Two Candidates
For the End-Time Church

Larry Kirkpatrick

I have become convinced that from among all religious bodies, only two churches are truly viable candidates for identification as Heavenly Father’s latter-day church. Both of these churches:

Teach obedience to heavenly Father’s commandments.
Believe in latter-day revelation, and that among His people in the latter days, the gift of prophecy will be manifest.
Came into being in their modern form after 1798, the end of the 1260 year period stretching from 538 A.D. to 1798 A.D. during which the dark age of the Papal power reigned supreme.
Are committed to pushing back the apostasy that enveloped historical Christianity through that age, and ready to reaffirm God’s end-time message through a last-day people. This means that both groups are committed to restoring the gospel and expunging errors acquired by the church through that age.
Teach the importance of healthful living and abstinence from harmful substances.
Teach that this life is a probationary period during which children of the King prepare for the higher life to come. Both groups prominently teach the necessity of obedience.
Emphasize the necessity of a true priesthood for God’s church.
Teach a Revelation 14 message and that God has a definite last-day church.

Thus it is evident that there are many similarities between these two groups.

It is also true that each body numbers some 14M+ members worldwide; both operate an extensive missionary outreach program; both have been called cults, accused of “sheep-stealing,” and both have been considered to be out of the mainstream of Christianity.

The similarities between these two churches are very interesting, because Latter-day Saints (LDS) have generally viewed themselves as alone in being truly unique among all the churches, while Seventh-day Adventists (SDA) have similarly understood their position.

Noble Things About the Latter-day Saints

Evangelical Christians have been known to laugh at LDS and SDA, refusing to take them seriously. They think that the writings of Joseph Smith are a weak deception and are surprised that Mormons believe in them. They do not know the power of Mormonism. Latter-day Saints have a powerful faith. As I have studied the LDS I have avoided most of the anti-LDS writings because in many of them I have noted a spirit of condescension, strife, or bitterness. Therefore I have sought to evaluate the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints according to its own teachings and its self-understanding. I read from the LDS “scriptures” for myself. I seek to evaluate the LDS in the same way I would prefer anyone to evaluate me or my teachings—by going to the source, by seeking to hear as much of the good as I can.

I believe that Latter-day Saints must be evaluated seriously and treated with respect. So few even among evangelical Christians, truly live out their convictions. The LDS deserve a fair chance to be heard and to live out their own convictions. Furthermore, if I understand aright the Scriptural marks of heaven’s last-day church, then the LDS are one of but two possible candidates for that honor. This religion teaches obedience to heavenly Father’s commandments, which God’s true people also do in the last days. It believes in post-biblical revelation, and a Revelation 14 message for the end-time. The LDS, then, deserve our close inspection and comparison with the Bible. If it is God's last church—His last movement—then we must all become LDS and exert maximum effort to share the message with others.

Again, if, under close examination, elements of the LDS teaching are found to be incorrect, then it should be made known so that others may weigh the same questions and be sure that they are arriving at truth. I agree with Orson Pratt who said that “The nature of the message of the Book of Mormon is such that, if true, no one can possibly be saved and reject it; if false, no one can possibly be saved and receive it. Therefore every soul in all the world is equally interested in ascertaining its truth or falsity.”

Questions

Significant questions must be asked in comparing the Latter-day Saint position with the Bible. Short notes on a few of these follow.

The Sabbath

The Bible teaches us to obey all of heavenly Father’s commandments. Yet most churches today teach this is not important, or worse, that God’s laws are no longer in effect. But in the book of Revelation, in the end, the Bible says that God has a people in that final dispensation who live differently:

Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus (Revelation 14:12).

Again, the Bible includes the seventh day Sabbath in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:8-11). This is not “a” seventh day, but “the” seventh day. Its observance is commanded throughout the Bible, including the New Testament. Here are just a few texts speaking of the Sabbath, mostly from the New Testament:

Matthew 24:20 When Jerusalem would be attacked (occurred in 70 A.D.) they were to pray that their need to flee from the city would not come on the Sabbath day.
Matthew 28:1; Luke 23:56 Jesus’ followers still observed the Sabbath after our Savior’s crucifixion.
Mark 2:27, 28 The Sabbath was made for man. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.
Luke 4:16 Jesus' custom was to participate in worship on the Sabbath day.
Luke 16:13; John 7:23 The Sabbath day is a day of release from bondage, restoration to wholeness.
Acts 13:14, 27, 42, 44 The Sabbath continued to be observed by the early church.
Hebrews 3:7-4:11 There remains a rest for God’s people, a certain day (the seventh).
Revelation 1:10; Isaiah 58:13 The Lord’s day is the seventh-day Sabbath.

Turning to the LDS Scriptures, we again find, not “a” Sabbath, but “the” Sabbath mentioned, the seventh day Sabbath, with fequency and favor. Here are some references:

Jarom 5, 7, 9-12. The Nephites kept the Sabbath and God blessed them.
Mosiah 13:16-19 Same as Ten Commandments, including the Sabbath.
Mosiah 18:23 Alma commands to observe the seventh-day Sabbath.
Moses 3:2-3 God blessed and sanctified the seventh day (same as Genesis 2:2, 3).
Abraham 5:2, 3 God sanctified the seventh time (same as Gen 2:2, 3).
D&C 59:9-13 Command to offer sacraments and offerings on the Lord’s day (the Sabbath), and to believers to rest on the Lord’s day (D&C 59:10. Note: LDS understand this lone text as evidence in favor of Sunday observance).
D&C 69:29 God’s people to observe the Sabbath.
D&C 77:12 God sanctified the seventh day as the Sabbath.

Every truth-seeking, worthiness-seeking Latter-day Saint must ask oneself a very serious question:

Since (1) the Lord has plainly identified His holy day (“My holy day”) Isaiah 58:13 in both the Bible and the LDS Scriptures, and

since (2) that holy day is the seventh day Sabbath, and

since (3) even the LDS Scriptures support the observance of the seventh day Sabbath,

then (4) why don’t the Latter-day Saints keep the seventh day Sabbath (Saturday)? How can LDS teach obedience to all of God’s commandments, but then break the seventh day Sabbath?

The Universal Apostasy

Another question concerns the universal apostasy. Latter-day Saints teach that historical Christianity completely and universally apostasized after the glory days of the early church. The major Scriptures given in support of this are Revelation 13:7, Acts 3:19-21, and 2 Thessalonians 2:3. Anyone studying these verses will reach the conclusion that indeed, it is true that the church experienced a general apostasy shortly after the death of the apostles. But the question is not, “Did the church undergo a major apostasy” at that time, but “Did she then undergo a complete and universal apostasy”?

A study of Revelation 13:7, 8 shows that it was permitted for him (the beast) to make war with the saints and to overcome them. But this text does not present a universal overcoming. It is a general statement regarding the saints being overcome. In fact, verse eight says that all those will worship the beast whose name is not written in the Lamb’s book of life, and so we see that the overcoming is strictly limited to those refusing to accept Jesus. Will the beast overcome those who cling to Jesus? No. Even those who die under persecution are not overcome, but regardless of their torture or death "obtain a good report through faith" (Hebrews 11:39) whether they live or die. Satan may persecute and kill some in the end, but he never succeeds in overcoming all. Not in this passage.

A study of 2 Thessalonians 2:3 makes clear that Paul through prophetic eye foresaw the falling away (literally, “apostasy”) that would come. But it is “a falling away,” not “a total falling away.” In the Greek, the "a" is added by english, so this text says literally “unless there come falling away first.” Again, the text affirms an apostasy to come (from the time perspective of Paul’s day), but not necessarily a complete or universal apostasy.

A study of Acts 3:19-21 shows that the restoration spoken of there (3:21) comes in the same period as the times (plural) of refreshing. That is, the “times of refreshing” cannot be just a moment, but represent a period in time. The times of refreshing are in parallel to the “times of restoration,” literally “times of standing-up from.” Thus in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 we have a “falling away” and in Acts 3:19-21 we have a “standing-up from.” But in Acts we have a statement of what things are being re-established: “all things which God has spoken through the mouth of all of His holy prophets from eternity.”

A time is coming in which God is going to restore everything. Every plant that He has not planted will be rooted up and His ways will be known in their harmonious fullness. This passage does not insist that everything had fallen away, but does insist that a time is coming when everything will stand up again. So as God combines that which is still standing with that which needs restoration, it will mean that His people in the last days act as His agency to restore truth upon the earth to its fullness.

It is interesting that during other occasions in the Bible when it was thought that God had no one left — that an essentially complete falling away had occurred -- that He said that He did have a remnant left! The prophet Elijah said, “O Lord, I alone am left and now they are trying to kill me too!” God did not answer him saying, “Yes, that's right.” Instead He told Elijah something new—something that Elijah hadn’t realized: “Yet I [God] have left to Me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees of which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him” (1 Kings 19:18).

Through the writings of Isaiah and of Paul and of John God outlines the fact that He has preserved a remnant—a group of believers who have persisted in following Him. (Isaiah 1:9; Jeremiah 44:28; Ezekiel 6:8; Romans 9:6; 11:1-5; Revelation 12:17).

In fact, if we interpret Revelation 12 carefully, we’ll understand that God sent His remnant church into the wilderness for a period of 1260 years during the apostasy. He preserved soem believers all the way through from its beginnings to this present day. At different points, He has been bringing back, step by step, the truths that have been spoken by the ancient prophets. Joseph Smith lived at a time when the apostasy of the churches was descending to great depths.

This fact surely influenced his appraisal of the spiritual legitimacy of the churches he was aware of at that time. Were any of those churches teaching the seventh day Sabbath? He probably knew of none. Only a very few churches at that time were and the Sabbath issue was not a prominent one. Instead, Christianity was still caught in the midst of the darkness that had been introduced centuries before and crystalized when the Emperor Constantine engineered into existence the first Sunday law introducing the day of the pagan worship of the Sun into Christianity in place of the Sabbath.

If Mormonism is God's last-day restoration movement, then it is difficult to understand why there is not a restoration of the seventh day Sabbath, that according to the Book of Mormon itself, the Nephites kept, Alma commanded, and that the D&C calls “the Lord’s day.” In Isaiah 58:13 God calls the original seventh day Sabbath “My holy day.” This day is the very first thing ever spoken of as holy in the Bible (marriage is the other!). The first appearance of the Hebrew word for holy, QoDeSH, appears in Genesis 2:3, “and God sanctified it.” It is of interest that the same year that Joseph Smith was murdered, God brought into existence a movement which soon began to teach the seventh day Sabbath.

There is a harmony between the Bible and all of the LDS Scriptures on this point: the seventh day is the Sabbath. This makes great sense. After all, How can God bless a people who do not keep His commandments? And one of the Ten Commandments is indeed the seventh day Sabbath. I deeply appreciate the LDS emphasis on obeying God—that’s one of the reasons they must be seen as one of only two candidates that possibly could be God’s latter-day church. Yet there seems to be no satisfying explanation for the LDS’ failure to observe the seventh day Sabbath and to instead observe as their primary worship day Sunday, the ancient day of pagan Sun worship imported into an apostate, historical Christianity!

The Other Candidate

The beginning of this document mentioned that there are two candidates that potentially could represent God’s last-day church. The Seventh-day Adventist church arose out of the movement known as the “Millerite movement” or the “great second advent movement.” This movement began in the 1840s and culminated with a great disappointment experienced in October of 1844 when Jesus, who was expected to return to the earth about that time, failed to appear. It was soon discovered that indeed, the understanding of the prophetic time periods had been correct, but the idea that the earth was the sanctuary to be cleansed had been mistaken.

Closer study of the Bible revealed that the sanctuary to be cleansed was in heaven (Hebrews 8:1-5), and that the cleansing of the sanctuary (Daniel 8:13, 14) had begun—not ended -- in 1844. This cleansing coincides with the three angel messages of Revelation 14:6-12 teaching a judgment hour message (14:6, 7), the fall of apostate Christianity including Protestantism in general (14:8), and the third angel’s message (14:9-12) of obedience to God’s commandments.

The group soon developed into the Seventh-day Adventist Church which was formally organized in 1861-1863. The movement and the church included several individuals manifesting the prophetic gift, including the one best known, Mrs. Ellen G. White. She taught the same thing as the LDS Scriptures in regard to obedience to heavenly Father’s seventh day Sabbath commandment.

The SDA church today is a worldwide movement that tenaciously persists in teaching the necessity of obedience to the commandments of God. It still teaches that Protestantism in general experienced a moral fall when it rejected the angel messages of Revelation 14:6, 7, and that Protestantism in the end will, with the Roman Catholic Church, unite to persecute God’s faithful commandment-keepers.

The items in this document are presented in very condensed manner. If Mormonism is true, then count me in. We only wish to follow God all the way. Yet as this study has developed to the present point, which including a full examination of the standard works, has suggested that of the two candidates, the Seventh-day Adventist church actually is the one that most clearly matches the Bible (and for that matter, even the teachings in the LDS “scriptures” about the seventh day Sabbath)!

May we never again lose the LDS or the SDA church among the crowd with the other apostate churches. These two churches are entirely unique among all that profess Christianity. Only these two bear the signature identifying them as potential candidates for God&rssquo;s latter-day church. We must weigh carefully all of the evidences, and let our God show us which way to go.

End