Dear Brethren,  

I believe that a time has come for our ministry to make a statement of our beliefs. I believe that God raised up the advent people as God’s remnant. The church testified of this by its stand on God’s law and its understanding of the Christ’s ministry in the sanctuary. God testified to it by giving us the gift of prophecy in Ellen White. Over the first 50 years the pillars of truth concerning the Father, Son, and their ministry was established. The truths concerning the state of the dead, sin, and punishment were also established.  It grew until the only thing still lacking was the understanding of righteousness by faith and Christ in the heart. It was here in that time where Satan began to attack the church on a multifaceted front. He attacked the 1888 message, followed by an attack on the nature of god. Later followed spiritualism!  

He has met with success because of our lack of faith in God’s leading and refusal to be baptized into Christ as a people. Like ancient Israel of old, the apostasy began slowly with the mingling with the world and ended up in full Baal and Ashtoreth worship with the leadership sacrificing its children. Finally it came to the point where in full apostasy Elijah was raised to bring truth back to Israel. It leads to the story on Mount Carmel. How long halt ye between two opinions.  When the sacrifice of men was offered, the spirit of God as represent by the fire did not fall. When Christ died symbolically on that alter, the holy spirit came. Collectively, we as a church over the years have been offering in different ways our own righteousness and without the spirit of God, we fell into apostasy. 

We now find ourselves in the same position that Israel existed in at the time of Elijah. We have accepted the doctrines of the trinity and ecumenicalism (with its dangers of spiritualism) and like Israel of old we are sacrificing our children (SDA church members) to a false God.  

Therefore I believe that we are a church in apostasy. Most of the accusations brought against the church, the GC, and our leaders are true. Many if not most of its leaders, pastors, and teachers are trained in NLP. I had a very close family member who trained in NLP and I saw it destroy them. It is only with blinders on that one can deny this. Having Sabbath and Sunday services to try and outreach to the public is a mockery and insult to the creator. Accepting the trinity and other doctrines of Rome and joining the World Council of Churches is joining ourselves to apostate fallen churches and is an abomination to God.The question then is what will we do? I believe that the answer is given in the “TYPES” given in the scriptures so that we as the “ANTI-TYPES” respond as God has directed. We are told that “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: (Mal 4:5) It is in the truth of Elijah and his message that I have based my stand. 

I believe that the answer to the following questions will give us the answers if we will only believe them. 

1.    Was Israel in apostasy?  Yes. 

2.    Were the leaders and most of the people in this apostasy? Yes. 

3.    Were they following false gods? Yes. 

4.    Was the leadership sacrificing their children? Yes. 

5.    Did it prevent the rain (latter rain)? Yes. 

6.    Did it seek to silence the true message of the Prophet? Yes

7.    Did Elijah therefore consider them Babylonian? No 

8.    Did Elijah reject them and go to the gentiles only? No 

9.    Did Elijah call for repentance? Yes 

10. Did his message change the leadership?  No 

11. Did his message change the people of Israel? Some

12. Did they remain God’s people even when in apostasy? Only the 7000

13. By going into captivity of Babylon were they no longer Israel? No

14. Did the apostate leaders survive the fall.  No

15. Did Moses risk even his eternal life to save God's people in apostasy? Yes

16. Did time run out for those leaders and people in apostasy? Yes

17. Is that time fast approaching us as SDA's? Yes 

18. Did Ahab and Israel's leaders fail as a channel of Blessing to Israel? Yes!

19. Would Ahab and Jezebel recognized the 7000 as loyal subjects of the kingdom and kept them as members of the kingdom? No - had to hide in the end.

What I have found is that there is no rejection of Israel or a call out of Israel even when in the extreme state of apostasy. The coming out happened naturally. For myself, I choose to bear the message of Elijah in the Spirit of Elijah. I believe that is what we are called to bear here in these end times. Elijah defended Jehovah. He stood for truth and had the same spirit of Daniel and Moses who called sin by the right name but loved the sinners just as Christ does. (even though he was forced to kill 850 false spiritual leaders of Israel) Those who enter heaven will have the spirit of Jesus in their heart and will sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. Both reached out in love and offered to die to self and even risk their eternal life to save those who repented and turned back to Jehovah. 

Is our beloved church in deep apostasy, yes but I seek by the grace of Jesus to love and reach out to its people even as we were shown. Like Daniel, I consider myself among them but do not follow their practices of idolatry. Although we all know this very well I encourage each to read it again. “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” (1Co 13:1-2) It will do us no good and indeed will only condemn us further in the eyes of God if we have the truth but not the spirit of TRUTH within us.  

Do we need to stand for truth? We know that we must. But I challenge you with this. Have those of us who have made statements concerning the sin of Israel first repented ourselves for the time we spent in apostasy. Have we then spent equal time praying for the lost sheep of Israel? I hope each of us will be honest with ourselves in answering this.  Only then will we possibly in a position to help our brethren get the speck out of their eye.

Finally, I encourage each reader to read this following chapter in one of our studies as it clearly defines where we should be as a people and what God expects of us. http://www.intheheavens.org/Chapter-4.html 

Please note that we have many links from this website to other ministries.  This includes studies, videos, and some cases links to their website. This is not a statement of solidarity with each of these ministries. We may not hold to all their positions or professions.  It is simply a recognition that each of these have been found to bear some truths that are necessary for our time.

Brother Mark Hornbeck - ITH Director