Regarding the Resignation of Four La Sierra University Employees Over a Recorded Conversation

If you came to listen to the recordings, I'm sorry but I have not posted them yet. I'm not sure it's right or even legal. I obtained them from Educate Truth, but they have taken down the article from which they were made available.

Below are some thoughts about this whole controversy that I posted over at Spectrum.

"Those who have listened to the recording and see nothing wrong with it only demonstrate the heart of the problem that the Adventist church is facing. Please understand that the larger problem is not the sin displayed but our blindness to it. We cannot see the sinfulness of sin anymore.

Those who salivate for this matter to be taken to the courts would gain such a blessing from meditating on 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 and Romans 12:14-21.

To Pierre who said 'there goes 90% of French Adventists...' and that 'alcohol prohibition seems to be particularly American...' Please understand that it is not an American prohibition, but a biblical one. It is God, not man, that declares the destructive nature of alcohol. Sadly, those Adventists who willfully neglect the word of God by drinking alcohol or insisting to dismiss God's account of creation...are not truly Adventists at all.

The Adventist church is defined by the doctrines it holds, as is any church. If one falls outside the doctrines, he also falls outside the church.

The remnant church is not here to form a nice 'community' or 'culture'...it is here to deliver a message to the last generation. The message is the truth. It can be found so plainly in scripture and in the spirit of prophecy, if we would only surrender ourselves to God and say, 'not my will, but Thy will be done.'"

"I'll try...

I have downloaded the recordings but have not yet listened to them so I am speaking generally, although I did read selected portions of the transcript. The behavior recorded was far from benign...these attitudes of the heart that we are increasingly prone to seeing as 'no big deal' are ripping us away from God, whether we know it or not.

We have become so incredibly removed from the example that Christ gave us when He walked on earth as a human and that His disciples displayed in the early church after He left.

Little flags are everywhere in the discussion of these events...from the notion that any 'context' will somehow lessen the sinfulness of drinking alcohol, or that those crying out are somehow 'puritans' because they choose to deny self and to follow God's will for His children.

I don't understand why so many people feel the need to preface alcohol with 'a small cup' or 'just a little'...as if moderation is what's lacking.

All our sins are symptoms...our disease is 'self'. The only cure is complete surrender to Christ, and yet every fiber of our being is violently opposed to the thought.

Yes yes and yes to showing forgiveness and being 'redemptive'...but does God forgive us the sins which we don't repent of? He longs to forgive us, to pour out His grace all over us...but His righteousness will not allow it unless we first confess and repent. He is a just God.

I hope with all my soul that these four guys are sorrowful and repentant. I hope with all my soul that they don't harden their hearts and continue to follow their own inclinations and reasonings. We need God's guidance...we are absolutely incapable of leading ourselves. There MUST be something absolute with which to judge ourselves. It is God's word. God's plain word."

Please pray for Lenny Darnell, Jeff Kaatz, Jim Beach and Gary Bradley...God loves them each so dearly and none of them can ever be replaced. Pray fervently that they, and we, all surrender fully to Christ.