The name Seventh-day Adventist, a name given by God to His denominated people who honor the seventh-day Sabbath and are eagerly awaiting the imminent return of Jesus Christ, intimates a solemn and most-important responsibility for its members to maintain their distinctive identity, deliver important messages and carry out the mission for which it was called into existence—to prepare others for the Second Coming of Jesus. Anyone familiar with the history of the Seventh-day Adventist movement, as well as the prophetic role that it has in scripture and end-time events, will agree that Seventh-day Adventists worshiping on Sunday is an obvious contradiction and misrepresentation. Yet in Huntsville, Alabama, there is an influential church, First Seventh-day Adventist Church, who, as of February 8, 2015, will be conducting weekly Sunday worship services. Is there any irony in the name First Seventh-day Adventist Church as it is moving in this direction? The church will not discontinue its Sabbath Services, but according to First SDA Pastor Debleaire Snell, “‘This is kind of next in the evolution of things…The Sunday service is going to be a first point of contact for the unchurched in the community and for people who, for whatever reason – beliefs, work – can’t come on Saturday…This shows there is a paradigm — the Early Christians created a gathering where people could hear and receive the full news of Jesus. We want to do that.’”1 He goes on to assert, “‘we’re not changing the concept of the Sabbath – this Sunday service is for new members and maybe for our members who want a spiritual kick-start to their week.’”2
Some may see this project as an innocent and innovative evangelistic effort designed to “meet people where they are;” however, by holding both Saturday and Sunday worship services, the Sabbath is thus undermined, as is God’s Word. Furthermore, such an action gives the impression that it matters not on which day one chooses to corporately worship, so long as he/she goes to church—Sunday is therefore made a substitute or an alternative to the Sabbath and there is no clear distinction between a common work day (Sunday) and the sanctity of the Seventh day, Saturday, thus emboldening those that refuse to see the light of the Sabbath truth to continue observing the day of their own choosing and relegate the Seventh day to a common day. Why would anyone make the sacrifice to refrain from working on the Sabbath or from engaging in other secular activities if he/she believes that attending church on Sunday is a viable substitute?
Prior to Sunday being universally acknowledged and observed as the Lord’s Day, both the Sabbath and Sunday were observed concurrently; however, by and by the Sabbath was demoted while Sunday was correspondingly exalted. “But while many God-fearing Christians were gradually led to regard Sunday as possessing a degree of sacredness, they still held the true Sabbath as the holy of the Lord and observed it in obedience to the fourth commandment. The archdeceiver had not completed his work. He was resolved to gather the Christian world under his banner and to exercise his power through his vicegerent, the proud pontiff who claimed to be the representative of Christ. Through half-converted pagans, ambitious prelates, and world-loving churchmen he accomplished his purpose. Vast councils were held from time to time, in which the dignitaries of the church were convened from all the world. In nearly every council the Sabbath which God had instituted was pressed down a little lower, while the Sunday was correspondingly exalted. Thus the pagan festival came finally to be honored as a divine institution, while the Bible Sabbath was pronounced a relic of Judaism, and its observers were declared to be accursed.”3
It is unfortunate that it is the Pastor, who has twice been named Pastor of the Year by the South Central Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, leading out in such an endeavor and setting forth the example that people can choose based on convenience or preference, which day they will go to church on. As a shepherd, he should be shielding his flock from the subtle intrusion of erroneous practices which would tend to a departure from the faith and lead to the acceptation of Satan’s masterpiece of deception, the Mark of the Beast. But instead, he is promoting it and has the endorsement of the regional conference to which his church belongs.
Let us analyze Pastor’s Snell’s rationale for conducting Sunday worship services, which he refers to as an “evolution of things,” and dismantle those arguments while showing how many are being conditioned to receive the Mark of the Beast through such thinking and practices. Snell rightly states that what he is doing is an evolution of things; it is in verity a downward progression from the principles and policies that this denomination were initially founded upon. “Seventh-day Adventists are now to stand forth separate and distinct, a people denominated by the Lord as His own. Until they do this, He cannot be glorified in them. Truth and error cannot stand in copartnership. Let us now place ourselves where God has said that we should stand…. We are to strive for unity but not on the low level of conformity to worldly policy and union with the popular churches.”4
Firstly, Pastor Snell states that “‘The Sunday service is going to be a first point of contact for the unchurched in the community…’”5 This reasoning is clearly illogical. If Pastor Snell is attempting to reach the “unchurched,” holding service on Sunday will certainly not reach this class, otherwise they would have come to his church on Sabbath. Furthermore, there is an abundance of Sunday-keeping churches in that very community and surrounding areas that members of the community can choose from if they wish to attend church on a Sunday morning. Even if this class attends First Church on Sunday morning, would it not send the message that this Seventh-day Adventist Church is like all the other surrounding churches? Maybe that is the point of such a service, to be like the other churches, and disguise its peculiarity. If this is the case, what would prevent attendees from visiting First church one Sunday and then another church the following Sunday.
“At this time, when we are so near the end, shall we become so like the world in practice that men may look in vain to find God’s denominated people? Shall any man sell our peculiar characteristics as God’s chosen people for any advantage the world has to give?”6
Secondly, Pastor Snell mentions that the Sunday service is to accommodate those people who, in his own words, “for whatever reason – beliefs, work – can’t come on Saturday.” In other words, any reason not to attend church on Sabbath is a great reason to attend on Sunday according to this logic. A reasonable question to be considered is whether or not there will be a transition point for the attendees of the Sunday services to the Sabbath services. Will these attendees be brought to a point of decision as it relates to honoring God’s Sabbath by refraining from work or any other secular activity? It is disturbing to say the least that the two reasons specified for attending the Sunday service are beliefs and work.
If a person chooses to attend the Sunday services because of a different belief system than that upheld by Seventh-day Adventists, those doctrinal differences would either have to be ignored, or compromised to maintain attendance. Furthermore, if the topic of Sabbath observance were addressed, how could the attendees who come because they work on Saturday be convinced to sacrifice their job, and attend the same church only on a Saturday, when in the first place the Sunday services were put in place to accommodate them? This dichotomy cannot be reconciled without confusing and angering the people as they might feel deceived. We are never to lower the standards of truth and righteousness to accommodate and please those of the world nor are we to give the impression that we are like the other churches.
“What was the origin of the great apostasy? How did the church first depart from the simplicity of the gospel? By conforming to the practices of paganism, to facilitate the acceptance of Christianity by the heathen.”7
“Conformity to worldly customs converts the church to the world; it never converts the world to Christ.”8
Thirdly, Pastor Snell attempts to justify holding regular Sunday services by citing the example of the early apostles. He states, “This shows there is a paradigm — the Early Christians created a gathering where people could hear and receive the full news of Jesus. We want to do that.’”9 It would have been beneficial for the text(s) referred to be provided. The Bible gives no evidence of the apostles holding regular church services on any other day than the seventh-day Sabbath. However, the apostles devoted every day to missionary work. Additionally, this point about the apostles gathering for corporate worship on Sundays echoes the weak arguments of seventh-day Sabbath enemies and critics who uphold Sunday observance and discredit the seventh day as being the Sabbath. As far as Pastor Snell’s desire to create an environment wherein individuals can “hear and receive the full news of Jesus,” it will be impossible to present the full gospel of Jesus, which entails the Three Angels’ Messages, based on his premises for starting these services—to reach the “unchurched” and those “people who, for whatever reason – beliefs, work – can’t come on Saturday.”
“The most solemn truths ever given to mortals have been entrusted to us, and to us has been committed the work of warning the world. In heart and life the minister of God is to be true to the trust committed to him. Never is he to engage in that which would lower before others the standard of the word of truth. His faith is to be revealed, not merely in words, in profession, but in his daily association with believers and unbelievers. Let those who stand as ministers of God to the people be faithful, preparing their own souls for the kingdom of heaven, divesting their own garments of every stain, that neither spot nor wrinkle be found on them. Then the Lord can use them to do a mighty work as his messengers.”10
Finally, Pastor Snell says “this Sunday service is for new members and maybe for our members who want a spiritual kick-start to their week.” The Sabbath was given to man as a Holy day wherein man was to be refreshed and prepared to meet the tasks of the new week (see Exodus 31:16 and 17). If an individual needs a kick-start for the upcoming week, would that person have a service on the very day that the week begins? The Sabbath, if rightly kept would bring such a refreshing that there would be no such need for another “kick-start” the following day.
Sunday, as any other day, can and should be used for evangelistic outreach programs; but to hold regular Sunday morning services is not only confusing to non-Seventh-day Adventists, but is also misleading and constitutes conformity to the world. Satan is subtle and cunning in his dealings with human beings and is exerting his utmost effort to condition God’s people to see no distinction between themselves and the world and to recognize no difference between Gods’s Sabbath and any other day. It must be remembered that Satan is wroth with the remnant who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ and is relentlessly warring with them to gain their allegiance and then to use them as decoys to lead others astray. We are indeed to worship God on every day of the week, but God’s special blessing was only pronounced upon one day—the seventh; and other days should not be regarded as holy days. We have evidences is scripture that an integral part of Sabbath activities include fellowshipping in corporate worship; and when Seventh-day Adventists use Sunday of all days, the counterfeit Sabbath, the child of the Papacy, as a day for regular, corporate worship, the impression is made that Sunday is a holy day, a day to be observed, and when it is mandated by law, many Seventh-day Adventists will join with the world, especially when there are penalties involved for violators “The time is not far distant when the test will come to every soul. The mark of the beast will be urged upon us. Those who have step by step yielded to worldly demands and conformed to worldly customs will not find it a hard matter to yield to the powers that be, rather than subject themselves to derision, insult, threatened imprisonment, and death.”11
Supporters of Pastor Snell’s Sunday-worship endeavor may pull up a statement or two where Ellen White says that Seventh-day Adventists are to hold meetings on Sundays. Such statements as: “Whenever it is possible, let religious services be held on Sunday. Make these meetings intensely interesting. Sing genuine revival hymns, and speak with power and assurance of the Saviour’s love. Speak on temperance and on true religious experience. You will thus learn much about how to work, and will reach many souls.”12 However, divorced from its context, the entire meaning of the passage is skewed and thus misconstrued and misused. Even a casual reading of the sentences and paragraphs preceding this one indicates that the time for such Sunday meetings to be held is just after the enforcement of the national Sunday Law. A few paragraphs prior, the following statement was made “The light given me by the Lord at a time when we were expecting just such a crisis as you seem to be approaching, was that when the people were moved by a power from beneath to enforce Sunday observance, Seventh-day Adventists were to show their wisdom by refraining from their ordinary work on that day, devoting it to missionary effort. To defy the Sunday laws will but strengthen in their persecution the religious zealots who are seeking to enforce them. Give them no occasion to call you lawbreakers.”13 So it is with the other statements from Ellen White which sanction the use of Sunday for regular, weekly religious meetings, it is always in the context of the Sunday Law Crisis to lessen prejudice for a time which will enable Seventh-day Adventists to proclaim the everlasting gospel with clarity and distinction, but never before that time as such an act would appear as being in sympathy with the enemies of our faith.
This development at First SDA Church is reminiscent of a once Sabbath-keeping church, under the leadership of Alex Bryan, the current Walla Walla SDA University Church Pastor, which is now a fully non-denominational Sunday-observing church. It is a documented fact that Alex Bryan “created a ‘Sunday service’ church and left Seventh-day Adventist employment. Alex Bryan began his ministry at the New Community Fellowship in Atlanta in 1996 under the blessing of conference administration. However, the methods used to reach secular young adults resulted in the creation of a ‘Sunday service’ and, as the conference administration was considering his termination, Alex Bryan resigned his denominational employment in 2002 and remained independent for the next five years. The resulting Sunday observing church still meets…The church meets Sunday from 10:30 AM to 12:05 PM. The current pastor is Alex’s brother, David Bryan.”14 Perhaps Pastor Snell is counseling with Pastor Bryan and employing his methods of “evangelism” or maybe he is reading Bryan’s books, all of which are interwoven with mysticism/spiritualism. It is appalling that Bryan is allowed to be employed by the Seventh-day Adventist church given his history and current involvement with and practices in ecumenism and emergent church theology and activities. This is a clear example of what could be the future for First SDA Church. Let us all be watchful as Satan is unceasingly insinuating his ideas, methods, and reasoning, many times through respected leaders, in an effort to cast a reproach upon, weaken the influence of and finally overthrow those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
1 http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2015/02/seventh-day_adventist_sunday.html
2 Ibid
3 White, Ellen, The Great Controversy, (1911), page 53
4 White, Ellen, Mind, Character, and Personality, Volume 2, (1977), page 559
5 http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2015/02/seventh-day_adventist_sunday.html
6 White, Ellen. Evangelism, (1946), page 121
7 White, Ellen. The Great Controversy, (1911), page 384
8 White, Ellen. The Great Controversy, (1911), page 509
9 http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2015/02/seventh-day_adventist_sunday.html
10 White, Ellen. The Review and Herald, January 11, 1912
11 White, Ellen. Testimonies for the Church, Volume 5, (1889), page 81
12 White, Ellen. Testimonies for the Church, Volume 9, (1909), page 233
13 Ibid
14http://thegreatcontroversy.info/concerns-regarding-alex.html