Pastor Conrad Vine, the head of the Adventist Frontier Missions, is known for his hard-hitting fact-filled, serious, present-truth sermons that disturb the SDA leadership. For instance, months ago, Br. Vine revealed that over half the funds in the SDA church operating funds come from the government. He noted that Lo-ma Linda had a 21-billion dollar budget, while all the tithes and offerings received in the North America Division added up to just over one billion dollars. “Who do you think the Gen. Conf. is going to listen to?” he asked. But a few weeks ago, at the Northern Maine SDA camp meeting, he suggested that an independent, non-General Conference, lay organization could be set up to receive and distribute tithes and offerings to worthy entities.
First, he reviewed some history of the Adventist church that very few speak about—how, during WWI and WWII, SDA church leaders allowed its members in Europe and the Soviet Union to join the armed forces and fight on the Sabbath!—serious facts that caused the formation of the Reformed SDA church. But we are sad that Vine forgot to mention (or does not know about) how the G.C. of SDA, in the Martin-Barnhouse meetings of 1955-56, accepted a false god, and false christ, and repudiated Christ’s work of final atonement in the Most Holy Place of the Heavenly Sanctuary! This was done in order to be accepted as a legitimate church by the fallen Babylonian churches!
These treacherous deeds were so shocking that M.L. Andreasen wrote to the president of the Gen. Conf., “I’m watching my church commit suicide.” But Conrad Vine chose to focus on the General Conference of SDA’s reaction to the Covid 19 crisis!—how it chose to go along with the government by mandating that all SDA’s should be vaccinated, al-lowing no liberty of conscience for those who did not wish to get a vaccine. To Conrad Vine this marked the line when the SDA church became a “Regime church” because the church put itself in the place of God just like the papacy did in Mar-tin Luther’s day.
But Vine was just warming up. He next touched the very sensitive nerve center of the SDA church—the tithes and offerings—when he suggested setting up an organization of trusted lay members who would actually collect the tithes and offerings from the members (diverting them from rogue conferences) and disperse these funds to conferences and individuals that were anti-vax and otherwise deemed worthy. (Go woke, go broke). We applaud his courage to encourage the set-up of such an organization, a step that should have been done for better reasons years ago. But is it laying the axe to the root of the tree? Is it meeting the Omega of Apostasy (See 1 Selected Messages, 204-205) head-on? We think not. Conrad Vine’s plan still ignores, and thus condones, the more weighty 1955-56 apostasy from truth and corporate sin that resides in the Gen. Conf. of SDA.
Reaction from the Gen. Conf. of SDA was swift. The Northern Maine Conference was the first to react and banned Conrad Vine from speaking there. Then Stephen Bohr’s ministry cancelled him from speaking at a future event. Then the Michigan Conference, where Conrad Vine is a member and employee, banned him from speaking there. General Conf. President, Ted Wilson, and GC evangelist, Mark Finley, came out with sermons assuring the members that “apostasy was in the church, but that the church was not in apostasy.” They repeated the familiar lines: “The wheat and tares grow together till the end” and “The church is going through to the end.” Then, individual pastors stepped up to the plate.
Pastor Ivor Myers proclaimed that Conrad Vine was doing the same work that Satan did in heaven. Pastor Isaac Olatunji said that although he could give a whole list of apostasies in the church, it was still going through and that everyone should stick with it. On the other hand, Andrew Henriques from Prophesy Again called for all the SDA pastors to resign from the apostasy and stand for truth. Pro-life Andrew Michell, pointed out that while the Gen. Conf. would not allow liberty of individual conscience for Covid-19 vaccinations, it would give freedom of conscience to those who wanted to join the armed forces, and to those women who wanted to get an abortion. More video reactions have continued to be posted.
What will happen? Will the SDA church collapse? No!
Ellen White predicted this very last-day apostasy: “The principles of truth that God in His wisdom has given to the remnant church, would be discarded. Our religion would be changed. The fundamental principles that have sustained the work for the last fifty years would be accounted as error. A new organization would be established. Books of a new order would be written. A system of intellectual philosophy would be introduced. The founders of this system would go into the cities, and do a wonderful work. The Sabbath of course, would be lightly regarded, as also the God who created it. Nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of the new movement. The leaders would teach that virtue is better than vice, but God being removed, they would place their dependence on human power, which, without God, is worthless. Their foundation would be built on the sand, and storm and tempest would sweep away the structure. 1 Selected Messages, 204.
Ellen White predicted that “our religion would be changed,” that it would become a “new organization,” and that “nothing will be allowed to stand in the way of the new movement.” That means the Gen. Conf. structure, like a steam roller, will continue to move along. Ultimately, she saw that “storm and tempest would sweep away the structure.” But while destruction lurks in the future of the apostasy, in another of her predictions, she gives hope that God’s true people, the true SDA church, although a little company, would separate from the apostasy and preserve the faith once delivered to the Seventh-day Adventist saints.
“At the time when the danger and depression of the church are greatest, the little company who are standing in the light will be sighing and crying for the abominations that are done in the land. But more especially will their prayers arise in behalf of the church because its members are doing after the manner of the world. The earnest prayers of this faithful few will not be in vain. When the Lord comes forth as an avenger, He will also come as a protector of all those who have preserved the faith in its purity and kept themselves unspotted from the world. It is at this time that God has promised to avenge His own elect which cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long with them. 5T 209-210.
Conrad Vine’s plan is well-meaning. We hail him as one lone watchmen barking loudly on the walls of Zion, but until there is recognition of, and repentance for, what happened in 1955=56 at the Martin & Barn-house meetings, this protest movement cannot be spiritually successful. Again, Ellen White predicted that it won’t succeed when she said, “Nothing will be allowed to stand in the way of the new movement.” But what would happen if God’s people could take over the Gen. Conf. structure today. What would happen? First, it would have to sell the hospitals and start over rebuilding on God’s health plan. Also, it would have to sell the school system and start over using a plan modeled after the school of the prophets. And again, it would have to repent of the 1980 SDA Statement of (Ecumenical) Beliefs and go back to the 1872 SDA Statement of Principles. Indeed, it would have to start over anyway.
The SDA church was raised up for one purpose—to preach the 3 Angels Messages. Sadly, today, it is a fact that the General Conference is in corporate sin as a system, by violating God’s law: 1) worshiping the Trinity, a false god (violating the first commandment); 2) accepting a false Christ who came in sinless (immaculate) flesh of Adam before the fall; 3) sending young men into the armed forces (violating the sixth commandment); 4) performing abortions in its hospitals (violating the sixth commandment); selling Babylonian wine in the SDA bookstores. And more. This was not true in Ellen White’s day.
Today, it is a totally new organization since 1980, copy-righting the same name under commercial law in 1981, singing from a 1985 Catholic-approved Trinity Hymnal, and adopting a new corporate logo in 1995. Therefore, God’s people must separate from the General Conference apostasy. It is impossible to give the Three Angel’s Messages when you are standing in corporate sin. You cannot call people out of Babylonian corporate sin, when you are in the greater corporate sin of the Omega of Apostasy!
So what should we do? Paul declares: “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, 18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” 2 Corinthians 6:17, 18.
Jude saw our day clearly: “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith [1872 SDA Statement of Principles] which was once delivered unto the [Adventist] saints. 4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” Jude 3, 4.