecumenical involvement of the church. At that time he seem totally
ignorant of the involvement, but he immediately took the issue serious and
developed quite a massive documentation of the church’s ecumenical escapades. Vance has proven beyond any doubt that
the church is ecumenically involved, yet he fails to take any stand because
of that apostasy by the church leaders.
What is Ellen White’s instruction in such an eventuality? She leaves
no room for doubt: Fear and Shun "'They that
forsake the law praise the wicked.' Proverbs 28:4. When those who are uniting
with the world, yet claiming great purity, plead for union with those who
have ever been the opposers of the cause of truth, we should fear and shun
them as decidedly as did Nehemiah. Such counsel is prompted by the enemy of
all good. It is the speech of timeservers, and should be resisted as
resolutely today as then. Whatever influence would tend to unsettle the faith
of God' people in His guiding power, should be steadfastly withstood."
E.G. White, Prophets and Kings, p.
660. How have SDA church leaders praised
the wicked? How have they pled for union? By giving the pope a gold medallion
and joining and actually heading his Secretariat for the promotion of
ecumenical unity no less! This is the agency Dr. B.B. Beach, of the SDA
Public Affairs Office, officiated over for many years. Just Google the
following subject:
USCCB - Secretariat
for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs Home ...
· Dr. Bert B.
Beach, also co-authored a book with the leader of the World Council of Churches
at the time, Dr. Lukas Vischer, entitled So
Much In Common! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lukas_Vischer_(theologian) The purpose of the Roman
Secretariat for Ecumenical Affairs is to discuss common ground beliefs so
that the churches can come into visible unity. Vance claims to publish more Ellen White statements
than anyone else, so why did he not apply this statement from the Spirit of Prophecy,
regarding the Adventist quest for common ground: “The people of God are not to stand upon common ground, but upon the holy ground of gospel truth. They are to keep step with their Leader, looking continually to Jesus, the Author and finisher of their faith, marching onward and upward, and having no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. It is impossible to tell what might have been the character and condition of the church today, had its members been doing the works of Christ. It is a sad fact that the great proportion of God's professed people have not had faith in Christ as their personal Saviour. If they had believed the promises of God on record for them, they would have been daily receivers of the grace of God, and would have overcome through the merits of a crucified and risen Saviour. It is the privilege of the children of God to be delivered from the control of the lusts of the flesh, and to preserve their peculiar, heavenly character, which distinguishes them from the lovers of the world. In their moral taste, in their habits and customs, they are separate from the world. Who are the children of God?--They are members of the royal family, and a royal nation, a peculiar people, showing forth the praises of him who hath called them out of darkness into his marvelous light. They do not worship idols, they love God with all the heart, and their neighbors as themselves. {RH, August 1, 1893 par. 3} · By joining
Babylon’s Associations (Ministerial Associations), Councils (National
Councils of Churches) and Confederacies (Rome’s Secretariat) of which Beach
served as head for a number of years, and then making excuses for such
action, every excuse for any
connection with Babylon has constituted a plea for union with Babylon.
Ellen White said that we should not have ANY CONNECTION with them. We were
called out to be a holy, peculiar and separate people. What fellowship has
Christ with Belial. Some give the excuse that we can influence the ecumenists
in the truth, but B.B. Beach admitted to me on the phone that in over 50
years of SDA ecumenical involvement, NOT ONE CONVERT TO ADVENTISM took place.
That it not a very good track record for violating God’s instruction, Isaiah
8:9-13, in an effort to try to convert the fallen. "Any connection with infidels and UNBELIEVERS which would
identify us with them is FORBIDDEN by the word. We are to come out from them
and be separate. in no case are we to link ourselves with them in their plans
or work." E. G. White, Fundamentals
of Christian Education, 482. "I saw that since the second angel proclaimed the fall of
the churches, they have been growing more and more corrupt. They bear the
name of being Christ's followers yet it is IMPOSSIBLE to distinguish them
from ...Satan has taken FULL POSSESSION of the churches as a body." E.G.
White, Early Writings, 273. · George
Vandeman, first speaker for It Is Written, (now deceased), wrote a book
entitled “What I Like About...the Lutherans, the Baptists, the Methodists…”
etc. It becomes a bit difficult to convince fallen Babylonians that they are
fallen and that they should come out of Babylon, when you tell them only what
you like about them. That is ONLY what the book did. · Dr. Bert B.
Beach gave a gold medallion to the Pope of Rome on behalf of the SDA church. The
church had the coin minted especially for the Pope. Is that praising the
wicked? Giving the vicar of Satan a gold medallion? Is that tantamount to
giving Satan a gold medallion? "Worldly policy is taking the place of true piety and wisdom
that comes from above, and God will remove His prospering hand from the
conference. Shall the ark of the covenant be removed from this people? Shall
idols be smuggled in? Shall false principles and false precepts be brought
into the sanctuary? Shall
antichrist be respected? Shall the true doctrines and principles
given us of God, which have made us what we are, be ignored?.... This is
directly where the enemy, through blinded, unconsecrated men, is leading
us." E. G. White, Manuscript 29, 1890. See the following link: http://www.seventh-day.org/sda-papacy.htm Is it respecting antichrist to give him a gold medallion and to bow
to him while doing it? Now watch the defenders of apostasy grasp at the “bowing”
part, to say that is just a custom, straining at a knat
while ignoring the greater sin of respecting antichrist by giving him a gold
medallion and functioning as the head of his Roman Secretariat for years. That
has already happened! Those who divert from the truth any which way they can
will use such devices as strawman smokescreen tactics
and it happens all the time in discourse with those who defend the apostasy
of the church. They look for some lesser evil to take the attention of the
greater evil. End Ron’s Comments. A week or so before that, I received a
letter declaring I was doing wrong because I did not make it my first work to
tell people that all those, not in the organization, cannot be saved. The individuals who write these letters
may be well-meaning in their intentions, but their position is not mine. There is a great controversy. It has been
fought for over six thousand years, and is now being waged in our world, and
among the Advent people. But that controversy is not the church.
It is something quite different. Yet there are those who are trying to change
the terms of the great controversy—and make it a battle over organizational
relationship. The heart of the
controversy lies somewhere else. Only those who recognize the fact will be able to relate
themselves properly to other believers. Let me say that again, but in different
words: Only those who place as top priority the true basis of the
controversy, will be able to come into close harmony with all the other
children of God. In contrast, to make interpersonal relationships the
foundation stone of Christianity—can only lead, ultimately, to friction,
exclusiveness, and, efforts to dominate, and, frankly, I-am-better-than-you Phariseeism. Ron’s Commentary: It is not Phariseeism
to obey God’s commands regarding strictly forbidden acts, to wit: Isaiah
8:9-13. End comment. SDA’s seem to believe that the only way they can offend
God is by breaking the Sabbath commandment. That is a gross misapprehension
of the Word. I have often said that SDA’s seem to believe the legalism that
as long as they are pretending to observe the Sabbath, they feel rich,
increased with good, in need of nothing! Just waiting for the chariots to
swing low and deliver them to heaven! That is gross Laodiceanism. In Revelation 14:1-4, we are told that
the 144,000 are not defiled with women. Women means churches and in this case
fallen churches. To assume or presume that the SDA church cannot be fallen,
when Ellen White specified the ways and means by which she could fall and
become a sister to fallen Babylon, it is foolhardy to teach or imply anything
else! Vance is apparently capable of that foolhardiness. What then is the key issue in the great
controversy? The question of paramount importance
concerns obedience to God and His Word. Is the Creator true and just in all
that He does? Does He have a right to command us? Are we obligated to obey
Him? The issue is not the church, it is
obedience. People are not the basis of the great controversy,
it is the Word of God. Organizational groups are not the center of the
crisis, it is God, His character, and whether we will submit to and obey Him.
The Final Crisis will be fought over
obedience to the Bible Sabbath, part of God’s holy law. Does God have a right
to be obeyed, or not? Should creatures obey their Creator? Should they live
clean, honest lives, in harmony with the Ten Commandments—when He, by the
great sacrifice of Calvary, makes it possible for them to do so? The Final Test will come over your
loyalty and your obedience to God and His law. Organization will not be the
test. The question will be whether you keep the Bible Sabbath and violate the
Sunday Law. Organizational membership will not be the issue. Ron’s Commentary: Incredibly, Vance
admits that obedience to God and His law is the crux of the great controversy
between Christ and Satan, but then says that the only question involved at
the end-time is whether you keep the Bible Sabbath and violate the Sunday
law, and that organizational membership will not be at issue. What does that
say about the final Loud Cry call out of Babylon, all fallen formally
organized churches at the end-time? What does that have to say about the call
out of such churches in 1844? Can SDA’s, in the interim between 1844, the
Loud Cry and the Sunday Law, imperviously violate the first and second angel’s
messages by ecumenical association, council, girding and confederacy in
violation of God’s commands in Isaiah 8:9-13? Can they commit all manner of
vile abominations and still remain the people of God and give the final loud
cry to the world? Ellen White said to a group of SDA churches
in Oakland, California, circa 1909, just six years before her death that Ezekiel
9 would be literally fulfilled again. Note carefully and note the date: "Study the 9th chapter of Ezekiel. These words will be literally fulfilled yet the
time is passing, and the people are asleep. They refuse to humble their souls
and to be converted. Not a great while longer will the Lord bear with the
people who have such great and important truths revealed to them, but who
refuse to bring these truths into their individual experience. The time is
short. God is calling will YOU hear? Will YOU receive His message? Will YOU
be converted before it is too late? Soon, very soon, every case will be
decided for eternity. Letter 106, 1909, pp. 2, 3,
5, 7. (To "The churches in Oakland and Berkeley, September 26,
1909.)" E. G. White Manuscript
Releases Volume One, p. 260. Some believe that Ellen White was referring only to individual
Adventists who are unfaithful at the end-time. The Lord has indelibly shown
this writer that any “LITERAL” fulfillment of Ezekiel 9 will have to follow
in principle the last fulfillment in the Destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70,
Chapter 1, The Great Controversy. Ellen White even called that fulfillment of
Ezekiel 9 a PREFIGURE, symbolizing the destruction of the world at the
end-time, BUT BEGINNING AT HIS SANCTUARY, because judgment begins at the
house of God. Will the professing SDA church be around at the very end of all
things to be destroyed? Oh yes, friend, Ellen White said that the leaders
will instruct the people to keep Sunday when the crunch comes. So any “literal” fulfillment must involve a Sanctuary(s), a
Temple, a corporate, apostate church. Notice this statement and always
remember it in connection with Ellen White’s statement that Ezekiel 9 will be
literally fulfilled: Courts of the Temple: "In the very courts of the temple,
scenes will be enacted that few realize. God's people will be proved and
tested, that He may discern 'between him that serveth God and him that
serveth Him not.' Vengeance will be
executed against those who sit in the gate, deciding what the people
should have and what they should not have. These take away the key of
knowledge. They refuse to enter in themselves, and those who would enter in
they hinder. These bear not the seal of the living God. All who now occupy
responsible positions should be solemnly and terribly afraid lest in this
time they shall be found as unfaithful stewards." E.G. White, Manuscript
15, 1886, Paulson Collection, p. 55. The Temple is no Babylon friend! Ellen White is speaking of SDA
leaders who sit in the gate deciding what you and I should have and not have.
Did she spell that out by way of elaboration? Notice: But the Holy Spirit will, from time to time, reveal the truth
through its own chosen agencies; and no man, not even a priest or ruler, has
a right to say, You shall not give publicity to your opinions, because I do
not believe them. That wonderful "I" may attempt to put down the
Holy Spirit's teaching. Men may for a time attempt to smother it and
kill it; but that will not make error truth, or truth error. The inventive
minds of men have advanced speculative opinions in various lines, and when
the Holy Spirit lets light shine into human minds, it does not respect every
point of man's application of the word. God impressed His servants to speak
the truth irrespective of what men had taken for granted as truth. {TM 70.1} Lost their reason -- “But we see
that the God of heaven sometimes commissions men to teach that which is
regarded as contrary to the established doctrines. Because those who were once the depositaries of truth became
unfaithful to their sacred trust, the Lord chose others who would
receive the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness, and would advocate
truths that were not in accordance with
the ideas of the religious leaders. And then these leaders, in the blindness of their minds, give full
sway to what is supposed to be righteous indignation against the ones who
have set aside cherished fables. They
act like men who have lost their reason. They do not consider the
possibility that they themselves have not rightly understood the word. They
will not open their eyes to discern the fact that they have misinterpreted
and misapplied the Scriptures, and have built up false theories, calling them
fundamental doctrines of the faith. {TM 69.2} In the Jewish nation those whom the
Lord had made depositaries of truth, had proved unfaithful to their trust,
and the Lord chose others to do His work. In their blindness these leaders gave full sway to what they
called righteous indignation against the ones who were setting aside
cherished fables. They would not admit that there was a possibility that
they themselves did not rightly understand the Word, or that they had
misinterpreted or misapplied the Scriptures. They acted like men who had lost
their reason. What right have these men, they reasoned, some of them mere
fishermen, to present ideas contrary to the doctrines which we teach the people?
{ST, September 20, 1899 par. 9} Even Seventh-day Adventists are in danger of closing their eyes
to truth as it is in Jesus, because it contradicts something which they have
taken for granted as truth but which the Holy Spirit teaches is not truth.
Let all be very modest, and seek most earnestly to put self out of the
question, and to exalt Jesus. In most of the religious controversies the
foundation of the trouble is that self is striving for the supremacy. About
what? About matters which are not vital points at all, and which are regarded
as such only because men have given importance to them. (See Matthew
12:31-37; Mark 14:56; Luke 5:21; Matthew 9:3.) {TM 70-71} "To divide our interests with the leaders of error is aiding the wrong side and giving
advantage to our foes. The truth of God knows no compromise with sin, no
connection with artifice, no union with transgression." Testimonies, Vol. 4, p. 81. “If some who profess to believe present truth could understand
their true position, they would despair of the mercy of God. They have been
exerting all their influence against the truth, against the voice of warning,
against the people of God. They have been doing the work of Satan. Many have
become so infatuated by his deceptions that they will never recover. Such a
state of backsliding cannot exist without causing the loss of many souls. The church has received warning after warning. The duties and
dangers of God’s people have been plainly revealed. But the worldly element
has proved too strong for them. Customs, practices, and fashions which lead
the soul away from God have been for years gaining ground in defiance of the
warnings and entreaties of the Holy Spirit, until at last their ways have
become right in their own eyes, and the Spirit’s voice is scarcely heard. No
man can tell how far he may go in sin when once he yields himself to the
power of the great deceiver. Satan entered into Judas Iscariot and induced
him to betray his Lord. Satan led Ananias and Sapphira to lie to the Holy
Ghost. Those who are not wholly consecrated to God may be led to do the work
of Satan while yet they flatter themselves that they are in the service of
Christ.”—5 Testimonies, 102-103. Conclusions—To Part 1: Vance is teaching that the church can imbibe any degree of
apostasy now and not be responsible as an organization at the end-time. This
flies in the face of God in Ezekiel 9, and Ellen White’s statement that
Ezekiel 9 will involve Jerusalem, a literal, formally organized denomination
church, as did the debacle of Ezekiel 9 in the prefigure type of A.D. 70. Vance
is directly contradicting God and Ellen White, and what’s unbelievable about
it all, he is giving ONLY his own personal opinion to do it! No Bible! No
Spirit of Prophecy! That is brazen blasphemy! What thinketh Vance Ferrell
about his own personal opinion to fly it in the face of God? Vance is more and more like the old man who roamed Jerusalem
crying the woes of the Jews, as Vance does SDA’s, but the old man did not
listen to the true prophets who were telling the people when to leave. He
perished in the destruction he foretold. That is going to be the fate of
Vance Ferrell is he continues to teach a false response to omega apostasy of
the professing SDA church. “For seven years a man continued to go up
and down the streets of Jerusalem, declaring the woes that were to come upon
the city. By day and by night he chanted the wild dirge, "A voice from
the east; a voice from the west; a voice from the four winds; a voice against
Jerusalem and the temple; a voice against the bridegroom and the bride; and a
voice against all the people." This strange being was imprisoned and
scourged; but no complaint escaped his lips. To insult and abuse he answered
only, "Woe to Jerusalem! woe, woe to the
inhabitants thereof!" His warning cry ceased not until he was slain in
the siege he had foretold. {4SP 31.3} Not one Christian perished in the
destruction of Jerusalem. Christ had given his disciples warning, and all who
believed his words watched for the promised sign. After the Romans had
surrounded the city, they unexpectedly withdrew their forces, at a time when
everything seemed favorable for an immediate attack. In the providence of God
the promised signal was thus given to the waiting Christians, and without a
moment's delay they fled to a place of safety,--the refuge city Pella, in the
land of Perea, beyond Jordan.” {4SP 32.1} Remember, Ellen White said
that the destruction of Jerusalem, the last fulfillment of Ezekiel 9, was a prefigure of what will occur at the end-time in another
LITERAL fulfillment. She also said that there would be a modern day
COUNTERPART to the Jews, whom God said not to pray for in Jeremiah 11:14 and
7:16. Who ONLY qualifies as that counterpart to the Jews? Notice in the following
statement that Ellen White does not say “maybe,” but: The apostles declare that this state of things will find its
COUNTERPART in the last days. COUNTERPART: "The Lord
commanded one of his ancient servants, 'Pray not thou for this people [Jer.
7:16 and 11:14], neither lift up cry nor prayer for
them neither make intercession to me for I will not hear thee.' The prophet
thus describes the sins which had called forth this fearful denunciation:
'The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means and
my people love to have it so and what will ye do in the end thereof?' 'From
the least of them even unto the greatest of them, every one is given to
covetousness and from the prophet even unto the priest, every one dealeth
falsely. They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people
slightly, saying, Peace, peace, when
there is no peace.' The apostles declare that this state of things will
find its COUNTERPART in the last days. Many have a form of godliness,
but in their daily life deny the power thereof. They have ceased to be
convicted of their sins or alarmed at their state. They say in their hearts,
'The church is flourishing. Peace and spiritual prosperity are within her
borders.' The words of the prophet may well apply to these self-deceivers,
'They have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their
abominations. I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears
upon them." E. G. White, Second
Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, 11-07-82. "Shall the Lord be
compelled to say, `Pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor
prayer for them, neither make intercession to Me: for I will not hear thee'
[Jeremiah 7:16]? `Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath
been no latter rain....Wilt thou not from this time cry unto Me, My Father,
thou art the guide of my youth' [Jeremiah 3:3-4]?... We are to be judged by the
light that has been given us,(159) and we can find no excuse by which to
extenuate our course." Review and
Herald, Vol 3, p 69-70 (August 1, 1893).
(Brackets by Ellen White) To be Continued in Part 2.
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