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One Man's Journey out of Seventh-day Adventism; Chapter 1

by Brian Hyde
6/17/2011 / Testimonies

I believe I can date the commencement of my spiritual journey to October 1975. I had immigrated to South Africa six years previously only to return to England in early 1974. Now, in the late autumn of 1975, I was preparing to return to Africa yet again. Little did I realise then that my life was about to take a dramatically different direction.

My conversion from semi-paganism to Christianity was residual; covering a period of several months. Throughout I was aware that God was drawing me. I was talking to people about the existence of God existence and was intrigued in what the Bible had to say. What I read in scripture fascinated me.

God loved me.

Christ loved me.

I could be forgiven for all my sins because of Jesus' sacrificial death on the Cross.

Through faith in Jesus I could become a son of God and even have everlasting life.

This was terrific. I really wanted to become a Christian! Then, following a certain incident in my life, I was led to take a good look at myself and in the words of C S Lewis,

"For the first time I examined myself with a seriously practical purpose" C S Lewis (1955), Surprised By Joy

What I saw within me filled me with disgust and served to dent my self-image, a self-image that was already somewhat dented. I felt ashamed, guilty. It caused me to seek God's forgiveness with great earnestness.

Now my life had a new impetuscommitment to God. I set about cleaning up my act, so to speak. God was calling me to obedience and to my mind one could not afford to prevaricate with God. This thinking can best be understood if I explain that as a child I learned to obey authority and to do so without question. This was largely due to having been reared by a foster mother who thrived as a martinet. She wanted unquestioning obedience from me (and of my poor sister) and demanded it at the end of either a fist, or other instrument of punishment, which she seemed quite anxious to deliver with great regularity. Today, we call this 'child abuse'.

It would be quite wrong of me to say that it was with the same slavish fear that I rendered unquestioning obedience to God. No, I did so with a different motivation, albeit clearly tempered by my childhood experiences. The resolve to 'clean up my act' was sincere enough but it was, as I now see, misplaced in that I did not look to God to help me. Unconsciously, I believed that if I behaved myself and was good then God would accept me. Unsurprisingly, I was destined to fail within a very short period of time for I had as much chance of succeeding as a man has of lifting himself up by his boot straps, as a preacher I was knew used to say. Conviction of sin is one thing, knowing Christ through a personal relationship and overcoming sin through His Spirit is quite another. But at that time I had little knowledge of the rudiments of salvation. Arguably, these early experiences sowed the seed that inevitably bore fruit in perfectionism and legalistic religion.

What I do know is that, in spite of my new life of piety, I was constantly troubled. Though I would eventually take the necessary steps to Christ and experience a measure of the blessing that results in giving one's life to Him, my conscience would remain troubled and was destined to remain so for a very long time. Indeed, it is only relatively recently that I have been privileged to receive the full assurance of salvation and the blessings of a trouble-free conscience.

In those early days of my conversion I was living in Johannesburg. The nature of my occupation at the time afforded me sufficient spare time to investigate Christianity and discover what it was all about. In the words of J C Ryle, I went from a "lazy indifference to salvation" and things religious, to a person with a "fervent desire to please God" (J C Ryle Regeneration). I wanted to know more about God and what is involved in becoming a true Christian. I developed a voracious appetite to learn. That appetite has not abated in all these years.

My sincere desire to show God respect by being obedient to His will, whatever that might involve, was coupled with a sincere desire to be part of a church that closely embraces the truth, whatever that 'church' and 'truth' might be. But the latter presented me with a formidable challenge. There were then, as there are to this day, dozens of churches from which to choose. The question uppermost in my mind was, "Which church is the right one?" I labored under the notion that among the many denominations there could be but only one which qualified as the true church of God. Quite where this idea originated I cannot remember but it was to have profound implications. Suffice it to say that all errors of judgment are often born of "false ideas, prejudices, social pressures, or just sheer negligence" (Lewis, 2006).

Moreover, not unlike a some Christians today, I mistakenly believed that 'church' stood for a literal organised denomination and a building of bricks and mortar with a cross over the main entrance.

The reason I am sharing these things here is not to be unkind to myself (hindsight tends to arrogance) but to show how wrong thinking opened the door to false religion.

I now understand that 'church' is not a nomenclature for a church building with a grand edifice and ornamental glass windows. Rather, it is a universal ecclesia of believers who, in unity, form the Body of Christ, a body that crosses denominational boundaries, of converts, a body of folk born again of the Spirit and of the Word of God, symbolised by baptism and manifest in newness of life.

"He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned" (Mark 16:16, NASB).

"Jesus answered Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God . . . That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:3, 6, NASB).

"for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God." (1 Peter 1:23, NASB).

"But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect" (Hebrews 12:22-23 NIV; Emphasis mine).

Meeting these conditions does of course, presuppose physical church membership. Being a member of a physical church organization has essential blessings and it is an imperative of Scripture that believers do not neglect the assembling of themselves together for mutual edification (Hebrews 10:25). Yet, church membership per se is not a requirement for salvation.

And so my search for the "true church" began. One day I came into possession of a Christian leaflet (possibly one distributed by Campus Crusade for Christ) which informed me I needed to be baptised. It went into great detail and stressed that for baptism to be biblical it had to be by full immersion. A close study of the 'proof' texts listed convicted me and, consequently, to be physically baptized (and which had to be by immersion) became a new personal imperative.

My baptism took place in a Baptist church in central Johannesburg, chosen, I should add, because I knew the Baptist church would follow the Bible injunction and grant me full immersion! The minister wanted to condition baptism on church membership but because I was not persuaded it was the "true church" of God, I would have none of it. Also when I was in the church foyer the previous Sunday, I found myself standing all alone as others around me hurried to greet each other while ignoring my presence. Indeed all that passed me seemed hell bent on avoiding any eye contact with me, something I associated more with London commuters than with those whom I understood were to be my future companions in Heaven. My naivety and woeful ignorance at the time is herewith made apparentI clearly had much to learn about formal religion!

Despite my refusal to join his flock the minister took the unusual step of agreeing to my request and my baptism went ahead. I was to be glad that I did not submit to membership because a short while after my baptism I accepted an invitation by the minister to watch a film about hell. It was to be screened in the church, late one Sunday evening. If it was meant to shock and it certainly had the desired effect. One poor soul, clearly of a nervous disposition, shrieked in utter terror whenever a particularly gruesome scene burst her senses. Depicted, deep in the fiery bowels of Hades, were people convulsing in the unrelenting flames, children writhing in agony as worms devoured their burning bodies, and a red Devil, complete with pitchfork, leering horribly at his victims. Each scene was represented like the page of a huge poster book with many pages, turning on a vertical axis. Each page was divided off into many squares with each square representing 1,000 years in hell and each page representing 10,000 years in hell. Throughout the film the pages the speaker turned, inexorably, relentlessly, on and on and on. Millennia followed millennia, and millennia melted into eternity, and still the same souls were being tormented with unquenchable fire!

I was accompanied that evening by a person who had not made a commitment to Christ, and as we were leaving she told me in a subdued but grim tone that if "that " is what God is like, she "didn't want to know". Embarrassed and somewhat disturbed myself, I tried in vain to justify hell by explaining that there are some things we don't understand but it need not be that way if we become believers. My words fell on deaf ears. I can't say I was impressed with the film that day or even since.

Undeterred my search continued. I had always been an avid reader and I started to buy books on Christianity and the Bible and also on Bible archaeologywhat was to become a special interest subject. One book that particularly stands out at that time was the iconic The Late, Great Planet Earth, by Hal Lindsey and Carole C Carlson (1970). This was my first encounter with Bible prophecy. I think what struck me most about the book was its remarkable expos of Daniel's 70 weeks of years in that it enables the precise year of Messiah's death to be calculated. Wow!

I should explain, in parenthesis, that from my early teens I was curious to know if it was possible to predict the future and also if it was possible to find out what happens when we die. I read avidly any material I could find on these subjects and soon I found myself delving into the supernatural. I also read novels by the author, Dennis Wheatley, whose characters enjoyed out-of-body experiences. These particularly appealed to my young fertile mind (and oftentimes left me visualising myself outside my own body, floating surreptitiously in and out of people's houses unbeknown to them!). I also become quite adept at the Ouija board. The things that took place during the sessions were astonishing and defied rational explanation. All this shows, of course, that I was searching for concrete answers to fundamental questions about the future and the afterlife but clearly I had been searching in all the wrong places.
None of those explorations into the supernormal seemed to offer satisfying or even credible answers to spiritual questions I still had. But, in Lindsey's book, there was something that was entirely different. It was different because the author was using the Bible, no less. Hey, this is a holy book! Whatever my views were about religion at that time, one thing I did own and that was a healthy respect for the Bible. I simply accepted it as a holy book although I never saw the need to open it. Lindsay's evidence was Bible-based and, to my mind, that was singularly impressive, like very impressive! Why? Because Lindsay was able to show from the Bible the exact year of Christ's death on the Cross and that meant Christ was, historically, real! Lindsey's book gave me an even greater respect for the Bible and for the Christian message it contained.

Of course, many things in Lindsay's book, based on the author's personal interpretations of current affairs, failed to come true and, no, the oil crisis of the late 60s and early 70s did not usher in the time of trouble and the Battle of Armageddon, as the authors would have us believe. I also recall that Lindsay had identified Henry Kissinger as the Antichrist, no less! The numerical value of his name, in Latin numerals, totaled 666!

This book and others like it offered useful insights and was very interesting but as time passed it was clear to me that I needed to read and study the Bible itself.

With this purpose in mind I eventually connected with a weekly Bible study group in Kempton Park (near Johannesburg), comprising of Methodists, Anglicans, Baptists and members of the Dutch Reform Church. The group regularly met in ecumenical association at a Methodist manse.

Simultaneously, I embarked on a two year home-study course that if completed would lead to diploma qualifying me to become a trainee pastor of the Assemblies of God (South Africa). But, something happened that was to cut short these studies at a time when I was only half way through.
One day I picked up a book entitled The Climax of the Ages, written by someone with the name E.G. White. It was an abridged version of the Great Controversy by the same author. In the book Climax of the Ages, I discovered an argument that the Ten Commandments are perpetually binding, and that the seventh day, (Saturday), is the sabbath of the fourth commandment. The book also argues that the "immortality of the soul" and "everlasting torment" doctrines, said to be held by mainstream churches, have their origin in paganism. I was greatly interested in these explanations. An examination of the Scriptures presented certainly seemed to provide irrefutable proof in support of Saturday as the true sabbath. My knowledge of scripture at that time was sadly inadequate, hence I was in no position to dispute the validity of the arguments presented. As far as I was concerned, the arguments were very compelling. Additionally, I was anti-orthodoxy, which I associated with nothing more than empty formalism, ritualism and wide-spread hypocrisy. I was persuaded that the rejection of the seventh-day sabbath by orthodox Christianity, as being due, in great part, to its apparent preference for church tradition. The dressing up of the clergy in fancy vestments, processions up the aisle before and after services, highly decorative and ornate altars, the ringing of bells and burning of incense during the Eucharist, were to my mind, so much empty ceremony and repelled me from orthodoxy.

I have never forgotten the remarkable impressions that attended my reading of the book, The Climax of the Ages. Firstly, the facts the writer presents are delivered with an attitude of implacable authority and determination. At the time, I found this quite striking. As for the facts, I could not gainsay them. As a new convert, I knew nothing about the issues involved or that it was a huge debate among theologians. The reasoning the book offered in support of the Sabbath was from the Old Testament and, seemingly, irrefutable. I felt I was in possession of special truth known only to a select few and this made me feel important. Secondly, the book exacted a strange irresistible influence over my mind. It is not uncommon to experience a sense of wonder and delight when discovering new aspects of truth but, in all the years I have been reading, I have never experienced the strange infatuation that accompanied my reading of that text, not even when reading my favourite book, the Bible.

Having decided that the keeping of Sunday was mere tradition of orthodoxy, I determined that I would keep Saturday instead of Sunday as the day of rest. This had the immediate effect of narrowing my search for a churchfrom among the many to only oneone that was keeping the seventh-day Sabbath!

References

C S Lewis (1955) Surprised by Joy HarperCollins

Lewis, B (2006) The Primacy of Conscience. Australian EJournal of Theology Retrieved January, 2009 Online: http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/research/theology/ejournal/aejt_6/lewis.htm

Lindsey Hal, Carlson C C (1970) The Late, Great Planet Earth Zondervan

NASB New American Standard Bible (1995) The Lockman Foundation Used by permission

NIV New International Version, The Holy Bible (1984) Biblica Inc Used by permission

Brian Hyde is a first generation born-again Christian who lives in the United Kingdom. He holds a BSc (Hons) degree in Social Work and is a part-time social work mentor. He is currently researching new covenant theology and enjoys writing the occasional faith article. The link to his website is www.wayministry.org

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