Linda’s Reviews > The Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin > Status Update

“The Quran is clear that Allah is compassionate and merciful, but aside from the two above passages where God is called the ‘All-loving’, there is not a single passage in the Quran that indicates that God loves any portion of mankind, nor is there a single verse that indicates that people can know God on a personal, relational level (although Muslims believe God to be a person).”

“Sura 2:256 says, ‘Let there be no compulsion in religion.’”
“Sura 9:5 says, ‘Fight and slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and seize them, and besiege them, and lie in wait for them.’”

“Henotheism, or the worship of only one god while not denying the existence of other gods, may have existed in pre-Islamic society.”

So early Arab tribes were centered around tribal communal faith and gods were largely celestial (moon god, sun goddess, Venus star, etc) - gods were usually carried in a red tent (Into battle). The sheikh was ‘first among equals’. “Gods and cult were the badges of tribal identity” adding unity and cohesion. “Apostasy was the equivalent of treason.”

“Any group, however, that feels they are the only ones that keep God’s commands is likely to foment schism in the body of Christ.”

So labeling anyone who disagrees with a key definition (“the law of God”) “disrupted the lines of communication between Adventists and other Christians…(who) strenuously object to ‘commandment-keeping’ to the extent of supposed spiritual superiority.” Upholding the 4th Commandment is given as the reason for their self-assessment that “they alone are God’s commandment-keeping church.”

So the concept of investigative judgment doesn’t match I Corinthians 3:13, or the once-death-afterward-judgment sequence of Heb 9:27, and the Lord knows the disposition of the cases already (“all things are naked and open to Him”, Heb 4:13)….it’s unbiblical and unnecessary.

“But the Adventists’ error is that they draw from the Scriptures’ interpretations that cannot be substantiated by exegesis, but rest largely upon inference and deductions and are taken from theological applications of their own design.”

“All things, including God, are subject to this ‘force of faith’ because it works according to spiritual ‘laws’ of the universe….The world and the physical forces governing it weee created by the power of faith - a spiritual force.’” And faith is a substance God transported in a container of words.

“The (Word Faith) movement ‘uses so much evangelical and Pentecostal terminology and so many Biblical proof texts that most believers are lulled into a false sense of security as to its orthodoxy.’”