Jericho’s Wealth The Adventist Corporate Empire

Jericho

Riches counted as the gift of their gods

“The city of Jericho was devoted to the most extravagant idolatry. The inhabitants were very wealthy, but all the riches that God had given them they counted as the gift of their gods. They had gold and silver in abundance; but, like the people before the Flood, they were corrupt and blasphemous, and insulted and provoked the God of heaven by their wicked works.”

— Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 3, p. 264.1

Jericho grew rich while it worshiped gods that were not God. The pioneers received a platform of truth between 1840 and 1850: the Sabbath, the heavenly sanctuary, the Father and His Son, and the three angels’ messages. On April 25, 1980, the 501(c)(3) General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists voted Fundamental Belief No. 2, headed “The Trinity.” Set the wealth beside that vote and ask the Jericho question.

The numbers

What the IRS filings report

These are the 25 largest by total assets. Each organization links to its IRS filings on ProPublica and its profile on Candid’s GuideStar.

How this total was made. SundayLaw.com searched ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer for “Adventist” and “Seventh-day Adventist” and added up each organization’s latest Form 990, retrieved 2026-09-26. This is the same IRS data Candid/GuideStar publishes. Independent ministries, credit unions, and non-SDA groups were excluded. Each entity files separately, so some related-party amounts may overlap. Churches and church bodies are exempt from filing, so the real total is larger. For the full corporate map, see the GC-SDA corporate empire and Adventist hospital empire pages.

Tithes and offerings on Wall Street

Municipal insurance, Wall Street bonds, and “the souls of men”

What does the General Conference do with its money? The organization profile for EIN 52-0643036 lists “Underwriting municipal insurance” among its main activities. A 2013 schedule for a fund held by the General Conference Corporation as trustee shows church money placed in bonds of JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, HSBC, Ford, Toyota, General Electric and other companies that do business on the Sabbath.

1. The insurance record

Organization

General Conference of Seventh Day Adventist (Parent Organization), Silver Spring, Maryland

EIN

52-0643036

Main activities

“Other religious activities” · “Underwriting municipal insurance”

Group exemption

No. 1071 — the umbrella over the churches and conferences beneath it

IRS ruling date

January 1950 · Church, 170(b)(1)(A)(i) · Corporation

Form 990

“990 – Not required to file (church)”

A municipality is a city or county government, and nearly every one keeps Sunday as its official day of rest. The record lists insurance for civil governments as a main activity of the parent corporation that claims to give the third angel’s message.

Source: the eintaxid.com organization profile for EIN 52-0643036, compiled from IRS exempt-organization data (latest tax period shown: December 2007). You can confirm the EIN, group exemption, and ruling date with the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search.

2. The investment schedule

The second record is titled “General Conference Corporation of Seventh-day Adventists–Trustee, General Conference Capital Preservation Fund Trust, Schedule of Portfolio Investments, December 31, 2013.” Here is some of what the fund held, with fair values copied from the schedule:

The finance-company bonds on one page alone total $13,639,742.74, marked as 8.41% of the portfolio. That puts the whole fund at roughly $160 million.

The schedule does not say which dollars began as tithe and which as offerings. But the church system is funded by the tithes and offerings of its members, and this is a fund held by the General Conference Corporation as trustee.

3. “Will a man rob God?”

“Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.”

— Malachi 3:8, KJV

“Of what value is untold wealth, if it is hoarded in expensive mansions, or in bank stock? What do these weigh in the scale in comparison with the salvation of the souls for whom Christ, the Son of the infinite God, has died?”

— Ellen G. White, Counsels on Stewardship, p. 38.2 (Review and Herald, December 24, 1903)

4. Profits from Sabbath labor

“But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.”

— Exodus 20:10, KJV

The fourth commandment does not stop with our own hands. It covers the servant, the stranger, and the ox who work for us. A bond pays interest earned by the company’s business, and banks, car dealers, and shopping malls do their business on the seventh day. When church money is lent to them, the interest that comes back includes the earnings of Sabbath trade.

5. “Slaves, and souls of men”

“And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: the merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, … and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.”

— Revelation 18:11–13, KJV

The largest name in the portfolio has its own record:

• Slavery. In 2005 JPMorgan Chase disclosed that two of its predecessor banks in Louisiana, Citizens Bank and Canal Bank, had accepted thousands of enslaved people as collateral before the Civil War, and it apologized for contributing to “a brutal and unjust institution.” NBC News report
• Sex trafficking. In June 2023 JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay about $290 million to settle a class action by victims of Jeffrey Epstein. The victims said the bank ignored red flags about his trafficking. Epstein was a JPMorgan client from 1998 to 2013, the same year this schedule was dated. JPMorgan did not admit liability. Reuters report

“For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.”

— Revelation 18:3, KJV

1SM 204

“A new organization would be established.”

“The enemy of souls has sought to bring in the supposition that a great reformation was to take place among Seventh-day Adventists, and that this reformation would consist in giving up the doctrines which stand as the pillars of our faith, and engaging in a process of reorganization. Were this reformation to take place, what would result? The principles of truth that God in His wisdom has given to the remnant church, would be discarded. Our religion would be changed. The fundamental principles that have sustained the work for the last fifty years would be accounted as error. A new organization would be established. Books of a new order would be written. A system of intellectual philosophy would be introduced. The founders of this system would go into the cities, and do a wonderful work. The Sabbath of course, would be lightly regarded, as also the God who created it. Nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of the new movement. The leaders would teach that virtue is better than vice, but God being removed, they would place their dependence on human power, which, without God, is worthless. Their foundation would be built on the sand, and storm and tempest would sweep away the structure.”

— Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, book 1, p. 204.2

“We cannot now step off the foundation that God has established. We cannot now enter into any new organization; for this would mean apostasy from the truth.”

— Ellen G. White, Manuscript 129, 1905; Selected Messages, book 2, p. 390.1

On April 15, 1904, the General Conference Corporation of Seventh-day Adventists was incorporated in Washington, D.C. Today the parent organization (EIN 52-0643036) holds an IRS group exemption covering the churches and conferences beneath it.

Manuscript 30, 1889

“We hoped that there would not be the necessity for another coming out.”

“I was confirmed in all I had stated in Minneapolis that a reformation must go through the churches. Reforms must be made, for spiritual weakness and blindness were upon the people who had been blessed with great light and precious opportunities and privileges. As reformers they had come out of the denominational churches, but they now act a part similar to that which the churches acted. We hoped that there would not be the necessity for another coming out. While we will endeavor to keep the ‘unity of the Spirit’ in the bonds of peace, we will not with pen or voice cease to protest against bigotry.”

— Ellen G. White, Manuscript 30, 1889, par. 14

137 years ago, the Lord’s servant was hoping there would not be another need for faithful Seventh-day Adventists to withdraw themselves from among the rebellious and apostate, as it was in 1844. I truly believe today the cry would be: Come out from among her.

“Another coming out” points back to the first one. In 1843–1844 the Advent believers came out of the fallen Protestant churches. James White explained why those churches became Babylon:

“The first message was to the churches; but soon their religious papers refused to publish it, and the doors of their houses of worship were closed against it. In this way they shut out the ‘everlasting good news’ of the coming kingdom; and when that was accomplished, Jesus, and the Spirit of truth left them for ever, and the churches or Babylon fell. … Then the way was fully prepared for the second message—‘Babylon is fallen, is fallen,’ ‘Come out of her my people.’ Every advent believer knows that we heard just this message.”

— James White, “The Third Angel’s Message,” The Present Truth, vol. 1, no. 9, April 1850, p. 66

“Some tell us that Babylon here, is the Roman Catholic church; but God’s people were not in that church. The first message was to the churches, from about 1840 to 1843; and the second angel ‘followed,’ therefore the message, ‘Babylon is fallen’—‘Come out of her my people’ was in 1844.”

— James White, The Present Truth, April 1850, p. 66

“In amazement they hear the testimony that Babylon is the church, fallen because of her errors and sins, because of her rejection of the truth sent to her from heaven.” GC 606.2

“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”

— Revelation 18:4, KJV

Questions

Questions and answers