T. W. Ministries: Fundamental Beliefs

Fundamental Beliefs are as the same than the Seventh-day Adventist Church.  Listed below are summaries of the basic beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist church.

More basically, Seventh-day Adventists believe:

In a personal God.

In Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God and our savior.

In the Holy Spirit, the divine Comforter.

In regeneration and the new birth, through the acceptance of the Gospel. - That the Bible is the inspired Word of God.

That the second coming of Christ is very near. That it will be literal, personal, and visible to all.

That man by nature is mortal.  That immortality and eternal life are the gifts of God and are received only through Christ.

That the dead are in an unconscious state. That there will be a resurrection of the dead.  That the wicked will not burn eternally, but will be burned up.

That righteousness comes by faith, not by works.

That salvation comes as a gift of God and is not received through any merit of the sinner's.

That the law of the Ten Commandments is the standard of righteousness by which all will be judged and which all Christians are commanded to obey.

That the original seventh-day Sabbath has never been changed by divine authority, and therefore it is the privilege of all Christians to keep it holy.

In the support of the gospel through tithes and offerings.

In baptism by immersion.

In the ordinances of humility and the Lord's Supper.

In the gifts of the Spirit, including the Spirit of Prophecy.

In discarding unhealthful practices, such as the use of intoxicants, tobacco, unclean meats, etc.

That the followers of Jesus should manifest true Christian modesty in dress and deportment, and should shun all questionable worldly amusements.

That the foregoing principles are practiced, not from a sense of obligation or to enable the individual to "earn" salvation, but rather come as a natural consequence of accepting Him as a personal savior. (From Southern Tidings magazine, 2/99)

The Seventh-day Sabbath in Scripture.  "I gave them my Sabbaths as a sign between us, so they would know that I the LORD made them holy." (Ezekiel 20:12) The following Words of our Lord describe, in part, the nature of the Sabbath and the benefits of keeping it holy:

Genesis 2:3 God made the Sabbath holy: "God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation."

Exodus 20:8-11 we should keep it holy: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."

Psalms 92:1-3 we should celebrate it: "A Psalm. A Song for the Sabbath. It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to thy name, O Most High; to declare thy steadfast love in the morning, and thy faithfulness by night, to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre."

Isaiah 56:2, 6-7 It makes us happy: "Happy [blessed] is the mortal [not only the Jews] who does this, the one who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it.... And the foreigners [Gentiles] who join themselves to the Lord, ... all who keep the Sabbath, ... these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer ... for all peoples."

Isaiah 58:13-14 The Sabbath is the Lord's "holy day," a delight, and honorable: "If you refrain from trampling the Sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, ... then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth."

Matthew 12:8 it was important to Jesus: He said, "For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath."

Luke 4:16 Jesus customarily kept the Sabbath: "He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was His custom, and stood up to read."

Matthew 12:12 you should do good on the Sabbath: Jesus said, "So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath."

Acts 17:1-2 Paul customarily kept the Sabbath -- They "came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews, and Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days argued with them from the Scriptures."

[All scripture quotes are from the Revised Standard Version (RSV) or the NRSV.

For an excellent presentation of Sabbath issues, see the web page of the Lux Lucet in Tenebris ("the Light Shineth in Darkness") group at TagNet www.tagnet.org/llt/index.htm 
and in particular its discussion of the history of the Sabbath through the centuries at www.tagnet.org/llt/sabcen.htm 

The Relevance of the Ten Commandments today statements
of Jesus, Paul, and John show the eternal significance of the Ten Commandments

Some claim that the Ten Commandments are no longer binding, arguing that faith in Jesus makes the Ten Commandments essentially irrelevant. While it is true that obedience to the Ten Commandments is certainly not the key that opens the door to salvation -- in fact, complete obedience is not even possible for us -- can we simply rely on faith in the Lord and disregard the Ten Commandments?

No. Faith is the key, without which we have nothing, but the Scriptures also reveal the eternal importance of the Ten Commandments. Perfection in not possible, of course, but we must give our utmost to follow the Lord's way: "I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; … I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." (Deut. 30:15, 19) Here are the words of Jesus, John, and Paul, followed at the end by the Ten Commandments themselves:

Jesus, in Matthew 5:17-19, said: "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus also said that the commandments are necessary to eternal life: "And behold, one came up to him, saying, 'Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?' And he said to him, 'Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.'" Matthew 19:16-17

Jesus also said, in Mark 7:7-9: "In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men. You leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men.... "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God, in order to keep your tradition!"

Paul said, Romans 7:12: "So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good."

And John, in Revelation 14:12, said: "Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and hold fast to the faith of Jesus." Putting it another way, John prophesied: "Then the dragon (Satan) was angry with the woman (the Church), and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus." Rev. 12:17.

Both the Old and the New Testaments contain many more passages demonstrating the need for giving our sincere utmost to follow the Ten Commandments, not in order to try to prove we are worthy, but out of love for our Lord.